yesterday was december first, and the city looked like it had been decorated by the whos from the grinch. Lights, wreaths, garlands, baubles, everything imaginable. And the infamous christmas markets opened, marienplatz dotted with a maze of tiny wooden huts selling ornaments, nativity scenes, mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, sausages, sauerkraut, mini trees, wooden toys, candles, cookie cutters, and other toasted, spiced and carved treats. A fairy tale land which can't help but enchant.
we met up with juliette and jean baptiste from france, laura from montreal, maltir from spain, malanie from ingolstadt (and artur was there) and saw little miss sunshine (and laughed and cried) and then went to a bar to see sven and friends, a bar with foosball (kicker, here), beer, couches and cross dressers. After a few drinks we waited in the cold to buy turkish food at 2am..a 15 minute line, and then hopped the last subway home. Fell alsleep once again with the lights and the radio on. But today is saturday and were going to see happy feet, with penguins. Its a movie kind of day, although its sunny, because the city is overrun by christmas shoppers. Ah, the weekend.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
i made it to the top
A beautiful but exhausting hike south of munich, almost 4 hour hike but worth the view and the cold beer at the top! I still have muscle cramps a week later...
the mountain was "heimgarten" at 1790 meters, we climbed 1100 of them ourselves.
Monday, August 21, 2006
all's fair in love and binders
I never thought I would be the kind of person who has a file of recipes, but some combination of a recent domestic instinct and an obsession with the magazine "real simple" has driven me to clip, fold and file. Tonight, by candlelight and guitar music from my dad on the porch swing, I devoured magazines for snippets including recipes as well as household mainainence and beauty advice and filed it neatly in a binder. I also organized my letter writing supplies and placed them in a plastic-storage clipboard for heart-outpouring emergencies.
Why? Because Artur left today, and I suddenly emerged from the fog of love and was catapulted into the world of..organizing. I don't believe they've ever been cited as antipodes, but in love and organized seem to be my two most happy and.. new states. 2006 is actually the first year I can cite being either. So my days until Thursday will be happily filled with clipping instead of kissing, folding instead of fondling, copying instead of copul.... right. Not martha stewart material, but it's my own brand of distraction. Plus, I never seem to find the time to paint my nails or fold my socks when cuddling is an option, and I hope I never do.
Why? Because Artur left today, and I suddenly emerged from the fog of love and was catapulted into the world of..organizing. I don't believe they've ever been cited as antipodes, but in love and organized seem to be my two most happy and.. new states. 2006 is actually the first year I can cite being either. So my days until Thursday will be happily filled with clipping instead of kissing, folding instead of fondling, copying instead of copul.... right. Not martha stewart material, but it's my own brand of distraction. Plus, I never seem to find the time to paint my nails or fold my socks when cuddling is an option, and I hope I never do.
Friday, July 28, 2006
flight spy
here i am, at 644 am, squinting at my computer screen in the light of the dawn. After a 2am scramble out of bed to make sure that the first flight from Munich to Milan took off smoothly, I retreated back to the confines of my bed, only to be awoken by my newly acquired 6am mental alarm. Once again I trudged to the glow of the laptop, left on all night in case anything really important should happen (laptops can only tap you on the shoulder when they're left running) and clicked the requisite buttons. Flightview search failed, but Alitalia registers a 15 minute late departure, perfect for his cutting it close hour layover. I could picture the passengers waiting as my recently long haired boyfriend jogged breathlessly through the halls of the Milan airport, finally stumbling onto the Jumbo Jet in time to be tiraded by a bunch of angry italian american new yorkers headed for queens. But at least he probably made it, or he would have called by now. Now all thats left is to fall asleep and hope to sleep till 1230, when the flight lands.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
and fighting the grumpies
wow, my stress levels hit the roof this evening, and I am not quite sure why. The day had relaxed me more than I expected, spending the time with my mom and reading kindergarten books, but as soon as I got home I realized how edgy I was. I called Artur, who I had expected to call hours earlier, to discover that he was sitting in his new apartment having a beer with his new roommate. This should have made me happy, but instead I felt a mixture of hurt and jealously, that he hadnt called earlier if he was home and relaxing and that he was having fun. I wasnt having that much fun, was I? I guaged my irrational female reaction, and hung up with a promise of a return phone call at six and a giant lump in my throat. I was supposed to be heading to happy hour to drink frozen cosmopolitans with my mother and I knew it would go one way or the other: relax me and cheer me up or drown my sorrow and make me all the more irritable.
But I got downstairs to ensuing chaos as my brother and dad struggled to make Quiche Lorraine with recently purchased farm fresh eggs in our boiling hot kitchen, and my mother got herself embroiled in the debate about how much bacon they should use. I could feel my grumpiness boiling over like a cloud, and fussed that we should be going soon, then felt guilty and offered my help, and when refused due to the small size of the kitched, slumped on the couch in a sweaty grumpy teary lump mood. What was wrong with me? Theres nothing to complain about, I am sitting at home on vacation and whining because my boyfriend is so busy moving out of his apartment that he only calls twice a day. Not really much to complain about. But I knew my grumpiness wasnt bound to pass until I talked to him, cause I knew what was really wrong was that I missed him, rational or not, and didnt feel like whiling away the 2 more days till his arrival.
At any rate, my mother and I finally made it out of the house, probably to short circuit an oncoming grumpiness blowout on my part, and ordered our drinks: lovely vodka cranberry slushies. And then hummus, with lime. And then another slushie. Things were looking better, and then the phone rang. Oh hooray, that must be Artur. But no, it was dad. Andrew had spilled the eggs. Could he talk to mom, he needed to know how to get the stain out of the carpet. Blech. Oh, and Artur had called, and they had given him the cell number but he couldnt seem to get it right. Damn. Now I wasnt going to get to talk to him, the one thing I knew might shake me out of my funk. I glowered through the evening, through an espresso, a gelato, and what should have been some wonderful mother daughter bonding time. My mother tried her best to comfort me, but to no avvail. The only slight comfort was the apology email from Artur when I got home, saying he tried the number but it wasnt working. Well, better than nothing.
