Bridging Two of my Identities
Word count: 807
Bridging Two of my Identities from Savannah Gregal on Vimeo.
I wrote my writing exercise in class about Germany, mostly the city of Munich, and the various things I remembered about it. A lot of the things I experienced were much different than what I experience everyday here on campus in New Brunswick. The two cities are vastly different when it comes to the environment, culture, language, driving, people, even the clothing styles. In class, I wrote about hearing the German language and thinking about how it must be a really difficult language to learn. I wrote about how the streets, subways, and surrounding areas were all clean and litter free, something I wasn’t used to. I mentioned that the buildings and architecture were absolutely stunning and intricately designed. I wrote about how everyone walks around holding and drinking beer in public. The water and food were all natural and fresh there, too. Those are clear differences compared to what it’s like living here in New Brunswick and I didn’t think I’d be able to find any differences at first. Though I was able to find some similarities between the two cities around campus. I probably won’t use this for my project since I have so many real pictures and videos from Germany, but this was good practice for the final video and getting used to iMovie.
The first picture is taken from under trees looking up to the sky. The trees mostly cover the entire sky, which is the key part in this picture. As I mentioned in my last blog post, there are outdoor breweries called Biergartens where everyone sits outside and enjoys their beers with one another. The summers can get pretty hot in Munich so a couple centuries ago, the locals in Germany decided to plant specifically Chestnut Trees above the Biergarten picnic tables. Their huge leaves and dense canopies help keep the customers cool under the shade. It’s a pretty clever idea considering it definitely keeps the customers sitting there for much longer than if they were out in the sun.
The next picture is taken of the New Jersey Hall building right near Scott Hall. The towered roof reminded me of the Neuschwanstein castle that I visited. As with most castles, this castle has multiple pointed towers and this one in New Brunswick reminded me of those.
The next picture is the SAS Dean’s Office roof and its architecture reminded me of houses in Germany. The pointed roof and lines looked similar to houses that I saw in the countryside outside of the city
The next picture I took is of a bike locked to a bike rock. In Germany, especially in summer, a lot of people ride their bikes around town, whether it’s going to the grocery store, the Biergarten, out to eat, to work, etc. I saw a lot of locked bikes every where’s we went because people take their bikes so often.
The next picture is of grass because, in the country side of Germany, there were tons of open fields of grass. They’re very big on farming and producing their own meat and dairy products so open grass areas are needed.
Next picture isn’t the best quality but it’s of two people walking their dog. One thing I noticed in Germany that I absolutely loved is that people take their dogs every where’s with them, even outdoor restaurants, stores, all public transportation, any where’s. I noticed that all the dogs were friendly and very well behaved.
The last picture is of the Passion Puddle fountain on Cook Campus. This reminds me of Germany because in Munich, they had several fountains throughout the city with safe drinking water. Pretty much everyday, myself and so many others would fill up our water bottles with the fountain water. The water comes straight down the from the Alps mountains so it’s really fresh and cold.
Lastly, the video clip shows the similarity between the busy lives that everyone has. In Germany, many people didn’t talk to others unless for a specific reason such as ordering food, etc. Obviously, people talk to each in Germany but for the most part, I witnessed them each just go from point A to point B without much conversation with strangers. Almost everyone in this video is going about their own life without talking to anyone. At the end of a long college week during midterms, most college students probably don’t want to talk to anyone.
The song I picked was the instrumental version of the song Slide by Calvin Harris. I listened to it a lot during the summer, and event when I went to Germany. It has a cool beat and I wanted to use it in my video.
Fun fact, I tried to upload this video to YouTube but they blocked my video because of a copyright issue with the song, lol.
Bridging Two of my Identities from Savannah Gregal on Vimeo.
I wrote my writing exercise in class about Germany, mostly the city of Munich, and the various things I remembered about it. A lot of the things I experienced were much different than what I experience everyday here on campus in New Brunswick. The two cities are vastly different when it comes to the environment, culture, language, driving, people, even the clothing styles. In class, I wrote about hearing the German language and thinking about how it must be a really difficult language to learn. I wrote about how the streets, subways, and surrounding areas were all clean and litter free, something I wasn’t used to. I mentioned that the buildings and architecture were absolutely stunning and intricately designed. I wrote about how everyone walks around holding and drinking beer in public. The water and food were all natural and fresh there, too. Those are clear differences compared to what it’s like living here in New Brunswick and I didn’t think I’d be able to find any differences at first. Though I was able to find some similarities between the two cities around campus. I probably won’t use this for my project since I have so many real pictures and videos from Germany, but this was good practice for the final video and getting used to iMovie.
