Last Week before Christmas break

Dear all!

We hope you are all enjoying your 2weeks-relax-possibility and wish you a nice New Years Eve and how we would say in Swiss German: "En guete Rutsch". The last week before the Christmas break was kind of weird, because although there were not many days to wait until holidays, the Christmas feelings couldn't  really break through. We had some tests..and it was so, that till Friday evening after our last test in biology it was a bit difficult to believe, that time is running so fast and another year is almost passed.
By se Way: In English we discussed chapter 5 of Animal Farm in halfclass and in the whole class we played taboo and Miss Nyffenegger even brought us a yummie cake :D. It wasn't always easy to explain the expressions in English, and also this noisy thing which should mark when the time runs out, was not always used in the right second xD but we had a lot of fun.
On Wednesday evening was this traditional Christmas celebration and the theme of this Year was to make it British. The Monastery church gave these perfomances of the Orchestra, the Vocalensemble, the Sax-Quartett, the Smus-Choir, the first class Choir and the KantiChoir a wonderful sound and atmosphere. After that, we met us in room S402 to solve out everyone's Secret Santa. We ate those nice Sandwiches from the 'Catering of the Kanti- Gmbh' and sadly, relatively fast after our 'Christmas-Höck' we had to go home, (start for some to) study Economy, because of the test on thursday afternoon.
At last on Friday evening, the most of us went home, finally enjoying the break. And some went to the Volleynight, enjoying sport before the break.
All in all was it a very heavy week, and there would be more to tell about. But..let's enjoy the last days before the break of the break!

Great, Meryem and Timna

Curley's characterisation

One of the most memorable characters in this book is probably
Curley. The first impression we get of him is when he came into the
bunk-house. An image of a young, self-confident man, who doesn't
really care about politeness. He asked: 'Seen my old man?' It seems
that he doesn't show respect in front of other people for this man,
who is actually his father. Also in general he treats other people like
he is better than them. He is bad tempered and often provocates
fights to show that he isn't weaker just because of his small height.
Especially with the big guys he has problems. Lennie didn't deserve
Curleys loathing. The only reason for being treated badly was his
physical superiority.
Curley is always jealous, often of Lennie and Slim. And also apart
from them he always finds someone to envy. It's like he is just waiting
for a chance to have to pick a bone with someone and all the time
he has to control where his wife or Slim is. Whatever you do he's
always looking for your faults. Yes, Curley has many faces. Another
one which is a cause of his jealousy is his possessiveness. Whenever
he catches his wife with Slim or another guy he completely loses his
already limited composure. Because he really is a restless person
who gets blind of anger so many times like little children do. When
something doesn't go their way they start to scream and throw a
temper tantrum.
Curley is not over-protective of his wife because he wants to take
care of her. He doesn't see her as a independent person instead she
is his possession. She doesn't even deserve a name, she is just
known as 'Curleys wife'. Her death finally showed us his indifference
towards her. The first reaction of him was not a sorrowful gesture for
her death but a scream of anger to this person who broke his 'toy'.
He only wanted to get his revenge.
But the most of his character traits come from the assumption of a
very low self-esteem. Another cause of this is the probably true
rumor of his infertility.
All in all he is very one dimensional, that means he doesn't have much
character depth. Through the whole book there is no character
development and we see just one side of him. In this book he definitely has the bad-man-role on which you can focus on different aspects concerning his faces.

Meryem, Timna

:)

Good evening

I am getting closer and closer to the end of my exchange, but I wish I could stay longer, because I am having such a good time here in England. But I really look forward to see you again. I just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas and a really nice time over the holidays. Only ten days left and it is Christmas eve. Here in England it feels like spring, because we haven't had snow so far and it is not even cold :)
Greetings
Elena

Lennie Small (Of mice and men)

This essay discusses Lennie and his character as well as his development, his perspectives and his symbolization; what is the author trying to show us through Lennie.

„Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula.“ (p.12 l.11-16)

This is the very first impression we get of Lennie. This shows us, that Lennie is a tall and strong man. But he is not only a good and hard worker, he is handicapped. He is mentally retarded and therefor he acts like a child; as a result, George takes „care“ of him. 

Lennie is a constant character as well as a dynamic character depending on the perspective. Looking at him as an uncontrollable force, in other words a lose canon, we consider his character to be static, because he is constantly messing up things every time. But if you consider his thoughts and look at his actions individually, you will conclude, he is a personality.

At the beginning we never see Lennie‘s thoughts and because of his handicap we never hear him talk much. The impression we get is a quiet and „dumb“ person, who is almost incapable of doing very basic work.