The best comfort of the evening was taking my scratched cds to the grindstone literally, using a bizarre but functional device of my brothers to buff away the blemishes and burn off some of my nervous energy. Then there were push ups and crunches, part of my new "responsible" fitness routine. Laundry folding, face washing, body lotioning..who was I? Some weird German version of myself, I guess, who didnt seem so weird back in Germany. I have to say, I always thought that dealing with difficult strangers was hard...try it when the foreigner is yourself!
But I got downstairs to ensuing chaos as my brother and dad struggled to make Quiche Lorraine with recently purchased farm fresh eggs in our boiling hot kitchen, and my mother got herself embroiled in the debate about how much bacon they should use. I could feel my grumpiness boiling over like a cloud, and fussed that we should be going soon, then felt guilty and offered my help, and when refused due to the small size of the kitched, slumped on the couch in a sweaty grumpy teary lump mood. What was wrong with me? Theres nothing to complain about, I am sitting at home on vacation and whining because my boyfriend is so busy moving out of his apartment that he only calls twice a day. Not really much to complain about. But I knew my grumpiness wasnt bound to pass until I talked to him, cause I knew what was really wrong was that I missed him, rational or not, and didnt feel like whiling away the 2 more days till his arrival.
At any rate, my mother and I finally made it out of the house, probably to short circuit an oncoming grumpiness blowout on my part, and ordered our drinks: lovely vodka cranberry slushies. And then hummus, with lime. And then another slushie. Things were looking better, and then the phone rang. Oh hooray, that must be Artur. But no, it was dad. Andrew had spilled the eggs. Could he talk to mom, he needed to know how to get the stain out of the carpet. Blech. Oh, and Artur had called, and they had given him the cell number but he couldnt seem to get it right. Damn. Now I wasnt going to get to talk to him, the one thing I knew might shake me out of my funk. I glowered through the evening, through an espresso, a gelato, and what should have been some wonderful mother daughter bonding time. My mother tried her best to comfort me, but to no avvail. The only slight comfort was the apology email from Artur when I got home, saying he tried the number but it wasnt working. Well, better than nothing.
The best comfort of the evening was taking my scratched cds to the grindstone literally, using a bizarre but functional device of my brothers to buff away the blemishes and burn off some of my nervous energy. Then there were push ups and crunches, part of my new "responsible" fitness routine. Laundry folding, face washing, body lotioning..who was I? Some weird German version of myself, I guess, who didnt seem so weird back in Germany. I have to say, I always thought that dealing with difficult strangers was hard...try it when the foreigner is yourself!
hot and sticky laptop musings
As I sat, staring at the geese waddling across the lawn and continually recrossing my legs to prevent them from welding themselves together because of the heat, I heaved a sigh of relief. I was happy, excited. I was sitting at a very crooked picnic table on the grounds of my moms new pre kindergarten program. It was a beautiful albeit sticky hot July day, and I had tagged along because I couldn't stand to sit one more day in the house and check my email every five seconds. Her new classroom is a small white farmhouse building, clapboard sided, and inside is her usual enchanting kindergarten world. Even I am continually enchanted by the materials in jars, baskets and on trays displayed in the art center: bits of tissue paper, metallic shells, sequins, clear plastic, twigs, stones, paints in every color of the rainbow, yarn, packaging recycled and cut into workable bits for gluing, stringing together: a virtual limitless playground for the imagination. And now that I know I'm heading back to Munich to try my own hand at Kindergartening, I was soaking it all up like a sponge.
I brought my things down to the wooden picnic table by the pond and spread the glossy books out on the table: science for preschoolers, designing a learning environment, mudpies to magnets and every array of children's education books. Armed with post-its, I paged through the idea-filled pages, marking ideas I planned to photocopy for my own personal teachers portfolio. Next year would be an experiment, but I knew I would enjoy it. Getting up at 6am will take some getting used to, but having the experience of both working with children and indulging my passion for languages while living in the city of my dreams with my boyfriend who I love, within hours of the places that lie closest to my heart after my Pittsburgh home: Padova, Italy, home to my 4 month study abroad adventure, Vienna, Austria, home to Hundertwasser, my favorite artist, Spain, the start of my adventures abroad, and hemmed in by countries and lands yet unknown to me: Prague in the Czech Republic, the entire north of Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, Greece in the south: the possibilities were endless. Plus, within a small radius of Munich, the opportunities for adventure seemed endless: mountain hikes, lake-dotted bike tours, local festivals, ancient churches, and that infectious European spirit that seemed to have stuck to me.
But now I was home. In humble Pittsburgh. My friends are: all over the place. Chicago, Washington, California, Boston.. almost none here. My days have been spent cleaning out the terrifying chaos that was my closet, reorganizing my room, cuddling with our pet pug, and catching up on law and order reruns. And waiting for Artur. My almost 7-month boyfriend is coming to visit me in less than 4 days now, his first trip to the US and my first experience introducing a boyfriend to my parents. And the waiting is killing me. Not only am I used to not being apart from him for more than a day at a time, but so much has happened to both of us since I left: I have been reintegrating myself into my old home, and he has moved to a new apartment, made travel arrangements and attended to a lot of little life details. The process of our reunion in MY country and his visit with MY family made me excited but also slightly nervous. Would he like it? Would it be fun? Would the revealing of my "mystery" life at home take away some of my mystique (did I have mystique in the first place?) Well, we would see pretty soon. Until then, I was working on whiling away the days.
The unending nostalgia the accompanied my return from Italy was certainly relatively absent from my visit here, which I attested to the knowledge that I would be heading back at the end of August. I also hoped it was a good sign: a sign that I thought of Germany not as some interesting specimen of a foreign culture, but as my new home. Paging through a picture book the other night, I did feel the reassuring pangs of longing for my new found dwelling place. Of course, my experience this next year would be completely different. Germany would no longer be experienced as a part of a "cultural immersion experience, but rather as a component of my much more "daily" life. Work would be every day, 7:30 to 2, I would have to live from that money:pay my rent, buy food, furnish my apartment. I was looking forward to it more than anything. Plus, I had my own space, a room in a two bedroom apartment in the center of Munich, right near the river and a beautiful church, shared with an apartment mate from..where else...Italy! I had taken it as a sign when I noticed that the walls on the way from the subway stop were decorated with an imitation Hundertwasser mural, made by a local kindergarten.
