Recently, I had my last-ever German Day! Although I am now gutted that I won’t have these events in my life anymore, despite some reservations about the new format, I really feel like this year was the best yet!
This year, all the language students at the OU had their language day together in Glasgow, rather than each language having a dedicated day. This worried me because I was sceptical about whether all the languages would be done justice and about how many people would be there. But despite my anxiety, I was really looking forward to seeing my two tutors, Lilian and Kim, and, above all, my beloved Sylvia, who has basically made it possible for someone like me to get this far at university! However, my excitement grew even more when I learned that Julia – my friend I made in Jena last year – was also going to be there, despite living outside of London!
Living in Fife and relying on public transport to get to the event, which began at 10:30 a.m., the only option was to stay in Glasgow. Because Julia also had to stay overnight, we decided to go out for dinner. Although we settled on a down-to-earth burger restaurant, we had a good evening catching up with each other and with Mark, another guy we knew from Jena who was also going to the event. The perfect lead-up to the following day! At the end of the dinner, i shared that I was going to stop at the shop to get flowers for Lilian. Also, being in Lilian’s group, Mark made a shallow joke about maybe getting something for her so he could get a better grade on his exam. At this I smiled, not because the joke was particularly funny, but because I knew the real reason – this year I have faced so many challenges and despite everything, Lilian has always been there for me, whether it be in an academic context or just simply someone to talk to – and I couldn’t wait to see this amazing lady’s reaction to such a deserving gesture!
The next morning, I was sitting half asleep and still with the previous day’s pigtails in the restaurant of my hotel, whilst my mum got us breakfast, when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “Guten Tag, liebe Äli!” chirped a cheerful voice. I jumped at least a foot in the air and turned around to see my favourite Austrian! Even with her signature massive smile and matching eyes, Lilian looked a bit different: she has always had short hair since I met her two years ago, but this year she must have been pulling it back when she was working, because all of a sudden it sat neatly in white waves on her shoulders! This new look added to the shock, and it took me a second to realise what was going on. Just when my still-sleeping brain had adjusted to the weird situation, my mum came back. After some rather embarrassing conversation about how jumpy I can be and how Lilian also shares this trait, Lilian went back to her table and left us to enjoy our meal.
My other tutor, Kim, has a great track record of emailing or appearing when my mouth is full, so it wasn’t surprising when the ellusive black curls appeared in front of me when I had a cup of smoothie to my lips! Although she doesn’t directly work with level 3 students, we have maintained good contact since I left her module last year and have a great relationship! So the fact that I didn’t get overexcited and spit white smoothie over her perfect black outfit is quite a big achievement 😆 ! It was honestly so nice to see this sunshine of a woman! Lately, I have felt like my own sunshine has been a bit dulled, so seeing her was like the first hint of dawn lighting up the night sky! Although hungry and uncaffeinated, she was in her usual high spirits! She was on her way to the breakfast buffet, so after we had gotten over the novelty of seeing each other, I let her get on with her mission !!
An hour later, with freshly braided hair and the flowers in my possession, I arrive on the Glasgow Całedonian University campus. Not entirely sure where to go, i see the Open University logo through the floor-to-ceiling window of one of the buildings, so I decided to try this one first. As I got a bit nearer, I saw a familiar sight that confirmed this was the right place… standing in profile in front of one of the windows, talking to a colleague, was the wonderful Sylvia! I hadn’t had a good week leading up to this point, so I was really looking forward to seeing her! I could see she was in the middle of something important, so I tried to be respectful, keep a low profile (difficult with hot-pink and green tights and a frog cardigan on!) and wait until she was ready before I said hello to the good doctor. After a short time, she came over and greeted me with a small hug. I had been needing a Sylvia-hug badly for at least 4 days before! Even though she only had time for a short hug and a brief chat, this carried on from Lilian and Kim’s breakfast-time interruptions in making me feel more human! I wished I could stay in her arms for longer, but I knew that she had important work to do, so I let her go and carry on being the force of nature she is!
