So it's been a while. But I've got a host of good excuses, really. The last two weekends, I've been out of town, which has left me totally wiped during the week. The weekend before last, in Rostock, was grand. Really, really awesome. We drank a bottle of gin & tonic on the train up and proceeded to go out and dance until four thirty in the morning. I needed it. But it kicked my ass. Seeing everyone from last year was also amazing--I really miss having a base group of people around. Meeting people in a big city is hard--especially when you specialize in pre-school. I mean, seriously. I don't get to play with the big kids. Which sucks.
However, last weekend, if a tad more stressful, was equally awesome. Both of Stephan's grandparents turned 70 last week, so they had a 140th bithday party last weekend. It was also really great to be with a family. And Stephan's is just right for me: loud, chaotic, friendly and unrefined. Mostly. They make me feel like a part of everything, which when you're far away from home and your own family, is an excellent thing. The only shitty part was that we had to go down on Saturday and come home on Sunday...Monday morning, I was totally destroyed. The whole week's been kind of hazy, and I've forgotten more shit than I normally do, but thank god I had a few classes cancelled. It'll be a pain in the ass to have to make them all up, but it was totally worth it to have a week that was just a skotch less stressful than normal. It also gave me a chance to catch up on household things, go grocery shopping with the boys ( I really almost had to cut a bitch when they started whining that I was walking too fast. Wusses.), set up a new bank account and at least contemplate Christmas shopping.
The real news of the hour, however is that I now actually have my visa in my hot little hands (passport). It looks pretty cool, but after seven weeks and fifty Euros, it had damn well better. I know the process isn't any better or any cheaper or any more dignified at home--or at least, in our post 9/11 paranoia, I assume it isn't--but I hate the subtitles that are oh-so-present in the whole experience. That the state workers have absolute authority over whether you get to stay or go. That you're tolerated, but not wanted. The precariousness is in the goddamn air in that building, I swear it. And I'm one of the "desirables", you know? I'm educated, American (i.e. $$$$$), I already have a job here...and still, walking to the Auslanderbehoerde this morning, I almost had a fucking panic attack. Even though I'd been told that everything had cleared, I was still petrified that I'd get there and the second copy of the puce paper would be missing or something idiotic and beauracratic like that. You might be chuckling, but it's not at all that far fetched. Something like 70% of all printed tax documents are in German. They believe in paperwork here. Paperwork creates order. And really, Germans do love order. Again, it may sound outrageously stereotypical, but it's true. It's a generalization, but very much based in fact.

I'm noticing slowly that even though it's the warmest November on record here, the whole Berlin-winter-funk is starting to creep over me. I haven't been to the gym in over a week. And before that, I think it was also a week. When I come home, I really just want to get in bed and read. Speaking of which, I just finished Middlesex--great book. I'm sure I'm reading it after pretty much everyone else who's going to, but it was really fabulous. Due to the excessive amounts of time I spend in public-trans, I chewed through it in, like, a week. Through this, I made the fascinating discovery that when I read in English here, I shut out absoultely everything around me. I scared myself a few times by not hearing the people doing random ticket controlls in the tram and by almost missing my stop a few times. All of which led me to think. I read voraciously as a little kid, and I think what happened in college was that I discovered with an excess of guys and booze, I could attain the same level of "away" from wherever I was. When they say books take you places, it's so much more than corny, literacy initiative bullshit. They do. But so do booze and men. It's just kind of different. And since I'm being monogomous lately, and my schedule doesn't allow as much time as previously for boozing...I'm getting back into books. Which isn't all that bad, really. Better for my liver in any case. Now if only I could get back into going to yoga/the gym, I'd be the all-around healthiest person I know.

If.

Wish me luck with my Christmas shopping this weekend. I have a feeling it's going to be stressful. I already had to have the awkward conversation with Stephan that my parents pretending he doesn't exist means that no, they're not giving him anything for Christmas. Which of course makes me feel terrible, because his family's been so great to me. I love my family, and I can't change them...but they can definitely make things difficult, even from a distance. *Big, fat sigh.*

Buuuut we're going out to dinner tonight. I'm excited. The eating's great in our hood. Since I'm making Indian Lentil Soup tomorrow with cumin and coriander, I'll forego that tonight...maybe italian? H'm....

