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...