Weird? Pretty much.

[Regenbogen]

Oh, so it is true. 2 chapters. No! I won't read them. Not today and not tomorrow. I'm preparing my little one's room for school. Now everything is clean, and tomorrow I'm going to empty the old little  school desk from the living room and carry it upstairs. This will do for the first two years. Her room is not big, I had to remove some things so the desk fits in.

I always wanted to learn Spanish, but in my school they didn't teach it. 
I took English, Latin, French and Italian (though the Italian class was a bit ridiculous, we only sang a few songs, and I didn't learn much. I only participated, because there was no Spanish, and they told me "So take Italian, if you want another language")
In school I wanted to become either a biologist, archeologist or translator. I tried to learn Polish taught by my grandmother, but couldn't get into it. Though I know some words and I mostly know how to pronounce what I read.
And lol, I know two Czech sentences. Took me 3 days in the metro in Prague to learn them. It's what the voice from the speakers says at each station.  "Please stop getting on or off the train. The doors close automatically. Next stop..." LOL I can say it, but I have no idea how it is written.

[Dina]

That sounds great about the desk.

When I was a child, only the private schools had foreign languages in primary. When I left kindergarten I did the first year of primary school in a private school that had English but then my parents couldn't afford to keep me there, and they sent me to a public primary school that has not foreign language. Nowadays, almost all public schools teach English, some of them teach Portuguese, and in some provinces there are some schools that teach original inhabitants languages, like guaraní or quichua.
In secondary school I had English, French and Latin though. I can tell you, if you know Latin, French and Italian you pretty much know Spanish  .

Well, I am a biologist, and I also have a certification as "literary translator" from French, but my French is very, very rusty now. I dreamt about being an archaelogist too.

Oh, I've learnt a few words in Klingon too! And I can read some Portuguese but not talking or writing.

[Doroga's Cousin]

Oh. It's actually pretty good. It's about crime solving. And I like the main character. I'm glad I finally found something I can keep on reading. That doesn't mean, I don't like all the other books I have started in the past weeks, but they were not what I needed. I will read them at the right time. Or not.
Sometimes the taste changes or develops. Sometimes I suddenly like a story I didn't like ten or twenty years ago.  Or I put emphasis on different aspects of a story than I did before.

So maybe I might give The Name Of The Rose another try someday. I was about 20 when I tried to read it. And maybe I'll give Hamlet another try, too.

But for now I am content with this new book, which I am able to continue in spite of the first chapter of Battle Ground only days away. 
It frustrates me when I don't read anything. And it always has to be fiction. And I have to like the main character or at least one of the characters, if there are several.

Hamlet was very stuffy and overblown for me, honestly. Very much a Shakespearean tragedy but almost too much if that makes sense?

[Dina]

I'll be honest, I have not read Hamlet. I've read other books, like Romeo and Juliet, Richard the V, and others but I never tried Hamlet or MacBeth. Perhaps one day

[Regenbogen]

I've read Romeo and Juliet (was forced to in English class, but I surprisingly liked it, maybe because we analysed it for a few weeks, and my teacher was so enthusiastic she infected me somehow ) and Much ado about nothing.
A midsummer night's dream and Hamlet I watched in theatre.

And now I have to confess. I was weak tonight. I read the Battle Ground sample chapters.
I am alone this weekend. Nobody home but me. Now would have been a good opportunity to read without disruption, but the book isn't out yet. A pity.
And I got punished immediately. After reading the first lines in bed, I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. There was a big fat spider sitting on the wall a few centimetres from my head. Scream.

I think the cat is getting old. The last few weeks we had an unusual amount of fat spiders in the house. The same happened when the last cat died. But she still catches mice.

All the cats liked to play with spiders and eat them afterwards. They seem to be tasty. But only a certain kind. And they move in an interesting way, when you hit them with your claws and throw them around.

[Dina]

Yeah, I am arachnophobic, so I would hate to live in a place with "an unusual amount of fat spiders". I live in an appartment now so we have few spiders, and not very large. When I lived in a house we had 3 or 4 cats, so it was not too bad.