Most of the people do not understand Lennie and therefor they judge him for his actions and his behavior. They do not care about Lennie, they keep their distance or even want to get rid of him.

George seems to be the only person, who has a certain connection to Lennie and understands him, but he actually does not. George is accepting him, but he does not understand him. This becomes clear in situations when George chews him out without considering Lennie‘s motivations.

The person who understands Lennie the most is Slim. Slim, the skinner, has been working with animals for his whole life. He developed a feeling and sensitivity for understanding people‘s or animals‘ thoughts and intentions without words. So he‘s the only person who considers not only Lennie‘s few words but his thoughts and motivations too; thus he‘s the only one who has the ability to understand Lennie.

As a conclusive interpretation we claim that Lennie symbolizes all mentally weak people in society. The author wants to tell us, that the majority treats him like an old useless dog; thinking of old Candy‘s dog. Society doesn‘t care about those people and keeps a distance.

There are few in society who try to help and accept those people, however, they do not understand them completely either. Just some individuals (like Slim) have the ability, patience and empathy, we all should have, to accept and understand shortcomings of people like Lennie.

Greetings (Great)
Adrienne, Jacqueline and Manuel

Character analysis of Candy

Character analysis- Candy

Candy is the oldest man on the ranch, he's the swamper. His job is actually the least important one and that's how he feels as well. He's missing one of his hands, so he's handicapped in doing important things. His age is also seen in his appearance: He's tall, but stoop-shouldered, he doesn't look fit or happy, because he knows what being the oldest man on the ranch means. The old man in jeans and with a broom in his hand is the owner of an old dog. Between the two of them, there's a huge resemblance: Both of them are old, not fit and not useful, both are handicapped. One difference is, that the other guys of the ranch talk about all these bad things of the dog in front of Candy, but they don't talk about Candy like this. Even though they don't say it directly, Candy feels like they think about him in the same way like they do about the dog. They complain about how badly the dog stinks, that he isn't able to eat and that he's just laying around in the way, he's a burden for everyone. Even though he knows about his possible fate, he's an extremely nice person. He doesn't feel like being useless or being a burden.

His dog is his family, the only thing he has left, he's a constant companion. Since the dog has been a little puppy, Candy has been his owner, he feels connected to him. Just like he doesn't see the dog the way the other guys do, he doesn't see himself as an useless men. He sees the dog like it was in its prime, how good, useful, hard-working, faithful, loyal and intelligent it was. Candy sees the best possible in his companion, he tries to think in the best possible way.

The issue of the other men is that they forgot about the past. How hard-working the dog and also Candy were in their prime. They delete these memories out of their minds and just accept how it is nowadays: Both of them are old and because of that they want to get rid of the dog, and maybe also of Candy.

Beside all of this issues with the thoughts about him, he tries to be as cheerful as possible. His smile's all over his face, he's polite, gentle and friendly. He tries to help everyone, at least the ones he likes. This is seen as he tries to help George and Lennie to adapt as soon as possible to the farm, so they don't get into any trouble with the other guys.

Candy likes being around people, having good relationships and talking to them, the social contact is important to him. When he first heard about George's and Lennie's dream of having an own ranch, he was fascinated. Without any second thought, he offers his help to the two of them. During his whole working-career on the ranch, he has been saving money, and now he wants to contribute this money, so the dream can be realized. Even though this money is the only thing he has left, he would contribute it. This shows how important this is for him, having the guarantee of a save future which he can spend with people he like. This guarantee is important to him because he's scared of loosing his job on the ranch because of his handicap and the age.

He would do anything necessary for realizing the dream of an own ranch, because in a society Steinbeck describes, there is no place for an old, crippled man like him. The young people want to get rid of old, useless people or even animals. One way is shooting them like they did it with the dog and the other way is putting them into an old age home. But for Candy this is no acceptable solution, it would be like a prison. He tries to escape from this form of society. 

Best regards,

Lisa and Michelle F.

No Grammar at Last!

Hello everybody!

Last week was more literature than grammar. In fact there was no grammar at all, so a great week;). On Monday we listened to "Poetry and Power", a speech by John F. Kennedy, and analysed it. Then on Wednesday we worked on our characterisations of "Of Mice and Men" characters, in Groups. Some Groups were very productive, others...well...less productive.
In half-classes we talked about our oral grades and began to discuss our new novel, "Animal Farm".
We hope you enjoy the rest of the week:)

Michelle S. and Isabel