And the waiting for Artur was getting more tolerable. He had been relatively stressed out by his move (prompted by the relatively intolerable behavior of his 50 year old alcoholic, unemployed roommate), and now that that was taken care of, he seemed (at least through email and phone calls) to be relatively relaxed and getting excited about the trip, even going to the bank and changing his money into dollars. A few hurdles remained, however: the flight, with a nail biting 1 hour layover time in Milan before boarding the plane to New York, a short stay on the floor of the tiny Manhattan apartment of a fellow program student in Munich this year, Christy, and then the short hop of a flight from JFK to Pittsburgh which had taken me last week because of JFKs horrible organizational problems more than 7 hours, including 4 hours sitting on the runway in the loaded airplane. But it would all work out somehow, at anyways, we had been through similarly complicated things before.
But because my computer is becoming as sun baked as my scalp, I am off to seek refuge in the air conditioned confines of my mother's wonderland, and then to happy hour and frozen cosmopolitans with my mom, to muse and dream of our new and exciting years ahead. Until then...
I brought my things down to the wooden picnic table by the pond and spread the glossy books out on the table: science for preschoolers, designing a learning environment, mudpies to magnets and every array of children's education books. Armed with post-its, I paged through the idea-filled pages, marking ideas I planned to photocopy for my own personal teachers portfolio. Next year would be an experiment, but I knew I would enjoy it. Getting up at 6am will take some getting used to, but having the experience of both working with children and indulging my passion for languages while living in the city of my dreams with my boyfriend who I love, within hours of the places that lie closest to my heart after my Pittsburgh home: Padova, Italy, home to my 4 month study abroad adventure, Vienna, Austria, home to Hundertwasser, my favorite artist, Spain, the start of my adventures abroad, and hemmed in by countries and lands yet unknown to me: Prague in the Czech Republic, the entire north of Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, Greece in the south: the possibilities were endless. Plus, within a small radius of Munich, the opportunities for adventure seemed endless: mountain hikes, lake-dotted bike tours, local festivals, ancient churches, and that infectious European spirit that seemed to have stuck to me.
But now I was home. In humble Pittsburgh. My friends are: all over the place. Chicago, Washington, California, Boston.. almost none here. My days have been spent cleaning out the terrifying chaos that was my closet, reorganizing my room, cuddling with our pet pug, and catching up on law and order reruns. And waiting for Artur. My almost 7-month boyfriend is coming to visit me in less than 4 days now, his first trip to the US and my first experience introducing a boyfriend to my parents. And the waiting is killing me. Not only am I used to not being apart from him for more than a day at a time, but so much has happened to both of us since I left: I have been reintegrating myself into my old home, and he has moved to a new apartment, made travel arrangements and attended to a lot of little life details. The process of our reunion in MY country and his visit with MY family made me excited but also slightly nervous. Would he like it? Would it be fun? Would the revealing of my "mystery" life at home take away some of my mystique (did I have mystique in the first place?) Well, we would see pretty soon. Until then, I was working on whiling away the days.
The unending nostalgia the accompanied my return from Italy was certainly relatively absent from my visit here, which I attested to the knowledge that I would be heading back at the end of August. I also hoped it was a good sign: a sign that I thought of Germany not as some interesting specimen of a foreign culture, but as my new home. Paging through a picture book the other night, I did feel the reassuring pangs of longing for my new found dwelling place. Of course, my experience this next year would be completely different. Germany would no longer be experienced as a part of a "cultural immersion experience, but rather as a component of my much more "daily" life. Work would be every day, 7:30 to 2, I would have to live from that money:pay my rent, buy food, furnish my apartment. I was looking forward to it more than anything. Plus, I had my own space, a room in a two bedroom apartment in the center of Munich, right near the river and a beautiful church, shared with an apartment mate from..where else...Italy! I had taken it as a sign when I noticed that the walls on the way from the subway stop were decorated with an imitation Hundertwasser mural, made by a local kindergarten.
And the waiting for Artur was getting more tolerable. He had been relatively stressed out by his move (prompted by the relatively intolerable behavior of his 50 year old alcoholic, unemployed roommate), and now that that was taken care of, he seemed (at least through email and phone calls) to be relatively relaxed and getting excited about the trip, even going to the bank and changing his money into dollars. A few hurdles remained, however: the flight, with a nail biting 1 hour layover time in Milan before boarding the plane to New York, a short stay on the floor of the tiny Manhattan apartment of a fellow program student in Munich this year, Christy, and then the short hop of a flight from JFK to Pittsburgh which had taken me last week because of JFKs horrible organizational problems more than 7 hours, including 4 hours sitting on the runway in the loaded airplane. But it would all work out somehow, at anyways, we had been through similarly complicated things before.
But because my computer is becoming as sun baked as my scalp, I am off to seek refuge in the air conditioned confines of my mother's wonderland, and then to happy hour and frozen cosmopolitans with my mom, to muse and dream of our new and exciting years ahead. Until then...
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
and in the end...
the time is a flying/and I will be flying/ on monday back to america/ im scared but excited/ but mostly excited/ because im coming back here/ but until I leave/ I have much too much to do/ packing and baking and parties on the river/ pushing trees through the city/ big giant festivals/ fun fun fun.
Thursday, June 1, 2006
The way it looks now
I found out yesterday that I am being offered a job at a biligual kindergarten in Munich! (http://www.lerchennest.de/indexe.html ) This is fantastic news because 1) it's a full time job, with full benefits and a guaranteed salary, plus insurance and basically all the rights a normal german citizen would get and 2) this place is really cool, and i am excited to try my hand at something this new and exciting! A pro and con is that my hours are 7:30-2 daily, which is a realllllyyyy early time to have to be there, but being done at 2 is also pretty great. I am currently in the process of working through the paperwork with the kindergarten to get my work visa and residence permit, but it's looking good. I also have an apartment which according to all my munich friends is amazing, in a fantastic place and really cheap—which I didnt quite know when I found it, but now i am pretty excited about.
Florence Team!!!
And I will also be teaching business english classes to adult professionals a few evenings a week, to try to haul myself out of the debt hole from northwestern and/or give me some extra cash to travel around with. Plus, the school is fantastic and they are offering to pay to certify all the trainers under the „Common European Foreign Language Exam" which is exciting. Plus I am currently discussing a possible very part time position on a project with the group where I am doing my internship now, Green City. They are planning some environmental projects with Italy and I obviously am a good resource in this case, with both knowledge and language, plus anything to do with italy makes me really happy =)
Soo...things are looking really good.
