goodbye, mr. grinch???

well, it's been a week--one crazy-ass week!!!--since i've posted, and i guess i've got some catching up to do.

where to begin...
"let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..."

if only it were that simple!! i mean, what's the beginning, right?

"was there some moment dividing song from no song? when does dewfall begin? when does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them? when is daybreak?" denise levertov, from "...that passeth all understanding"

i love poems that end with questions.

but back to beginnings. we'll start with my birthday. better yet, we'll start with my b-day last year: i had to work at the bucks. i had to open, of course, and we had just gotten back from seeing friends and family in the south. drove through a snowstorm in ohio, with 8 million people from alabama and georgia, who had no idea how to drive in snow, and so the whole thing took a lot longer than it needed to... so. tired (hello, had just spent intense time with family!!!), road-weary (thanks to aforementioned southern drivers in midwestern snowstorm), and opening...alone, because the person i was opening with didn't show up!!

the snowstorm had also hit ann arbor, and i think i actually drove to work, in order to win a few more minutes of precious sleep before re-entering the world of corporate christmas commercialism. (after a few days practically stranded in the mountains in tennessee with nothing but family and a ping-pong table, this was quite the transition!!) but at least i could sit in my car, while trying to figure out who i was supposed to be opening with... yeah. happy birthday.

anyway. my point is--it pretty much sucked. which is not unusual. my birthday, christmas, and december in general, usually suck. so needless to say, i wasn't particularly looking forward to my birthday this year... but i think i may have actually just had the best birthday of my life. i was sort of half hoping it would slip by without anyone noticing, because sometimes it's just easier that way. but i'd seen it noted on a few calendars here and there and knew better. plus, i'm not gonna lie, there was the other half of me that was hoping someone would remember =)

i'll spare you the details--mostly because towards the end of the night, they'd get a little fuzzy anyway. but it was good ;)


but before all of that, i picked up my brother at the airport. which was weird. first of all, i haven't seen that many americans at once in months. and everyone was speaking english. like, american english. *grin* and i felt out of place. weird, huh? the other really weird thing was seeing people in military uniforms. i mean, i know there's a huge american military presence here and all, but it was still strange to see it. then to exercise our american-ness to the fullest, we went immediately to heidelberg and fit right in with the rest of the tourists. hilarious.

it was weird to see my brother react to all the things i now take for granted here in germany. cobblestone streets. having to pay to use the bathroom. unbleached toilet paper. what my friend melissa affectionately refers to as "poo platforms" in the toilets. that beer is practically cheaper than water. seating yourself in restaurants. the "service" in restaurants =) how everyone smokes. the metric system. the absence of sheets and blankets. i could keep going.

yeah. moving on. christmas. cool. really. like i said, christmas hasn't been one of my favorite holidays for a while now, and i usually feel guilty about it. i mean, everyone likes christmas, you know? everyone except scrooge and the grinch. and me. and it's not even really that i dislike christmas in and of itself. it's just that...well, yeah, i don't know...someone's always sad or disappointed or arguing about something stupid. myself included, on occasion. and it was just good to be a bit removed from that this year. being around people who actually like each other makes a difference, evidently. besides, it was just fun to see what people do. a couple of people here had asked me before if it was true that christmas in germany is more "serious" than christmas in the states. and i was like, umm, what do you mean?? but now i get it. and it's not just the absence of jolly old saint nick. i don't know. it was just different.

welcome to germany!

1 bus, 2 trains, a plane ride, 2 more trains, 1 taxi, yet another train, an hour and a half wait at the train station, and a car ride later...my brother's here!!!

lab rat (this explains a lot)

so i know IQ tests are archaic and hardly an index of actual intelligence, but for one reason or another, i've probably taken more than my fair share of them. so here's a rare glimpse into my bizarre childhood... (keep in mind, i'm telling this as i remember it, so how closely it resembles reality, i really couldn't tell you.)

when i was in second grade, there was this woman at my school, who was trying to start a program for kids with learning disabilities, and i think she was working on her master's at the time and had to do this as a project, i'm not really sure. but anyway, she had to administer all these tests, and i got to be one of her guinea pigs. (i think my mother had something to do with that. hmmmm.) so i had to go--during recess no less, can you imagine?!?!--and sit through all these questions.
ok, so really it wasn't that bad. i don't remember how long it all lasted; it was over the course of a few weeks, i think--but it definitely wasn't just a one-time thing.