The Beautiful People

The really cool thing about living in a big city is people watching. I'm a junkie. It's the one thing that gets me through hours and hours on public trans every day. And Berlin is an ideal city for it too, because you don't just have homeless people and cookie-cutter-fashionistas. I see so many people every day that look so rad. Not just goregeous, either. People here wear pretty much whatever the hell they want, so you see just about everything walking down the street. I mean, the last time I lived here, I ran around in slips and camisoles all summer, and it wasn't an extraordinarily contentious thing. I adored the freedom. You see really beautiful people of all ages, really well put together people of all ages...you name it. I always want to stop people on the street and tell them I think their shoes are great, or that they have great skin or great hair...or just generally look awesome--but Germans in general would be even more freaked out by that than your average American...and even in America, that'd be considered weird. Good weird, but still weird.

Not everyone is beautiful here, but yeah. Lots of people are. It was weird. Today in one of my classes, one of my kids said she saw me in Treptow (the neighbor district where my gym is) last night. It was so totally plausible and probably true that it freaked me out. I don't want to prevaricate: I felt a little voilated. She's one of the sweet kids. But I definitely have bunches of hellish little ankle biters who I absolutely NEVER want to see outside of the classroom. Hell, I don't even really want to see them IN the classroom, but I don't really have a choice there. Today I gave at least 3 time-outs. I'm not so sure they were effective, but seeing how much money the parents shell out for these kids to be here, I can't just kick the kid out--and mostly that's what the little bastards want anyway. Children in the second grade are wretched. Well, okay...not all of them.

But lots.

I'm just excited that it's Friday tomorrow, and I can sleep in, pack for Rostock, have a relatively leisurely morning, teach my 3 hours and then my weekend starts. I'm debating whether or not to booze extensively on the train ride up. That could be lovely. It could also be lethal. We'll see. Right now, all I want to do is sit in bed and watch M*A*S*H dvds. They drink almost as much gin as Mer and I did senior year...and just a wee bit more than Matthias, Stephan, Julia and I did last winter. Mmm-mm. M*A*S*H sounds so good...I'm on it like a hornet.

'till after the weekend...

Making up for lost time...

Being exempt from household chores is cool. Like not having to cook dinner or clean up or wash dishes. It's the cough-and-cold part that sucks. I got blatantly hit on by a father of one of my students today. it was a little weird. i had to step back from my life for a moment and say "hey, wait--this is my life, not 'Must Love Dogs'!" Turns out we're practically neighbors. Weird. I'll probably run into him grocery shopping sometime and it'll be awkward.

(So yeah. This is my second try with this post: I stopped writing 3 days ago, so I don't know under what date it'll post, and then Lennard, the friend of Stephan's who rescued my internet access a few hours ago tripped over my network cable and Stephan then exited blogger, thus deleting what I'd already written. And all while I'd gotten up to be the good, solidaritous female roomate and plan a conspiratory trip to IKEA next week sometime with Cindy. Grrr.)


Anyway. New news is that I got strongarmed into going to the doctor Friday. I don't like going even in America...but here, it's really a whole different ball game and most of the time, I leave feeling vaguely taken advantage of. Like last year, when I went in with Bronchitis and the fucking doctor gave me an ultrasound of my sinuses. I was like "Doc--that's not where it hurts! HERE'S where it hurts!" but he just kind of stared at me uncomprehendingly and stuck some kind of camera down my throat. I left feeling thoroughly voilated, and with a bill for 150 Euro. We'll see how much this visit runs me. Theoretically, my insurance *should* reimburse me, but it's weird German "travel insurance" and I have no idea how to even file a claim. This should be an adventure. But I made the acquiantance of Dr. Waltraud Pfeifer. Yep, her name is "Walt-rowd". It's a woman. It was pretty cool. She didn't stick a camera down my throat and she didn't violate my sinuses, either. What she did do was give me these kick-ass 3 day antibiotics and prescribe me some German birth control (the stash from home is almost out and I DO NOT need any mini-Stephans or mini-Me's running around). So I'm feeling all around much better. The dear Doctor also wrote me this handy little note which supposedly prohibits me from working. That's how they do things here--they write the note from your mother that excuses you from school. And it works when you're an adult, too. Well, almost. Not with my boss. She was just like "drink some tea and suck it up. Play Cds for the kids." This, however common it might be in America is rare here in Germany and was the source of much outrage among my roomates. But I'm tough, I'll survive. I kind of have to. There's a lot going on this week. Among other things, I've got this test-lesson at an elementary school which wants to outsource it's first and second grade English classes to our company. Somehow (personally, I believe out of sheer desperation) my boss has decided that I'm the one who's going to nail this contract for us. And take the hours. I told her I'd definitely do the test-lesson and I'd see about the actual hours. They shouldn't start until January--but just between us, with the hours I'm working now, I'm kind of all set for money (once I get paid for a full month of work that is) and as I've mentioned, the stress is more than enough with the hours I have. We'll see. She's still under the impression that I'm the greatful immigrant slave who will be loyal to her company for years to come. And that I'm still hot for the full-time position she promised me for next year. Boy does SHE have it coming. I'm tempted to avoid the subject completely and then spring it on her at the last second. But that'd be shitty and they have done a lot for me, in terms of filing paperwork for my visa and work permits (which of course I still don't have...).

