be

oh, for the love of mondays

2007-04-23T22:56:00.000+02:00

i'm sitting outside, probably getting a sunburn--me and my pale midwestern self--and i don't even care, because it is GORGEOUS outside!! why do i live in michigan, when i could live in california?? =)

fortified with coffee, pop-tarts and leftover pizza, i'm sitting out on my friends' patio pondering my future--and procrastinating. i'm supposed to be filling out assorted applications and writing various treatises extolling my virtues and superior skillset. what rubbish! =) geoff, the g-nome (yes, g-nome) is standing on the table next to me, mid-stride, tirelessly smoking his plastic pipe as he stationarily pushes his no longer existing wheelbarrow across the tempered glass. i keep an eye out for jerry, the mouse we spotted running across the patio yesterday, but he seems to have moved on to bigger and better things. unlike yours truly, who is still sitting in the sun, turning pinker by the minute.

i was just chatting with a friend whose roommate works for the british consulate and just wrote something that will probably be read by the queen. good god!!! the queen?!?!

goin' back to cali cali

2007-04-19T22:34:00.000+02:00

i'm in california!!!! yay!!! my flight here was funny. first, i had a layover in dallas, and i always forget how weird texas is. everyone says hi to you and tries to make eye contact, and i'm just like, "dude, let me bury my nose in my book and ignore you for the next 3 hours, thanks; we don't have to be friends." i know. i'm anti-social, but really?? and ALL of the women have pedicures. ALL OF THEM. isn't that a bit much!??! =) then on my flight from dallas, i was sitting by the window, and there was a guy on the aisle and an empty seat between us. we ignored each other for the first couple hours, each reading and then listening to our various electronic devices. then, out of nowhere, he turns and asks me if i want to trade songs. so we spent the last 45 minutes of the flight playing music for each other. it was kind of fun =) definitely better than smalltalk! makes me want to make a mixed tape... errr, mixed cd, i guess that'd be called nowadays.

oh, and i made it onto the plane with a lighter. i didn't even do it on purpose. i'd taken a lighter out of my purse before i left, and i left my keys at home, because i'd had my swiss army knife confiscated the last time i flew, but after i got on the plane in dallas, i was looking for my chapstick in one of the pockets of my backpack, and i pull out a lighter instead. oops!! ha ha.

currently listening to new order's age of consent. we play this mix called senses working overtime at work sometimes when we need to "kick it up a notch," and i can't hear this song without wanting to jump up and down and bang my head like a teenager at an 80's prom. grin.

oh, funny waitressing stories. so last week, i had this large table, and i knew a couple of them spoke german, but i was busy and wasn't really paying attention or whatever, so i come back to refill their waters at some point, and the little 3-year old boy, who had been playing on the floor with his toy train the entire time, starts talking to me in german--"aber ich habe doch nichts getrunken." i'm like, dude, i know, but it's my job, and p.s., this isn't even your water... no, all i really said was, "das weiss ich," and kept going. i mean, i had shit to do. i'd had to bend down to the kid's level to hear him, so i didn't think anyone had even heard me say anything back. but the next time i'm at the table, this guy who was sitting on the other side of the table asks me if i speak german, etc. it was funny. and the kid kept trying to talk to me, which was funny. the mom thought it was cute, and said he was just excited to find someone who understood him, which i guess makes sense. if you're 3, you probably don't really get that everyone else is speaking english, and you're not, or maybe you're just used to being misunderstood anyway, because you're a kid. i don't know. but they'd kind of been a difficult table up until that point, because this old guy was being an ass, and big tables are generally just more work, etc., but the cute little german kid made it all better =)

then i had a german table yesterday. not so cute. another large table. again with small children, four of them. the one woman was ridiculous. (the other two were fine.) she just kept making comments the whole time in german, having, of course, no idea that i could understand her. she wasn't being mean about me personally or anything, but she just kept bitching about americans and american restaurants and ice water and portion sizes, and how we do things differently--different, of course, being wrong!! for example, she had just said to her friend (who had ordered the same thing) that it was too much food, didn't she think? and her friend is like, actually, i was able to finish it. so the rude lady had pushed her plate to the side, and was eating her salad--which, hello, i think is weird, the whole eating salad AFTER dinner thing =)--so i asked if she was finished or wanted a box or anything, and as soon as i turned around, she went off about they would never ask you something like that in germany. you're not in f-ing germany, lady, so deal!! arrggggh. it was just annoying.

a word of advice, folks, don't talk shit in front of your waitress just because you think she can't understand you!!!!!

2007-04-01T02:43:00.001+02:00

the upstairs girls left a note of apology AND cleaned off my car. i'm all better =)

grrrrr

2007-03-30T18:46:00.000+02:00

i went to see "The Lives of Others" last night. i mean, i was expecting it to be serious, but i wasn't expecting it to be as heavy as it was. damn. (still processing. as usual.)

then i got home, and our stupid upstairs neighbors--who weren't stupid until they started having loud obnoxious people over multiple times weekly--were having tons of people over for sangria. and instead of having this party in their apartment, they've got people using the fire escape stairs--which happen to be RIGHT OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW!!!!!!! so there are people constantly running up and down the stairs, yelling to each other, generally being loud and drunk. grrrrrrr. and more grrrrrrrr.

as if that wasn't obnoxious enough, when i went outside this morning to drive to north campus, i find my car crusted over with wine and dried fruit!!!!!! grrrrrrrrrr again. those bastards. i mean, the loudness and excessiveness of their gatherings was already bordering on moderately discourteous, but this was just ridiculously rude.

(i'm a little pissed, in case you couldn't tell.)
grrrrr.

2007-03-27T20:28:00.000+02:00

apparently people are still reading this. impressive, guys =)

i'm sitting on my front porch with my cup of coffee watching it begin to rain. just a baby spring rain. oooh, the sun's coming out again! =)

i'm going rock climbing in a little bit. i've almost recovered from climbing last friday. almost. there's a bigger group of us going this time, so it should be fun. all the cool kids i work with are leaving soon =(

my brother's leaving for the netherlands tomorrow. i'm so jealous!!! i want to go somewhere cool! he's all cute and nervous and excited, and i'm all nervous and excited for him. i told him i'd come visit *grin*

beware the ides of march

2007-03-16T23:29:00.000+01:00

i haven't posted since christmas?? really?? are you sure?

well here's why... because my life is ridiculous. i realize that's hard for people to imagine--i mean, after all, i work at freaking starbucks. but you have no idea. really. you just don't. that, and i have another job (and a half!!) and whenever i actually have a day off, something ridiculous happens. someone gets sick. someone dies. someone has a nervous breakdown. so who ends up working?? me, apparently. i like working. i really do. but sometimes, i want to sleep, too. or do laundry. or clean my kitchen. or have the time to cook something. like, actually COOK something. and maybe even have time to eat it, too!! *grin*

so other than working way too much, here's what my life looks like...

still volunteering at the afterschool english workshop for international kids, which is just fun. the kids are brilliant and adorable and amazing. they make me laugh a lot, which i love. they also remind me of the trillions of reason i should NEVER HAVE CHILDREN!! =)

the car drama continues. in addition to killing my car for what i think is now the fourth time since i've been home, i also managed to kill my friend/co-worker's truck. she was going out of town for the week, and knowing how difficult it has been for me to get stuff done around town with no car and the kind of schedule i tend to have, she very generously offered me the use of her truck while she was gone. she didn't really want it to sit around for a week in the cold, and why not help a friend out at the same time, right? i was so excited about having a car for a few days, i was already planning all the places i was going to go over the weekend. well... yeah, so i drove it to north campus for the afterschool workshop, then stopped by the store to pick up some groceries on the way home. i was at home for half an hour or so before i was going to go pick alicia up from work--and show off my mad truck-driving skills=) you see where this is going, right? i get out there and, of course, the truck doesn't start!!!! grrrrr...

i think this is God's way of telling me i'm meant to be a pedestrian.

holly jolly christmas

2006-12-30T08:00:00.000+01:00

woohoo!! my second time blogging this month! it's sad that that's progress, isn't it? =)

let's see... there was a crazy-ass christmas party at my house on the 16th, followed by an even crazier roadtrip to a concert on the 17th, last-minute christmas shopping, verbal warfare with the UPS people (more on that later), my birthday, and the blur that was christmas day, followed by the insanity that is picking up a shift at the starbucks in the mall on the day after christmas. (who thought that was a good idea?!?!?) but somehow, i think i survived it all. and i'll probably do it all again next year, really.

since last year was the first time in ages that i'd actually enjoyed christmas, i'd set for myself the ambitious goal of at least not HATING christmas this year. which, i mostly accomplished. there were a few rough moments, but overall, it was ok. i could have done without the non-stop christmas music at the bucks. talk about annoying. i'd have a day off and still wake up with those stupid songs in my head!!! it was so irritating! AND there's this creepy, screechy, weird winston marsalis version of carol of the bells that sounds like something out of a bad horror movie--this girl one of my co-workers knows evidently plans to write one, inspired by that song, about snowmen stabbing people with candy canes. but if nothing else, it gave us all something to comiserate about. and there were at least the redeeming moments when the charlie brown soundtrack was playing =)

this christmas was definitely different from last year--no snowy evenings spent wandering about the weihnachtsmaerkte, no christmas trees lit with real candles. but there was some gluehwein at my party--which was a big hit, if i may say so myself =) and i had my very first christmas stocking this year, which was particularly exciting, because there's a (semi-)functioning fireplace in our apartment!! the cats enjoyed the christmas tree (although my allergies did not!)--they sat in chairs on either side of it and just stared for hours on end, OR chased each other around underneath it, amazingly, breaking only one ornament this year! and there has been much drinking of tea and hot chocolate in front of the fireplace--except when it gets too smoky, and i get yelled at =) i even had to light a fire for warmth a week or so ago, when we discovered that our upstairs neighbors had all left for the holidays and turned down their thermostat, which, apparently, controls the heat for the whole house!!! it was 58 degrees in the apartment when i got home in the afternoon, and it definitely wasn't going to get any warmer when the sun went down. brrr!!! fortunately, our landlords came over and turned the upstairs girls' heat back up, so we didn't freeze to death--or die of smoke inhalation, due to our tempermental chimney. but yeah...

there are probably 8 million more equally unimportant things i could write about, but i think i'd rather sleep for a bit. but i will post my rant about UPS soon. really. probably not while it's still december. after all, 3 posts in one month might be a bit much =) but soon...

time flies

2006-12-08T03:35:00.000+01:00

so it looks like i've been managing to blog about once a month lately. pathetic.

most of november was a blur of working, dogsitting, working some more, going to chicago to hang out with a bunch of crazy californians!!!! more working, working, working, dogsitting, thanksgiving, dogsitting, working, and going to portland--woohoo!!!

chicago was amazing as usual. seeing erin and steph and megan was fabulous. being in chicago was fabulous. driving a car (rental, of course!) that actually starts and runs and doesn't make scary noises was a beautiful thing. seeing erin's baby sister--who was in 6th grade when i met her!!--in her dorm room at college was insane. OMG, I'M OLD!!

then there was thanksgiving, which was pretty much lost in a blur of dog leashes and lattes. a few of us volunteered to work the whole day of thanksgiving--time and half, kids, and really, it's not like i eat turkey anyways =) so that was crazy and kind of fun--there were moments at least. the dogsitting was a little out of control, but kind of fun, too. i think it was just too many dogs and too much working all at once. smaller doses--or smaller dogs!!--might have been helpful =)

and last but not least...portland. ahhh!!! it was amazing. it was beautiful. it was five days of not working at all!!! it was hanging out with gretchen. it was getting enough sleep. and being outdoors. and freezing. and that being ok! meeting new people. and seeing some "old" germans!! =) *grin* and seeing a bit of america through their eyes. drinking coffee and tea and beer from portland and eating "frenchy" toast. did i mention not working!?!? it was having my flight cancelled and having to stay another day--and not being able to make it back in time to work!! ha ha!! i couldn't have planned it better myself!!! it was the gods smiling down on me and saying, "you need this"--and me realizing that they had a point. it was conversations about things that matter and things that are hard. and thinking about things that are harder. and moments of knowing it's going to be ok. that some things are bigger than all this. most importantly, it was coming back and being ok.

(despite spending my entire day in airports and airplanes and being "randomly selected" to undergo extra scrutiny at the security checkpoint.)

it was going back to work the next morning and still being ok. freezing my ass off, because it was 60 degrees when i left and 19 degrees when i got back!! but there was snow, and it was pretty, and it was ok.

and now it's december, and i'll try to post at least once more this month =)

2006-11-09T22:35:00.000+01:00

it's absolutely gorgeous outside. 65 and sunny!!! in the middle of november!!! (that's... umm, maybe around 20 celsius, for all you germans who can't convert! =) ) so i'm sitting outside on my porch swing with my cat and trying to think of all the millions of things i should write, seeing as i've been MIA since... oh, october 12, when it was SNOWING!!!! crazy.

let's see... i've been working 8 million jobs and loving it. most of the time. it feels good to be busy again. well, maybe not GOOD, but back to normal, which is comforting, if nothing less!! i'm at starbucks full-time and rendez-vous part-time. it's a good mix. at one point, i'd wanted to write a sort of cast of characters list describing my co-workers at the bucks, because it's just comical, but it seems the roster is ever-changing, and it's probably better not to post such things online anyway, but you know... they're cool kids, and we have a good time. even when we're not having a good time. which is pretty impressive =) seriously. and i've gotten a couple of them saying, "seriously!?!?" whenever something ridiculous happens. which is, of course, about every 3 minutes =) did 13 pre-teens really just walk in and order 38 frappuccinos?? seriously?? =) it's fun. rendez-vous is a little slower paced, but it's a whole different crowd, and that's a good thing. drip coffee. fair trade. in a traveler mug. heck yes!!!

october was a blur. it snowed. that's really about all i remember. and there was halloween. which meant halloween parties. and it's probably the first time in a while that i've been to a costume party of any sort. when i get a few of the photos back, i'll post them, because they're funny...

and now it's november somehow. not sure how/when that happened, but it did. and that meant voting, of course. i'd write some sort of political treatise, but i'm too lazy. and all i really have to say is, it's about time =)

what was really weird though, was walking across the diag on monday on my way to work. there was this huge assembly of the michigan zionists with their blue and white balloons, "got islam?" scrawled in chalk on the sidewalk, "november 7" stenciled every 6 feet in blue and yellow, reminding us all to vote, and in case that wasn't enough, the guy handing out pens printed with "Vote November 7th"... then later when i was coming back home, the zionists were replaced by a diag preacher and "voting is sexy" signs. add that to the "what is false religion?" pamphlet shoved under my door by the jehovah's witnesses, and this is one crazy town!! i love it.

so that's the last month in 500 words or less.

peace, y'all.

why i love the midwest

2006-10-12T22:53:00.000+02:00

OMG. It's freaking SNOWING!!!!! Like, seriously snowing!! How is this possible?? It's OCTOBER!!!! I mean, sure, I remember it snowing in Illinois on Halloween once when I was 10 or something, but a) that was a long time ago, and b) this is not the 31st of October but the 12th!!!! This is a bit extreme, right??

But it's pretty... cold, but pretty =)

stand up, stand up for your rights

2006-08-22T07:05:00.000+02:00

for as little as i do these days, my life seems (to me) awfully turbulent. i mean, really, what do i do?? i make coffee, sleep, and be social. little else is required of me. that shouldn't be stressful. in fact, when the whole return to starbucks was originally arranged, i was moderately annoyed that i would have to come back as a barista instead of as a shift supervisor (basically just because it's less $$), because they didn't have a shift position open at the time, but lately, that's been the greatest thing. i don't HAVE to care about things. i do, of course, because that's just me, but i don't HAVE to. it's not my JOB. that's not what they pay me for.

at least it wasn't until the other night, when the closing shift decided he'd had enough and walked out mid-shift. (he was, however, responsible enough to make sure another shift came in early and would be able to close with us. and really, while i can't exactly say i _support_ walking out like that, i don't blame him at all...) needless to say, they bumped me back up to a shift supervisor in a hurry. (everybody sing: "what a difference a day makes...") i got my keys today, and it was weird. they felt so familiar in my hand as i was walking home. but i'm not ready for this!!! ("I don't wanna grow up, i'm a toys 'r' us kid...")

in other very exciting news, i got my car back!!!! (pictures forthcoming.) my theory on why it decided to break down in indiana is that it didn't like its new name: white trash. because's it's white and trash. but the trip back was uneventful this time. except that the speedometer goes a little nuts once you hit about 65 mph. it just jerks violently back and forth between 60 and 100, so you have no idea how fast you're actually going. but you know, other than that... =)

hmmm

2006-08-15T09:06:00.000+02:00

so it's 3 am, and i can't sleep. which seems to be a trend this week. grrr.

and the cops keep driving up and down the street. which is particularly strange seeing as it's a one-way street. hmmm.

travel adventures this side of the atlantic

2006-08-08T01:34:00.000+02:00

in defense of the deutsche bahn, my most recent travel experience--and, incidently, my very first amtrak experience--was a complete disaster.

since my last car gave up the ghost on nick and alicia's trip back from chicago last fall, i've been without vehicle in the us of a. in ann arbor, that's not really a problem, just occasionally a minor inconvenience, but when my mom asked me if i wanted to borrow one of their cars for a bit, i'm not gonna lie, i jumped at the chance. (you try hauling 20 pounds of cat litter from the bus stop, and then we can talk!!) i also hadn't actually seen my family since getting home, since we all live all over the place. so we finally worked out a weekend when i didn't have to work, and my mom wasn't crazy busy, and i was going to take the train down and then bring the car back. sounds pretty simple, right??

well y'all should know better by now... first there was the amtrak fiasco. the train was late getting to ann arbor, so that was red flag #1. by the time we actually got into union station, we were almost an hour behind schedule, which wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but i had to take another train from there out to the suburbs, where my mom was picking me up. of course, i missed that train and had to wait about 50 minutes for the next one, finally getting home at 12:40. at least this time it was family who got to stay up late to pick me up.