there are only two things i really vividly remember: i remember a series of "glove is to hand as hat is to ____" questions, which confused the hell out of me. (hey, i never said i was a smart kid!!) and i remember doing lots of logic sequences--you know, where you get a series of numbers or images, and you have to find the pattern and figure out the missing number or appropriate image: 64, x, 4, 1, 1/4, 1/16, what's the missing number?

all this to say, i was trained from a very young age to find patterns and fill in the blanks. and i'm relatively good at it. damn good, actually. not that i'm bragging... =) and not that it's even all that useful!! actually, it probably does more harm than good, because i no longer know how to think like a "normal" person, and i tend to leave all kinds of gaps when i talk to people, because i've already derived some abstract pattern and filled in all the blanks for myself and don't realize that i'm not making sense to the people who DIDN'T miss out on their playground time in second grade!!

word of the day

"jetgelaggt"

need i say more?!?!

¡Viva español!

things i will never understand about germany:

wurst
women over 40 with purple hair
why germans are constantly trying to tell me who i am and what i know (or don't know!)...

seriously. this happens about once a day. i'm trying to think of an example... ok, so there's a group of students and a couple of teachers from spain visiting our school this week, which means there's a lot of spanish being spoken, right? and what was one of the most frequently asked get-to-know-you questions when i first arrived here? what other languages i speak/why i decided to learn german. now these are perfectly legitimate questions. with perfectly legitimate answers. which the germans evidently decided to completely ignore (or reinterpret). because here's what i said: "well, i learned a little spanish in school, but i never really spoke it, and then i forgot it all, so i decided to try german instead." and here's what the germans heard: "i speak fluent spanish." yeeeeeeah.

see, my history with the spanish language goes a little like this: first year of spanish, learned nothing. (our final exam at the end of the year consisted of listing the days of the week, the months, matching up some pronouns, and conjugating an -ar, -er, and -ir verb. for real.) the next couple of years--with a new spanish teacher, surprise, surprise--were spent more or less trying to recover/undue the damage done in the first year. by the time it was over, we had all given up and resorted to using babblefish.com to do our homework. (although, for no apparent reason, i can still recite the pledge of allegiance en español. juro fidelidad a la bandera de los estados unidos y a la república, que simbolisa, una nación, bajo dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos. because THAT's useful...)

wie sagt man "kickass" auf deutsch?!?!

"art is why i get up in the morning, but my definition ends there."
-ani difranco

tonight was the school's christmas concert. i didn't really know what to expect. i mean, i don't really know (or like) much german christmas music. and school concerts? well, they're either really good or really not. plus, i'm getting sick, so i was a little out of it--i actually fell asleep sometime in the afternoon and woke up to the doorbell ringing at 6:30--my ride to the concert. oops...

but i was impressed, to say the least. and if nothing else, it was just hilarious to sit there and look at these kids, who'll hardly look you in the eye in english class, rocking out with their saxophones and trumpets. or singing with a stage presence i would never have expected from someone who slouches at the back of the room and mutters something utterly unintelligible if you can even get a word out of them. and you could tell they were having fun, which just made it more fun to watch. one kid pulled off this kickass trombone solo during one of the jazzier numbers, and i wish i could describe the look on the kid's face afterwards. it was great.

so yeah. i agree with ani. art is definitely why i get up in the morning. and i can't really define it either, but i know it when i see it...

"beauty crying out for more beauty."

road trip, anyone?

the ones in white are still on the hit list. but not bad, eh?

create your own visited states map

i'm baaaaaaaack!!

oh. my. gosh. i finally got internet in my room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seriously. that's how excited i am!! i don't even know where to start. all this information at my fingertips! it's amazing!! i can read the new york times. i can download music. i might even check my credit card statement, depressing as it is, 20 times a day. JUST BECAUSE I CAN!!!! this is wonderful!! it's amazing! it's like i have some semblance of a link to life outside of hohenlohe again! 3 meters of glorious cable may have just saved my life.

of course, now that i'm using an american keyboard again, i keep trying to type as if i were using a german keyboard, and it's getting confusing... but not that i'm complaining!!!!! small price to pay for a new lease on life. i feel like a whole new person!! like i'm connected to the rest of the world again!! like...like...i don't even know, but it's good!!! it's very very good!

i love technology!! ("but not as much as you, you see, but i still love technology... always and forever. always and forever." yeah.)

ok, i'll stop now.

if you can read this...

Liebe Leute!! Ihr durft stolz auf mich sein--ich bin heute mit dem Fahrrad in die Schule gefahren, obwohl die Temperatur 1°C ist!! Obwohl...ehrlich gesagt wäre ich lieber um 5 Uhr morgens bei 0°F zu Fuß nach Main and Liberty gelaufen! (nicht, dass ich nach Hause will oder so was...oder vielleicht doch??)