So we'll see. This coming weekend, we're also slated to drive up to Rostock. Poor Stephan is languishing because he hasn't seen his family in, like months. I feel kind of bad, taking him away from his family and all his friends up there. It's basically because of me that we moved to Berlin. He wanted to study here, but for this semester it didn't work out. Because the universities here are funded by the state, money is tight and the slots in a class for a certain major are few and far between. But next semester is supposedly a sure thing. I hope it works out. Otherwise he'll get even more restless than he already is. But I'm excited to go back up north. I miss the Rostock kids and the bars and Stephan's family. They're a really great, chaotic pack. His brother also has all of my Family Guy DVDs. And the weekend after that is the double 70th birthday party for the grandparents, in this tiny little mountain village on the former East/West German border. The last weekend in November, there'll almost certainly be snow. I'm so excited! Berlin's not much for snow--it's more rainy and raw than anything else. When it does snow, it doesn't really stick, sadly. Just a lot of grey and wetness. I gotsta get me some sexy Euro winter boots. Tis the season, and I wore my black pointy ones from last year out. Literally. We're talking cracked soles and walked-down heels by New Year's. They barely made it through to March. God, I loved those boots. Sigh.

Anyway, the Hackbraten (meatloaf, I believe) with Feta cheese is calling me. And Stephan is so preoccupied with his new steering wheel for his video games that I don't think he'll be eating or sleeping for the next few days, so I'm on my own.

Rediscovering the beauty of baths and other bonuses of being ill...

So I'm still sick. I could atttribute this to stress and tension, or lack of sleep, or the shit weather, or that my idiot German roomates insist on keeping windows open in Novermber for "fresh air". The nice thing is, sickness is kind of holy here. Preventative medicine still reigns supreme. Mostly. If you don't count my boss, that is. Any other German employer would have banished me to my house until I actually had a voice again. Not Frau Reder. Foruntately, in my apartment, this whole "sickness-as-holy" thing still works. My otherwise very resource-conscious roomates keep telling me I should take an Erkältungsbad, which is a bath with eucalyptus and other things that are suppose to clear out your upper respiratory system. (i opted for the bubble bath instead.) I get clucked over a lot, and Cindy, the other girl, makes me lots of tea. And I'm excused tonight from our communal grocery shopping extravaganza. Which is actually great, because as much as I love grocery shopping (and I really, truly do) going with my two roomates would really suck the fun out of it. The good news is however, that we've got our menu planned for the rest of the month. I wish I were joking and I wish that by "we" I didn't mean "Zee Germans". But I do. Here, for your amusement (please prepare to have every German stereotype viciously reinforced):

W: Schmorkohl mit Kartoffeln (stewed cabbage with potatoes)
Th: Gefüllte Paprika mit Gürkensalat (stuffed peppers with cucumber salad)
F: Milchreis (rice in milk. I can't actually explain it, but it's with cinnamon and sugar)
Sa: Hackbraten, Kartoffeln, Erbsen (Meatloaf, potatoes and peas)
So: Linsen Eintopf mit Wiener (yeah, that says "wiener". Lentil stew with vienese sausage)
M: Nudeln mit tomatensauce (Pasta and tomato sauce)
Tu: Rouladen, Rotkohl, Kartoffeln (some type of pig, potatoes and red cabbage)
W: Fetahackauflauf (hamburger & feta casserole)


...I could go on, but the overabundance of potatoes would overwhelm you. I had to lobby hard for the noodles. It won't surprise you at all to hear that last year, in the high school I worked at, when I asked kids what they would miss if they were forced to move to someplace like South East Asia, a majority of every class said potatoes. Yes. Potatoes. Like potatoes exist no place else. The prdominance of meat, otherwise known as "hack" (short for hackfleisch: literally, hacked up meat) can be attributed to Stephan and Christian, our two resident carnivores. I love a good steak, but there's a limit to how much meat and potatoes a girl can take!

