Fast food, re(de)fined

This is an automatic french fry machine. These are in train and subway stations all over the city - not sure how much it costs or if it's any good, but I'm certainly not going to find out any time soon. Does that make me close-minded?
I've heard a lot of criticism of American-style fast food here, but it seems to me that Germans have done more to refine and develop fast-food culture than Americans. In addition to the automatic french fry machines, there are automatic sausage machines, coffee machines, sandwich machines, and the more standard (to me) candy and soda machines. At least American fast food has real people to serve it to you!
Other than the automatic food madness, things here are pretty great. I'm meeting some really interesting people who live in my building, I'm getting along with my roommates, and teaching is (mostly) agreeing with me.
Today, I got to lead a discussion in a 10th grade class about the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It could have been really stupid, but it was awesome - the kids had a lot to say and actually worked really hard to express their opinions in English. Especially after some of the other classes I've had, I was really excited to see them want to participate - I hardly had to do any talking to keep the ball rolling! I was also really excited to see them give the subject some thought - the discussion went about twice as long as planned because we were trying to hash out some kind of definition of terrorism.
I was also really excited to spend some time with some bi- and trilingual students. I think my research might coalesce around the fact that many teachers here are often unaware or just not interested that a student speaks anything but German...
Of course, many of the teachers here are to busy being bitter to take much notice of the students. I don't know if it's a profession that particularly attracts egomaniacs or if this is just something that happens after a certain period of time, but most of my colleagues have no perspective. We had a conference last week during which the teachers spent 3 hours complaining about how little respect they get, how difficult everything is, the fact that they don't each have their own desk and office area at the school, and everything else under the sun. These are actual problems, but it seemed pretty self-indulgent, especially when the most popular solution for solving it was to follow in the steps of the Rütli School (which is in the same district of Berlin where I teach) and send a letter to the government demanding immediate changes. Maybe I'd feel that way if I'd been at this school for thirty years....
Someone should save this in case I'm that embittered and self-centered in thirty years. Although the fact that I assume anyone wants to read a post this long probably indicates a tendency to egotism, huh?