Yeah. If you can read that, check out the link to your right--hilflos in Hohenlohe--and start practicing your German! =)

(WARNING: Read at your own risk!! the german is far from fehlerfrei, but for what it's worth...)

lots and lots of weirdness

umm, ok. weird thing. the woman i live with just came in and made some comment about how it's good that i'm here, because she was starting to worry about me, and that if i'm planning to go away for a few days or something, i should let her know, so she knows not to worry...

this is weird for a number of reasons. reason numero uno being: i didn't go anywhere!!! i was gone during the afternoon on saturday, and morning til midafternoon on sunday. but really, i've been here more or less the whole time!! i'm so confused...

and i've been having weird dreams. last night, i dreamed that i was in some sort of cabin/cafe (it was supposed to be a cafe, but it was more like the main cabin, where you eat and hang out and stuff, when you go to winter adventure camp or something...i don't know), and i picked up a mug and filled it with coffee out of some sort of thermos and added some milk (which is weird, because i'm going through a black coffee phase), and the milk was spoiled. but instead of saying anything to the people in the cabin/cafe, i just took my coffee with the chunky milk and went outside and threw the coffee in the bushes. but somehow it splashed all over my leg, and i was upset, because it was cold out, and it didn't want to have a wet pant leg. then i realized i was wearing these my "ass pants" (in russian accent, "what is this word, 'ass pants'?" =)) these black pants that i used to wear to work all the time--i have no idea what they're made of, but they always seem to repel whatever liquid is spilled on them, and working at starbucks and greek's, that was quite useful! so i shake the coffee off of my pant leg, noting to my satisfaction, that it's practically dry again already, and start walking. i was on my way to this drama club/thrift store place. it's in the upstairs of an old house. the store is run by people from a theatre group, who work there voluntarily, selling stuff--random stuff, secondhand clothing, bracelets and necklaces made by the theatre people, whatever. you have to climb up this weird staircase outside the house to get to the store, and as i was working my way through the crowd--i have no idea why so many people were there--i ran into these 3 drag queens. one of them was named helen. what does that have to do with anything?? i don't know either. finally, i get upstairs and start looking around. there doesn't seem to be anyone working, so i figured they ran downstairs to grab something or went outside to smoke or something. the lights were on and everything was normal--it wasn't like they were closed or something. then i hear all these voices and footsteps on the stairs--they're coming up from both the back and front staircases, and i can tell from their voices, that they're a tourist group from a language school. great. they come into the room, and the tour leader lady explains a bit about the store and how it's run by the theatre people, and how they make a lot of their own stuff, etc. then she asks if any of them have any questions for me. (she seemed to think i was working there. i went along with it.) a young man raised his hand and asked what i thought was the best thing about germany. i have no idea what i told him, but i remember being confused, because they didn't seem to realize that i wasn't german.

then i woke up. very confused.

this is not nostalgia...

how the hell is it december?!!? where does the time go??? time is different here somehow. ("time was different in china"...) but seriously, sometimes i feel like entire days here seem to drag on for years, but then all of sudden, an entire month has gone by. bizarre.

but even more strange is that an entire YEAR has gone by... last year around this time, alicia and linford and i went out and picked out the biggest christmas tree we could strap onto the top of my car (may she rest in peace) and put it up in front of the huge window in the front of the house. his house. with the freaking cross in the front yard! our crazy house, where every other week someone new was moving in or out! where we had to keep our illegal cat stowed away upstairs, and our juan hidden in the basement!

nick and george still owned greek's. jesus was our busboy. and there was daily drama with elisa. (remember elisa!?!?!?) and i was just starting to work the dayshift with the cool kids =)

heather was still at the bucks, and i was opening with pearson, who's no longer pearson, on a daily basis--and learning how to be a real shift! we were up to our ears in eggnog, gingerbread, and cranberry bliss bars, and had to fight the urge to slit our wrists everytime a certain christmas song came on--i like a sleigh ride, i like a sleigh ride (errr, thanks, shannon)... and of course, what could be more merry than cranky christmas shoppers, who haven't had their coffee yet? "can i have a venti non-fat extra hot no foam eggnog latte? that IS non-fat, right??" ...sure it is. *grin*...