What do you think about the chapters? (without spoilers)

[Regenbogen]

I loved the chapters. I'm very curious how it will go on. I hope there will be one more chapter tomorrow, but somehow the text on the website wasn't clear. There was something about a next chapter in a future drop. We will see tomorrow.

And I am glad that there are no bigger fat spiders in Germany than about 5 cm with feet. There are some very thin spiders with longer legs, but none of them is poisonous to humans. Not that I would appreciate any spider coming so near that it can bite me, I'm afraid too. I know it is irrational and I am able to remove them but not alive. So when someone else is in the house (my husband) I ask him to throw it out alive, but I get out of the way while he is transporting it. 
But if I am alone, I have to do it myself. I can't sleep when I know there is one in my bedroom. 

[Dina]

Ok, that is bad, but not that good either. I had seen really large spiders and it is awful.
I can deal with the bodies too but I also call hubby to kill spiders for me. Unless I am alone and then I have to do it. If they are very small, we take them out but in general I feel better if the monsters are killed. I know, irrational. It is, I never pretended to be a Vulcan.

Luckily in the lockdown hubby is always with me, so at least one problem less.

In other topics, it is 16°C now and a bright, sunny day, but my home feels cold. I am enjoying the cold, though, as it is probably the last few weeks.

[Regenbogen]

Here autumn is coming. You can feel it in the air. And some leaves have turned yellow and red.
Tomorrow or better today as it is past midnight now school starts with a new year. My little one is a firstgrader and my older one now goes to the next school. Is it called secondary school? There are several kinds of public schools you can go to after elementary school.
The common ones are Mittelschule, Realschule and Gymnasium (not a hall to do sports in, that's the German name for grammar school or so, I'm not sure, if this is correct). To the first you go, if you want to become something like a craftsman for example. Very  practical, not much theory.
The second (the one my daughter goes to) is for everything else you need a higher education than the first, the big middle so to speak. The last one you need too attend if you want to study afterwards or take on an academic career. Your grades need to be better for the last one than for the first two.

They are trying to start as normal as possible. The kids and teachers will have to wear masks like before the holidays.  The classes are not allowed to mix. That means at first there will be no going outside during the first break. Each class has to stay in their room. Some schools do shifts with going outside. The first graders of our village are allowed to use the church for the welcome speech. This is great, because the church is bigger than the school hall, so every child can bring up to two people as company. After the welcome speech the kids will go into their classrooms (the school is just over the street from the church).
When they do it like this, they hope that there would maybe be no need to shut down the whole school again, if one child has the virus. But only one class. In theory. Let's see what the future brings.

I want it to bring a certain book about some weird wizard guy kicking ass and getting his ass kicked in return. 

[Doroga's Cousin]

It's always kind of amused me that the different types of post-primary German schools translate as "Middle school" (which is what it's most often called in the US), "real school" and... well, you know.

[Regenbogen]

It's always kind of amused me that the different types of post-primary German schools translate as "Middle school" (which is what it's most often called in the US), "real school" and... well, you know.

That's why I didn't translate. 
There is no equivalent. Not really. Because the system is different. In my youth "Mittelschule" was called "Hauptschule" (main school), but it is the same. I didn't look it up, but someone told me it was supposed to change the image. And when I was going into fifth grade Realschule started with 6th grade. So everyone except those who went to Gymnasium went to the former Hauptschule and after 5th grade you could go on to Realschule or stay. Realschule got a 5th grade when I was in 8th grade I think. I talked about it with a friend last year who was there when they changed it and remembered the sudden "invasion of babies" LOL, meaning the masses of little 5th graders.
There are other types of school but this would be too complicated to explain and I'm no expert in this.

Now I have to be cruel and wake up everyone. Muahaha! See you.

[Dina]

I hope all went well with the first day!!