then after a full day of photo-sharing, eating, shopping, more eating, and generally catching up and having fun with a variety of friends, i was on my way back from the city to my mom's house, when "my" car started to overheat. i'm sitting in stop-and-go traffic between the scene of an accident (SUV vs. compact car. ouch.) and a toll booth, and all of a sudden there's smoke wafting out from under the hood. not good. i panic. calmly. because that's what i do. the engine temperature gauge is planted firmly in the red "overheated" section. it's 12:30 in the morning, and i've got a good half hour to drive yet; i'm sure everyone at home is sleeping, so there's not much point in calling home. after all, if the car's going to blow up, it's going to blow up, right? there wasn't really anywhere to pull over, and really, what am _I_ going to be able to do about whatever's wrong anyway, so i keep inching towards the toll booth, hoping and praying i'll somehow make it home, steam (because it WAS steam and not smoke, i eventually figured out) still billowing ominously from the front end of my car. once i get past the toll booth, it's smooth sailing. traffic is flowing right along, and as soon as i got up to highway speed again, the engine cooled down and stopped steaming. i'm still unnerved, of course, but this is certainly an improvement. i make it home without further incident and inform my mom and her husband, who, oddly enough, WERE still up when i got home, that i'm a little concerned about the car and tell them what happened. dave says he'll take a look at it in the morning.

so i get ready to leave the next afternoon, after having discussed the whole car thing extensively. (we're not worried; everything looked alright, and i have a pretty good idea of what i need to do if this should occur again.) so i take off, and as i get stuck in some construction near another toll both, sure enough, same story. engine is freakin' hot, steaming a little. but it seems under control--not nearly as bad as the night before, at least. i call home and ask if i should stop and let it cool off, or just try to stick it out 'til i can get moving again. trying to stick it out seems like the best option, and assured that the car shouldn't explode or anything, i continue. and again, as soon as i'm through the toll plaza and the cars getting moving again, my car is fine. the engine returns to a normal temperature, and i'm like, ok, i can do this.

i drive maybe another half hour, and all of a sudden, trying to go up this slight incline, i've got no acceleration AND the engine's super-overheated again. awesome. so i aim for the approaching exit ramp, pretty much coasting along, try to turn at the light, and i've got nothing--i'm steering on the last bit of momentum, and it's fading fast. i manage to pull the car off to the side of the road before it shudders to a stop. awesome.

i'm shaking. and pissed as hell. (i KNEW this was going to happen. before any of this overheating nonsense even began, i had a feeling this car wasn't going to make it to michigan. i should have KNOWN better...) so i call home again. really just to vent. there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it from chicago.

so i'm telling dave what happened, and this kid's pulled up behind me and sticking his head in the window on the passenger's side, asking what the trouble is. i pop the hood and he takes a look. no clue. i'm still on the phone with dave, who, i think, was a little bit hoping the guy would know what was wrong and be able to help and a little bit nervous about some sketch guy trying to help. (it was kind of funny.) he couldn't get it to start, but offered me a ride and/or a cold beer--apparently, he had a cooler in his trunk. right, i thought, so by the time i get this thing going again, i'm too drunk to drive?? no thanks =) he was the first of many many many kind and concerned citizens who stopped to see if i needed help.

mom and dave decided to come up and see what they could do--but they wouldn't be there for another couple of hours. yes!!! hanging out by the side of the road!!! exactly how i wanted to spend my sunday afternoon. i walked down to a gas station not far from where my car was. and then walked back. i called everyone i could think of to call--hey, gotta use those weekend minutes, right? =) and chatted with the four different police officers who stopped to make sure i was ok. the next guy who stopped to help had me try to start it again--although i'd just tried myself after giving it some time to cool down, and it still wouldn't start. he said it wasn't getting fuel, which made sense, seeing as i hadn't been able to accelerate right before it freaked out. by this point, i'm pretty sure that whatever's wrong with it, it's not going to be something we can fix right away, so i called alicia, who borrowed a car from one of her co-workers and headed towards indiana. then i called my grandma, which was probably a mistake, because she was VERY concerned about me, a girl, sitting, gasp, ALONE, on the side of the road. i assured her, only nice helpful people had stopped to see if i was ok, and it was a pretty busy road, so i wasn't really worried. grandmas are funny. (really, the number of friendly folk--illinoisans, indiana residents, michiganians, even a couple of girls from texas--who stopped and wanted to make sure i was taken care of, and the kids i've seen giving up their seats on the bus to the elderly or less able-bodied, have almost restored my faith in humanity!)

so what seemed like a couple of YEARS later--there were actually two different cars that stopped, saying, we saw you sitting here a couple of hours ago, and you were still here on our way back from church, so we wanted to make sure you had someone coming or had called someone at least--my mom and dave showed up. dave poured a bunch of different colored liquids into various compartments under the hood and had me try to start it again. and again. and again. still no luck. we tried a few more things and finally ended up having the thing towed. then they drove me a ways into michigan, where we met up with alicia, who took me the rest of the way home. what should have been a 5 hour drive at most turned into a nine hour drama.

cars are the devil.

welcome to august in michigan

2006-08-02T04:44:00.000+02:00

it is hotter than hell outside. and inside if you don't have air conditioning. which i don't.

so we're walking back from arbor tonight--because we had to go somewhere air conditioned, because otherwise it's too hot to eat, or breathe for that matter--and there are these three guys with a giant blowup snowman in their front yard playing a guitar and singing jingle bells. on the hottest day of the year. hilarious.

the same folk had some crap on sticks stuck in their front yard as their, umm, contribution, to art fair, too. i need to make friends with these people.

that is all for today. it is too hot to write. or breathe. or really do much of anything. it was like 98 today, and supposedly 110 with the heat index. there's a heat advisory in effect until tomorrow night. if i haven't died of some sort of heatstroke by then--or from the side effects of opening at the bucks two days in a row when i've been on closes for the past week and it's too hot to sleep, i'll write more tomorrow...

moving on...

2006-07-24T07:41:00.000+02:00

whew. survived art fair. barely. i actually almost lost my voice from trying to make myself heard over the masses at the bucks. i got off work yesterday at 5:30, and by the time i went back out a couple of hours later, the tents were gone, the art on a stick nowhere to be seen. it was like the whole thing never happened. bizarre. went to an after art fair party with a bunch of alicia's co-workers. who, by the way, are so much fun!! free--and really good!!--wine, cheap sangria, pitcher of margaritas. lots of general bitching about art fair and trading stories about the absurdity that is life in this town in the service industry. it was good.

i'm still trying to figure out where i fit into all of this, but i am occasionally hopeful.

still trying to get situated at home--and readjust to living with cats!!! it's actually ok, as long as i don't sleep for more than four hours. greeeeeat. it's also really hard to type with a cat AND a laptop on your lap, but everytime i sit down to try to type something, linford climbs into my lap like it's his new favorite thing... his other new favorite thing is my suitcase, which i finally emptied. it's still in the middle of the living room floor, but at least now there's nothing in it, except linford, occasionally.

now that the art fair craziness is over, i'm, at least theoretically, job hunting. which is... frustrating. but also...what's the word--not inspiring, exactly, but encouraging, i guess, in that it's reminding me of all of the things i WANT to do, even if i can't do them--not yet. and i've been reading. and being read to. most recently, from The Silver Chair. i'd quote the whole thing, but i'm too lazy, and really, you kind of need to read the whole book anyway, but here's the bit i'm holding onto:

"Now the Witch said nothing at all, but moved gently across the room, always keeping her face and eyes very steadily towards the Prince. When she had come to a little ark set in the wall not far from the fireplace, she opened it, and took out first a handful of green powder. This she threw on the fire. It did not ablaze much, but a very sweet and drowsy smell came from it. And all through the conversation which followed, that smell grew stronger and filled the room and made it harder to think. Secondly, she took out a musical instrument rather like a mandolin. She began to play it with her fingers -- a steady, monotonous thrumming that you didn't notice after a few minutes. But the less you noticed it, the more it got into your brain and your blood. This also made it hard to think. After she thrummed for a time (and the sweet smell was now strong) she began speaking in a sweet, quiet voice.

"Narnia?" she said. "Narnia? . . . There is no land called Narnia."

"Yes there is, though, Ma'am," said Puddleglum. "You see, I happen to have lived there all my life."

"Indeed," said the Witch. "Tell me, I pray you, where that country is?"

"Up there," said Puddleglum, stoutly, pointing overhead. "I - I don't know exactly where."

"How?" said the Queen, with a kind, soft, musical laugh. "Is there a country up there among the stones and mortar on the roof?"

"No," said Puddleglum, struggling a little to get his breath. "It's in Overworld."
But the witch's magic eventually dulls their minds:
"No. I suppose that other world must be all a dream."

"Yes. It is all a dream," said the Witch, always thrumming.

"Yes, all a dream," said Jill.

"There never was such a world," said the Witch.

"No," said Jill and Scrubb, "never was such a world."

"There never was any world but mine," said the Witch.

"There never was any world but yours," said they.

The Prince and the two children were standing with their heads hung down, their cheeks flushed, their eyes half closed; the strength all gone from them; the enchantment almost complete. But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. Then he did a very brave thing. He knew it wouldn't hurt him quite as much as it would hurt a human; for his feet (which were bare) were webbed and hard and cold-blooded like a duck's. But he knew it would hurt him badly enough; and so it did. With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth. And three things happened at once.

First, the sweet, heavy smell grew very much less. For though the whole fire had not been put out, a good bit of it had, and what remained smelled very largely of burnt Marsh-wiggle, which is not at all an enchanting smell. This instantly made everyone's brain far clearer. The Prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes.

Secondly, the Witch, in a loud, terrible voice, utterly different from the sweet tones she had been using up till now, called out, "What are you doing? Dare to touch my fire again, mud-filth, and I'll turn the blood to fire inside your veins."

Thirdly, the pain itself made Puddleglum's head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic.
Then Puddleglum says this to the Witch:
"One word, Ma'am" he said coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones..."

stolen stats and flippant commentary

2006-07-20T16:52:00.000+02:00

now that i'm home again, i suddenly have all this time to catch up on my reading. (if you're wondering about the irony in that statement, well, so am i...) so here a few interesting facts from the Harper's Index from April 2006--and, of course, my two cents thereto:

Number of tunnels that have been discovered under the U.S.-Mexico border since 2001: 34
Number under the U.S.-Canada border: 1
(now really, people, do you think the Canadians are trying to sneak into the U.S., or are the Americans trying to get out!?!?)

Percentage of Canadians who say that immigrants are a "good influence" on their nation: 77
Percentage of Americans and Germans, respectively, who say this: 49, 35

can we talk about that?!?!?! i guess we don't really need to. the numbers speak for themselves...

oh, and a word about the swiss and art fair. so the running theme during my brief stay in the country flowing with alpine milk and chocolate was how rude people are there. obviously, this is not true of everyone, and is really more typically true of cities than of countries, which is probably what was going on, but whatever. one of the places this was recurringly evidenced was on the buses. or perhaps more specifically, getting ONTO the buses. we were repeatedly shoved aside or smacked with large (and small!) bags, shoved some more, harassed by bus drivers, etc. and simone kept saying that this would never happen in ann arbor, citing the art fair shuttle buses as an example, because supposedly the people just line up, like literally and very britishly queue up, forming a single file line, waiting to get on the shuttle buses. to be honest, i was a bit skeptical. i mean, i KNOW art fair. and it was a little hard for me to believe that the same middle-aged, not so naturally blonde women with knock-off chanel sunglasses and their cute little visors, who nearly kill each other trying to pick up their venti extra whip mocha frappuccinos light, wouldn't shove a little getting onto a bus. BUT as i was wandering around the art fair yesterday afternoon--since, thanks to my work schedule, that was the only chance i'd get to look around--what did i see, but two perfectly patient, completely shove-free lines of people filing into the shuttle buses. i actually did a double-take. then just stood there for a minute staring blatantly, unable to believe what i was seeing. gaping at this--i still maintain, unusual--act of selflessness on the part of this particular portion of the some 500,000 people from across the nation, who are reported to show up at this ann arbor event. the fun part is going to be trying to hold onto that mental picture all afternoon, while i'm slaving away at the blenders... wish me luck!! (really, i haven't lived in ann arbor long enough to be this jaded about art fair... or have i??) =)

p.s. try googling "art on a stick"... but you didn't hear that here.

don't wake me if i'm dreaming

2006-07-17T07:39:00.000+02:00

flowers and raspberries from the farmer's market, a greek's reunion, a charming outdoor wedding complete with readings from the velveteen rabbit and the little prince, free coffee and a counting crows and weezer sing-along on the drive to lake michigan, being behind the wheel of a car for the first time in 11 months... i think it's starting to sink in. people are still speaking english, and i haven't ridden a bus or train for 3 whole days. the supermarkets here are larger than some small towns in germany--and definitely open later than most people are awake there... i might actually be home--for real!!!

say yes to jetlag

2006-07-14T13:12:00.000+02:00

yes, i'm home. somehow. nine hours and several baggage fiascos later...

it's 7 in the morning, and i do not need to be awake. but my body seems to think otherwise, so here i am, sitting on my couch in my living room with my cats, who are very excited that someone is up to feed them so early. someone next door has an alarm clock that sounds like a phone ringing, and it's been going off for the past hour. if i weren't already so wide awake, i'd probably want to shoot them. and this is america, so i could. i mean, not really, but you know. i'm still not sure i'm actually home. i mean, this looks like ann arbor, and everyone's speaking english, but i guess i've been on the go so much over the past few weeks--or months, that in my head, this must be just the next stop, and i'll have to pack my bags and move again in a week or something. although i suppose when i start working again, it'll sink in pretty quickly that i'm here for a while. and evidently, i start monday. just in time for art fair!!! woohoo!!

the end?

2006-06-29T01:56:00.000+02:00

tomorrow is my last day at school. this is weird.

help wanted

2006-06-18T22:23:00.000+02:00

yes, those are the words i'll be looking for when i get back to ann arbor--because i'm staying there. it's official. auf wiedersehen, deutschland! no, no, not yet. i still have another two weeks of teaching here, then a couple weeks of traveling and seeing various people in various places. but contrary to popular opinion--and my own previously voiced speculations, i'm not staying here for another year. if you've read this blog at all in the last week, you're probably thinking that that's a good thing. and it is =) i'm ready to go home for a while and figure some things out there. but don't worry, i'll be back--germany can't get rid of me that easily =)

so now that i know where i'll be--or at least where i won't be--next year, i *might* need a job... unless some of you want to feed and house me and pay my student loans out of the goodness of your hearts. yeah, didn't think so... so i'm brushing up my resume, and here's what i've discovered: i may actually be the most useless person on the planet!! i have two useless bachelor's degrees. several years of work experience...in the food service industry. and this past year in germany, where i've neither improved my german nor gained any "marketable" work experience... so that said, here's a list of what i've learned this year, lovingly entitled...

"things you can't really put on a resume OR life skills i've acquired in germany"

stalking spiders, navigating train stations and airports, controlling my temper when dealing with deutsche bahn employees--after all, it's not their fault, not only to look both ways but also to keep an eye out for stray senior citizens and/or small children before crossing the street, putting the stamp on the postcard BEFORE writing it, stalking spiders, the cheapest ways to make international phone calls, did i mention stalking spiders?!?!

things that make me laugh

2006-06-17T21:27:00.000+02:00

people who call me "Beth" =)
people eating entire cloves of garlic!??!
watching kids on the train blow spit bubbles--like, actual bubbles, you know, that float like the soap ones!!!

reciprocity

2006-06-16T00:31:00.000+02:00

i'm listening to lauryn hill. "tell me who do i have to be to gain some reciprocity?"..."no matter how i think we grow, you always seem to let me know it ain't working...it ain't working...it ain't working"...

yeah. this is definitely not working. it takes me about 3 years to put together half of the sentence i want to say, and by the time i've got that half out, i either can't remember why i was saying it in the first place, OR that wasn't even the relevant part, and it would just take way too much effort to actually get around to making the point i wanted to make. and if there's more than one person involved, someone's guaranteed not to understand something, which means the whole thing--my whole half-sentence--has to be repeated twenty times (ok, really maybe twice, but still), and by the time the whole thing's over and i've scraped together the last shreds of my dignity and self-worth, it occurs to me that it's all been for nothing. that i'm never going to be a real person here. that all the half-sentences in the world aren't enough. hell, that even all the whole sentences wouldn't be enough to make me half of a person here.

and it comes down to reciprocity in a way. or about the capacity for it, at least.

venting (not ventilating)

2006-06-13T22:13:00.000+02:00

so when i said i was done, i wasn't kidding. this is a little bit of what i'm talking about.

so it's finally summer here. after a week and a half of cold, rainy grossness, it's finally starting to act like june. as you might recall, my room is practically in the basement, so it stays relatively cool. that, and i only have one window--facing west, so really, there are only a couple of hours a day, when the sun could potentially heat up my room. i open the window when i get up in the morning--i keep it closed at night because of the spiders, as y'all probably remember--and close it when i leave. again, the spider thing. pretty much, if i'm home, and it's nice out, i have the window open. otherwise it's closed.

now, some of you are also familiar with the german obsession with ventilating EVERYTHING (and the paradoxical obsession with protecting themselves from drafts.) i still haven't figured out the logic behind all of this, but i didn't really have to understand it, because I was in charge of MY window. at least i *thought* i was.

until today. i got home this afternoon, and my window was open. hmm, i thought to myself... that's strange. and sure enough, there on the wall, a couple of inches from the edge of the window...a spider. of the rather large variety.

(i know i said i wouldn't write about spiders again, and i'm not!!--this is really about the window thing.)

seriously, who just goes into someone else's room and opens their windows!!???!!? why would you do that??!! what gives you the right!?!? i'm not trying to be selfish here, and i know i'm just renting this room--it doesn't really belong to me, but i still feel like it's "mine"--hell, it's all i've got. and if i want to suffocate in my stuffy room, shouldn't i be allowed to do that?

maybe i'm being unfair. it could have been done as a favor to me. "oh, she forgot to leave her window open, and it's going to be warm today." maybe. but still!?!?!? i don't go in and out of their rooms opening and closing windows.

can i please just have my life back!?!

call and response*

2006-06-13T21:48:00.000+02:00

*this post brought to you by the letter E

eyes wide open
to the great train robbery of my soul
impending blindness
of the kind that's beyond my control

eyes wide open
to the secret forest beyond those tear-filled trees
heart-rending blindness
won't testify that i'm on my knees

maybe i'm a little young to care
maybe i'm a little old to cry
i don't know
maybe i'm a little weak to dance
maybe i'm a little strong to die
i don't know

concentrating
love and i'm hating myself again
impersonating
the smallest shadow of my original self again

maybe i'm a little young to care
maybe i'm a little old to cry
i don't know
maybe i'm a little weak to dance
maybe i'm a little strong to die
i don't know

does anybody really want to grasp
my hand and lift me to my feet? does
anybody really want to be the breeze
that frightens off this heat?

eyes wide open
maybe i'm a little young to love
eyes wide open
maybe i'm a little young to love
eyes wides open
maybe i'm a little young to love
maybe i'm a little young to love
maybe i'm a little young to love
maybe i'm a little young to love
maybe i'm
maybe i...