My mum had left me in the foyer with Julia once we had dumped the bags. Julia, being the social butterfly that she is, was introducing me to people that she had met at the equivalent of the event in Milton Keynes the weekend before (most of them recognised me from my passionate and enthusiastic contributions to German Club !), when I happened to look over my shoulder and clocked the last member of my OU family…CHLOE !!! Sometimes, when I need to get somewhere quickly, I push my feet off the ground to reverse really efficiently. On this particular occasion, however, i must have done it a little too enthusiastically because the first knowledge of me being there that Chloe got was me lying beside her with my chair at a 45-degree angle resting on its anti-tip (thank goodness I have that thing) and a rather shocked expression on my face! When I was back on 4 wheels, Chloe, I, and Julia, who had been notified of Chloe’s presence by this accidental gymnastics routine of mine, had a catch-up. Chloe, who was very chicly dressed in black and white today, would be studying French at this event because she was the buddy of French Club and she had been told that she had to study German in Milton Keynes and French here in Glasgow. Even though I hadn’t seen Chloe in a year, this separation didn’t bother me because in September, I’m going to start the law part of my degree while Chloe completes the fourth year of her pure language degree. This means that Chloe and I will be in entirely different schools at the uni. Given this, I took today as practice to make sure our friendship stays as strong while apart! We continued chatting until it was time to head into the lecture hall for the official welcome to the event!
In each friendship between a nonverbal communicator and someone who uses words comes a magical moment when you suddenly have a whole conversation with each other using your own methods of communication without any help from devices. Kim and I hit such a milestone in this lecture hall! I had lost track of Chloe and Julia when we all went through, so when Kim and Lilian discovered that I was sitting alone, they decided to sit with me, but before she joined Kim and me (Team Curly), Lilian went to say something to Sylvia, who was standing up at the front of the hall, ready to welcome everyone. During this time, when it was just Kim and I, I kept looking at the white plastic bag hanging on the back of my chair, which contained the flowers for Lilian. After a short time, Kim said “Du guckst hinter dir” (you are looking behind you) and I nodded. When this was confirmed, she clocked the bag, looked inside, and asked, “für wen?” (for whom?). I pointed at Lilian, who was now on the way back to us! Having fully understood everything, Kim took the yellow roses out of the bag, waited for Lilian to return to her seat, then gave the gift to Lilian and explained that they were from me. Perfect communication between nonverbal and verbal! Yellow is Lilian’s ultimate favourite colour, so the first words out of her smiling mouth were “Äli! Du kennst mich so gut!” (Eilidh! You know me so well!).
With this remark, my mind went back to two years ago, when I first met this woman. The very first thing I noticed was how kind her face was, and I remember thinking, “I hope I get to work with this lady in the future”. On the same day, Kim and I had made such an instant, strong connection that it was decided I would work with her in the second year. But Lilian was always sort of in the background, and I even got to do my online school with her. When I moved to third year, the roles reversed and Lilian became my main tutor while Kim floated in the background. Despite having suffered greatly over the summer with grief and other issues so arriving in her group with a lot of extra challenges, Lilian has bent over backwards for me (very appropriate for a pilates instructor 😆), patiently explaining the Harvard reference system about twenty thousand times, meeting with me to discuss things like my dissertation and being open to doing things differently to make me feel comfortable. I feel like I do know Lilian very well, and I’m so lucky I do!
I’m about to turn 23, and I want to be as independent as possible. Despite this, my mum insisted on accompanying me to my first class. Wanting a bit of space, we found a compromise: she could carry the bag while Kim pushed me. This allowed Mum and Lilian to talk. The conversation started off about the flowers and how thoughtful I was, but Kim and I got a little ahead of the other two and lost track of the conversation. Over the Christmas holidays, I had to email Lilian and tell her about an injury that my mum had suffered because I thought it would affect my studies. Lilian had recommended that once she had recovered, pilates might help her mobility. When the four of us had reunited in the lift, I realised that Lilian and Mum were talking about the injury and how Mum was thinking of trying pilates by watching videos. In her familiar “That is not a good idea!” voice, Lilian said that because Mum had been hurt, it was really important that she see a professional teacher. I found this really touching! Lilian only gets paid to teach me German, and she already goes above and beyond this job description for me, so she really didn’t have to do this for my mum!
When we got to the room where all the German students would be spending the first session of the day, I noticed a table with most of the Jena gang sitting at it, so I joined my friends. The first game was to communicate enough with our colleagues to form a line in alphabetical order by surname. The table asked me what my full name was and told the rest of the room, while Kim helped me negotiate the line, and thanks to this teamwork, a short while later i was in the correct place in a perfectly organised row of bodies! Next, everyone had to say their surnames to check if the line was correct. The line started “Anderson, Clark, …”. Being non-verbal meant that someone had to say my name on my behalf, and, having known me for three years, one would assume that Kim would have no problem with this! “McQuiire,” she said when it got to me in the line. I look at her as if she were crazy, while the Jena lot, as well as Lilian, all interject with “MCGRATH!”. Once the small matter of my name had been cleared up, the line continued and ended with the lovely Julia Wilson.
