Move Over Meryl

I have just got back from my theater class. I know! As if I wasn't busy enough!

I put down to join the theater class in September, but it was full and I got a mail saying I was on the waiting list. Last Friday a lady called and said that there was now a place free and I could join if I was still interested. So this evening was the first class.

It was fantastic! In fact, it was so good that I am now wondering what I am doing wasting my time running this little company of mine. I should be on the stage for heavens' sakes!

I think I have reverted to my childhood. Seems like now that I have got to the age that I am, I am starting all over again. Well, not from the very beginning, of course, I mean I am toilet-trained! But I used to have acting lessons and do exams and certificates and all that stuff and was always appearing on the stage somewhere until I was 14. (Later, I started again and spent many years dancing, but the acting had disappeared). Also, I had piano lessons till I was 18. And of course did lots in the writing department.

So a couple of months ago, I decided that now that my children are all grown up, I can go back to doing all the stuff that I really enjoyed doing before I had children (which seems like an entire lifetime ago - well it is, it's their entire lifetime ago!). This means that I am now doing one creative writing class, one theater class and one piano lesson every week (I don't think I mentioned the piano lessons yet).

It's all go in Casa Cupcake!

And there's homework too. This week for creative writing we have to write, among other things, a Haiku. Here is mine (it's in German of course):

Der Sonnenaufgang

An diesem trüben Herbsttag

Lässt mein Herz lächeln

It's not possible to translate that literally into English, so I've had to change it a bit in the English version:

Vermillion sunrise

On this gloomy autumn day

Makes my sad heart smile

Ha! Not bad eh.

The "Working You"

I have joined a creative writing class.

Yes, me! As if it is not enough for me to be writing all day in my work, and then on top of that writing in this blog (which, admittedly, I haven't done for several weeks), I now have additional assignments from my writing class.

There are seven of us in the class - six women and one man. Most of us are around the same age, except for two of the women who are clearly pensioners.

The lady who teaches the class is also a woman. In the first class, indeed in the first few minutes, she established the ground rules of the class. One of these was the way in which we should address each other.

In German, there are two forms of addressing another person - the formal "you" ("Sie" in German, like "vous" in French) and the informal "you" ("Du" in German, like "tu" in French). Normally, we would all be addressing each other in the "Sie" (formal) form, as we don't know each other. Especially, we would be addressing the older ladies in the "Sie" form, as German etiquette dictates that it is the older person who "offers" the younger person to use the "Du" form.

However, our teacher proposed that we all address each other as "Du" (informal) straight off. This is actually normal when you take a class. But it might have been a little bit of a problem here because of the two older ladies.

Both the two older ladies accepted it, although one of them did mention that she found it a little unusual because she came from an older generation, and even in her student days she had been addressed as "Sie". (Seriously she doesn't look that old, but who knows).

Our teacher justified the informal "Du" by calling it the "ArbeitsDu" (the "working you"). She suggested that we all address each other using the "working you" while we're in the class, but if we see each other outside the class we can revert to the formal "Sie".

I think this is so complicated that in the meantime we have all forgotten about it. Anyway, it has all worked so far.