I am actually planning on booking my ONE WAY ticket back to munich tonight, then things will pretty much be set. I have a fantastic boyfriend named Artur (picture on his birthday, homemade crown!) who is coming to the US in August and will be traveling around with me to my various reunions and peanut butter buying missions.
My exact schedule is the following:
US: July 17th-August 24th
The weather in Munich is...cold. It was warm, for a little but, but now it is cold again, which makes me want to whine but then I look out the window at the mountains and I think ok, if this is the punishment for living with an alpine view then I guess I can stand it, as long as it EVENTUALLY gets warm. I am going with artur to his parents house this weekend in the mountains and we just hear that it snowed six inches today. Ayayay, and we were planning to go hiking...maybe sledding would be a be
tter idea.
I was however in Florence for the weekend at a Unterwasser Hockey tournament and the weather was FABULOUS (35 degrees Celsius) we drove down from munich, a beautiful drive in itself through the mountains and then down through tuscany, and we camped and had and amazing view of the city and played in an outdoor pool. So my memorial day weekend was actually quite similar to yours, only mine involved pasta and not hamburgers, and wayyy more snorkels.
Florence Team!!!
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
my life in a suitcase
Wheels, heels, flippers. Bathing suit, yoga pants, sports bra. Grey suit, resume, two budweiser beers. Pijamas. Running shoes, tshirt. Underwater hockey stick, towel, sweatshirt. Just packing my normal bag for a normal trip to work. Monday morning. I have so much stuff I can barely ride my bike to the train station, the bike basket is brimming with sporting equipment and corporate attire. The plan: to work. Then, to Artur at work to leave my mounds of stuff with him. Then, to yoga class. Then, to blade night. Then, to Arturs, then job interview at 10am, then press action at 1pm in Marienplatz: soccer game between the renewable energies and the radioactive elements. It's just another day in the life...
Yoga class! A challenge for my german anatomy knowledge. Blade night! A marvel.
15,000 Münchners, rollerblading 15 km through the city, streets blocked off to car traffic, and I work at the group that runs the thing! We float by cafes, roll down Leopolstraße, can smell roasting Hops from the various breweries, and have to watch out for the tram tracks. I love this city.
A perfect prelude to my job interview in the morning—a gateway to stay! Job interview! Fantastic. I am basically hired, and can start right away teaching a sort of test course after I get trained. I can earn a bit of money right away and see if I like it enough to do it full time when I come back in September. Plus, I have two more interviews on Friday.
Marienplatz! Where the glockenspiel is...if you know anything about munich this is probably what you picture, if it's not beer and lederhosen. I helped the work colleagues carry the various protest items, and then took the train there—a sunny, spectacular day. Artur was already there, in the line of regally yellow rikshahs...that's right, I am dating a rikshah driver =) Could my life get any better?He took me on a short ride around the center, and then feeling already pretty cool, I headed to the protest. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, we did a „soccer game" between the „renewable energy" and „nuclear power". Needless to say, the renewables won and it was fun to sit in marienplatz for two hours and watch soccer players from my office goof around
Flipperybladeyenvirorikschahridinhappygoluckyineuropelivingjoyjoyjoy
Monday, April 24, 2006
Bud...weis...errrrrr....
There was a river, and there was budweiser, but there were no frogs. Although there were strange creatures with webbed feet, glossy eyes, odd plastic breathing appendages, and bizarre wooden sticks clasped by silicone encased hands. The sounds to be heard were the oddly extraterrestrial and deeply marine noises of churning water, grunts of struggle, and an occasional odd metal clanging. The Unterwasserhockey tournament had come to Budweis, Czech Republic. Teams from Croatia, Slovena, Belgium, Poland and Germany met up to compete in the world's most absurd sport. And as I would soon learn, also one of the most dangerous. The Munich team toughed its way through 5 twenty-minute long brutal losses to highly skills teams from eastern and northern europe. I got battered by flippers, brutalized by pucks, pinned to the wall, the ground, strained my wrist, can't really use my mouse any more, and have more bruises than I can count...it was wonderful.
The sun shined the whole day, and in between each brutal beating, we would take a break on the balcony overlooking the river flowing through this ancient colorful town, eating a banana or two, refueling ourselves with short naps in the sun to prepare for the next slaughterfest. And after it was all over, we opened our warm-welcome-present budweiser beers (the real, czech variety) and celebrated our survival.
What we weren't quite prepared for was the party. Yearning for our sleeping bags-on top of-czech-probably-sweatcovered-gym mats in a soviet area gymnastic hall, we trudged on to the after party and award ceremony, hungry and beaten yet glisteningly exhuberant. A veritable united nations of the unterwasserhockey world-- french being translated to german being explained in english to a czech player, polish being spoken to the attractive czech waitress in hopes of a date, broken italian trying to cross the french-english border, flemish, slovenian, croation, and beer. We received our 6th place award graciously, tossed beer coasters, danced to the hungarian heavy metal band, and ordered extravagant icecream sundaes, wowed at the non-euro prices. As we trudged home in the rain, across the bridge that shuddered as we crossed it, past the romancing couples in the park, the factory near our gym-hotel that seemed to produce mostly steam, through the old-tire-paradise-gokart-park, and then collapsed on our mats under the swinging rings and ropes, I thought...this is what Mark Twain meant when he said „Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.“
ribbit ribbit...
Thursday, April 20, 2006
A crowded noisy party with my best and biggest dreams
Two! Two! I have two job interviews! They're with two different language schools, which in itself is exciting, but additionally they both have world-wide focuses and would give me the chance to take translating classes, other languages, keep up my italian...wow, the opportunities are endless. Hopefully these interviews go well, the one thing we be seeing if they are willing to promise me a job so much in advance, but it could be the case that I could work at both schools. And then if i could get some of this type of experience under my belt, I could really work anywhere! Experience teaching English, maybe master another language, maybe get training to be a translator..then go to grad school and get a masters in development work or somethinf of the sort, and then..go! I really feel like this is one big qualification that's missing for me, some hard core teaching experience. And I could really build up a cool life here! Teaching, being a counselor for a kids english camp on the side, doing environmental work and volunteering, maybe spending my free time trying to put together a project between the veneto and bayern... wow. Cool, the future is looking bright again.. I feel like all I ever need is a jump start and then I'm off...ideas ideas ideas.