Eyes Wide Open : Over the Rhine

Don't speak.
Words come out your eyes.
You're wet with this nightmare.
Like thorns you hold these secrets to your breast,
your slender fingers closing into fists.

Trace your bruise
like a guilty streak.
Hold the pain.
You're a connoisseur.
You think you have no other gift to give,
but we have so much left to live.

We don't need a lot of money.
We'll be sleeping on the beach,
keeping oceans within reach.
(Whatever private oceans we can conjure up for free.)
I will stumble there with you
and you'll be laughing close with me,
trying not to make a scene
etcetera. Whatever. I guess all I really mean

is we're gonna be alright.
Yeah, we're gonna be alright.
You can close your eyes tonight,
'cause we're gonna be alright.

So come on now,
I can almost see
that place
on a distant shore.
And courage is a weapon we must use
to find some life you can't refuse.

We don't need a lot of money.
We'll be sleeping on the beach,
keeping oceans within reach.
(Whatever private oceans we can conjure up for free.)
I will stumble there with you
and you'll be laughing close with me,
trying not to make a scene
etcetera. Whatever. I guess all I really mean

is we're gonna be alright.
Yeah, we're gonna be alright.
You can close your eyes tonight,
'cause we're gonna be alright.
All that I can see is your eyes.
Close your eyes.
Close your eyes.

Etc. Whatever : Over the Rhine

back in the saddle again

2006-06-13T21:23:00.000+02:00

hello hohenlohe!! it's so weird to be back here. especially knowing i won't be here much longer.

i leave a month from today.

so after the crazy paris trip, there was a crazy vogtland trip. and then another crazy whirlwind tour of germany--with my dad. then a couple days in prague and a couple days in dresden. and after some 7 hours on a train yesterday, i made it back here in time to watch the sunset from the bus on my way home. there are definitely some things i'm going to miss about this place.

(bikers in spandex unitards, however, are not one of them.)

right. so 3 weeks of non-stop traveling. and now 3 weeks of school. you'd think it would be smooth sailing now, just a few weeks to go... but no. i knew this was going to happen, and i guess all i can really do is be glad that it's almost over--for my last couple of weeks, i somehow ended up with all of the super high-maintenance teachers. well, maybe not high-maintenance exactly, but high expectations and low (read: nonexistent) communication... it's a little frustrating. and i'm not sure if i should care or not. i'm just kind of done.

warning: blatant male-bashing

2006-06-02T10:52:00.000+02:00

traveling with men is exhausting. first of all, they don't carry purses--which means anything that doesn't fit in their pockets, _I_ have to carry. YES!!! and then there's the whole directions thing...

argggghh!!!

enough of my whining. berlin is, as always, fabulous =)

too lazy to write

2006-05-25T21:35:00.000+02:00

the wheels on the bus...

2006-05-24T23:06:00.000+02:00

it's been one crazy week. even the weather has been strange. and it's only wednesday...

i spent most of yesterday running around paris with a group of 9th graders. good times. paris was...paris?? i mean, i don't know. it was my first time there, but i didn't really see much--at least i don't feel like i did. trying to keep track of which kids had run into some shop to buy postcards or which ones had stopped to take a picture (or 20) and hadn't caught up to us again yet was a fairly consuming endeavor and didn't leave much room for soaking in paris. plus, just having to interact with a bunch of kids in german--as something of an authority figure and not just socially--was a bit of a change--and not a particularly welcome one, really. the eiffel tower was a trip, though. it was just funny to watch people trying to take pictures. some people are incredibly creative.

so after a day of hardcore sightseeing sandwiched between two nights on a bus...i came home and slept all day. from 11:30 to 5:30ish, at least. and i'd slept some on the bus, too, that sort of in and out of almost sleep that happens on planes and trains and buses and isn't particularly restful but is still the envy of those who can't seem to sleep at all. actually, i was surprised that i was able to sleep as long as i did today. i mean, yeah, i had a couple of nights worth of sleep to catch up on, but that's not exactly different from my normal life. but sleep i did. and dreamed, too. strange, heavy, watery dreams that made me wish that i wanted to wake up.

i did get up in time to enjoy a few hours of daylight, though. i even dragged my sleepy ass outside and all the way to kuenzelsau to see a movie. by myself!! (another first for me this week.) everything is illuminated. i'm pretty sure it's out on dvd in the US by now, but it's just made it's way to hohenlohe. they were playing cat power in the theater, too, which was kind of random and cool and very un-kuenzelsau.

and now i'm going back to sleep. g'night.

going postal

2006-05-22T22:16:00.000+02:00

had another fight with the guy at the post office. what an ass. when am i going home again!??!?

but...i'm going to be in paris tomorrow!! at least if someone hates me there, it's because i don't speak french and not because i need a 1 euro stamp. this time i got five 20 cent stamps. very useful, thank you. where the hell am i supposed to put 5 STAMPS on a postcard!!?!? i had to resort to the stamp vending machine... man, and people wonder why machines are taking over the world. because they can actually DO their jobs?? and they don't give you attitude about it!?!

"I wrote down a dream...

2006-05-21T01:11:00.000+02:00

folded the note
slipped it in the pocket of my tattered coat

I wrote down a dream
in invisible ink
It never was mine I'm beginning to think..."
-OtR

This day has been surreal. I went to bed well after the sun was up and got up a few hours later, because I had a busy day ahead of me. And a busy Saturday in Hohenlohe is worth getting up for, no matter how tired you are.

I spent the afternoon in Schwaebisch Hall at the town's 850th anniversary celebration. First of all, 850 years. That's like, what, at least 3 times longer than the US has been a country?? I still can't really wrap my mind around how OLD things are in Europe. Or the concept of time in general, but we don't need to get into that...

It was cool and rained the whole time, but was enjoyable in spite of the weather. I heard an American guy who's been living in Schwaebisch Hall for some 20 years speaking German, and was like, oh my gosh, does my accent sound that bad?? The response of the person I was with? "Well, he's lived here a lot longer than you." Ouch. Seriously, I wonder why I bother sometimes.

When I went to catch the bus home, though, there was this group of kids waiting at the bus stop, and I was like, hey, I know them... some of them, at least. They were kids from my school, so I'm thinking maybe they decided to do something as a class on the weekend or something, and I start looking around for a teacher. Found him. One of the ones I don't know at all but really like. We chat briefly. He asks how much longer I'm in Germany, etc. Then he asked why I'd decided to study German in the first place... Good question. I tell him what happened. He tells me I speak German really well. I respond with a wry laugh. I mean, see previous language-related comment.
.......................................................................

So my earlier post about how I haven't started the anticipatory grieving yet... I was wrong. The next morning I had one of my conversation classes with a group of students who are about to graduate. They'd just had their last English class. Ever. (We have the next couple of week off, and then they have oral exams, and then they're done with school.) So we were talking about that a little bit. About this being an end and a beginning. About it not seeming real. About their plans for the future--or lack thereof. And I felt weirdly nostalgic. Maybe not nostalgic. Maybe just painfully aware of how far away high school seems and how different EVERYTHING was then. In good ways and in not so good ways. I feel like I've lived several lifetimes between then and now. And maybe in some ways I have. But it's a little weird for me to see these "kids" at this particular stage in life and to hear their thoughts about the whole thing...

packing?

2006-05-19T00:31:00.000+02:00

it's official. i've packed my first bag of stuff for going home. i'm sending stuff home with my dad, because there's not a chance in hell i'd be able to get all of my stuff home on my own. how did this happen? when i came over here, i had one large suitcase and a medium-sized travel bag. ridiculous.

and yes, i know, i don't actually leave for another two months, but a lot of things have happened in the past couple of weeks that just make me think i'm ready to go home--at least for a little while!! school has been great. i've done lots of traveling. it's not that life is particularly difficult at the moment or anything. i'm just kind of ready to be done. or really it's just that i'm ready to be done living here. the disappearing kitchen utensils, the spider situation, random comments that have been made. i've just kind of reached my limit. there are definitely some things i will not miss about this place...

and definitely some things i will. but i don't have to start missing them yet. i've still got time... =) the anticipatory grieving phase hasn't begun yet--unless you count dreams, which i don't.

if you're wondering why i'm thinking about all of this already when it's only may, and i don't fly home until july, well, it's just that i have about 6 weeks left 'til i'm done teaching, and of those, the next two or three weeks are going to be chaotic and full of travels. (we have another of these delightful little school holidays that i don't really understand but definitely appreciate!!) after that i only have 3 weeks of school left... followed by a week or two of some traveling and then i'm out of here... crazy. so yeah, that's why. don't worry, i didn't all of a sudden get organized and on top of things =)

my life as a weekend backpacker

2006-05-17T16:22:00.000+02:00

"we ain't goin' to the town. we're going to the city. gonna trek this shit around. make this place a heart to be a part of. we ain't goin to the town, we're going to the city..." a little interpol action for those of you who are sick of my singer-songwriter quotes =)

i have a month's worth of stories to catch up on. again. how does this happen? where does the time go? i feel like i've done nothing but travel for the past couple of months, which is, of course, to some extent true... after the spain/france/london adventure, there was a week of school and then another long weekend, which, thanks to some brilliant maneuvering on the part of the powers that be, turned out to be an even longer weekend for me, so i got to spend a few days visiting a friend near nice. which was really just amazing. in some ways it was a lot like california...only cleaner and prettier and more...french. adorably so. plus my friend there is literally THE nicest person on the planet, which is just amazing. so yeah.

then i was sick, and there was a weekend at home... which reminded me of the importance of traveling on weekends!!! how the hell did i survive winter here?!?! ...oh wait.

then last weekend I met up with steph again. this time in cinque terre in italy. so far, i've met exactly one german who's ever heard of cinque terre. everyone else just looks at me strangely and says they've never heard of the place, which is weird because germans LOVE to go on vacation--it's seriously like the national pasttime. (i'd never seen people take vacationing so seriously before. it's ridiculous. i love it.) AND people here are always raving to me about italy. so you'd think... but no. and every american i know who's been to italy, has been there--which, now that i'm thinking about it, might be why the germans DON'T go there... =)

so i found a mitfahrgelegenheit as far as milan, and i was going to take the train from there. first of all, this is the first MFG i've had, where the driver didn't really speak german, so that was kind of fun(ny). he was italian and working in germany but had also spent some time near ann arbor and lived in tons of other cool places, so we had a nice chat on the way down there. we even went to dinner at this crazy little (italian, of course!) restaurant before he took me to the train station--because he wanted to "show me the real milan." heck, yes! ..i mean, if you insist, right??!

we were going to get into milan pretty late, so after days of fruitless searching on the internet, i gave up on finding a hostel or hotel, and decided to crash at the train station. i was only going to be there for a few hours anyway, so no big deal, right?

i generally try to avoid mentioning these kinds of things to grown-ups, because they get all weird about it and stare at me like i'm crazy. which i may very well be, but NOT because i occasionally have to crash in train stations or airports!! it's when i travel--or talk about my travels--that i realize how young i am... and i'm not that young!! it's just that everyone i work with is... you know, grown-up. they're all adults. they're married or at least pretty setttled in grown-up relationships. they have jobs--god help them!! they drive sensible cars and go to bed at 10 o'clock. they do, you know, grown-up things. like planning their vacations months in advance and buying five different travel guides for each region of the country they're visiting and talking to thirty other people who have vacationed there before to make sure they're doing it right and have all their bases covered... i, on the other hand...??! am still in student mode in a lot of ways. "sleep is for losers" is pretty much my motto. i have no money whatsoever. i travel when and how i can. and i'm more or less at the mercy of the deutsche bahn and the local buses when it comes to getting anywhere. so yeah. how grown-up can i be?? it's a little like being 14 and having to have your mom pick you up outside the theater or the mall. only worse, because when you're 14, everyone's like... "awww, poor little pre-teens. i remember when i was that age and had to be driven everywhere, too." but when you're 25, it's just pathetic. fortunately, here the theater is near a bus stop, and they don't really have malls--not that i would hang out at them anyway, but even if i did, my mom can't exactly just come pick me up, seeing as she doesn't live here...

anyway. train station. milan. my new italian friend was a little concerned about me sleeping at the train station. (he was an adult, what can i say?) so he took me in and helped me find the waiting room and made sure it was open all night--which is just cool, by the way. of course, it then also doubles as something of a homeless shelter, but it was fine. i walked in, and there was this room--the size of a small country--full of huge wooden benches and road-weary travelers sprawled out on the benches or slumped over their bags. it was the most comical thing i've seen in a long time. i mean, there were probably about a hundred people crashing at this train station. and benches for all of them. i told you it was a huge room. i wish i had a picture, but a) my camera was buried at the bottom of my backpack, and b) it's just kind of creepy to take pictures of sleeping people. but yeah. hilarious. and needless to say, i didn't sleep much.

took the first train in the morning to cinque terre and spent the morning wandering through the streets of riomaggiore and catching up on steph's adventures over coffee. good times. there's this hike that takes you through all the villages, so we did that in the afternoon and into the evening. other than noticing, once again, how ridiculously out of shape i am, it was utterly amazing. i mean just gorgeous. like, damn...

we hadn't really decided ahead of time whether we were going to stay in cinque terre for the whole weekend or go to florence, and although we could have easily stayed another five years in cinque terre, we decided to move on. you pass through pisa on the way to florence, so of course, we HAD to stop and see the leaning tower of pisa, which is, p.s. THE biggest disappointment. i guess i thought it would be bigger somehow. but we did get some yummy gelato though, which made up for the whatever the tower lacked.

then on to florence. we had to literally run to make our train, which was just funny with the backpacks and all. i mean, steph's probably weighs more than she does, so i don't how she can move with that thing, let alone run. mine was just a normal backpack, but still. we hadn't booked a place to stay or anything in florence, so we ended up wandering around for a while, before we found a place, then we headed out to explore a bit and perhaps get something to eat. it was also imperative that we find a tele-taxi, because it was mother's day, and being in another country is no excuse for not calling--nevermind that my mom didn't even answer the phone. but i tried. we walked past this cute restaurant and decided to eat there, even though we weren't hungry and ended up going out for drinks with our waiters after they closed. i don't think i've had that much to drink since my birthday... we had a good time =)

we spent the next day wandering around florence, and then i had to meet up with my MFG for the return trip. cool kids in a VW bus who listen to ben harper. i heartily approve of that. unfortunately, due to the whole VW bus thing, it just took us a ridiculously long time to get where we needed to go, you know trying to get through the mountains and all, so... instead of having to spend a few hours at a train station again, i ended up not making my train and ending up, oh about an hour and half late to school... ouch. (we only missed the train by about 25 minutes, and i jumped on the next train, literally about two minutes after i got to the station, but because i live so in the middle of nowhere, i have to make about 50 connections, which means lots of standing around waiting for trains, and the general incompetence of some DB employees, helpful as they may try to be, doesn't improve the situation...)

yeah...i don't know how the real backpackers do it, jumping from city to city, being on the go all the time. i'd go nuts. but i do like my long weekends, and seeing as i only have a few of them left--i go home in less than two months!!!--i feel like i have to take advantage of them... so, more adventures to come!!!

call me crazy

2006-05-16T12:08:00.000+02:00

ok, it's not like i'm paranoid or anything, but--don't you love sentences that start like that?!--someone or something has been moving things in my kitchen... i've been gone a lot on the weekends lately, and i'll come home, and be like...wait a minute...!?!? now, if the food were missing, that i could understand. hunger happens. although, if it's not been eaten by me yet, it's probably not worth eating... or if this were some sort of test--oooh, will she notice that the salt was moved two inches to the left?? but a)no one in this house would be bored enough to do something like that, and b) i mean, no, i probably wouldn't notice. but when the entire stack of pots and pans that i never use mysteriously migrates to the shelf where i keep the two pans i actually do use?? and now "my" dvd player is MIA. i'm sure there's an explanation for that one. but the rotating of the stuff in the kitchen is beyond me...

awwww

2006-05-09T13:03:00.000+02:00

my seventh graders actually CHEERED when I walked in this morning! really, how adorable is that?!?! ...i love my job... =) when's the last time you walked into work, and people were *that* happy to see you??

I should enjoy this while it lasts!!

things that are funny

2006-05-08T16:25:00.000+02:00

just fundamentally funny.

the airport security guard who turns to you out of nowhere and asks (in german), "do you speak german?" and when you, also in german, tell him yes, responds with, "great, so do i." ...what!?!?!

21 year olds who call you, and when you answer, immediately scold you: "where is your cell phone? i just tried to call you." umm, so?? ...seriously, even my mother knows better.

that i walk past this daily--and no longer do a double take:

uggghh

2006-05-06T23:57:00.000+02:00

ok, i promise this will be the last spider post--unless something really drastic happens anyway.

so i'd mentioned before that my worst nightmare is the charlotte's web thing... millions of baby spiders parachuting all over the place--or into my room, really... so in the past two days, i've found several--like at least a dozen--tiny little spiders in my room... tiny is good, right? less scary. not scary at all, actually. especially when compared the ridiculously oversized ones that live outside my window. except that lots of little tiny spiders can really only mean one thing, right? ...yep, MORE little tiny spiders, parachutes and all... *sigh*

though, like i said, they're better than the huge-ass ones outside my window. i don't know what to do about those. i mean, they're outside. they're ALLOWED to be outside!!! but i can't open my window--and it's gorgeous outside! so not fair!! but i mean, they're really big, and there are at least three of them. (i think two of them were trying to mate the other night, but i'm not going to get into that...) and the germans don't do screens, so an open window is really an OPEN window...and an open invitation into my room. not cool.

every time i turn around, i see spiders. it's gotten to the point, where i walk into a room, and the first thing i do is inspect the walls and floors for spiders.

i got home last night a little after midnight, so it was completely dark out--the street lights are turned off at midnight here. though, really, they could turn them off at 9. that's when people around here seem to go to bed. *melodramatic rolling of the eyes* ...so i get home, and the motion sensor light comes on, illuminating the spiders crawling on the side of the house. i shudder. don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit. go inside. turn on every light i possibly can. do the usual sweep of the room. only a couple of ants in the bedroom. nothing in the hallway. one of the little tiny ones in the kitchen. i get it--i think. i can't seem to find it, and it's no longer on the wall. greeeeaaat. i'm looking on the ground, because it's got to be there somewhere... i look up. BIG one about a foot away from my face on the window sill. holy shit. i almost screamed--but had somehow, instinctually i guess, clapped my hand over my mouth in time. it's not that it was THAT big or even that scary. i just wasn't expecting it. i'd already looked--i always look. and thought i was safe. and then there it was. i just don't need this kind of stress in my life!! =)

ugggh. back to the window ones, really quick. so there's this other thing about windows in germany. they have these things that are kind of like mini-blinds--except not at all, and they're on the outside of the window--and you let them down at night to block the light or whatever--though given the aforementioned streetlight situation and my inability to go to bed before midnight...??? well, evidently, i killed one of the big spiders when i let the thing down. so what's worse than a ridiculously large spider LIVING outside of your window? a ridiculously large DEAD spider stuck to the blind things, so that when i let them down at night, it's just all squashed up and DEAD and right there... sweet dreams, right? i rather morbidly thought about taking a picture of it to post for y'all, but i couldn't bring myself to do it, and besides, that's just mean. not to mention gross...

i heart may

2006-05-04T15:00:00.000+02:00

the sun is shining. i've gotten my first flip-flop blisters. and when i left school this afternoon, one of my students offered me a popsicle. THIS is how life is supposed to be.

blog...b-log...backlog

2006-05-03T23:11:00.000+02:00

lots of catching up to do...

