I just came home from school, and boy, does my brain hurt!
As some of you maybe are aware, there was a football (soccer) match between Germany and Croatia today. In my class there are normally 14 boys (including me) and 15 girls. Today, only four boys (including me) and ten girls even showed up for school. Then, when the TV broadcast started (during lunch break, when one of the boys and three girls had fled the school, too), they lugged a couple of sofas and a TV someone had brought along into the courtyard, like they had done with every game now. This time, though, ,someone had also tied a German flag to the fence. Watching this stupidity take place, I felt very depressed ... and somehow enraged, too. I felt a strong desire to find a lighter, or better yet, a flamethrower, and destroy that stupid flag. I don't know why. It's probably my natural reaction to nationalism.
By the time the first afternoon lesson had started, only eight people showed up in the classroom. The others were at home or in the courtyard, watching 22 men kick a ball around the place.
At the end of the second afternoon lesson (and the end of today's classes), something happened I wouldn't have thought anatomically possible: My heart sank some more. Germany had won the game.
Loud cheering greeted me as I left the classroom. I tried to avert my eyes, but couldn't help noticing that one of the boys had tied the flag around himself as a cape. He was also holding two half-full bottles of beer, and yelled (in German, of course) "C'mon, guys! Car convoy!" And with much honking and cheering, the horde left campus. I quietly hopped onto my scooter, turned the key into the ignition and hoped I would not literally and lethally run into one of those people today. Bleah.
I have one question that never has been fully explained to me: Why all the hype? Why all the cheering and flag-waving? Why even bother with watching people running after balls? Why make me so bloody depressed and angry with that foolish travesty of patriotism? Why all the TV coverage?
OK, OK, so they were several questions. Now if you'll excuse me, there's some headshaking and muttering I have to do. |