What else..I'll let my mind run. I could do this for a while and see how I like it and what direction it takes me in, of course taking advantage of any educational opportunities that come my way (wouldn't it be great to take free language courses!? Spanish! French! Portuguese! Then I'll have the qualification as a teacher plus the ability to speak new languages, and some really important working with people skills, as well as particularly organizational ones. And then..well who knows. A masters program in Germany, in the US...maybe I could look into Rotary again, or maybe all of this will lead me to a logical subject for a big research project for a Fulbright or just for fun.
I'm so...I don't know, I guess because I'm reaching the end of the program here I was starting to feel like I was... done? But more like not wanted, or not qualified, or something. Maybe because I haven't had a new job every three months like in the U.S. And I finally made it here, to Europe, and I love it, and dammit, I want to stay but of course it's not that easy... so it's exciting to feel like maybe there is some hope, more because then I feel like it is really true what I believe, that if you really want to do something you can really do it. My optimism can live!
It's so sunny here, it's finally spring, I'm going to Budweis in the Czech Republic this weekend to play unterwasser hockey and my co worker gave me a bike so now I have a bike in the city too and monday is my first yoga class and first blade night and the next week is full of job interviews and meetings and I love it when my life is so crowded with wonderful exciting diverse things, it's like being at a party filled with all your friends who are all so different from eachother but you love them all, and it's a bit crowded but every time you turn around you see a different smile, hear a different voice, are challenged in a new way, reminded of your different passions.
WAHOO!!
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
and today....
a treck to olympia swim hall from work. 6.76 Kilometers (if i don't get lost) a true test for my sense of direction (it's just north, emily!!! follow the giant television antennae!!)
and then, an evening of unterwasserhockey
but i'm not walking back to feldafing...
and then, an evening of unterwasserhockey
but i'm not walking back to feldafing...
solar musings
The sun makes me so happy. Anyone who knows me, understands that on a sunny day, I can't stay inside. A pull of obligation floats me out the door, to pursue whatever activity I had planned somewhere in the sun. Essay writing on the lawn with my laptop, textbook reading, knitting, listening to music, singing, yoga, sleeping—and then the more absurd—organizing my desk (yes, I have actually brought my belongings outside to do this), job applications, heck, I've even considered showering (bucket, deserted patch of grass...) When the weather is nice, the things around me that usually fill me with a muted joy when it's cold out (hey pretty building brr snowy wind hey nice tree ahh my hands are freezing off have to get inside cute bundled up baby ahh i want to be wrapped in a down sleeping bag in a cozy stroller too...) absolutely emanate joy, especially because I actually have time to appreciate them. It's a fantastic feeling, to practically explode with joy because a tree is beautiful. Yeah yeah yeah, it's kind of ridiculous, right? I mean no one is so cheery all the time, and if they are then they are just annoying. Right? I guess the flipside is the ephemerality of it all. My prophets, the Beatles, have quite a bit to say on this front: here comes the sun, it's alright, all things must pass all things must pass away live and let die but tomorrow may rain so i'll follow the sun.
And now it's warm here. And although it hailed yesterday, it looks like it's pretty much here to stay, and that we're about to experience and explosion of green and lawns and sunbathing and waterbathing and a few of my absolute favorite things. And here it is. It's one long stretch of sunlight and I don't even have anymore bitter cold weather to numb my passions for this city before I leave, it'll happen in the heat and height of it all. But as they say, better to leave loving it and not wanting to leave than to leave gladly.
I am currently completing a puzzle of the Matterhorn. I already put together the hut and the two hiking people and the border and now I have the sky and the mountain and the grass—those indistinguishable hard parts. Yesterday I worked on it for an hour and got two pieces. I guess just as you think the picture is becoming clearer, it's the final details that turn out to be much more complicated than you thought. I joked with my host family over dinner yesterday that if I don't finish the puzzle before I leave, I'll have to come back. The metaphorical connotations of such a statement abound. In fact, enough metaphors for today, I'm supposed to be reading the bicycle stand plan for Munich. Vorradklemmen, Anlehnbuegel...I never knew I would learn the technical terms for bicycle stands in German (I don't even know them in English!!)
And now I'm off to enjoy my sunny day as it should be enjoyed...moment for moment.
And now, a smile:
Q: Did you hear about the guy who stayed up all night just to see where the sun went?
A: Then it dawned on him.
ahahahahaha
Monday, April 3, 2006
spiderwoman
The days are longer, the flowers are out. My scenery is constantly changing, and the city feels suddenly like a new place. And yet, my co worker still whistles jingle bells are work. Have you all seen the movie „fallen“? It's about a devil, that lives inside people, who always sings „time is on your side“ by the rolling stones. And when someone carrying the devils bumps into another person on the street, that persons starts to whistle or sing the song. Yesterday, on our way home from a fantastically relaxing evening in a heated outdoor pool, artur and I were whistling a tune, and as we approached his new apartment door, a man walking towards us picked it up and whistled along. I cant remember anymore if it was Sousa's „Stars and Stripes Forever“ or Darth Vader's imperial march (frequent performances of ours) but caught on quickly, and before we knew it, our friend was following us into Artur's apartment building—apparently he lived there too. The whistling didnt outlast our smiling, of course, because just like sneezing with your eyes opened, whistling and smiling just dont work simulteneously. Whistling and smiling while sneezing might be worth a try, however... Our third instrument left us as he trecked to his fourth floor apartment and we entered Artur's on the third, but there was that residual feeling of a funny, unspoken connection. Like those little strings of spider web that invisibly crisscross paths in the woods in the morning and catch in your face before you can see them, little delicate connections form constantly between people and people, people and animals, people and billboards in the train. And in my more-self-reverted form, that inner reflection euphoria that a bit of language confusion and cultural amazment brings, I feel virtually webbed in, new strings being formed each time we walk away and break the old ones. A successfully coaxed smile out of a fellow grumpy ubahn rider, a door held, a baby smile, a tail wag... or the surprising visit from two obviously romantic ducks to the heated pool last night at 11pm, drawn not only by the warm water but also probably sensing the otherworldy human romantic pull of lighted steaming water and a crescent moon... Slowly but surely, I am webbing myself in here, zapping connections like spider man here and there, to that beautiful fountain, that baby with the banana, the alps and my book and my nap and the funny upsidown swan, and they zap back, with a smile, a quack, a splash, a magnetic kiss.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
the stupidest, dummest, no goodest very baddest day...
sleeping through alarm
can opener
meeting mixup
computer off
finger in wipes thing
can opener
meeting mixup
computer off
finger in wipes thing
and iraq, after three years...