I take it back!! I take it all back!!! Everything I said about the Deutsche Bahn!!! The DB is amazing. It's wonderful. So well-organized. So efficient... in comparison to the trains in Spain and France, that is. Oh the drama here...

...WELL, I started writing that a couple weeks ago, and since then, I've had a few more unpleasant encounters with the Deutsche Bahn, so I don't take it back. Not a single word. For those of you who were still masochistic enough to at least *think* about traveling with me, here are a few more reasons not to...

so when i had to go pick up my bag that the airline had lost--yes, i had to go pick it up myself...long story--i had to take a train from perpignan to girona. or, to be more accurate, i ended up having to take 3 trains, but you know. after getting the call from the airline, i stopped by the train station to see what time i could leave. the next train was leaving at 1:45...but happened to be delayed an hour and half--or rather, it was basically just cancelled/replaced by the next regularly scheduled train at 3:15. no problem. i wouldn't have been really likely to make the first train anyway. so 3:15 it is. except that when i get to the train station...cancelled again. no explanation. no apology. just no. riiiiight. next train: 5:06 or something like that. fine. it'll have to do. and it does. there was, of course, lots of drama with languages and train timetables and trying to work around hourly bus schedules and bizarre spanish taxi drivers. but i make it to the airport, get my bag back. everything's there, it's all good. i make it back to the train station in girona literally two minutes before the last train to france is leaving, and of course, i have no idea, if there'll even be a connecting train to perpignan once i get into france at cerbere... but such is life--or at least my life anyway.

i'm not exactly keen on sleeping at--or rather, outside of--train stations, but you know... there are worse places to do it than southern france in mid-april, right?? so you'd think... but... if you could SEE the train station at cerbere... the place looks worse than your average abandoned... i don't even know what. prison? asylum? public restroom? i don't know, but it's gritty, dirty, covered with a layer of gray i don't even know what, and you'd NEVER know you were just a couple of kilometers from the ocean. that's for sure. my point? NOT exactly the kind of place you want to spend the night.

which is why i was EXTRAORDINARILY relieved when i saw that there was one last train stopping in perpignan... but i had to wait an hour and a half at the creepy train station first--good times. so i finally get on the train--it's now almost midnight. the train ride is about half an hour, and since i didn't have an itinerary or anything or really know how many stops there were, and they don't really announce those things on the trains in france, i was a bit paranoid about missing my stop. then, as it got closer to the time i was supposed to get off the train, i got up and moved to an exit. then it occurred to me, that i might actually be the only person getting off in perpignan--it was a night train to nice, and it seemed like everyone i had chatted with at the train station was going there--and i had visions of me standing there, for some reason unable to get the door open, no one knowing i needed to get off the train and being trapped there... i don't know. it was late. i was tired. i wanted to go home. it happens. so i wander through the train til i find someone else waiting to get off the train. cool. at least i'm not the only one. then i look at my clock. it's about time for us to be arriving in perpignan. but we don't. five minutes go by. ten. fifteen. i'm getting nervous. suddenly the train speeds up and seems to be rocking a lot more than is necessary. i was literally thrown against the side of the train. oh my god, am i going to die?!!? of all the ways to go... it's now almost half an hour after the time we were supposed to get to perpignan. again. no explanation, no apology. nothing. finally, we get there and i do manage to open the door. all by myself. and make it back to mel's--this time WITH my bag--in one piece.

then there's the flight to england. mysteriously delayed. about an hour. no apparent reason. other delayed flights were at least listed as "delayed"... not mine. we didn't even start boarding until well after we were supposed to have left. typical.

i was already going to be getting to london pretty late. and poor steph had arrived earlier in the day--from california, jetlag and all, and now has to wait up even longer for me... not MY bloody fault, but still kind of sucks.

london, of course, was fabulous. as was hanging out with steph in general. good times. not to mention that just being in an english-speaking country--especially after the french/spanish/catalan chaos--was a beautiful thing...

the return flight was...surprisingly uneventful. i flew with germanwings from london to stuttgart, and as i was boarding the plane, i noticed the Baden-Württemberg logo/motto thing on the plane:

and i found myself smiling: i'm going home.

how weird is that?? ... "that IS weird." =)

conspiracy theory

2006-04-27T23:24:00.000+02:00

call me paranoid, but i think someone is out to get my inner cynic.

people are being inexplicably nice. or cute or funny. even the random strangers i've been emailing to try to figure out a ride back from france on monday are just being adorable. what is going on?!??!

why i hate math

2006-04-27T00:34:00.000+02:00

i should be sleeping. like, really. but oh well.

countries visited in the past week and a half: 3
cost of a tall coffee at starbucks in london: £1.79
amount by which i overdrew my checking account: $5.27
minutes wasted waiting at the creepiest train station on the planet in cerbere, france: 307
hours slept since sunday: 6
number of spiders i've had to "relocate" from my bedroom since my return: 3

common denominator?? anyone??

so after having like 3 conversations about the various linguistic functions of the word "like" in american english, i feel like i should demonstratively overuse it, you know, like, to make a point.
.......

sporadic internet access has made the blogging of recent adventures in the life of this wide-eyed wanderer a bit difficult, so this is the part where i try to sort the chaos that was my life a week ago from the chaos that it is now...

so THE greatest thing about my life at the moment is that southern germany has an ABSURD (that was for you, mel) number of religious holidays. thank god for the catholics, right?? we had a week off at the beginning of lent. we just had a week and half off for easter, and we get another two and half weeks off around pentecost. i love it.

granted, it makes little sense academically--as a teacher you spend the first week after the break trying to remind the students of whatever you'd been doing in class in the weeks before the break. then you spend a couple weeks actually introducing new material. then the week before the next holiday, the kids are already mentally on vacation, so that's basically more time lost... but as a student, can you think of anything better?? i can remember years when easter was later, and we didn't have a single day off of school between president's day and spring break... it was probably just about an 8 or 9 week stretch, but it seemed to drag on forever...

but what does one do with all of this free time, you might ask? weeeeell, if you're me, you spend more of it traveling to and from various destinations than in any of the places actually visited, apparently.

i'll spare you the details of why i decided to travel the way i did--as illogical as it sounds, it DID actually make sense at the time...

the short version:
travel begins on good friday:
bus/train to heidelberg, hang out for afternoon+evening
take night bus to obscure german airport
"sleep" at aforementioned airport
sat. a.m. early flight to girona, spain
sometime saturday: train to perpignan, france, to visit mel
hang out in and around perpignan 'til following friday
friday afternoon: train back to girona
friday night: flight to london, meet up with steph
hang out in london til monday afternoon/evening
monday night: flight back to stuttgart
"sleep" at airport again
tues. morning: early train+bus combination directly to school

yeah, i'm one of those people who tries to wring every last minute out of the free time available. sometimes. and as most of you know, i'm usually super last-minute about my travel plans. BUT this time, I had pretty much everything booked in advance. like, WEEKS in advance--not just hours or minutes!! because deep down, i know that the germans are right: Ordnung muss sein.

but someone should really tell that to the good folks at ryanair and pretty much everyone in spain and france. for alas, even the best-laid plans can blow up in your face. in an attempt to exercise my expertly honed skill of pointing out the painfully obvious: every time i travel, BAD THINGS happen. good things, occasionally great things, even, happen as well. but i know better than to *plan* for good things. if there's one thing i've learned in germany, it's never to expect anything. if you don't expect anything, you'll never be let down. you let the good things surprise you. if someone does or says something nice, it's like, the most amazing thing in the world. (i'm amazed daily.)

ok. sleep first. blog later.

traveling... again

2006-04-18T12:06:00.000+02:00

well, i made it to france!! ...too bad my luggage didn't. in fact, my bag didn't even make it to spain. somewhere between frankfurt hahn and girona, the nice folks at ryanair seem to have lost it. greeeeaaat. can we talk about how something goes absurdly wrong every time i travel???? literally, EVERY TIME!! fortunately, mel's roommate has loaned me some of his clothes, so i haven't had to run around naked--or stinky--for the past 3 days, but yeah.

OH MY GOD. they just called me and said they found my bag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

do you even understand how happy this makes me??!!
and that means i get to go back to spain this afternoon. woohooo!!!!

(this is the part where i have to admit that i am ridiculously attached to my stuff even though i know that it's just STUFF, and that really, i have too much as it is... but i was going to miss my favorite t-shirt, you know??)

more on the travels later--i'm off to girona =)

the neverending story

2006-04-12T17:20:00.000+02:00

wow. this blogging everyday thing is a bit much for me...

so... where were we... right. i've been in salzburg for three days, and i'm pretty much ready to come home. i definitely don't want to pay for another night there, and really, i'm just kind of done with the city. but my MFG didn't work out last minute, so i'm assessing the train situation. it looks like my last chance to make it all the way home is at 3 in the afternoon, but since it's already past two, there's no way i'm going to make it back to my hostel, get my stuff and make it back to the train station, get a ticket, etc. in time to make that train. after that, there aren't any more buses from the train station to where i live. but at this point, i'm kind of like, screw it, i'm NOT staying here. something will work out. and there are still trains to waldenburg--which, granted, is some 18 km from where i actually live... but hey, it's a hell of a lot closer to home than salzburg, and all i really want is to go home and sleep in my own bed, and i'm kind of hoping i'll find some nice person who'll give me a lift home. or, worst case scenario, i have a loooooooong walk ahead of me.

now before you all point out how reckless and irresponsible it is to take a train to the middle of nowhere, knowing full well there's no guarantee i'll have a ride home, i'll save you the trouble =) i KNOW that. but since when am i rational?!?! it's not exactly brilliant on my part, but at this point, i'm determined to get home somehow. and you know, where there's a will, there's a way, right?? (see, deep down, i really am an american!!)

so i get to the train station, get my ticket and hop on the train. everything's going fine, then, for no apparent reason, we just stop. nowhere near a station, just in the middle of this stretch of track. ooook. we sit there for some 5-10 minutes. then finally this lady makes an announcement over the loudspeaker--we're stopped for unknown reasons. great. i mean, that's reassuring, right? we sit there for another 10 minutes. finally she comes over the loudspeaker again--we were stopped because of a problem with the signals, but we'll be moving again shortly, and they apologize for the delay, etc. riiiiight. for most of this time, i've been sitting there reading, not really paying attention. i mean, i knew we were stopped. and i knew it had been a while, but i hadn't really thought about it in terms of how this would affect the rest of my travels. i look at the clock and realize that it's about 8 minutes til 9. the train was scheduled to be in stuttgart at 9:06, and we still have two more stops before stuttgart. my heart stops. no. no way. i'm thinking that if i don't make my next train to heilbronn, which leaves at 9:15, then there's no way i'm going to make it to waldenburg. i have to make this train. period. thinking that if i beg and look desperate enough, i might be able to convince the bahn people to ask the train to heilbronn to wait, i run through the train looking for someone to ask. but all the DB people are in hiding. we make it to the next station faster than i thought we would, so i'm suddenly hopeful that we MIGHT just make it after all. we get to the next station. i'm still holding my breath. this has to work out. it just has to. i have to get home. (not because i really have to be home, but because i want to be...) i grab my stuff and join the others waiting to get off in stuttgart.

there are 3 of us standing there, all clearly anxiously hoping we'll still be able to make our connections. the one girl's train leaves at 9:18. the other woman and i are both hoping to make the 9:15 train to heilbronn, but neither of us are really hopeful. we're already in the very first train car, so we'll have the shortest distance to run to catch the train, and we're half joking about having me jump out first to run and hold the train for her, since she has a suitcase to carry, and all i've got is a backpack. but just before we pull into stuttgart, there's another announcement over the loudspeaker. the train to heilbronn was unfortunately unable to wait, and those headed to heilbronn will have to take the next train in an hour..blah blah blah. the 9:18 train couldn't wait either. so the 3 of us are all standing there, dejected and somewhat resigned to our fates.

the train stops, and we all file out. the other woman heading to heilbronn tries to ask the conductor something, but he brushes her off completely and tells her to ask at the information desk. i lost her somewhere in the crowd, but weaved my way through the masses and made it to the info desk and ended up second in line. pretty impressive considering how many people were in the line that developed behind me. i turn around, and my friend from the train has mysteriously reappeared. so we go up to the counter together and tell the guy where we need to go. i'm thinking there's not a chance in hell there's going to be a train to waldenburg this late on a sunday night, but evidently, i was wrong--there was still one last connection--but it wouldn't get me there until a quarter after midnight.

somehow the prospect of an 18km hike home post midnight was just too much for me, and i turn away from the counter and promptly burst into tears. it didn't seem like such a bad idea when i was going to be getting to waldenburg at 10:30. but now after midnight??? and i was soooo tired. i mean, all i'd done all weekend was wander around salzburg, which doesn't sound SO exhausting, but i'd been getting up relatively early every day and walking for hours on end, which i actually enjoy doing... but now?? i just wanted to lay down on the train station floor right then and there and go to sleep. which i obviously couldn't do. so the next best thing? crying, evidently.

my new traveling buddy is confused. why am i crying? aren't i going to be able to make it to waldenburg? i explain that i live in the middle of nowhere, and there aren't any more buses that late at night, and who the hell am i suppose to ask to pick me up at the train station after midnight?? she feels terribly sorry for me and wishes she could help somehow. i shrug. i mean, yeah, it sucks, but what can you do, you know? that's life. (and freaking out about it certainly isn't going to get me there any faster.) she disappears for a bit in the direction of the toilets, leaving me a few minutes to pull myself together and come up with a game plan. basically i'm trying to decide which train station to sleep at.

i buy myself a cup of coffee--it's going to be a long night!! and my train buddy returns. on the one hand, it's nice that i'm not stranded here alone. on the other hand, i'm pissy and frustrated and tired and not exactly feeling social....but we've got an hour to kill, so we might as well get to know each other, right? so i start asking questions--mostly to avoid having to ANSWER questions =) she'd mentioned earlier that she'd contemplated taking the ICE from munich, so she'd have more time between transfers, but the guy at the train station had talked to her out of it--needless to say, she was regretting that decision! so i knew she'd gotten on the train in munich but had gathered that she was from around here, so i asked what she'd been doing in munich.

turns out she's decided to go back to school and is studying literature and art history and has an art history exam coming up and wanted to look at some of the paintings in real life again before the exam. i'm like...what?!?! i mean, she's older than my mom and younger than my grandma, but still old enough to be *somebody's* grandma, you know? and going back to school?? i mean, that's pretty cool, right? i guess she'd always wanted to study art history and had just never gotten around to it when she was younger--had gotten married and had kids and then lived abroad for a while, etc. so now i'm intrigued. AND i've calmed down significantly. i'm almost even having FUN chatting with this woman, you know? weird. ok. i'm slowly coming to terms with the situation. i'm not feeling QUITE as hopeless and desperate about the whole thing. something will work out. somehow.

we continue chatting; our trains arrives and we board--we now have to switch trains somewhere between stuttgart and heilbronn instead of taking a direct train, but oh well. we're still talking--i'd asked if she'd learned any japanese while living in tokyo, so we're discussing fun linguistic stuff. then somewhere during this leg of the journey, it occurs to her that she knows nothing about me, except that i'd been in salzburg for the weekend, and she'd clearly realized that i'm not german--i mean, it's pretty obvious!! so she's asks me where i'm from, england? scotland? i laugh. people always think i'm from england--which i don't understand. i mean, i've HEARD british people speak german. they have WAY cooler accents than americans =) but ok. so i tell her i'm from the US. ohhhhh, america!! this changes things, evidently. she thinks for a minute. she has friends who live in america. in tennessee.