It is very interesting to know about things in other countries. I am always complicated with k- and things like that and sometimes I even forget what is a sophomore, even when I think I learnt the details here in the forum (thanks to you, DC).

Let's see. In my country we have kindergarten (which is mandatory since 3 years old). At 6, you go to "primaria" which I translate as primary school. Traditionally, primary school has 7 grades. Then you have "secundaria" (secondary school) which could be 5 or 6 years, I will explain later. But in general it was 5. In the 90's we had a reform and primary finished in grade 6, and what was "7th grade" and the  1st and 2nd grade of secondary become grades "7, 8, and 9" in secondary. And 4 and 5 became "1st and second of the EGB, which was an acronym that standed for general basic education. It was a mess, specially because not all the provinces got with it. So, about a decade ago, we were back to the classic: 7 grades of primary, 5 of secondary, unless you were in a special system with 6 years.

What students got 6 secondary grades? Well, many years ago that was for magisterium (people becoming teachers of primary), técnicos (something like Mittelschule, I think), artistic, or those from one of the few schools that were dependent of the university and had a different schedule. All the first allowed to students to have a diploma that allowed them to do certain jobs. Then, magisterium changed (now, it is more professional, and you need to do more study after leaving school). And about those dependent from university...well, before the 80's, there was an exam to allow you to go to public universities. And the students of those schools (which had an extra year, remember) were dispensed from the exam. Then, in the 80's it was established that everyone going to a public university (not to private ones) wouldn't pass a test but they needed to approve a year of a courses that have the purpose of reduce the differences among schools and give everyone a base to go to the university. A couple of classes were mandatory for everyone (one related with citizenship and history of our country, and another related with scientific thinking) and the other were specific of the branch that you wanted to follow. For instance, people wanting to be medicine doctors, dentists, veterinaries, biologists, engineers in agricultural practices, etc, had biology and chemistry.  Students of the schools dependent of the university don't do the "general" course, but they have an extra year. So, in time, it is the same. But it is different because it is like an extra year of secondary, at your school, while the other students need to go to other place for its course.

uf, I hope you understood something of all this. I am a product of one of those schools depending from university.

Oh, and years ago we had secondary schools for "commercial" branches and other for the rest. Same years, different curricula. Now it has changed.

[Doroga's Cousin]

That's kind of interesting to me. As far as I know, you're pretty much locked into the public school system until you're bare minimum 16, and even then you have to have special permission to drop out. After you finish that you can decide on trade school, university, etc.

[Dina]

Going to school is mandatory here (3-17 years old) but if you have money you can go to a private school, which is (usually) better and fancier, with extra classes and things like that. We don't have home schooling except for very few people that really can't leave their home, so the teacher visits them.

[Regenbogen]

Here, going to school is mandatory for 9-10 years, starting at the age of 5 or 6 years, depending on the county.
Kindergarten is not mandatory, but most people send their kids there. The pre school year here is mostly happening in the Kindergarten, how they do it depends on the kindergarten. My kids were still in their usual group, but they had a few hours in a seperate room doing pre school stuff. After that the usual kindergarten routine.
In some parts of the country in the pre school year the kids are actually separated from their former groups and become a pre school group. And I have heard of schools that have extra pre school classes, but this is not in Bavaria.

I can't remember as a kid having done any school things in kindergarten. I learned everything directly in school. I don't know when it was called pre school. Or maybe it was, and I didn't notice. I admit, I just wanted to see my friends and play with the cool stuff. I should ask my mother.

Grundschule in Bavaria starts at the age of 6 more or less, and goes 4 years. After that at least until 9th grade Mittelschule, or 10th grade Realschule, or 13th Gymnasium.
By the way, when you go to the Gymnasium and finish the 10th grade, you automatically have a school leaving certificate without ever having an exam. I could have done that, but I thought I wanted to have a real exam, and to finish what I started, because otherwise it would have felt like giving up or cheating. So I continued until grade 13 with exam, though I didn't need it. But I thought, if I didn't like the job, I could still start to study something.