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Police found at least 72 bodies killed by gunfire in Baghdad in the past 24 hours -- a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks in some of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods, officials said Tuesday.
The bloodshed -- the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month -- followed weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.
The American deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed to at least 2,308 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.
a deadly irony...
A top toxicologist in the Netherlands said Monday that he believed that Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, had been manipulating medication to fake a medical condition, a ploy that contributed to his ill heath and may have played a role in the heart attack that caused his death.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
ok. at some point here i crossed an un-recrossable-bridge into the land of really living in this city, really speaking german 95% of the time, really working, really practically being a daughter. It's slightly disorienting, more than I thought it would be. In Italy, I loved being there, and it grew on me every day, but i felt myself constantly saying "wow, i'm in italy, i'm a foreigner in italy, i'm constantly talking about how i'm a foreigner and people ask me why im here and i am conspicious with my blonde hair and unsure attitude and lack of wine knowledge." But here...I forget. I forget that I don't belong, and i guess that may be because I do. I mean, I think I belong here more than practically anywhere else I've ever lived!
In Pittsburgh, I have my family. I have my dogs. I have my friends. I can drive from my house to my friend's houses, and get only occasionally lost. I've been to most of the museums. But I have this constant feeling that I want out. That it's only temporary, and that feeling didn't just start when i started living there only a few months out of the year because i was at college the rest of the time. I've almost always had a vague sense that Pittsburgh would not be my final home, or at least not my 20-30something home. I think since the first time my dad explained to me what college was, and that I could go anywhere I want for college. The doors were flung open, and even my 6-year-old-mind was long gone.
In Chicago, I have my College days. My University. My lake. The animal shelter, the concrete university library, the keg, the parties, the lecture halls and the walk down sheridan avenue. My evening yoga classes, my happy trecks senior year up those wooden steps to cook dinner and chat the night away with my 4 fantastic senior year roommates. My memories of days with friends and studying and riding the el into the city to work and be a tourist. But I never really lived in Chicago, and even last year when I finally got a real taste of the city, as a 21-year old who could FINALLY check out some bars and during my work on the nitty gritty west side at CCGT, it still was just a place I visited. And I always felt alienated from Evanston, from that strange mix of spectacular to the point of disgusting lakeside homes and the depressing high density of homeless men and women that populated the yuppie streets. The most at home I ever felt was when I was sitting by the shore of the lake, but even that was alienating, because I felt strangely alone in my heart filling admiration of the crashing waves, the sand, the seagull with the twizzler, the Ba'hai Temple and my secret bay of baots, my rollerblading destination, my escape to the tunes of badly drawn boy and the beatles. It was exactly that, that feeling of empty elation, that the things I loved so much about the place, no one really understood.
And then there's Washington, another one of the places that I feel I can rightly call home. Born right outside of the city limits, I returned summer after summer to soak up the tropical jungle heat and the airconditioned intern culture. I loved the paul simon walk to work, mathematical in its execution, down 21st, up M, to 25th and M on the border of Foggy Bottom and Georgetown, whistling along to "me and julio down by the schoolyard" loud enough so that everyone in business suits would stare at me, even though I was in a business suit too. I adored cooking in that tiny kitchen, where you actually had to stand outside of the kitchen because it was so small, and that tiny room with the three beds, and my roommates, the incomprehensible one from Wyoming and the darling Sejal Shah from Texas. And the balmy nichts on the national mall, and the delivering letters to congressmen and loving every minute of checking out the decorations in each and every office, and my shock the first time I saw Senator Stevens of Alaska's horrendous bearskin wallcovering. And my runs...my runs from 21st and H to the Jefferson memorial, and then sitting in that concrete coolness dripping sweat and staring at the tourists and thinking I LIVE here that's why im sitting here, so hot and tired because i jogged here because i live here! I jog past the white house and the world bank and the eisenhower administrative building and the redcross headquarters and that guy who camps outside of the whitehouse to protest nuclear proliferation and the kickball teams that play on the national mall and the lincoln memorial is my neighbor and so is the vietnam memorial. I know the smithsonian inside out, as well as the metro system, because im a commuter and a resident and i live here. Or my jobs when I lived in maryland, with abby. Running around and around the beautiful southern quad, touching the brass turtle on the nose every time around, enjoying the downhills, hating the uphills, and lying in the grass and the end, sweating, breathing hard, listening to my dixie chicks and thinking "i was born to be a fish, not a runner" And the cat that clawed me awake in the morning, that dragged me out of my bed in the brutal heat to shower and breakfast and walk the 20 minuetes to the subway only to find my fancy work clothes soaked with sweat by the time i got there, but so happy to read the metro section of the washington post, race the crossword with abby, and get out at Chinatown and take the elevator up to the fancy greenpeace usa office with the pioneerlike display at the entrance. The lunchtime meetings with senators, the intern events that i repeatedly attended, for the free food, for the company. The thousands of fountains that satisfied my every fountain fantasy, and the feeling of the lincoln memorial at night. This was almost it, I could almost call DC home.