*sidenote, because i got in trouble when i told this part of the story earlier: this ALWAYS happens. as soon as someone tells you where they're from, you try to make some sort of connection, right? "oh, you're from germany? my friend studied in berlin for a year." "oh, you're from america? chicago? i was in new york once." or "oh, i have a cousin there." something like that, right?? it happens with "foreigners." it happens with people who live in different parts of the US. it's just a part of life. but it's kind of funny, right? i mean, you'd agree it's a little weird?? i mean, maybe it's not that weird unless it happens to you daily. and it's really NOT weird--it's normal, i suppose. logical, at least. it's just funny somehow. or maybe just to me... i don't know.

so now she wants to know where i learned such good german--not in school, certainly? i laugh again. see, it's always these older women, usually former schoolteachers, that i meet on trains, who say things like this to me. ALWAYS. and ok, my german is decent--i can get around, usually get what i need without embarassing myself *completely* but i babble utter nonsense probably just as often as i say things correctly. and besides, basic questions like, "where are you from? what are you doing in germany?"--i mean, i've been answering those since mid-september. it's like learning lines for a play. i could say that stuff in my sleep--hell, i probably do!! all i'm saying is that being able to answer a few simple questions--of the sort you learn on your VERY FIRST DAY in german class--is hardly the litmus test for language proficiency. but i digress...

we get to whereever it was that we had to switch trains and do so. we join another older woman who had also experienced some sort of deutsche bahn drama/delay coming from nuremberg, so we exchange our list of grievances with the DB. suddenly, we realize the train hasn't left yet. that's kind of odd. then my traveling buddy looks out the window and sees that our train is delayed--we have to wait for another train to get it, and that train is delayed. great. it's supposed to be an 8-minute delay. i look at my itinerary. there's an 11-minute window in which i'm supposed to switch trains in heilbronn. that's gonna be a little close, but ok. we sit there and sit there. 8 minutes. 9 minutes. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. this isn't looking good. if i don't make my connecting train from heilbronn, i'm pretty much stuck there. and it doesn't look like i'm going to make it...

the calm that had settled in earlier disappears and the familiar damn-it-all-to-hell, you-have-GOT-to-be-kidding-me, this-CANNOT-be-happening, what-am-i-supposed-to-do-now???! frustration returns. this is all so ridiculous that i'm not even really angry--or worried, for that matter. i'm just blown away by the absurdity of the whole situation. the little old ladies are quite concerned about me now. what am i going to do?? i CAN'T sleep outside the train station. a young girl, all by herself. that just won't do. they start trying to figure out how much a cab would cost. no, that's too expensive. maybe there's a hostel or something where i can stay? they go on and on. the one woman--my new art student friend--had mentioned earlier--several times, actually--that she can't drive at night, otherwise she would be glad to drive me home. i'd thanked her for her concern, of course, but really, it wasn't HER problem, and everything was going to fine, i reassured her--and myself =) she'd also mentioned that i could stay at her house for the night and take the train the rest of the way in the morning, but we'd sort of dismissed the idea--at that point, i'd still had a chance of making it to waldenburg, and i REALLY wanted to get home that night and not the next day.

as it becomes increasingly clear that there's not a chance in hell i'm going to make the connecting train in heilbronn, my train buddy repeats her offer. i'm thinking about it. but i reeeeeaaaaally want to go home... we'll see, i tell her. maybe if it looks like i'm not going to make my train... she's somewhat annoyed--i mean, it's pretty clear that i'm not going to make my train. and i COULDN'T POSSIBLY stay at the train station. that's much too dangerous. she keeps giving me this look--it says, "you should just come with me, i'm telling you"... all i can do is offer, she says, it's up to you. i'm torn. i mean, irrational as it is, there's a part of me that is determined to get home, convinced that somehow, something will work out. but on the other hand, maybe this is the solution to the whole situation, staring me in the face??? i mean, we don't always get what we want in life, right? and isn't it time i grow up and accept that?? =) grrrr. what am i supposed to do?!?!?!?!

we're getting closer to heilbronn. both women are staying on that train. i'm the only one who would have to get out at heilbronn. and if i get off at heilbronn and DON'T make my connecting train, i'll be more or less stranded there until the trains start running again in the morning. so if i want to take her up on her offer--and a bed DOES sound really nice--i have to decide. now. i look at my watch. there still a very very very slim CHANCE i'll make my train... MAYBE... and i do SO want to go home... i tell the nice ladies i'm going to give it a shot, grab my stuff and stand up. they both look at me like, you're making the wrong decision, but suit yourself.

i stand there for a minute with the others waiting to get off in heilbronn. even on the off chance that i DO actually make the next train, AND the one after that... i still have no idea how i'm going to get home from waldenburg... i could walk/try to hitch hike...but on country roads in the middle of the night, where i'll probably just end up lost anyway?? or wait at the station and take the bus the next morning. either way, i'd probably get home about the same time!! this is absurd, i tell myself. here i have an offer of a bed to sleep in--in the indoors, as opposed to in the cold and soon to be rainy outdoors. what the hell am i thinking!??! i turn around and ask the woman if she's serious about the invitation. of course she is. alright then, i say, and sit back down.

she's clearly pleased with my decision. i'm still not so sure. i mean, it's a rational decision. and i don't DO rational decisions... but she seems to really want to help me, and let's face it--i need help =) we get off at her stop and throw our stuff in her car. as we're driving along, she starts, in true grandma fashion, fussing about all the things that people start thinking about when they have an unexpected guest: she's been gone all weekend and doesn't know if she has any food in the house; she wasn't expecting anyone, and the house isn't as clean as she'd like it to be, etc. very cute. i assure her it's fine, and i'm just glad to have a place to sleep, really. at some point, it occurs to me, i don't even know her name... and it's kind of awkward to ask now, isn't it!??! i mean, the only way to phrase that question this far into things is something like, "so what's your name anyway?" which almost sounds a bit accusatory. i suppose i could have said, "by the way i'm bethany," but then there's the whole weird german thing about names and titles, and i hate introducing myself with my last name, because that just seems weird to me, and it's, of course, almost weird NOT to in germany... but besides that, no one here ever understands my name the first time i say it anyway. deciding this is too complicated, and there's too much potential for awkwardness, i let it go. names are for losers.

we get to her house, and she gives me the quick tour--it is, predictably, perfectly clean, and there's plenty of food in the house. she insists on feeding me--really, do they teach this in grandma school!?! why do they always insists that you eat something?! she asks if i eat meat--umm, no, not really, i say, hoping not to sound too picky or ungrateful or something. she gives a knowing nod--" you look like someone who would be vegetarian." yeeeeaaaah i do. awesome =) after the midnight snack, there's showering--"to get the train dirt off of you"--and then it's off to bed. i was still kind of reeling from the whole thing, so it took me a bit to fall asleep, tired as i was. but when i woke up around 3 and heard it raining outside, you can imagine how grateful i was to be NOT to be outside somewhere, trudging along the highway or on a bench outside the train station.

we had breakfast together in the morning, and afterwards i looked through the photo album from her trip to the US. and somehow it just hit me how absurd this whole thing was. i mean, these things don't happen in real life, do they?!?! i mean, here i am just sitting in this woman's apartment, drinking coffee, looking at her photos like we're old friends getting together for the first time after she's returned from a trip... surreal.

obviously, i made it home after all of this--she insisted on driving me, actually, which was kind of funny. but yeah. i got home, and it was still raining, and my room was a mess, and everything suddenly seemed so...ordinary. except i did (finally!) clean my room. it was back to business as usual, except that every now and then, i'd stop and just kind of be like, umm, did that just happen??

part deux: the beginning of the end

2006-04-11T22:37:00.000+02:00

so you've heard my rant about the deutsche post. now it's time to turn our attention to the deutsche bahn. i feel the need to preface this by saying that i'm a huge fan of the german train system. the idea of it, at least. but that said, i have something of a love-hate relationship with the deutsche bahn.

i mean, they've got some 1.5 million people riding their trains everyday, and who even knows how many trains to keep track of... and although stats and probability was never my best subject, it just seems statistically impossible that everything would run smoothly all of the time, right? but on the other hand, shouldn't it be just as unlikely that something goes wrong EVERY TIME i take the train??

for example, when alicia was here visiting, we took the train to berlin. i looked online, purchased the tickets and printed out the itinerary. because i live so in the middle of nowhere and we don't have a train station in kuenzelsau, we have to take a bus. two buses, actually. one from ingelfingen to kuenzelsau. then one from kuenzelsau to the train station in bad mergentheim. according to the good folk at the deutsche bahn, there was supposed to be a bus in ingelfingen at 9:46 on sunday morning, which we were to take to kuenzelsau. NO SUCH BUS EXISTS. so in order to make the connecting bus, alicia and i had the pleasure of trudging the 3-4 kilometers to kuenzelsau through the snow, carrying our provisions for a week and half of travel. good times. fortunately, we made the bus to bad mergentheim, and amazingly enough, had no trouble with the train to wuerzburg. in wuerzburg, however, where we were supposed to take the ICE to goettingen and then transfer to the ICE to berlin, they put on us on some other train with absolutely no explanation--with incredibly rude people no less, and while i realize the DB has no control over who rides its trains, it really just doesn't help their reputation when their customers are absolute assholes.

alicia and i are traveling on the same ticket but not sitting together because the train is that crowded, so after the conductor-lady comes along and figures out the ticket situation, she tells me that because this train isn't an ICE, it can't go fast enough to make our connection in goettingen and we're going to have to get off at the next stop and take the ICE from there to berlin instead. ok. so i go to let alicia know we're going to have to get off soon--all the while being glared at by the world's biggest asshole sitting across from her. seriously, there are some things i will never understand. and about 3 minutes before we get off the train, they announce that those of us heading to berlin should all get off at the next station and take the next ICE to berlin...BUT that train is, unfortunately, going to be delayed--by an HOUR. greeeeaaaaat. (i'm going to take this opportunity to point out, that i had considered flying to berlin because it cost about the same, but decided on taking the train, because the only flight i could find would have gotten us to berlin later than i wanted to get there.) so we get off the train, and since it's waaaay to cold to hang out on the platform for an hour, we find somewhere to sit inside and get some coffee. and wait. and wait. and wait some more. some 50 minutes later, we head back to the platform. it's going to be another half an hour. lovely. by now there's quite the crowd gathered on the platform, as everyone is apparently trying to get to berlin on this particular sunday afternoon.

after about 30 different announcements over the PA, most of us on the platform are thoroughly confused. eventually it's been determined that our train will be the next one, and that it is now going to arrive on the opposite side of the platform. a mad scramble to get to the other side ensues. old ladies wielding their suitcases like weapons shove their way to the front, giving reproachful out-of-my-way-i'm-an-old-lady-have-you-no-decency?! looks to anyone and everyone in the way. somehow, we make it onto the train. of course, since this is apparently the first train headed towards to berlin to actually make it this far north, it's FULL to the max. alicia and i make ourselves comfortable on the floor between piles of luggage stowed outside the actual seating compartments and settle in for a loooooong ride. other than having to get up and shift to one side or the other every time we stopped and they opened the doors, we pretty much stayed camped out there until the last 45 min. of the journey, when a few seats opened up.

the rest of the trip to berlin--at least the train-related portions--were uneventful. and the rest of our travels during the week were via MFG, so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for the DB to redeem itself.

while that was a rather extreme example of the DB drama, it's still not unusual. in fact, alicia was only here for two weeks, and of the 4 train trips taken that time period, exactly ONE was without drama. the first train we took from the airport was mysteriously delayed for 45 minutes. the next one was the uneventful one. then there was the berlin adventure. then when alicia was heading back to the airport, we had another complete BS itinerary from the deutsche bahn, which resulted in a missed bus and a great deal of stress and running around, trying to figure out how to get alicia to the airport on time. this is where my frustration with the deutsche bahn turns to appreciation, however, because i had to pack alicia off on a bus and run into the school to make it to my first class, HOPING she would be able to get a new ticket and make the string of trains i had just jotted down for her as a makeshift itinerary in the few minutes we had between realizing the info we had was wrong and when the next bus to a different train station was coming, and the very nice DB people took care of her and helped her figure everything out and went out of their way to make sure she made it to the right platforms, etc. good job, DB people!!

i've had plenty of DB drama without alicia though, but i'll spare you the gory details. but bahn drama aside, as a rule, i prefer to travel with MFGs--they're just cheaper, faster and way more fun.

but when my MFG for the return trip from salzburg didn't work out, i turned to the deutsche bahn... i promise, i'll finish the story tomorrow.

i've failed you all a.k.a. "SALZBURG"

2006-04-10T10:30:00.000+02:00

*melodramtic sigh*

it's about time i put the "travelogue" back into this blog, right??

that said, i'm listening to the kings of convenience song "homesick" at the moment, and as y'all have probably noticed, i've been miserably homesick on and off over the past few weeks, so i've spent a frightening amount of time online looking for flights home. rather unsuccessfully. but if i can't go home, i'm at least going to go somewhere right? i sure as hell wasn't going to stay here, so... the question was, of course, where to go. vienna was on the list, which got me looking at various flights, trains, and MFGs (mitfahrgelegenheiten--the online rideboard thing...) to Austria. long story short, ended up finding an MFG to salzburg and figured i'd stay there for a couple of days and either head somewhere else for a couple of days or just head back, but i hadn't worked out the travel details for the return trip yet. typical. but whatev. have a plan. going to salzburg. cool.

GETTING THERE
meeting up with the guy i was supposed to ride with was kind of an adventure in itself. i live in the middle of nowhere, as you all know, so the bus connections are, well, sketchy at best on occasion, and as it happens, there was exactly ONE bus that travels to this particular stop--a parking lot along the highway--in the afternoons. great. so we arrange tentatively to meet at 5. but seeing as there's only one bus, i'm going to be getting there shortly after 4 and just hanging around. fine. so then the guy calls a bit after 4 and is like, umm, i'm going to be a bit later, maybe 5:30. i'll call you when i get closer. sure. so now i've got well over an hour to kill, and you know, why not explore the area a bit. so i wander into the nearby, umm, "town"--consisting of about 20 houses, a church the size of my bedroom, a playground for the kiddies-and there are several-because there can't be much to do in this town other than procreate, and... a barn full of pigs. yes, that's right, a barn full of pigs. just hanging out on an otherwise residential street. right. ok. so i walk up and down the main drag a couple of times. i mean, it took about 3 minutes, you know. then sat on a bench near the playground and read in the remains of the afternoon sun for a good 45 minutes. still not having heard from MFG guy, i'm beginning to get a little nervous. i mean, if he doesn't show, i'm kind of screwed, because there's not another bus heading anywhere near a place where i can catch a bus back home. fabulous. then a little after 5:30 MFG guy calls. he's in the parking lot. cool.

so we take off. first of all, could hardly understand the guy. to avoid propagating any sorts of rumours about dialects in germany, i'm not going to tell you where he's from, but daaaaamn. plus, he's a guy, and weird as this sounds, i sometimes have a harder time understanding guys in german than girls. don't really know what that's about, but yeah. after the initial adjustment period--me with my accent, him with his, what a pair!--we were cool. had a nice chat about all the places i still need to see in germany, which other european cities i should visit, where i should go on vacation--when i'm rich and can afford things like vacation, that is!! patagonia, anyone!??! then he asks me when i'm heading back. not sure, i tell him, maybe sunday or monday. he's like, oh yeah? i'm heading back sunday, if you want to ride back with me then. cool. he's not sure what time exactly, probably in the afternoon, so i'm supposed to text him sometime and let him know if i want to ride back on sunday. he drops me off, and i head to my hostel.

THE HOSTEL
get to the hostel, check in, head to my room. it's about 10 p.m. someone's already sleeping. there's another american girl in the hallway, who's also staying in the room--and also about to go to bed. ok, guess i'll go to bed, too. granted, it's not even 10:30, but hey, sleep is never a bad idea, right? try telling that to the 3000 pre-teens running up and down the halls screaming all night!! =) seriously, wasn't that THE COOLEST, when you were in jr. high, and you went away on a school trip for the weekend?!?!? man, those were the days... props to the teachers who chaperoned us. seriously.

anyway. i drift in and out of various stages of not quite sleeping until our finnish roommate comes in around 11:30 and turns on the light. the other american girl does not like this and makes that quite clear. i'm hiding under my pillow, pretending to sleep. finnish girl leaves the room for about 10 minutes. returns and turns on the light again. american girl: "are you going to be doing that a lot???" finnish girl: "obviously, you've never lived in a dormitory before." american girl: (pauses) "actually i have, that's why i brought a FLASHLIGHT." (this is the part where i'm stifling laughter, still pretending to sleep with my head under my pillow.) i make up my mind to avoid american girl at all costs during this trip.

THE CITY
get up the next morning, breakfast with the aforementioned 3000 preteens, and head out into the town. the short version: you know how sometimes you walk into a city, and you just fit? you just love it right from the beginning? you know you could LIVE there? this did NOT happen with salzburg. it was..nice. i mean, i liked it. it was an interesting place, full of history and architecture, lots to see--and lots of tourists, of course. but it wasn't someplace that really grabbed me the way some other cities have. i don't know.

so yeah, i spent most of the day wandering around, checking out some of the tourist sites--the house where mozart was born, lots of churches and cemeteries, an exhibit of old russian icons, a few of the sites from The Sound of Music--i'm not hardcore enough to do the whole Sound of Music Tour!!--exploring little side streets and peering into shop windows, hiking and admiring the views, sitting by fountains writing postcards, drinking coffee. you know, the usual.

get back to the hostel to find the american girl has also returned. we end up chatting for quite a while. decide i don't need to avoid her after all. so we eat dinner and wander around the city for a bit in the evening. watch part of the sound of music in the lobby when we got back--they show it every night, believe it or not!!

the next morning i have to tell the nice hostel people that i want to stay another night, because i had only booked two nights ahead of time, because i wasn't sure what my plans were. but there's a whole group moving into my room, so they move me to another room, but i have to check out and then check back in sometime in the afternoon. whatev. wander around the city some more, check out the Festung ... check back into the hostel in the early afternoon. get my stuff settled. in walk two more american girls. they're pretty cool and have just spent 3 weeks in italy. we end up walking around the town for the rest of the afternoon. they want to go for a run, and at this point, i'm about to fall asleep standing up. so i go back to the room to get something to read. run into former american roommate in the hall. she's had a bit of hostel drama and was randomly moved to another room as well. i grab my magazine and find a bench outside in the sun and read for bit in town--because it is GORGEOUS outside. i even got a baby sunburn!! then head back to the hostel again. am about to fall asleep reading, when two more american girls walk in. semester abroad. great. of the "yeah, i've been to england, france, italy, germany, umm, let's see, oh yeah, spain..." type. but what they really mean is that they spent about 24 hours in a major city within that country. so they spend a weekend in paris, for example, and come home and say, "yeah, i went to france." ok, i know i'm not being entirely fair, but you know what i mean, right?!?!?

end up watching another part of The Sound of Music--from the beginning up until "sixteen going on seventeen"--i just couldn't handle it at that point!!

another american girl joins our room later in the evening. seriously, do they put us all together on purpose!?!? (to spare the poor europeans from the torture of our company, probably... *rolling of the eyes*)

GETTING HOME
sunday, more of the same, text MFG guy, wander around town for a while, do a bit more hiking. don't hear anything from MFG guy, find an internet cafe and look for trains back home. wander around some more. still haven't heard anything from MFG guy, kind of assume he didn't get my message and head to the train station.

this is where the real adventure begins! but i'm tired of writing, and you're tired of reading, so in true cliffhanger fashion (oh, don't worry, it's not THAT exciting), "to be continued..."

cleaning house

2006-04-04T00:22:00.000+02:00

this one's dedicated to all of you who have had to live with me =)

so my room has achieved a rather uncharacteristic state of messiness over the past few weeks. granted, it's not actually "messy"--not even really by my standards! (i don't exactly consider myself a neat-freak, although a few of my previous roommates might disagree!!=)) but the piles of crap to deal with have grown, and i'm not even going to tell you how badly i need to vacuum. the laundry was dealt with over the weekend, which improved things drastically, but still. the thing that concerns me about the current state of affairs is that i have no real desire to deal with it. normally, i get really freakish about such things--as those of you who've lived with me can attest to!--and come home one day and just clean the whole thing up in an hour, and then all is right with the world again. but i've been aware of and annoyed by the mess for a good two weeks now and have yet to actually DO anything about it--other than the laundry, which had a lot more to do with vanity than with cleanliness...