yeah. and now i'm in germany, where i work 12 hours a week instead of 12 hours a day!! where glühwein is the seasonal beverage of choice, and it's almost sacriligious to put up your christmas tree before the 24th--unless you're some kind of corporation, in which case you put one on top of your business building, so that when people drive by at night, it looks like there are random christmas trees floating in midair. (not creepy at all!!) lebkuchen, stollen, and plätzchen abound, and on a good day, i might only be reprimanded once for my (apparent) inability to correctly pronounce the word "plätzchen"... i infinitely prefer glühwein to eggnog, though, so that's at least a step in the right direction. (score one for the germans!!)

me and alexander

so i got up early this morning--ok, not that early, but early considering it's my day off--to make cookies--after being informed yesterday, that i cannot correctly pronounce the german word for such things (grrrr)--and then they all turned out like shit. (except for the last seven, which at least look edible...) the rest are completely flat and hard as rocks. they'd make good frisbees, if i had anyone to play frisbee with here. (poor me, i know.) i'm thinking of chucking them over the fence for the neighbor's goats. god knows, i won't eat them!

and now, Quiz Time!
for the literate and young at heart: who can tell me what kind of day i'm having? there will be a prize--and it won't be the cookies!!

addendum to the U2 post

so we're all sitting there, revelling in the glory of U2, and someone, shaking their head in what i can only describe as appreciative disbelief, says, "christians. every now and then, they manage to pull off something really cool."

hilarious.

that is all.

amazing

i went out with a couple people tonight, who, unil a few months ago, i didn't even know existed and who are still, more or less, strangers, and afterwards, one of them put on the U2 record, Rattle and Hum--yes, the actual record! "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" complete with gospel choir back-up. and we just sat there. listening.

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for...


some things transcend all cultural barriers...

happy december!

happy december and welcome to adulthood. i don't care what the scientists say about the summer sun causing premature aging--we grow old weathering the long winters. (there's some alliteration for you, nelsen!)

and i am, evidently, officially an adult. it throws me every time i'm addressed with "Sie" here. i mean, ok, in stores or something, sure. but when students say it, it totally freaks me out. and it's just recently started happening. (does this mean i'm getting old!?!?!?) with the older students, i feel like i'm not really that much older than them, plus i'm an american, which automatically makes me a freak (and therefore strangely accessible?!?), so we're totally on a first-name basis--assuming i can remember their names, that is! but the 8th graders, for example, who aren't quite old enough to distinguish between freak(ishly accessible) and just plain grown-up, they've busted out the "Sie"... aggghhh!!! what's a girl to do??

and then today--this was great--i had to wait for a friend at the bus stop, and these three girls, who were probably about 10 or 11, were sitting there waiting for the bus. one of the girls tells her friend to ask "the woman" (that's me, ha ha!!!!) what time it is. so she asks me. i tell her. she tells her friend. (typical!) i walk over to look at the schedule to find out how late the buses run, and the first girl asks me where i'm going. i'm not actually going anywhere, i'm just waiting here for someone who's coming on the next bus, i explained. so you're basically waiting for the bus, she says. well, yes. are you german or a foreigner, she asks. (i laugh. grrrr. ist mein akzent wirklich SO etwas von scheiß?!?!) foreigner. where are you from? the US. really!?! you're from the US??? do you know britney spears?? errr, well, not personally, no. oh, that's too bad. have you been to las vegas? that's where britney spears lives. you've never seen her in real life? umm, no. i would love to meet her and live for a week in her house. yeah, that would be interesting. then one of the other girls interrupts, wanting to know if i've ever seen any supermodels and why i came to germany. i tell them i teach english, and they're shocked and amazed. (liebe kinder!) say something in english!! say something in english, we might understand you! (riiiiiight.) then they tell me that they're foreigners, too, and speak russian. (at this point, one of them asks me, in russian, what my name is and if i can speak russian, too. i had to answer her in german, because i remember all of 5 words from my half-assed attempt at a semester of russian... though now that i'm thinking about it, i'm impressed that i even understood her. but then about half an hour later, of course, oh yeah, Меня завут… Я плохо говорю ло-русски =)) then the britney spears fan starts asking for translations of all her favorite song lyrics. i obliged her, of course... then when my friend showed up and we had to leave, the girls stood on the corner and shouted "i miss you!! bye!!" (in english!!) after us until we had crossed the bridge and wandered out of sight. hilarious. (this was, p.s. THE highlight of my day. and probably one of the better conversations i've had all week. i don't even want to know what that says about my social life...)

**note for the ann arbor OTR fans: i wish i could be there...
"all i ever get for christmas...is blu-u-u-u-e" =)