But here, I feel the pull even stronger. I ride the commuter rail like a pro, because i live an hour away from the city. And I await the moment every morning when we'll pull into Starnberg where I can see the lake and finally find out if today is a day where we can see the Alps. And I know which end of the trains will put me closer to the escalator which will take me through the main track area of the main train station in munich, and I can muse over the various possible destinations: rome, paris, berlin, copenhagen. Just like that, I could be off, but the funny part is, I don't want to go. Because just outside those doors there is the doughnut man whose doughnuts are much too small and expensive, there are the discount clothing stores that line the streets, followed by the turkish grocery stores, where I comparison shop for grapefruit, mango, eggplant, olives, feta. There's my airy, renovated industrial office, with goofy environmentalists, 5 of which have red hair. It's on the 4th floor, but it's really on the 5th, because while germans aren't optimists at heart, they are when it comes to numbering the floors, gracing the first floor with the simple "earth story". The trash bins in the kitchen are an essential part of my love for germany, because throwing something away here is a mental excercise. Plastic, paper, metal, biodegradable. The paper can be removed from the plastic yogurt container with the pull of a special tab. The soda bottles go back to the grocery store, so you can get your deposit back. My deposit money rules me life here. Shopping carts require a deposit of one euro. You can buy and carry a specially designed shopping cart deposit token. Lockers are everywhere, as libraries, museums, and any other public place allow no extranous baggage. They require a one or 2 euro deposit, as does the gym. The swimming pool is fantastic, it's in the old olympic stadium and indulges my absurd water fantasies such as underwater hockey, 24 hour swim event and big splash contest. There are entire facilities devoted to sitting, swimming, floating and lounging in pools of water set at various temperatures. There are clubs for everything. There are guides for guides to guides of cultural events. There is old and new and cobblestones and asphalted and shiny tall and short and faded and carved, fountainy, dressing up and christmas market joy eating outside and when its cold for beer gardens then blankets for you and radio news every hour. And a tolerance for run on sentences that the english language cannot (normally) accomodate.
But I really think what keeps someone somewhere is a combination of a feeling that the place suits them, and a feeling of place with the people who comprise their experience there. And here, I feel like I have it all.
Thank you for indulging my trip down memory lane...
In Pittsburgh, I have my family. I have my dogs. I have my friends. I can drive from my house to my friend's houses, and get only occasionally lost. I've been to most of the museums. But I have this constant feeling that I want out. That it's only temporary, and that feeling didn't just start when i started living there only a few months out of the year because i was at college the rest of the time. I've almost always had a vague sense that Pittsburgh would not be my final home, or at least not my 20-30something home. I think since the first time my dad explained to me what college was, and that I could go anywhere I want for college. The doors were flung open, and even my 6-year-old-mind was long gone.
In Chicago, I have my College days. My University. My lake. The animal shelter, the concrete university library, the keg, the parties, the lecture halls and the walk down sheridan avenue. My evening yoga classes, my happy trecks senior year up those wooden steps to cook dinner and chat the night away with my 4 fantastic senior year roommates. My memories of days with friends and studying and riding the el into the city to work and be a tourist. But I never really lived in Chicago, and even last year when I finally got a real taste of the city, as a 21-year old who could FINALLY check out some bars and during my work on the nitty gritty west side at CCGT, it still was just a place I visited. And I always felt alienated from Evanston, from that strange mix of spectacular to the point of disgusting lakeside homes and the depressing high density of homeless men and women that populated the yuppie streets. The most at home I ever felt was when I was sitting by the shore of the lake, but even that was alienating, because I felt strangely alone in my heart filling admiration of the crashing waves, the sand, the seagull with the twizzler, the Ba'hai Temple and my secret bay of baots, my rollerblading destination, my escape to the tunes of badly drawn boy and the beatles. It was exactly that, that feeling of empty elation, that the things I loved so much about the place, no one really understood.
And then there's Washington, another one of the places that I feel I can rightly call home. Born right outside of the city limits, I returned summer after summer to soak up the tropical jungle heat and the airconditioned intern culture. I loved the paul simon walk to work, mathematical in its execution, down 21st, up M, to 25th and M on the border of Foggy Bottom and Georgetown, whistling along to "me and julio down by the schoolyard" loud enough so that everyone in business suits would stare at me, even though I was in a business suit too. I adored cooking in that tiny kitchen, where you actually had to stand outside of the kitchen because it was so small, and that tiny room with the three beds, and my roommates, the incomprehensible one from Wyoming and the darling Sejal Shah from Texas. And the balmy nichts on the national mall, and the delivering letters to congressmen and loving every minute of checking out the decorations in each and every office, and my shock the first time I saw Senator Stevens of Alaska's horrendous bearskin wallcovering. And my runs...my runs from 21st and H to the Jefferson memorial, and then sitting in that concrete coolness dripping sweat and staring at the tourists and thinking I LIVE here that's why im sitting here, so hot and tired because i jogged here because i live here! I jog past the white house and the world bank and the eisenhower administrative building and the redcross headquarters and that guy who camps outside of the whitehouse to protest nuclear proliferation and the kickball teams that play on the national mall and the lincoln memorial is my neighbor and so is the vietnam memorial. I know the smithsonian inside out, as well as the metro system, because im a commuter and a resident and i live here. Or my jobs when I lived in maryland, with abby. Running around and around the beautiful southern quad, touching the brass turtle on the nose every time around, enjoying the downhills, hating the uphills, and lying in the grass and the end, sweating, breathing hard, listening to my dixie chicks and thinking "i was born to be a fish, not a runner" And the cat that clawed me awake in the morning, that dragged me out of my bed in the brutal heat to shower and breakfast and walk the 20 minuetes to the subway only to find my fancy work clothes soaked with sweat by the time i got there, but so happy to read the metro section of the washington post, race the crossword with abby, and get out at Chinatown and take the elevator up to the fancy greenpeace usa office with the pioneerlike display at the entrance. The lunchtime meetings with senators, the intern events that i repeatedly attended, for the free food, for the company. The thousands of fountains that satisfied my every fountain fantasy, and the feeling of the lincoln memorial at night. This was almost it, I could almost call DC home.
But here, I feel the pull even stronger. I ride the commuter rail like a pro, because i live an hour away from the city. And I await the moment every morning when we'll pull into Starnberg where I can see the lake and finally find out if today is a day where we can see the Alps. And I know which end of the trains will put me closer to the escalator which will take me through the main track area of the main train station in munich, and I can muse over the various possible destinations: rome, paris, berlin, copenhagen. Just like that, I could be off, but the funny part is, I don't want to go. Because just outside those doors there is the doughnut man whose doughnuts are much too small and expensive, there are the discount clothing stores that line the streets, followed by the turkish grocery stores, where I comparison shop for grapefruit, mango, eggplant, olives, feta. There's my airy, renovated industrial office, with goofy environmentalists, 5 of which have red hair. It's on the 4th floor, but it's really on the 5th, because while germans aren't optimists at heart, they are when it comes to numbering the floors, gracing the first floor with the simple "earth story". The trash bins in the kitchen are an essential part of my love for germany, because throwing something away here is a mental excercise. Plastic, paper, metal, biodegradable. The paper can be removed from the plastic yogurt container with the pull of a special tab. The soda bottles go back to the grocery store, so you can get your deposit back. My deposit money rules me life here. Shopping carts require a deposit of one euro. You can buy and carry a specially designed shopping cart deposit token. Lockers are everywhere, as libraries, museums, and any other public place allow no extranous baggage. They require a one or 2 euro deposit, as does the gym. The swimming pool is fantastic, it's in the old olympic stadium and indulges my absurd water fantasies such as underwater hockey, 24 hour swim event and big splash contest. There are entire facilities devoted to sitting, swimming, floating and lounging in pools of water set at various temperatures. There are clubs for everything. There are guides for guides to guides of cultural events. There is old and new and cobblestones and asphalted and shiny tall and short and faded and carved, fountainy, dressing up and christmas market joy eating outside and when its cold for beer gardens then blankets for you and radio news every hour. And a tolerance for run on sentences that the english language cannot (normally) accomodate.