but thinking about roommates and various sketchy apartments and houses reminded me--in a roundabout way--of one of life's greatest mysteries...

when i started my first year of college, our incoming class was huge, and the university had something of housing crisis, and i ended up in a triple--sharing the world's smallest dorm room with not one, but TWO other people. despite general disgruntledness about the whole thing at the beginning, we all got along so well that we VOLUNTARILY shared the same room the following year. BUT both of my roommates were snoozers. I am not. I can neither understand nor appreciate the snooze button and highly doubt that i ever will. so the first couple of weeks were a little rough. 3 alarm clocks, 2 of which went off every 9 minutes for about an hour every morning. but then, somehow, we learned to sleep through each other's alarms, each only waking up to our own. but HOW?? how does your brain know which is yours? our alarms all sounded the same. we had classes or worked at different times every day, so it wasn't like we had developed anything even resembling regular sleeping patterns. (sleep?? what is this word "sleep"? we were college students, for crying out loud...) Seriously, though, i've been wondering about this for a good six years now--insight, anyone??

deutsche post

2006-04-03T17:36:00.000+02:00

so in my utter and complete destituteness of late--seriously, i never thought i'd be poorer than i was as a student--i was wrong!!--i've been paying more attention to what i spend money on: food, obviously; coffee--yes, it's a separate category; postcards; at the post office. and really, that's pretty much it. i think. i'm not allowed to buy clothes, partially because i'm broke, but also because i have no idea how i'm going to get all my stuff home as it is, so the last thing i need is...more STUFF. maybe the occasional movie or theatre and/or live music production. and travel--that's where the largest chunk goes... but travel aside, i've recently noticed that i spend the most money at the post office, of all places. it's also one of the places i spend the most time, somehow. i feel like i'm constantly going to the post office.... weird.

but that said, here's the thing about the post office... first of all, it costs a euro to send a postcard to the US and 1.70 to send a letter. does that seem like a lot to anyone else??? i mean, a standard LETTER from the US to germany costs, what? 90 cents??? and it costs ONE WHOLE EURO just to send a freaking POSTCARD from here to the US???? and i assure you, it's not because of any great superiority on the part of the deutsche post. it takes the same amount of time for stuff to get from germany to the US as it does to get something from the US to germany. alicia and i tested this: we sent letters on the same day, a friday, i believe, and we both received our respective letters on the following wednesday. it just cost twice as much for me to send mine. (shaking head in disbelief.) and it's not like the postal workers are any friendlier here. in fact, there's one guy in particular who absolutely hates me. (there's also one who's really nice and always jokes with me, just to be fair!!) but the angsty guy...he always happens to be there when i have something complicated to mail. like today. i had two thing to send within germany, one going to the UK, two to the US. i explain all of this to him. he looks at me like it's NOT his job to deal with this. unbelievable. i would have purchased stamps as well, but he just scares me, so i didn't want to ask!! plus--something else i simply do not understand--the 1 euro stamp doesn't seem to exist!!! if it costs a euro to send a postcard to north america, don't you think it would be logical to have a 1 euro stamp!?!? not to mention that 1 euro is just a nice round even amount anyway. i know they USED to exist. but now, whenever i ask for them, they give me some other combination 90 cents and 10 cents. or two 50 cent stamps. i just don't get it. you can buy 1 euro stamps from the little automated machines outside the post office, but they're a) really big, and b) just ugly. angsty postal worker man actually got mad at me once, because i had a couple of postcards and needed stamps for them. i had already written on the postcards, leaving room for a stamp--A stamp--a 1 euro stamp, because this made sense to me. but when you send something directly from the post office, they just print up a sticker stamp, rather than putting actual stamps on whatever you're sending. and the sticker stamp is like 3 inches wide, for no apparent reason. this, of course, would not have fit on the postcards without covering up half of what i'd written, and he was irritated that he had to use real stamps. but seriously, if it's costing me a whole euro to send a stinking postcard, you better believe i'm going to fit as much on that postcard as i can!!!! don't expect me to leave 3 inches of blank space for your stinking sticker!!! when they COULD just be normal and sell 1 EURO stamps in the first place... yet another example of german INefficiency!!!! *grin*

my secret life as a travel agent

2006-03-31T03:35:00.000+02:00

so i've spent more time online trying to arrange various travel details for myself, my father, and various friends the past few weeks than i've spent sleeping and eating combined. and you know how much i love food. seriously. now if only i worked on commission =)

i also just realized that it's april. first of all, how is it april already!?!?!? not that i'm complaining. march is still practically winter where i come from, although we all like to pretend that it's going to be spring. but april?? april means spring. period. plus, i've also realized that the rest of my time in germany can roughly be divided up into two or three week segments, which makes july not seem so far away. in two weeks, we have our easter break, which means, yep, LOTS of traveling for me. after that, a week and then april's practically over. then, hopefully, i'll get to see a couple of people from home at some point during the month of may??? (get your asses over here!!!!) then at the end of may we have another couple of weeks off of school, and my dad's coming to visit. then there are a couple more weeks of school, then i'm done. crazy. after that i have a couple weeks to travel, etc. then i come home!!! it's going to go by pretty quickly, for better or for worse. i'm starting to panic, realizing how much i haven't done yet!!!

fragments

2006-03-28T22:58:00.000+02:00

walking home, offered ride by martin, how is this my life?? =) watching the rain darken the pavement in front of me a few drops at a time

something reminds me of the texture of weathered american dollar bills, stories of money in envelopes, farmer's market in ann arbor on saturday mornings. not nostalgia. not even homesickness (at least not at the moment!!) just a kind of joy in knowing that such things exists and that i will go home to them--(NOT YET)--that i have a home. (even if it's not my home!!)

"And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. . . Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (NOT YET) come and I didn't know where i was to come to."

madeleine: "back in joy"...

wonder if i'm here because i don't know where else to go. needing/wanting to be at home somewhere. homesick everywhere. not running away, just trying to find home. wonder if i'm asking too much of germany... (KNOW i'm asking too much of the germans!!)

trying to write this essay for my application to stay here next year... not sure what to say. how honest to be. not even sure what the truth is at the moment. (or ever??) ..."just be yourself"... who the fuck is that??? i remember writing an angsty essay in my high school english class about how pissed i was that teachers and guidance counselors kept telling us stuff like that when we were writing college application essays. of course, i didn't use words like "fuck" when i was in high school... good girls didn't say things like that, and i wanted to be a good girl. but i'm a far cry from what that girl thought was a good girl, so to hell with it all, right?

keep asking myself the...

"same old questions,
without words,
so familiar
seldom heard.
if I answer
I confess
I am only
just a guess..."

wondering if i'm supposed to stay here long enought to learn HOW to overcome the things that being here has taught me that i NEED to overcome

(that said, i need to quote the rest of the song...surprise, surprise)

"and with my eyes
it's hard to see
with my ears it's
hard to believe that
if I ever lose my will to live
it was me that I could not forgive

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering we fear but loss
this is closer than I ever came
just a burning moth without a flame

isaac's knife can
cut away
all the poisoned
yesterdays
and the anger
ease it down
into the ocean
let it drown
as far as east is
from the west
I let you go
I know it's best
and my answer to the years of strife
is the way I choose to live my life

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering you fear but loss
when there's no one else around to blame
you're a burning moth without a flame

maybe I should take your face tonight
let you see yourself in a different light
if you were to take my place tonight
wouldn't jesus be surprised

there's no savior hanging on this cross
it isn't suffering we fear but loss
this is closer than I ever came
just a burning moth without a flame
it's an offer that you can't refuse
it's a trophy that you'll want to lose
but you'll do anything
anything
you're a burning moth without a flame"

Over the Rhine::Moth

you can draw your own conclusions.

Wish You Were Here

2006-03-26T13:10:00.000+02:00

"So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell..."

i saw a pink floyd cover band at a club in schwaebisch hall last night. if you need a mental picture, think "the blind pig" only about twice as big and full of guys in their mid-fifties with graying jerry curls and ratty black t-shirts. at the ripe old age of 25, i felt a little out of place, actually. (i even ran into one of the teachers from my school. only slightly awkward!!) until the band started, they were piping in 80's madonna, pat benatar, boston, journey and starship. yes, starship. you know, "nothing's gonna stop us now" starship?? seriously??? (this kind of thing is, however, not at all unusual in german clubs.) but back to pink floyd... so the band was decent but not great. and what they lacked in musicianship, they tried to make up for in reverb. the fans didn't seem to mind. for example, the guy in front of me, probably late 40's with a receding hairline, wearing a striped polo shirt with belted khakis pulled up to his armpits... the guy was totally into it--that is, shifting his weight from one foot and to the other, hands in his pockets, nodding his head, occasionally even in time with the music, eyes closed... you know, where you're thinking, really, YOU got high in the 70's??!!

yeah.

2006-03-24T17:18:00.000+01:00

conversations and poems and words and non-words and my utter inability to quote piano pieces. this is a bit of what has been filling my head lately. traveling gives one lots of time to think. as i sat in the bus last weekend on my way to wuerzburg, i was listening to music--partially to keep me from thinking TOO much. this completely backfired, of course. but it was good.

disclaimer: i don't really want to be one of those people who lists the last ten songs randomly played on their ipod... it's way too easy to make something out of which songs are played and pretend that it's profound or something. or just to say, hey, look how cool i am, i listen to this and this and this... but that said... here are the last ten songs randomly played on my ipod =) just kidding. sort of. see... it was kind of like this. i had had a pretty shitty week, but the sun was shining, and i was starting to think it might be ok. but i wasn't sure if i was ready to commit to being hopeful, because that can be dangerous, you know??? thus the appeal of the shuffle songs function. sure enough...

first song : ben harper : the power of the gospel
second : linford detweiler : mary's hymn
third : bob dylan : buckets of rain
fourth : muse : ruled by secrecy
fifth : U2 : bad
sixth : sarah mclachlan : hold on
seventh : ani difranco : carry you around

can we talk about this?!?!? (that is, i'm going to quote from a couple of them, and you're going to be amazed by the profundity of it all, right?)

ben
"It will make a weak man mighty
it will make a mighty man fall
it will fill your heart and hands
or leave you with nothing at all
it's the eyes for the blind
and legs for the lame
it is love for hate
and pride for shame"

mary's hymn is a piano piece, which, unfortunately, i don't know how to quote, but it was fitting. quite.

U2
"If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender...
Dislocate...
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light...
And to the day...

To let it go! And so to fade away
Let it go!
And so fade away
I'm wide awake!
I'm wide awake!
Wide awake! I'm not sleeping, oh no, no, no..."

ani
"how pleased can one
sun setting make you
if you humble yourself
to it?
how grateful can you
really say that you are
just to be here and live
through it?
and when beauty asks a question
how often do you reply?
how often do you wonder
about life on the other side?
on the other side of sorrow
on the other side of rage
on the other side of o.k.
o.k. at all
in any way..."

ok, i was going to quote more, but this post is long enough already. i have about 800 stories i need to tell, too, and i just haven't gotten around to it. there have been many adventure in the past few weeks, most of which have gone unreported. i also have a nice little rant about the deutsche post saved up, too... =)

the week in review

2006-03-23T15:44:00.000+01:00

although it's only thursday. but if i wait 'til the weekend, i'll never write anything, so let's see...monday i was all excited, because it was pretending to be spring here. tuesday and wednesday it was rainy and gray and ass-cold, and i was beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to send half of my warmer clothes home with alicia... today, still cold-ish but SUNNY. and this makes all the difference in the world!! plus, my march issue of Paste arrived yesterday. and that is ALWAYS a good thing. a) it's mail. and it don't get a lot of that. b) it only comes every other month, so it's not like your credit card bill or something, that you expect--and dread, if you're me!!--every month, look at and throw out the window in hopes that it will simply disappear. with paste it's like a surprise every time, because i forget that it's coming, and because i'm overseas, it takes longer to get here, and you never really know if it'll even show up at all.

and i ran into one of my fellow folk-music loving germans (mel, if you're reading this, there is at least ONE WHOLE EUROPEAN who likes such music!! there's still hope!!!!) we didn't actually talk music, but just remembering that he exists was helpful. many of you know--although certainly not from experience or anything!!=)--that one of my favorite pasttimes is introducing my friends to cool music, and that's something i've missed horribly here. i remember the first time i heard someone in ann arbor--patrick, no less--mention the innocence mission, i just gaped at him, hardly believing what i was hearing. i didn't even respond or jump into the conversation or mention that i like them, too. it was one of the first times i was hanging out these people--jen, dan d and patrick. we were in sweetwaters at one of the tall tables against the back wall--and i was still trying to figure out what i was doing hanging out with these people at all. and patrick had to go and mention the innocence mission... crazy. sometimes i wonder if my life in a2 was really just a dream. especially that second year. i feel like it was always cold and snowing and dark. and beautiful and profound things kept happening anyway. in the midst of the all the chaos... i don't know. there were things i was sure of then. what the hell happened?!?!? =)

had lots of thought-provoking conversations and experiences yesterday and today... more on that later, still processing =) i'm going to miss my conversation classes with the 13th graders--they have the next week off to prepare for exams.

speaking of preparing, i'm supposed to be writing an essay for one of my applications for next year. i'm still taking suggestions if anyone out there happens to know what the hell i'm supposed to do with my life =) when i was at the fulbright seminar in berlin a couple of weeks ago, i kept asking everyone what they were doing next year, hoping someone would have a brilliant idea i could steal. but no luck... so yeah. instead of writing my essay, i'm blogging =) yesterday i procrastinated by downloading music. seriously, what would we do without the internet!?? i, for one, might actually get something done!!

but since the sun in still shining, i'm going to go procrastinate in the outdoors for a while...

it's spring--i think

2006-03-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

listening to beck and missing my old front porch and the greek's kids and spring in ann arbor.

looking forward to spring in hohenlohe. besides, i'll be spending most of my spring actually IN hohenlohe, because i'm now officially broke and can't afford to travel anymore for a while!! just finished doing my taxes, and let me tell you, the grand total of $15 i'm getting back from the state of michigan isn't going to get me very far!!

spanish, more songs lyrics and tomato soup

2006-03-15T22:47:00.000+01:00

so tonight i went to my first spanish class since...1999..!?? yeah. (sorry, señor!!) I was somewhat dragged there--that is, if not for the persistence and generally contagious enthusiasm of a certain fellow (transplanted) resident of hohenlohe, i probably wouldn't have left my house this evening. (it's so freakin' cold here!!!! what happened to spring, people?!?!?!)

anyway. back to spanish. it was sufficiently embarrassing but not nearly as humiliating as i'd expected. and i only had one of the oh-my-gosh-i-can't-breathe-my-heart-isn't-beating-i'm-going-to-pass-out-they-asked-me-a-question-and-i-have-to-say-somethin-and-i-don't-speak-spanish panic attacks. the really impressive thing, however, was the realization that i DON'T have those with german anymore. at least not regularly =) and this is progress. (we like progress.)
............................................................................................

and having spent a lot of time traveling over the past few weeks, i've come back to this--one of my many favorite innocence mission songs...

Song about Traveling

A man said Why, why does traveling
in cars and in trains make him feel sad,
a beautiful sadness.
I've felt this before.
It's the people in the cities you'll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering, will you ever return?

The colors of rowboats, the greens and the blues.
Orange grove side streets you only see halfway.
And beaches in winter
and when kites are flown.
It's the people in the cities you'll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering, will you ever return?
....................................................

what makes everything ok:
tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and your lips, leaving little strings hanging down to stick to your chin

what would make everything even better:
eating tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and your lips, leaving little strings hanging down to stick to your chin--while sitting across from someone else eating tomato soup with sunflower seeds and shredded cheese that sticks to the spoon and their lips, leaving little strings hanging down stuck to their chin

this is not my home

2006-03-14T23:32:00.000+01:00

i guess it's been a while... there's been lots of traveling and not so much of the regular internet access. not to mention the "so-much-to-write-about-that-i-don't-know-where-to-start" syndrome. but, as so many before me have said, in one way or another, we write to find a beginning...

let's see. first there was Karneval in Koeln. that was some kick-ass craziness, let me just tell you. think mardi gras, german-style. beer. folk music (in dialect, no less!). but face paint and crazy costumes instead of lederhosen. bars crowded to the point where people are spilling out onto the streets, still dancing--or swaying, rather, the entire bar shifting simultaneously from left to right, right to left again. people spilling their beer all over each other and only half caring. in a word, hilarious. and i have never in my life seen so many broken bottles on the streets. it was sort of surreal, the crunch, crunch with every step...

then alicia got here, and it was time for take two of the whirlwind tour of germany. lots of traveling, awkward and not-so-awkward conversations in some bizarre mixture of german and english. the fulbright seminar in Berlin. seeing a friend i hadn't seen in some 3 years. making new friends in a doener shop in dresden...

and now alicia's gone, and it's back to "normal" life in hohenlohe.

then someone wrote to me and inadvertently reminded me of what my life was like a year ago... and all i can say or think or do or be comes down to this: this is not my home. ...funny, when i typed that, it first came out: "this is noW my home"... which is kind of my point. i love everyone and everything that makes this so NOT my home. and i love all the people and places that make me wish it were. does this make sense at all?? ...didn't think so.

welcome to my life.

out of control

2006-02-22T19:25:00.000+01:00

seriously, people, i'm sitting here, trying to write a few emails, minding my own business... i look up, HUGE-ASS spider on my wall. like, seriously, HUGE-ASS. i know i'm somewhat prone to exaggeration when it comes to these things, but with a spider this huge on your wall, there's no NEED for exaggeration.

someone must be trying to kill me. there's no other explanation. spiders this big do not just happen!!!!

i heart valentine's day

2006-02-14T19:24:00.000+01:00

not really, of course--i fall rather into the what-a-load-of-commercialist-bs camp, but to each his/her own... and i certainly don't hate the holiday enough to devote my time and energy to raging against it. and it's not all bad--after all, i got an endearing valentine's day card from my mother =) (everyone together now: awwwwww!!) besides, god knows there are greater evils in the world!! speaking of which...

what's this about cheney shooting people!?!?!

