I greatly enjoyed all of the articles for this reading. I come from a very German family, so I was able to relate to many of the German quirks, especially the whining and directness. I don't think my family complains to the extend that the article seemed to imply, but there definitively is a lot of it in my extended family. I think it comes from the fact that Germans are never satisfied. However, the directness is something I greatly admire. I don't think of myself as a very direct individual, but other people in my family, especially my grandparents, can be very direct. It is a trait that I think is taken for granted by many people, even if it can lead to some awkward interactions. I don't think my family is obsessed with statistics, but we seem very interested in them. I always love get togethers with my mother's side of the family, because all of them work on a dairy farm. It's great to hear them talk about how many more cows they have and how many gallons of milk they got this year, and it's impressive they know all the numbers of the top of their heads. The only thing I don't notice with my family is the staring problem, maybe because all of my relatives have been in America since before WWI that trait was never passed down to us. For the most part, these articles seem to fairly represent some of the characteristics of German individuals.