Quirky Student Gifts


Today was the last day with one of my groups at Dürr Systems in Bietigheim. Because of the wedding, the next level of this course will be given to a different teacher, so my group got together and made up a farewell gift for me: a bottle of champagne (to wish congratulations for our wedding), two free meal coupons in the company cafeteria (to continue enjoying the culinary delights of handmade maultaschen and shish kabobs), and the shell of a Samsung tablet with a photo of their faces plastered on the display (so I can remember them... and as a hint to replace my old phone with a Smartphone in the near future). The only female student in my class had asked her 8-year-old daughter for help with the wrapping, so the gifts came packed in princess paper peppered with flower bouquet stickers. They were thoughtful enough to paste in the faces of the two group members who weren't present the day of the photo shoot. The flags of St. Louis, Missouri and the region of Württemberg are also brandished on the display, a symbol of the cultural understanding we attempted to foster during the class.
For a group of engineers, salesmen, Harley-riders and technicians, it was an incredibly sweet present.

That's the funny thing about German students - they wrinkle their brows at you for six months and appear not to take your enthusiasm seriously, then... surprise, surprise! they liked you all along and are sad to see you go. These emotions, however, may only be expressed in the form of elaborate, creative gifts. It would be too embarrassing to actually say that they "loved" the class. (Such emotionally-charged and exaggerated statements are made by Americans, not Germans!) However, they did shake my hand, thank me for the lessons, and wish me all the best for my upcoming marriage and trip to the U.S.A. 
Soon I'll have to find something to do with gifts from my students. I've got a stuffed elephant from the dental equipment company, and now I've got a non-functional tablet acting as a picture frame. Some sort of display is in order.

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