The first picture is taken from under trees looking up to the sky. The trees mostly cover the entire sky, which is the key part in this picture. As I mentioned in my last blog post, there are outdoor breweries called Biergartens where everyone sits outside and enjoys their beers with one another. The summers can get pretty hot in Munich so a couple centuries ago, the locals in Germany decided to plant specifically Chestnut Trees above the Biergarten picnic tables. Their huge leaves and dense canopies help keep the customers cool under the shade. It’s a pretty clever idea considering it definitely keeps the customers sitting there for much longer than if they were out in the sun.
The next picture is taken of the New Jersey Hall building right near Scott Hall. The towered roof reminded me of the Neuschwanstein castle that I visited. As with most castles, this castle has multiple pointed towers and this one in New Brunswick reminded me of those.
The next picture is the SAS Dean’s Office roof and its architecture reminded me of houses in Germany. The pointed roof and lines looked similar to houses that I saw in the countryside outside of the city
The next picture I took is of a bike locked to a bike rock. In Germany, especially in summer, a lot of people ride their bikes around town, whether it’s going to the grocery store, the Biergarten, out to eat, to work, etc. I saw a lot of locked bikes every where’s we went because people take their bikes so often.
The next picture is of grass because, in the country side of Germany, there were tons of open fields of grass. They’re very big on farming and producing their own meat and dairy products so open grass areas are needed.
Next picture isn’t the best quality but it’s of two people walking their dog. One thing I noticed in Germany that I absolutely loved is that people take their dogs every where’s with them, even outdoor restaurants, stores, all public transportation, any where’s. I noticed that all the dogs were friendly and very well behaved.
The last picture is of the Passion Puddle fountain on Cook Campus. This reminds me of Germany because in Munich, they had several fountains throughout the city with safe drinking water. Pretty much everyday, myself and so many others would fill up our water bottles with the fountain water. The water comes straight down the from the Alps mountains so it’s really fresh and cold.
Lastly, the video clip shows the similarity between the busy lives that everyone has. In Germany, many people didn’t talk to others unless for a specific reason such as ordering food, etc. Obviously, people talk to each in Germany but for the most part, I witnessed them each just go from point A to point B without much conversation with strangers. Almost everyone in this video is going about their own life without talking to anyone. At the end of a long college week during midterms, most college students probably don’t want to talk to anyone.
The song I picked was the instrumental version of the song Slide by Calvin Harris. I listened to it a lot during the summer, and event when I went to Germany. It has a cool beat and I wanted to use it in my video.
Fun fact, I tried to upload this video to YouTube but they blocked my video because of a copyright issue with the song, lol.
Dear Savannah,
ReplyDeleteYes, it sounds like maybe, maybe, maybe you can use some of these photos for your piece, even though it's a bit of a stretch. I imagine you also have lots of pictures from your experience. The biggest challenge will be in structuring how you're going to tell this story--what is it about this experience that you can share with other people? This isn't something you have to automatically know, but it is something you'll have to figure out as you go. You'll have to also decide on structure, like where you want to start your piece. Don't automatically default to telling it chronologically--from the time the airplane lifts off until you come back to the U.S. Start in the middle--start with the most interesting thing that happened to you, start with the concentration camp, start with the hard garble of language. Keep in mind that you don't have to limit yourself to video or photos you own---you could find a map on the web of the cities you visited or splice in a video of someone speaking German, or books in German (https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiqwd-d7q_XAhUBLRQKHekfCXsQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2F10-german-childrens-books-classics-you-can-read-in-english%2Fa-19156184&psig=AOvVaw1WDkwF8haKw_lHRoVhh7V5&ust=1510260830958358). The harder part will be in figuring out what to focus on and what not to include. I spent two months in Einbeck in high school, so I'm really interested to learn more about your time there.
I love this so much. I really like how many different aspects of Germany you were able to talk about just with this short piece so I'm interested to hear more in the full video. I've always wanted to visit Germany so I'm super excited to see your piece come together!
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