I need some Hirsch.

I used to watch the show "Taxi" all the time even though it went off the air three years before I was born. Thanks to the miracle of Nick at Nite, I was a huge fan of '70s comedies as a prepubescent. "Taxi" was one of my favorites, mostly because I loved Judd Hirsch (I was never an Andy Kaufman fan... he was creepy). I remember in the pilot episode Judd Hirsch explains to Marilu Henner that everyone who works for the NY taxi cab company is something else; anything but a cab driver. "Everyone here is a writer or an actor or a musician who just drives Taxis for rent," says Hirsch's Alex Rieger. "I'm the only one who's a Taxi driver."

Oh, Judd Hirsch is so wise. Well, language school teachers are just like the characters in "Taxi." Everyone is teaching because they can't preform their chosen profession in Germany (so far I've met a nurse, an ABD poli sci student, a business analyst, a lit teacher, etc.). So they become English teachers, selling the only commodity they have and spending their days far from home, explaining to German bankers ( die Schlips, German slang for "the ties/suits") that it's "I speak some English," not "I speaks some English." My language school is full of these characters, and almost all of us came to Germany because of a significant other. As my boss said in my interview, "Ok, out with it: Who are you running from or to?"

Classes started this week and so far all I've accomplished is writing ALWAYS= 100 % SOMETIMES = 50% NEVER= 0 % on the board. Let's hope things pick up.