After the embarrassment of the first game, the classic German Day game of Speed Dating, which had once been the doorway to such a beautiful friendship with Chloe! Because of how I communicate, Kim and Lilian decided the best way for me to do it was to always work with people I knew from Jena so that I would feel instantly comfortable. First of all, I spoke with a laďy called Susanne. The first question on the little card we got was “beschreibe dich in 3 Wörter” (describe yourself in 3 words), and without too much hesitation, I answered, “farbiges bezöpftes Mädchen” (colourful pigtailed girl) because I felt this was the best summary of my identity! However, the answer to the second question led to an interesting discovery. Susanne had asked me, “Was machst du gern in deiner Freizeit?” (What do you like to do in your free time?) and I had said that, as well as dancing, I like to bake. Suzanne then started wondering how to say that I had a sweet tooth in German, so she asked Kim. Being Scottish, Kim needed to ask her native German-speaking colleagues because she wasn’t sure. Five minutes later, Lilian came over and told us that we would say “du bist eine Nieschkatze!”. Katze means cat, so everyone in earshot agreed that this was very cute! It always surprises me when people say that German sounds angry or aggressive when, in reality, it’s full of adorable little terms like Nieschkatze! 💜
After a final game of Name That Famous German, the upper two levels of German students went to a room on a lower floor. The two tutors running this session were Kim and Lilian (my dream scenario), and Lilian helped me to a table right in front of where she and Kim would be teaching. The first game we did was one where we got cards and had to give our opinion on something by answering the question on the card. For example, my card said, “Was ist total überbewertet?” (What is totally overrated?) and it took me a split second for me to decide that my answer was football! For this game, I was partnered with a woman who was significantly less confident in German than I am, so it was a bit challenging. I had to be extremely patient, but we persevered to get our points across and be understood. Sometimes you just have to listen to people more carefully than others in order to communicate effectively!
I am a very creative and artistic person, but when I was in high school, I was always discouraged from drawing because of my disability and told things like I physically couldn’t do drawing tasks! Because of this, I found the next game quite exciting! We were to pair up, and one person had to describe a photo while the other tried to draw it. When Kim asked me what I wanted to do, I said I would describe because I had learned that this was the correct answer! However, a few weeks earlier, I had drawn a portrait of Lilian and me, and subsequently discussed how much drawing helps us both on bad days. Therefore, upon overhearing this exchange, she jumped in and said that she knows how much I love to draw, so I should be the artist, and to make sure I had the opportunity to do this, she would be my partner! “What the actual?!” I thought. Lilian was the first teacher since I was in primary school (maybe even ever) who had actually recognised this hobby, didn’t put me in a box, and encouraged me to draw in class! It took me a few seconds to work out that she was serious, and even as I opened the note-taking app that I use for all my artwork, I felt like I was doing something that I wasn’t supposed to!
One of my nerdiest interests is how women dressed in olden times. I don’t tend to share this with many people. Still, perhaps Lilian had figured it out from the picture of me wearing my Dirndl (traditional Bavarian dress) that I had shown her at the start of the year, because after looking through the photos for the perfect thing for me, she chose a picture of a woman from the eighteenth century with some flowers. MY VIBE EXACTLY!! Not wanting to be too slow and for Lilian to change her mind and suddenly sound like my high school teachers, I sketched everything that Lilian described as fast as I possibly could so compared to the careful drawing of her and me standing in dresses of our favourite colours and styles coupled with patterned tights, surrounded by hearts and flowers, which I had spent a week on, this drawing looked very rough and rushed and a stark contrast! Probably, if I had been more confident that I was allowed to draw, I would have taken a little more time, and it wouldn’t have been so sketchy and a bit more detailed. But even the fact that I got the opportunity to do this felt indescribably empowering!
When I was younger, going to events and activities such as Guides, it was always assumed that someone else would help me, which generally left me alone in a lot of rooms! Because of this history, I (and, to be honest, my mum too!) was very surprised by Lilian’s thoughtful actions when it came to lunchtime! The class had finished, and I had started to worry about how I would get downstairs to Mum, who had my lunch. Somehow this must have been written on my face because, without me saying anything, Lilian suddenly said: “Gib mir nur zwei Minuten, liebe Äli, und ich fahre dich zu deiner Mama” (just give me two minutes, darling Eilidh, and I will take you to your mum). Sure enough, a short time later, my stuff was packed up in my bag, and we were on the way down the stairs!
After lunch with mum and Chloe, who felt the need to retell the story of my little tripping session that morning 😀, I went to a workshop Lilian was leading on learning German through music. Being part of a band, the granddaughter of a jazz musician and adoring German, I decided that this was the perfect class for me! Although only two other students were in the class, we had a fascinating time discussing each other’s favourite songs from German-speaking countries, the different ways in which music can help you learn a language and concluding with a few renditions of Nena’s 99 Luftballons, to which, as well as singing, I added a bit of a head and shoulder dance!
