Letter 11-2007. „Summer holidays“

7^th July 2007

Dear friends,

oh no, I do not have summer holidays. We do still have two weeks left of the lectures here in Leipzig. But the season says that it is summer holidays, and there are at least some summer activities.

Last week was the ball week. Thursday was Theoball and Sunday dance course ball. The participants at Theoball are mostly students of theology, and the programme is thereafter. The evening started with the performance of „Mosical“, by and for theology students, with a couple of lecturers as guest actors. Theology humour on a high level must be expected at such an event, and I find it quite funny with a Moses who only knows German, and therefore must be at Mount Sinai 40 days in order to learn Hebrew before he understands what God says. I think humour is among the last elements you get in a foreign language, and I am not quite aware of the details around Kirchentag and new German Bible translations, so the natives laughed about more points than I, but it was fun though.

The dance course ball was a ball with style. Flowers and gifts were exchanged before the first waltz introduced the ball. We have „missed“ a couple of men at the course, so I have danced with Miriam and learnt the steps for both. For tango I am not so good as man. For foxtrot I think I manage quite well, and that is one of the dances we have most fun with. At the ball we had a couple of male guests so that both Miriam and I could dance as ladies. Miriam is by the way the one I did the „bible trick“ at the first AT session, i.e. I laid my Norwegian Bible at the table and she asked which language it was, and she has from then been a good language support and a nice friend.

Another summer activity I have tried the last week is museum visits. I have been at the Bach museum and „Runde Ecke“. As I have already mentioned Johann Sebastian Bach was Thomaskantor in Leipzig 1723-1750, and the museum besides the church gives a good impression of his life and work. One of the best rooms was probably that with good chairs and headsets with music. „Runde Ecke“ is the old head quarters of Stasi, the secret security service in DDR. History has not been my favourite subject, and I am sometimes ashamed how little history I know, but now I feel that the interest is starting to increase. The guide was good, and he had several stories about experiences from the DDR time and information about him that was in his file. About each 7^th adult person was a spy, so they were everywhere, and phones and letters were carefully checked. The museum has its own website: http://www.runde-ecke-leipzig.de/cms/

The last museum visit was my warming up to an exam in the language course I take part in. The course is for students of arts. This is the only exam I write here, and gave perhaps some summer holiday feeling. At the theological faculty I will only get participant certificates for the courses I do. It means I will get credits, but no marks, and actually I think it is good. My understanding the first weeks was limited, and my written German is still not very fast or without mistakes. I am though not completely without pressure now at the ned of the semester. Wednesday I will give a presentation in systematic theology, about „The Church as original sacrament?“. Two articles make the basis. Schillebeeckx is not completely impossible, perhaps because he is not German, and you can not translate completely impossible from another language to German. Jüngel though is not quite easy to understand. I have got some help to understand the longest and most complicated German, metaphorical sentences. But the Latin I must give up – if nobody can give me a course this weekend.

Well, I do not have the time for that. I am soon on my way to a block seminar. I must take the chance when I have it, and there is lot of interesting things to learn. This weekend and two weeks ago I participate in a seminar about death. It is at the psychological institute at the university, especially developed for students of theology. But next weekend I am free, and might do some more summer activities again.

Best summer wishes from Hanne.