Anyway, I should continue planning my lessons for tomorrow. As a rebellion, I'm just bringing word searches and other little riddles for the kids. I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to teach them English if I can't talk, for christ sake?! Oh well. I'm off to my copy shop. It's mine because I'm there literally every single day. They automatically give me the receipt now. It's nice.

General Update (for Adam)

So. I haven't been updating lately, and for that I apologize--apparently people read this. Well...I know from personal experience (www.thesuperficial.com), you can get addicted to reading just about anything on the internet, so I understand. Things here have been humming along a little too fast for me. I'm ready for a break. My job (for those of you who tuned in during the commercial break I teach English in a bunch of different nursery schools and at after school programs around Berlin) has been taking off like crazy, despite me being put on probation after a parent complained*. My boss didn't fire me. She just keeps giving me more hours. Which I don't really understand, since all of the other girls that work for her are trained teachers and I'm not. And I have trouble dealing with kids with behavioral problems. Yeah, okay, everyone does--otherwise they wouldn't be called "kids with behavioral problems", they'd be called something like "little human beings". Seriously, though, some of these kids are little fucking monsters. And because we're a private company, the boss wants every last child she can get. However, when I've got a class of 12 kids and even one of them is hyperactive, the whole thing goes downhill faster than you can imagine. On the whole, it's not terrible, but the overall stress of it is starting to get to me. I've got 17 classes in like, six different places so I'm always running around or waiting for some train or something. Keeping track of all the different classes and who's doing what, who has what prior knowledge, etc. etc. it's a pain in the ass. I like working with kids, but I don't know.

*Before you start thinking that I caned a small German child or something, the mother was a total witch, complained about the class size, the time of day, the classroom, how the class was structured...pretty much everything. To my boss of course. And then she turned in a contract for her kid anyway. Fucking people.

So I'm not that ecstatic about work. And I've somehow managed to pick up a sore throat (little kids are also germ mangnets), which makes establishing my authority with hyperactive German six and seven year olds a little difficult. Safe to say I'm not going to be reproducing for the next 3-5 years. This job has SO scared the baby-making thoughts away. However, cause I don't like to complain about a situation that I theoretically control, I've got another job lined up for July. I'm under contract for the rest of the school year, and I'm stubborn enough to fight it out, even if it's not so great, but after that's done, I'm going to start working in a parent-initiative pre-school. It's small, it's in one place, the head-woman is down to earth--and they need a native English speaker to color and read stories to the kids. I mean, of course I'll have to change diapers and tie shoes and all that jazz, but it'll be less stressful WITH healthcare benefits and money I can live on. I'm just hoping that the fucking Auslanderbeörde gets their shit together and issues me a visa and a work permit before April--because otherwise things will just become hopelessly complicated. Or more so than they already are.

Then of course come the questions:
Is this actually what I really want, or am I just killing time?

If I am just killing time, what am I waiting for?

If this is really what I want...is it enough?


It's the last one that gets me. I must ask myself about a thousand times a day if the life I have here is "enough". I've gotten to the point where I just shake my head and smile at people who ask me if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's an idiotic question, but they're just trying to understand. And the whole 'picking up and leaving your home country'-bit isn't something that everyone gets. I don't always get it. A lot of the time it's a fun-filled adventure. Other times, it's comic. And then there are the days when I ask myself what in god's name I'm doing here, and why I don't go home and start an ordinary life where people watch baseball and celebrate Thanksgiving and don't freak out if you go barefoot.

But enough about that. That's just the daylight-savings time talking. It's dark and cold here and that makes me restless. Thank god for gyms and twice-weekly yoga courses, otherwise I'd flip out entirely. I've been working out a bunch, but this week is automatically stricken due to sickness. I get home and I'm so exhausted, I could sleep for a week. Speaking of which, I'm going to go make myself a pot of peppermint tea and drink the whole goddamned thing. Take that, immune system!