The workshop on in the same room after Lilian’s was about Swiss German led by the Swiss tutor who, since I had met her this time last year, I thought was called Bärbel but was actually called Sabrina (you know, because those names are soooooooo similar 🤣). Throughout my 6 years studying German, I have mainly focused on Germany (specifically the east since meeting Sylvia, Kim and Julia) and have read next to nothing on Switzerland so I wasn’t particularly interested in it but Lilian was staying for it and I figured that it was best for us to stay together so that we could go to the next class without any problems! Oh my goodness, what a laugh i would have missed if I were a little less loyal! 🤣
One of the many things that I love about Lilian is how expressive her face is – if she is happy, she grins with both her mouth and eyes, if she finds something cute, her eyes tell you so, and, as I was about to learn, when she finds something funny, she can not hide that either!
The best way I can describe the difference between standard German and Swiss German is this. If standard German were the King’s English, Swiss German would be Pictish (the dialect spoken in the old mining communities in the north-east of England). In other words, there are a lot of different words and speakers of standard German don’t automatically understand it. Lilian is from Vienna, which, in this metaphor, would be Edinburgh (speaks with a bit of an accent but is generally understood everywhere). Sabrina started teaching us some of her words, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lilian sitting at the adjacent table, smiling and giggling to herself! The weird new vocabulary did make me laugh, but Lilan’s reactions significantly added to the comedy! Sometimes I didn’t know exactly who i was laughing at!
After the fun of Swiss German, it was time to go back to the room where we were in before lunch for another session with Lilian and Kim. We warmed up with a kind of category game where we had to name something of a specific category, for example, the hardest German word or the nicest place in the German-speaking world. One of the categories was the funniest person in the German-speaking world, and I had recently seen a reel on Instagram from this guy explaining how the Bavarian word “iridiridi” translates to the full standard German sentence “störe ich dich in deiner Konzentration?” (Am I disturbing you in your concentration?) I found his delivery INCREDIBLE, so I wanted to say he was the funniest person… the only problem was that at the time, I was too busy laughing at the reel to register his name. Unfortunately for my dignity, this meant that I now had to just sit and describe this person to a room full of people, including Kim! Luckily for me, there only seems to be one “dicker bayerischer Typ, der auf bayerischem Dialekt spricht” (fat Bavarian guy, who speaks in Bavarian dialect)! Lilian did tell me his actual name after this little game of charades, but I have since forgotten again!
The last game of the day was a little bit of a role-play activity. A guy was nominated to be an East German man who was considering escaping to the West. The rest of us were split into two groups: my group was West Germany, and the other was the GDR. It was our job to convince the man why it was better to live on our side of the wall. Part of me thought that this was good preparation for law school because arguing your case against the other side in front of someone who is going to make a decision based on your arguments is basically a big part of a lawyer’s job. However, the McGrath in me just wanted to beat the other team! And that we did! After hearing all our arguments, our classmate decided that he favoured democracy and escaped to the West! 🥳
The lovely Kim and I have a bit of a German Day tradition when we find a corner and have a one-on-one conversation. Although I always enjoy this time with this amazing and kind lady, this year’s session felt especially important. In two weeks, I have a speaking exam, which is a whole 35% of my grade, and (yes, even strong linguists like me feel like this sometimes💜) I have been really nervous about it because I haven’t had a live speaking exam in 3 years, this is the first one without any kind of script and via video call. It weighs so much that if I screw up, my mark for the whole module will be affected! Because of this, I felt like, as well as a fun catch-up with someone equally as obsessed with everything German as I am, it was also good preparation for the exam! One of the first things that Kim asked me was what my favourite part of my OU German study was. This was a very difficult question because the last three years have been full of brilliant moments. However, this day two years ago was a very pivotal moment in my OU life. When I arrived at my first German Day in Edinburgh, I was very much a lone wolf- I had no uni friends, my tutor wasn’t able to support my needs and I was about to start studying French… however, a mere 8 hours later I had a best friend, a tutor for the next year and a spare one, and a great mentor! The truth is, without these four women, my OU (and perhaps even external) life would have turned out very different! This is why (although it’s a bit of a cliche) I had to pick this day as the highlight of my time here: if I wasn’t part of this quintet of strong women, all the subsequent brilliant moments would never have happened and I probably would be a totally different person!