it's things like that that make me miss ann arbor. i miss the flippant political remarks made by grumpy and occasionally not so grumpy folks of all political persuasions before, during, or after getting their coffee in the morning. i love the way they always assume you agree with them, because they're right, of course! here, it's pretty one-sided. i mean, every hates Bush. that's just a given, not even worth wasting your breath on the subject. ann arborites, on the other hand, have a knack for making it a new and exciting topic every day!!

spring, spiders, and scary movies

2006-02-13T22:56:00.000+01:00

this is like the sixth day in a row now that i've had spider encounters. can we talk about this!?!?!? this is SO not ok. first of all, six days, does not mean just six spiders. there have been more than six. yes, that's right. that means multiple spiders in a single day. sometimes within the span of 3 minutes. not really how i like to start my day, but ok.

it was starting to get warmer at the beginning of last week, so i just kind of figured it was the weather, and they'd all decided to come out of hiding. and spring--yes, i know it's still february, but today definitely felt like spring--means spider babies, you know, like in charlotte's web. by the way, i know a lot of kids are really traumatized by that book and/or movie because of wilbur and everything, and all of a sudden they won't eat bacon anymore or something. but me? nope. my vegetarian phase started much later, and has nothing to do with wilbur, adorable as he may be. i always had nightmares about the part where charlotte's eggs start to hatch, and there are millions of little baby spiders parachuting all over the place. in fact, it seems they've all parachuted into the general vicinity of my room. aghhhhhhh!!!!!

but speaking of movies that cause nightmares... out of nowhere today i remembered this scary movie i'd watched with some friends at a sleepover, and i couldn't remember what it was called or anything, just the basic plotline--it was based on an urban legend that we'd all heard growing up, and all i really remembered was that we'd all woken up at some point during the night totally freaked out. (they even made a sequel, so you know it was bad!) then i was reading the new york times online today and happened to look at the box office info for last weekend... "when a stranger calls" ...hey...wasn't that the name of that movie!?!?! yup. freaky. a remake, evidently. super. (i still get chills when i think of the scene with the tea kettle...) kind of curious about the new version. probably not curious enough to see it, though, because you really shouldn't see that kind of movie outside of the context of a jr. high sleepover. besides, the spiders are scary enough at the moment, thank you.

oh, i just remembered why i thought of the movie in the first place--my phone rang today, and when i went to answer it, there was no one there, and it kind of freaked me out. i mean, not really. i do realize this kind of thing happens. but somehow it led to the whole "when a stranger calls" thing. weird.

code-switching galore

2006-02-08T15:49:00.000+01:00

so i'm walking home from the bus stop this afternoon, when the guy in front of me stops suddenly and starts rubbing his knee. half thinking i should ask if he's ok, half thinking that is sooo the oldest trick in the book, i keep walking, minding my own business. sure enough, about 30 seconds later, his knee is mysteriously healed and he's caught up to me. the following conversation ensued:

random guy: wir laufen den gleichen weg.
yours truly: anscheinend.
rg: kommst du aus ingelfingen oder bist du hier zu besuch?
yt: [thinking, hmm, that was an interesting way to phrase that question--kind of limits my options in answering, eh?] ich wohne in ingelfingen. [how you like them apples, hey?]
rg: ich geh jetzt a bissl heim.
yt: ... [na, und???]
rg: (repeats) ich geh jetzt a bissl heim. ich musste was in Kuenzelsau erledigen, und jetzt geh ich heim. meine mutter besuchen. ich wohne aber alleine. proceeds to tell me which family he rents the apartment from and lists other neighbors names. i don't know any of them.
yt: schoen.
slightly awkward pause
rg: gehst du noch in die schule?
yt: [laughing--is he for real??] neeee.
rg: wie alt bist du, wenn ich fragen darf?
yt: [rolling eyes über-dramatically, debating whether to bother with a response] 25
rg: ich bin 27.
yt: [shrug--that's nice]
rg: ich haette gedacht 19 oder 18.
yt: [still rolling eyes] danke
rg: blabs on about how it's better to have people think you're younger than you are, and how when he was 15 everyone thought he was 18 or 19, but now that he's 27, everyone thinks he's 23 or something.
yt: mmhmm
another awkward pause
rg: ich bin griecher.
yt: [nod]
rg: warst du schon mal in Griechenland?
yt: nee, noch nicht.
rg: schoenes land, griechenland.
yt: das hab ich schon gehoert.
rg: das hast du schon gehoert?
yt: ja, ich wuerde gern mal hin.
slightly less awkward pause
rg: warst du schon mal im Ausland?
yt: [i'm dying at this point, right...] mmm. ja.
rg: und wo warst du schon?
yt: [laughing. i mean, i can't help it! is he serious?] in den USA, in Ungarn, in... (first of all, yes, i know als echter deutsche sagt man "in amerika" statt "in den USA" but i can't pronounce "amerika" auf deutsch, no matter how hard i try!!!)
rg: [interrupts me] in amerika?? echt? wo in amerika?
yt: [shaking head. i still can't believe i'm having this conversation.] mm, ueberall, eigentlich.
rg: [eyes growing almost embarrassingly wide] was? wie? kommst du nicht aus deutschland? bist du auch auslaender?
yt: amerikanerin.
rg: amerikanerin, echt?
yt: [seriously, would i make that up??] jaaaaa.
rg: you speak english?
yt: jaaaaa.
rg: you understand english?
yt: [is this a joke?? ]jaaaa.
rg: this is my house.
yt: super [i keep walking]
rg: ok, bye
yt: tschüss. schoenen tag noch. [i walk away still shaking my head]

p.s. i got off easy on that one. usually they insists on following you a while longer. phewww.
you WISH this was your life.

february. flowers. i still love you.

2006-02-07T20:09:00.000+01:00

so i wrote this huge rambling spiel yesterday about california, flowers in february, winter, the midwest and music, among other things, and as fate would have it, the whole thing went up in a puff of smoke as i tried to post it. so instead y'all got lots of lyrics.

(speaking of which... 8 million cool points if you can name the artist and/or song referenced in the title!)

and i have discovered that i'm living in the bermuda triangle. or something like it. the comedy of errors and string of coincidences that somehow are my life are more than i can comprehend. allow me not to explain at all. grin.

so, notes from yesterday...
i've been missing california a lot lately. it's strange but true. although i'm a midwestern girl at heart, every now and then i get these funny california cravings. i miss the warmth and the ocean and flowers in february and green and sunshine and rows of pastel stuccoed houses with fake lawns and miles of conrete strip malls punctuated with strategically placed palm trees and more neon that your neurons can handle all at once.

it doesn't help that i've been listening to lots of trespassers william. they're from orange county, but don't hold it against them. to listen to them, you'd think they were from some bleak winterlorn corner of northern ontario. (yes, i know "winterlorn" isn't a real word. but don't you think it should be??) which brings me to my next point: midwesterners write the best winter music. period. (insert ponderous look.) well, "midwesterners" including those who hail from the Great Lakes Region--and we'll include Canada in that category. (hmm, how many canadians did i just piss off!?!?=)) but anyways. sufjan stevens, great lake swimmers, the innocence mission, linford detweiler, the cowboy junkies... their music is rooted in place in a way that betrays their midwestern-ness. it's steeped in something that can only be understood against the subtle landscape of the silence and stillness that fill the spaces and days of a melancholy midwestern winter, waiting--still and still moving--with steadfast resolution, for the spring.

anyways. looks like i got my flowers in february after all =)
(nelsen, what was that about my "power color"?!?!!?)

insomnia

2006-02-07T02:34:00.000+01:00

Over the Rhine: The World Can Wait

if this should end tomorrow
all our best laid plans
and all our typical fears
am I running out of lifetimes
this is not the first time
something ends in just tears

but tomorrow I can't imagine
how am I supposed to know
what's yet to go down ?
is there only one religion
the kind that whispers
when nobody comes around ?

the world can wait
the world can wait
I wanna drink the water from your well
I wanna tell you things i'll never tell
the world can wait
the world can wait
i'm wide awake
and the world can wait

I want to feel and then some
I have five senses
I need thousands more at least
every day a page of paper
every night a photograph
a moveable feast

so fade to black and white now
roll the movie of my life
inside of my head
'cause like all true believers
I am truly skeptical
of all that I have said

the world can wait
the world can wait
I wanna drink the water from your well
I wanna tell you things i'll never tell
the world can wait
the world can wait
i'm wide awake
and the world can wait

haven't I said enough
haven't I said far too much
haven't we done enough
haven't we done far too much

tomorrow...

2006-02-06T17:30:00.000+01:00

i have way too much to say about everything and nothing right now, so i decided to sort it out later and leave you with this for now:

Tomorrow On The Runway

Old days, don't come to find me,
the sun is just about to climb up over there.
'While my heart is sinking I do not want my voice
to go out into the air'.
Did you leave the darkness without me?
You're always miles ahead.
And you're standing in tomorrow on the runway.

Oh be the music in my head,
the air around my bed, oh be my rest.
Replace the small disgraces of
the times and places that I never really left.
Did you leave the darkness without me?
You're always miles ahead.
And you're standing in tomorrow on the runway.

Oh I want to fly, fly forward into the light,
be alive, to come alive,
on the leaf-bright Friday drive,
sudden horses at the red light,
turn around, see clearer ways to go now.

can we talk about how much i love the innocence mission?!??!

thirsty?

2006-02-04T20:01:00.000+01:00

"can i get you something to drink?"

this is absolutely hilarious.
(and those of you who know what i drink are laughing your asses off right now, aren't you?)

who wants to do my taxes?? anyone?

2006-02-01T16:57:00.000+01:00

yeah. got home this afternoon and was all excited to find an envelope in front of my door. woohoo!! mail!! NOPE. not real mail. just my stupid W-2's.... blaaaaahhhhh. i hate having to do taxes. i don't DO math!!!!

i did, however, have another lovely encounter with my favorite bus driver today. grin. oh yes. because i was almost having a good morning anyway... well, actually i was, sort of. i had just bumped into an acquaintance, and starting your day with a smile is never a bad thing. and wednesdays are usually pretty decent at school anyway, so yeah, considering i didn't actually want to be awake at all, i was having a pretty good morning. 'til i got on the bus. my favorite bus driver (hereafter MFBD. coincidence, that that starts with MF?!?!? wait, did i say that out loud? (i always wondered about starbucks and the mocha frappuccino abbreviation. that just seems so...un-corporate!!!) hmmm.)

anyways... i get on the bus, say good morning, show MFBD my ticket as usual. he indicates that he wants to have a closer look, smirks triumphantly and hands it back to me asking what month it is. i realize right away what he's so happy about. see, today is the first day of february, which means i should have switched my bus ticket--i have the student ticket, which you pay for all at once--or at least 6 months at a time, i'm not quite sure, but at any rate, you get the first six tickets for september through february all at once, and you're supposed to switch them every month. right. so i, having, of course, completely forgotten about the bus ticket thing, although i had at one point realized that today would be the first of the month, had the distinct pleasure of brightening MFBD's day. i rise to the challenge, of course (not), rolling my eyes (what else am i gonna do!?!?) at MFBD while i take my ticket back and inform him that he's right, it's now february. (i.e." you win, buddy.") evidently not satisifed with such an easy victory, he asks again, "what month is it?" just to make sure everyone else got it. i stare him down (don't mess with me, buddy, it is way too early in the morning for this kind of bullshit) and tell him again. my friend sanaiya is already on the bus, so i sit next to her, still shaking my head, half laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing and half pissed at myself for forgetting to switch my ticket and making myself such an easy target. she informs me he's been doing this all morning, which i quite believe. the girl who got on behind me had forgotten, too, but got off pretty easy, seeing as i'd born the brunt of it.

seriously people, i've gone at least a week without remembering to switch my ticket in the past without anyone so much as batting an eye. and why should they? it's paid for. in order to get one of these tickets with ANY month from september through february printed on it, you have to have already paid for the first sixth months. so it's not like he could really charge me--or any of the other students he harassed about it--for the bus fare. (well, he probably could have, but it wouldn't have been worth it, because it would have taken about two words from any of the parents for everyone to get their money back.) so it's not like he gets anything--other than personal satisfaction--out of giving all of us crap about it. he clearly does it out of spite, just to make people feel stupid. i mean, ok, i remember going through a phase like that, too--when i was like, 8!!!! getting brainteaser books from the library and stumping my brother or even occasionally my parents. (do y'all remember the "want to take an intelligence test?" thing? where you ask someone if they want to take an intelligence test, and then ask 4 or 5 questions of varying difficulty, then ask, "what was the first question i asked?" and no one remembers that the first question you'd actually asked was "do you want to take an intelligence test?"... it's kind of like that. it's just kind of bratty. (yes, i'll admit it. i was a bratty kid. at least at times. maybe i still am. at least at times =)) all i'm trying to say is that most people grow out of this phase. MFBD, however, has evidently not. and while i can forgive him his general grumpiness and even, yes, his downright brattiness, i have not yet forgiven him for intentionally ruining my one good morning!! (ok, so really only 10 minutes of it...but still!) if he had picked a normal day, when i was feeling a bit grumpy myself, say, then fine. but it had to be today, when i was, for half a second, having a GOOD morning??? the bastard!

grin.

a day in the life of

2006-01-31T18:39:00.000+01:00

i was asked today to describe what my average day looks like. so what's the easiest thing to do? take today, for example... but today wasn't an average day. or was it??

get up. make coffee, although i'm not likely to have time to drink it. leave the house later than planned, make it to the bus stop in time anyway. say hi to whichever students i see on the bus. get to school. attempt to organize whatever yet unresolved details of the day i can before losing my nerve completely. burst spontaneously into tears. listen to people tell me how easy things could be although they don't even understand what's wrong in the first place. go to class(es). try not to screw things up too badly. break. recover from whatever did go badly. make small talk (read: smile and nod) with whatever random teacher says something in my general direction. try not to take it personally when half of it's in english. go to next class, where i'm informed my services don't happen to be required during this particular lesson. think to myself, i should have just stayed home. pretend to laugh when someone else jokes that i might as well have just stayed home. contemplate actually going home. realize that if i do go home, i won't interact with another human being for the rest of the day. besides, i have to stay for a meeting, seeing as i'm on the list of topics to be discussed. try to mentally prepare for whatever catastrophes the meeting might hold. (that is, mentally map out quickest escape route after plan to sit as close to door as possible fails miserably.) survive meeting without having to make use of escape route. (literally saved by the bell!) lunch/coffee/mini-nervous breakdown with a teacher/friend. go make up errands to run "in town" before going home.

as one of my dear friends from home would say, "did i pay $25,000 a year for THIS?!?!?"

yeah.

because, see, actually, i did. (well, sort of, i'm not actually sure how much my students loans have racked up to, but really, do i even want to know??!) but you know what? i've learned something. a lot of things, actually. mostly things i haven't wanted to learn!! =) but things i need to learn anyway. it's a little like this:

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

-selected lines from T.S. Eliot's the Four Quartets, East Coker III (emphasis mine)

what's the last line?? the last word? (and for the those who know the rest of the poem..."in my end is my beginning." yeah.

average american

2006-01-30T17:53:00.000+01:00

You Are 70% "Average American"

You are average because you live within three miles of McDonalds.

You are not average since you have (at least) a college degree.

How "Average American" Are You?

ok, so not to be super anal about this or anything, but i'm pretty sure i live closer to a mcdonald's in germany than i ever did in ann arbor!! (read: i'm sure there is one in A2, but i can't for the life of me think of where!! i know there's a wendy's on plymouth, and there's the stuff in the basement of the union--but still no mickey d's... oh, wait, there used to be a mcdonald's where bubble island is now on south U, but that was, what? 4 years ago???)

do the ends really justify the means?

2006-01-27T17:15:00.000+01:00

so when i first got to here it was agreed upon that outside of the actual english classes i would speak german with everyone here, even the english teachers. i was a fan of this rule. i still am. however, there have been a few instances, say, when my non-german-speaking brother was here, for example, when we've had to speak some english, right? this probably sounds strange, but it's COMPLETELY weird for me to speak english with people here!! in fact, it was even a little strange the first couple of times i heard some of the teachers speak english in class, because i was so used to hearing them speak entirely in german. i mean, i know all of them speak english. quite well actually. and with the coolest accents!! =) but it's still weird for me to talk to them in english, even when the occasion demands it. it's easier with some of them than with others, of course--actually, it's easiest with the ones i have the least to do with. probably because i don't care if i talk to them or not period, so whether in english or german is more or less irrelevant! =) but it still always catches me off guard somehow.

you'd think i'd be relieved to finally be able to speak english or something, but that's not at all how it works, strangely. a lot of times i just feel even more coversationally awkward than i would in german, because i'm so not used to speaking english with them. go figure. besides, it kind of feels like cheating. i mean, i can obviously express myself a lot better in english than in german--not that that's saying much, although i've been told i'm getting better!! =) so whoever i'm talking to is going to understand more of what i'm saying--and more of who i am--when i speak english. and it's kind of irritating when i know that i'm capable of telling the same stories, expressing the same ideas, etc. in german, but i don't have the opportunity to have such conversations unless english speakers are around, and then we all have to speak english. grrrrr. don't get me wrong. i mean, i'll take what i can get!! and i'm actually just glad to have finally gotten comfortable speaking english with some of these people instead of being completely weirded out by the whole thing. but it still feels like...yeah, like cheating.

p.s. 8 days now. can this be for real?!?!?!

can this much optimism be healthy??!

2006-01-25T00:26:00.000+01:00

6 days now. either something really horrible is about to happen, or i'm becoming an optimist. wait... what??!

yeah. so i dragged myself out of bed this morning, and after deciding it was too cold outside to walk all the way to school, i headed towards the bus stop. i'd gotten about halfway there, when out of nowhere, i heard someone calling my name. now were my name, say Eva or Sabine or Katja, i probably wouldn't have bothered turning around, but it's not, and i can pretty much guarantee you there isn't another bethany within a 100 mile radius of this place. so i look around, and sure enough, there's one of my students pulled off to the side of the road some 10 yards away, wanting to know if i need a ride to school. heck yeah!! i mean, sure, why not, right? (in the US that would soooo be against any school policy ever written, but whatev.) this is two days in a row now, that i've been offered a ride by students who've seen me walking somewhere in the freezing cold. isn't that the coolest thing ever? who are these people??!

well, if that little gem of a story didn't brighten your day, maybe these Top 10 lists will make you crack a smile. if nothing else, you'll feel better knowing there are people out there who are crazier than you...

