Yesterday it snowed for the first time (for real). It actually snowed a couple of weeks ago, but only a bit. But it snowed just about all day yesterday - big, heavy, wet flakes. Nothing stuck here in Ilmenau, but I can look out at the mountains and see lots of snow. Every once in a while you see a car riding around with six inches of snow on the top, but nothing is really on the ground here still. The woman at the library definitely sounded depressed when she said, "There's going to be five more months of this," to me yesterday while I was checking out some movies.

On Wednesday, I, along with all of the other Fulbrighters in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia got invited to the US consulate in Leipzig. It was sort of silly because we didn't do much - but it was nice to see everyone from our training course and to meet more Fulbrighters in my area. There are quite a few research scholars in Jena and Weimar who I didn't know about. First we had a little mix-and-mingle over tea, coffee and bagels (I haven't had a bagel in forever). Then the consul general for Leipzig, the Cultural Attaché in Berlin and the Public Affairs guy for Leipzig talked to us for a bit about various things. Then we all headed over to the Museum for Contemporary History of the DDR for a nice English tour.

I finally have a fairly consistent work schedule going on, now that we've actually been back in school for a few weeks. Although apparently Germans freak out if they don't see a holiday coming in the future because we are having a random floating holiday weekend on Thanksgiving weekend so that we have four days off. Too bad I didn't know that before - could have made the trip home for Thanksgiving. Oh well.

I am teaching 5th, 6th, and 12th grade classes at the moment. Depending on the teacher, I either get used appropriately or not. I'm giving it another week in order for us to get comfortable first before I push for a little more autonomy for those who don't give me any. One teacher just uses me for reading exercises in her 5th grade classes, but in her 6th grade class she gives me a lot more responsibility. Last week, I talked about class schedules in America for a bit and this week I am supposed to talk about sight-seeing attractions in London. (Because obviously I am British). Oh well. At least I have been to London. The other teachers for 5th and 6th usually just write me a little note about what they are going to cover in class, and then sort of let me cover it in my own way.