This little German Day tradition is sort of cursed. Something ridiculous and funny always happens during this conversation, which causes a lot of hilarity at my expense! In my first year, I reversed into a vending machine, and last year I lost the photo I was supposed to be taking and swore (still speaking German) in front of Kim for the first time. So it shouldn’t have surprised us when Kim asked me a question, and I answered “aua! Mein Stuhl ist im Schuh!” (Ow! My chair is in my shoe!). Not only is this a ridiculous sentence, but it was totally unrelated to Kim’s question, so for a few seconds, Kim just looked at me as if she was trying to work out what mistake I had made. The classic Eilidh and Kim laughter started once she had noticed that I was serious and my Mary Jane was around the pillar of my footplate! “She’s going to be so bored next year,” I thought as Kim worked to divorce foot and chair. Although she and Lilian have given me strict instructions to write from law school and they are going to be, according to Lilian, “für immer im Hintergrund” (forever in the background), never again would Kim and I have a chaotic moment like this, never again would I overhear her sarcastic remarks and struggle to contain my laughter, never again would I sit between her and Lilian and feel like a whole department treasures me!
With my shoe eventually chair-free, it was time to go back to the main room to join the rest of the German team before all of us went back to the lecture hall to be officially congratulated and dismissed. I had noticed that my knuckle was bleeding (still not sure what I punched oe when I punched it😆), so Kim had decided that it was best to take me through to the room first, take care of the wound and then come back and get my iPad. Blood sufficiently “abgetrocken” (dried up), Kim went back to the other room to get my stuff. During this time I looked around the room and saw the adorably resourceful way Lilian was using Sabrina’s water bottle to keep her roses alive, the way the roses actually went with the walls, people laughing about the literalness of the German language and the fact that a bunch of people with a common interest were in a room together despite being at a distance learning university. “Also… Was soll ich jetzt im März tun?” (So….now what am I supposed to do in March?) I thought. Days like these can’t be recreated on your own, and I usually look forward to this day all year. I snapped out of my daydream just in time to be part of a group photo which Lilian was now making her way further and further up the room trying to take as a selfie 🤣.
After all of us were thanked for our hard work in the lecture hall and had posed in the foyer for one last photo with absolutely everyone, I was trying to hunt my way through the sea of linguists for Sylvia. I had not seen her all day, and I wanted to hug her goodbye. Just as we set eyes on each other, I was also found by Lilian and Kim. The usual chat about how amazing I am when the four of us are together started, but suddenly, for the second time today, Lilian caught me off guard! Unlike most of my family, I’m a hugger! Hugging is my love language, and once I hug you, you are special to me. I have been hugging Sylvia since January, but although I have had a lot of love for Kim and Lilian for quite some time, I have been professional and controlling the urge to hug them. Before I knew what was happening, Lilian had my arms around me, my head rested on her abdomen, and the tassels of her yellow scarf were tickling my nose!
Although I was a little surprised, it felt nice. This was probably the last time I would ever see this force of a woman in person. Over the past two years, she has seen the highs, but she has also been there for the lows and comforted me. So if we’d departed without a hug, it wouldn’t have felt right! When Lilian had finished with this hug-ambush, Kim decided that it was now her turn! This time I was ready! As we put our arms around each other, I thought about how weird it was that two people with similar personalities and even looks could find each other through the thing they both love most! As she rushed off to catch her train back to the Highlands, I thought how weird it was going to be not being able to see each other like this ever again. Since January, we had been counting down the days until we would see each other again, and now that was it! I am absolutely going to stay in touch with the pair of them, but I feel like a chapter has ended!
After my two tutors had said goodbye, I put my arms around Sylvia’s legs (she is too tall to hug properly) and just stayed there, ignoring my mum’s reminders about the imminent train, for a while! When I eventually let go, she said in her soothing German accent, “Don’t let this be the final meeting, I’ll come in the summer with Chloe. I’ll bring Alfie!” With this little goodbye speech, a lump formed in my throat, and as I made my way to the train station, my lip started to wobble! I didn’t want it to be the final meeting either! Sylvia started out as a good mentor, and when I was working as a buddy, she was a good boss, but over the last year, she has become a very good friend, and although I was ok with just writing to Kim and Lilian, I knew that I needed to keep the other two close. 💜
In conclusion, German Day this year was essentially 24 hours of friendship, comedy and fun! I would definitely recommend that any OU language student go to these events if they have the chance, because I have thrived thanks to them, and honestly, I’m going to really miss them in the future when I’m studying Law.
Eilidh Elizabeth Molly McGrath 💜
Dedicated to Kim Richmond, Lilian Gergley, Sylvia Warnecke, Julia Wilson and Chloe Nightingale
The Non Verbal Linguist 