Top 10...
Reasons to drive across the US
Misconceptions about the English language
Reasons NOT to travel to a foreign country
Best uses for garden gnomes

one more reason

2006-01-23T23:20:00.000+01:00

one more reason to love dar williams (because pulling off use of the word "hegemony" in her lyrics isn't reason enough?!?!):

just listen to the first, i don't know, 30-40 seconds or so: interview

make that two reasons. here's the song itself: comfortably numb

Zungenbrecher

2006-01-23T17:53:00.000+01:00

anyone up for a few german tongue-twisters? =)

Fischers Fritz fischt frische Fische. Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritz.
(The Fischers' son Fritz fishes for fresh fish.)
..."frisch fragen," Nelsen? =)

Zwischen zwei Zwetschgenzweigen zwitschern zwei Schwalben.
(Between two plum tree branches twitter two swallows.)

which brings me to my next point... i CANNOT pronounce the word "Zwetschgen" in a sentence!!! for the life of me!! it's hilarious. if i can ever master the phrases "ein Stück Zwetschgen Kuchen" and "sie spricht schon Schwäbisch," then i'll know i can actually speak german. until then...at least i have a sure-fire way to get a laugh out of the germans!!! =)

hey y'all. five good days in a row. this might be a record! =)

fact or fiction

2006-01-22T00:11:00.000+01:00

three interesting things i was told today--which may or may not be true:

1) i don't have a very strong american accent when i speak english!

2) the reason that yawning is contagious--even over the phone--is that the part of your brain that responds when someone yawns is the part that has to do with sympathy and emotions. (more fascinating thoughts and theories about yawning)

3) my hair is "flippig"--for a moderately amusing look at what exactly that might mean, here's what the folks at LEO have to say. i'm still not sure if i should be flattered or offended!! =)

ramblings

2006-01-19T00:09:00.000+01:00

so i was in Köln last weekend visiting a fellow american TA, who just happens to also be a fellow lover of good music. (and you know what i mean, when i say "good"...) we just kept taking turns playing stuff for each other, and it was great. i've missed that. i mean, up until this past weekend, my only other musical experience was the U2 moment i posted about before. and while that was great and all, i see the fellow U2 fan like maybe once a month, and although the likelihood of hearing good music increases in direct proportion to the amount of wine consumed--as does the likelihood of my speaking a lot of german!--even alcohol can't induce me to pretend i DON'T lack the vocabulary for discussing such things auf deutsch. (although the last--only??--good conversation i had in german was triggered by music. hmmmm.) but yeah. the U2 fan is one of those people you don't have to talk to be cool with, although we can talk, thus making him one of my favorite people in germany =)

no, but seriously. you know how there are some people you're just comfortable with? right from the beginning it just kind of works. and then there are the people you're comfortable with--but you have to work at it first. and then--this is where it gets complicated--there are the people with whom you should be comfortable but just aren't. for no apparent reason. those are the ones that stress me out. it stresses them out, too, though, which just makes me more stressed out =) but i actually had a conversation with one such person today that did NOT involve me bursting into tears at any point. this is definitely an accomplishment. maybe by the time i leave here at the end of june, i'll have finally gotten the hang of all this...

(by the way, still waiting on some suggestions for next year!!! i'm at a loss here!!)

why i wasn't a physics major

2006-01-18T20:15:00.000+01:00

in•er•tia /i'nər sh ə/
noun
1. a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged
2. physics: a property of matter by which it contintues in its existing state, unless that state is changed by an outside force

stuff like this scares the shit out of me.

For Real

2006-01-17T21:35:00.000+01:00

"Miss Havisham was a bit like a strict parent, your worst teacher and a newly appointed South American dictator all rolled into one. Which wasn't to say I didn't like her or respect her--it was just that I felt I was still nine whenever she spoke to me."

--Thursday Next in Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots

That pretty much sums up my relationship to...umm, almost everyone at the moment. After a good three weeks of speaking little or no German--which, hmm, really isn't any different from life before those 3 weeks, now that I'm thinking about it--my German is, well, a bit rusty to say the least. I forget that Germans don't know how to interact with introverts. (Yes, that's what I said. No, it's not really true. But sometimes I think it could be. I should be shot for making such sweeping generalizations. Fine. Come on over and shoot me then. Please.) I guess it's the whole German directness thing. I kind of thought that was just a stereotype. I mean, we've already debunked the myth of German efficiency, so why wouldn't it be plausible to think that the German directness thing is just some sort of exaggerative characterization created by easily offended American tourists, who were once brutally remonstrated by some Oma for crossing against the light, right? Wrong. German directness is for real. And it has nothing to do with the Omas, who, really, as long as you know when to stay on the sidewalk, are actually quite nice.

12 reasons i should not travel alone

2006-01-16T23:56:00.000+01:00

(a.k.a. my ipod might actually be the death of me)

so ani difranco might actually be the only other person on the planet who finds life as confusing as i do. she, unlike yours truly, however, is at least somewhat articulate about it...

As Is
Out of Habit
Light of Some Kind
Not a Pretty Girl
Buildings and Bridges
Hour Follows Hour
Both Hands
Falling Is Like This
Sorry I Am
Wish I May
Cradle and All
You Had Time

Danke schön!

2006-01-14T00:19:00.000+01:00

can we talk about how AMAZING my friends are?!!??! seriously!!! you guys have been incredible this week. at the risk of sounding like even more of an ass than usual, i have to admit, i had underestimated some of you. unwittingly, of course, but still. so for that, my apologies. y'all have been unreal. your strength and courage astound me and pale only in comparison to your kindness. thank you.

special thanks to:
alicia--for reminding me that reality and insanity are not necessarily mutually exclusive
michelle--for the "i can't believe it's not burt's" lip balm--by far the coolest christmas present i've ever gotten!! =)

is my mother a mind-reader?

2006-01-12T17:55:00.000+01:00

actual list of questions as asked by my mother in an email i received today:
"How was class this week? Teaching the same kids or did things get shifted around after the holidays? What are your thoughts about next year? Staying in Germany? Going to Austria? Going on for your master's at U of MI? Moving to Chicago? Doing something exotic? Just wondered?"

hmmm. i haven't talked to her about my plans for next year AT ALL. how the hell did she know all of that???

p.s. if anyone has any other ideas, i'm open to suggestions!! =)

my favorite bus driver in hohenlohe

2006-01-12T13:53:00.000+01:00

so there's this one bus driver i encounter at least once a week. the guy is an absolute asshole. seriously. i have never met someone so absurdly cranky in my life. he's just permanently grumpy. it doesn't matter what you do or don't do, the guy is guaranteed to find something to be pissed about--and he WILL scold you, in typical german fashion. it's hilarious. this guy makes my day. for real!

people like that--you know, people who seem determined not only to be miserable but to make sure they inflict their misery on everyone else--used to piss me off. but a guy i worked with last summer made an interesting comment after hearing of our encounter with a particularly irritable woman with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement (the "birmingham" lady, for those of you who were there). he was like, "people like that make me happy." and i was like, "huh!?!?!?!" and then he explained that people like that make him glad that he's not like that, that he's not an ass, that there are, in fact, nice people in the world. and you know, the guy had a point.

i mean, we could all walk around being pissed off and critical and belittle everyone we encounter--god knows, it's not like it's hard to do!!! but we have a choice. bus driver man chooses to be angry at the world. and he seems quite content with that decision. you know, if being angry makes him happy...whatev. but now that i can interact with people like that without getting angry in return, i actually find them amusing. i seriously laughed all the way home, because he was in rare form today: the bus he was driving wasn't even listed on the fahrplan, and the two other buses that were supposed to come hadn't arrived yet, so everyone was confused and kept asking him if he went to this place or that place, and he just got more and more visibly agitated, and then this group of kids got on the bus, and he was mad that they had "waited" to get on the bus. (in actuality, it took them all of 5 seconds to walk from where they had been standing--at the end of the bus--to where he had stopped. i think he was just pissed that they got on the bus at all.) so all of this takes about a minute. then this little old lady, who had been standing there watching the whole scene unfold right along with me, goes up and asks him one more question. he just blew up at her, and she came back and looked at me, shaking her head, and we both just laughed incredulously.

borrowing lots of words

2006-01-09T14:22:00.000+01:00

i'm borrowing other people's words again. "it's about repairing the existing." original context was notions of urban renewal and how we generally get it wrong--by trying to erect something new and incongruent instead of dealing with the reality of the community in synthesis... ("can't put no band-aid on this cancer") but i'm not here to talk about architecture...

"Sometimes when I lay down at night
I swear I can see to heaven
For it's in dreaming that the things
I always knew
are the only thoughts I have...

But it's a hard road that we follow
The saddest cities, the darkest hollows

But I hear it in your voice, love
Like someone sweetly willing
The hope of all these years,
the prayer of a time
that we don't even know

I hear it in your voice, love
The strongest sound
I've ever heard
Like water from a well
so deep in the ground
I'll never thirst again

But it's a hard road that we follow
The saddest cities, and the darkest hollows

And everything that's far away
And was lost from me
I see it all from here
In you

--bits and pieces from "hollow" by Hem

and, yes, this is all somehow about renewal. about repairing the existing. about not running away. about finding the good that is there, that has always been there--in the "things i always knew" kind of way.

"the life i'm living is completely foreign to me--yet it's mine. life here is like a permanent out of body experience, like i'm off somewhere watching this other me from a distance. 'did that just happen? did i really just say that? how is this my life?' but i want it. i want to understand it, to experience all of this. even when i know it won't make sense for another ten years, if even then. as much as i'm not ok here sometimes, i can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. it's beautiful here. and terrifying and humiliating and exhausting and exciting and absolutely hilarious and every bit as much a part of me as everything else i've ever experienced. i know that much already, even though i have no idea what that will mean.

i wish that i were brave enough to believe. i was going to finish that sentence differently, but it finished itself. to believe what? to believe in what? i don't know. maybe just to believe that there's something to believe in.

i want to believe in the unbelievable. i want to remember the things my soul knew before there was me. or you. or anything we know of life."

yeah.

there's no place like home

2006-01-07T04:10:00.000+01:00

god i love ann arbor. it is soooo great to be home. even just for a few days. weird as hell. but good.

this may have been the most absurd thing i've done in a long time, this let's fly home tomorrow nonsense. but yeah. i kind up just woke up one morning (well, technically, i didn't wake up, because i hadn't actually gone to sleep, but whatev.) and decided to go home. so i found a relatively cheap flight, packed my backpack, and started the trek to the airport. i think the flight itself was shorter than the amount of time it took me to get to the airport. seriously. but i guess that's what i get for trying to travel on new year's eve.

time it took to get from my house to the airport: 7h 22m
number of buses, trains, and car rides combined: 7
length of flight: 9h 33m
random people i ran into in the airport: 1
number of people i asked before finding a ride to ann arbor: 8
number of random people i've run into since being here: ?!?!?!?!?!?

most commonly asked questions (plural):
"what are you doing here?"
"are you home for good?"
"how's germany?"
"so what are you doing next year?"

answer (singular):
"ummm, i have no idea."

insert a few random hugs from people i hadn't seen in forever, really good food, lots of sleep, a few random conversations with bucks regulars, lots of coffee, and a little drama here and there, and you've pretty much got my week. getting back to germany's going to be a bit of a reality check after this. what was i thinking!??!!??!?!

goodbye, mr. grinch???

2005-12-30T17:32:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-12-23T21:25:00.000+01:00

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)

2005-12-22T02:01:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-21T01:14:00.000+01:00

"jetgelaggt"

need i say more?!?!

¡Viva español!

2005-12-18T00:04:00.000+01:00

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?!?!

2005-12-17T01:06:00.000+01:00

"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?

2005-12-17T00:11:00.000+01:00

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

create your own visited states map

i'm baaaaaaaack!!

2005-12-15T18:30:00.000+01:00

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...

2005-12-13T09:56:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

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...

2005-12-09T21:34:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-05T13:15:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-05T13:10:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-03T23:44:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-12-02T20:29:00.000+01:00

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" =)

a minor disaster

2005-11-28T20:46:00.000+01:00

"it's becoming clear to me that no one fully knows what he is saying... just take a good look at someone trying to talk: every time he opens his mouth it's an experiment and a gamble, often a minor disaster." -hugh prather

yep, that pretty much sums up my relationship to the german language!! =)

ok, so to be fair, since one of my pet peeves is when people take quotes out of context, he goes on to explain how friends are the ones who love you anyway, despite the fact that you're constantly making a fool of yourself, blah blah blah. but since another of my pet peeves is people who are constantly trying to be profound (and seriously, if you read the guy's book, i'm so sorry!), i felt the need to abridge the quote and add the blah blah blah to hugh's profundity =) besides, it's funnier that way.

yes, i did just say "profundity"... can we still be friends?

cultural differences??

2005-11-28T11:53:00.000+01:00

seriously, i do not understand people here. they find out that my brother is coming for christmas, and they all freak out because he's only coming for a week, and that's just stupid, and how is he supposed to see all of germany in a week, and can't he just stay longer, etc etc etc. (though i guarantee you, not a single one of them would go spend more than a week at a time with their siblings!) and then, when i ask them what we should do while he's here, they all suggest going to london or paris or something!!! what!??!! yeah, i don't get it either...

and then, after i declined a few french fries, laughingly saying i'd already gained enough weight since coming here, this girl says to me, "but that can't be true, we're so much healthier here in germany than you are in america."...(me rolling my eyes) oh, i'm sorry, you're right. silly me, i must be mistaken. i mean, what would i know about my own body or eating habits??! are you kidding me?? who are these people?!??!! (did i mention that she then went on to suggests ways i could work out everyday?!!)

but this one's my favorite...
this is an actual conversation between co-workers, which took place over lunch:
woman: dessert sounds good, but i'd better not. i have to be careful about what i eat at the moment. (turns to me and says) i weigh 62 kilo--i've never weighed this much before!
man (sitting across the table from us): how much do you weigh?
woman: 62 kilo.
woman2: really? more than me? that's hard to believe.
man: but that's completely normal, isn't it? besides, it's november, and our bodies have to prepare for the winter.
woman: perhaps, but i'm developing a little belly!

ok, now let's try to imagine this conversation took place in the US... oh wait, this conversation would never happen in the US!!!! seriously, how many american women would voluntarily tell someone how much they weigh? and in the presence of a man? and what man would dare to just flatout ask a woman how much she weighs? and then for another woman to volunteer the info that she weighs less than the woman who's concerned about her weight?? talk about rude! bit of a cultural difference, eh?

the best part of the whole conversation, however, was when the woman went on to explain how she and another co-worker had compared belly fat in front of another (super tiny) co-worker, who had voiced concerned about her own appearance...
hilarious. maybe we're not all so different after all =)

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

2005-11-25T21:08:00.000+01:00

it snowed here!!! people kept telling me that it rarely snows here-or at least that it rarely stays on the ground for long when it does snow, so i was a little concerned about winter here. i mean, winter without snow is one thing when you live in california, where you at least have the ocean and sunshine as compensation, but a long, grey-brown, slushy, dirty, wet and cold winter?? hmmm...lieber nicht, danke.

so imagine my surprise and delight when i woke up this morning, and there were already a couple of inches on the ground! and it just keeps coming! yay!! (seriously, i know, i'm like a little kid, but you have no idea how happy this makes me!!) and then, when i got to the bus stop this morning, the younger kids decided it was the perfect opportunity for a snowball fight, and since the bus that was supposed to come at 7:30 never actually showed up, they got to play a little longer--and we all had a legitimate excuse for missing half of our first classes... not bad, eh? =)

it's lovely, it's grand. it's just beautiful. i love snow. i do. granted, i don't have to drive in it, or shovel, or scrape off my car, etc. (but seriously, people who whine about snow need to get their priorities straight!)

useful member of society

2005-11-21T18:28:00.000+01:00

i've had several conversations with people in the past few months about...(cue scary hitchcock music)...the future. or, more specifically, MY future. great. because i almost know where to start, right? there's been, as usual, discussion about whether to do something interesting or something i'm passionate about or fascinated by vs. doing something useful or meaning or significant in some way. (dramatic rolling of the eyes.) and, also as usual, i'm completely frustrated and even more confused at the end of each of these conversations.

and then, a couple of things happened. well, several things happened, actually. no, no great epiphanies or moments of enlightenment. (well, i suppose it depends on your perspective...) but i spent saturday afternoon helping a friend clean out the apartment she's going to be moving into. (elle, it's kind of on par with cleaning your apt. in whittier after lisa moved out. you wouldn't believe the stuff we found--the highlight being a half-set of dentures left in a cupboard above the refrigerator. yum!) but cleaning grease and dead spiders out of cupboards and scraping old wallpaper off of the walls... i don't know... it was good. most of the time here, i feel like a shadow of who i am--or who i should be. but on saturday, for half a second, i was a useful member of society. and then i started reading t.s. eliot again. and somehow it all made sense...

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
...
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
...
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

from the Four Quartets

another list! woohoo!

2005-11-18T20:27:00.000+01:00

it was recently pointed out to me that i have not made it generally known how amazing things have been here in germany. so i will herewith attempt to remedy that...

things i love about germany and/or künzelsau:

people saying hi to each other on the street or when they enter a room or restaurant or cafe, or really just anytime they feel like being friendly
how people apologize for accidentally killing the tiny spider or bug that lands on their t-shirt or windshield
that where there is fruit, there are fruit flies, and people sweat. that's life, and it's ok!
cats and small children playing in my neighborhood
places where the houses are so close to the road, that they're practically IN the street!
there are towns with city walls with houses built into them!
buying my bread from the baker
the words "genau" and "Tschüss" =)
that the germans use english words more often than i do!
the vineyards in the sunlight in october
kaffee und kuchen
old ladies with purple hair
the view along the road where i (used to) go running
people who think my accent is cute (all two of them!)

i could keep going...

sure, smalltowns in the middle of nowhere have their drawbacks, but i've experienced profound and astounding kindness here, and even if the rest of the year is absolutely shitty (and it won't be!), it will have all been worthwhile. (and someone please remind me of that, the next time i start complaining!!)

in other news...

2005-11-14T11:50:00.000+01:00

so i cut my hair. (i know, amy, i know. don't even say it!!) it was, as usual, a rash decision, and i haven't decided yet if i like it or not.

i also saw my first chimney sweep last week. did you know such folk still existed?!?!? i wouldn't have known what he was had i not been informed.

chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim cherreee, a sweep is as lucky as lucky can be... chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim cherrooo.....

for real.

oh, and you know how you always see pictures of old european woman with headkerchiefs, floral shifts and sturdy shoes out sweeping their sidewalks? welcome to my neighborhood on the weekends!! (only sometimes there are men out sweeping, too!!)