But I really think what keeps someone somewhere is a combination of a feeling that the place suits them, and a feeling of place with the people who comprise their experience there. And here, I feel like I have it all.
Thank you for indulging my trip down memory lane...
Sunday, March 5, 2006
Thursday, February 9, 2006
okidoki artichoki
Ok, so I haven't written for a while, and even when I have written it's been a bit half-assed. Sorry. But as I mentioned before, usually when I don't write it doesn't mean that nothing is happening, instead it means that LOTS is happening. And this is once again the case.
1) I've started my praktikum! It's fantastic...laid back but fun work, good practice, nice people, challenging but not too challenging. I'm planning a sustainable mobility festival, working on the bike campaign and working on another event for kids and public transit. I'm still getting adjusted to waking up early every day, but it's really nice to have a schedule.
2) The Steelers won the Superbowl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm still a bit in shock that they FINALLY win and I'm in Germany. But it was a pretty fantastic/unique experience nonetheless. I had a party and then watched the game and a packed bar in the company of some real live pittsburghers and the world's best freshly minted polish-german steelers fan there is. More on this character later... Needless to say, going to work the next day on two hours of sleep was no cake walk, and I found it rather laughable that the pittsburgh school children got two hour delays but got nothing for watching a superbowl that BEGAN at midnight. I really think the consulate should have granted us some sort of amnesty.
3) Right. So I don't really know the etiquitte for introducing someone to my blog-reading public who I know is also reading this. Hmmmm. Damn it, why does he have to speak such good english? Maybe the best way is with a large dose of sarcasm. So there's this guy. His name is Artur and we hang out every now and then (HA) get along alright (HA HA) and sometimes have fun together (HA HA HA) and he was a terrible steelers fan (HA HA HA HA). Ok, those are pretty much all lies. We hang out a ridiculous amount, get along fantastically, have fun doing the most inane of things and he is the best non-pittburgher-steelers fan i've ever seen. And he made a terrible towel written in polish. These are the things that charm me, folks, taking notes? ;-)
So the last week has been pretty much comprised of working and hanging out with Artur, with a shockingly small amount of time logged at my host family's house, much to my and my host mother's regret, so that's why i'm sitting at the kitchen table right now writing in my blog... hmmm....
Oh, and yesterday my watch battery ran out, causing me to think it was an hour earlier than it was, miss my train, and marvel at the fact that i've had a watch for so long without losing it that it needs a new battery. I'm growing up! ;-)
1) I've started my praktikum! It's fantastic...laid back but fun work, good practice, nice people, challenging but not too challenging. I'm planning a sustainable mobility festival, working on the bike campaign and working on another event for kids and public transit. I'm still getting adjusted to waking up early every day, but it's really nice to have a schedule.
2) The Steelers won the Superbowl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm still a bit in shock that they FINALLY win and I'm in Germany. But it was a pretty fantastic/unique experience nonetheless. I had a party and then watched the game and a packed bar in the company of some real live pittsburghers and the world's best freshly minted polish-german steelers fan there is. More on this character later... Needless to say, going to work the next day on two hours of sleep was no cake walk, and I found it rather laughable that the pittsburgh school children got two hour delays but got nothing for watching a superbowl that BEGAN at midnight. I really think the consulate should have granted us some sort of amnesty.
3) Right. So I don't really know the etiquitte for introducing someone to my blog-reading public who I know is also reading this. Hmmmm. Damn it, why does he have to speak such good english? Maybe the best way is with a large dose of sarcasm. So there's this guy. His name is Artur and we hang out every now and then (HA) get along alright (HA HA) and sometimes have fun together (HA HA HA) and he was a terrible steelers fan (HA HA HA HA). Ok, those are pretty much all lies. We hang out a ridiculous amount, get along fantastically, have fun doing the most inane of things and he is the best non-pittburgher-steelers fan i've ever seen. And he made a terrible towel written in polish. These are the things that charm me, folks, taking notes? ;-)
So the last week has been pretty much comprised of working and hanging out with Artur, with a shockingly small amount of time logged at my host family's house, much to my and my host mother's regret, so that's why i'm sitting at the kitchen table right now writing in my blog... hmmm....
Oh, and yesterday my watch battery ran out, causing me to think it was an hour earlier than it was, miss my train, and marvel at the fact that i've had a watch for so long without losing it that it needs a new battery. I'm growing up! ;-)
among the appalling
Censoring Truth
New York Times February 9, 2006
The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.
In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.
This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.
The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.
In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.
The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.
As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.
CREDIT AND ALL THAT JAZZ: NEW YORK TIMES INC.
New York Times February 9, 2006
The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.
In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.
This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.
The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.
In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.
The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.
As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.
CREDIT AND ALL THAT JAZZ: NEW YORK TIMES INC.
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Friday, February 3, 2006
Smiling Alone
If there's one book that was referenced more than any other during my career as a polical science student at Northwestern, it was most certainly Robert Putnam's „Bowling Alone“, a theory-based case study of American society and the recent decline of „social capital“ which exists in the form of social organizations, PTAs, quilting societies and...bowling nights. The idea is that the more people hung out, the more social ties they had, and these social ties functioned as a sort of currency...they could find jobs more easily, had help in times of need, were happier, healthier, and generally „richer.“
Really the only reason I've been thinking about this book is because the phrase „Smiling Alone“ has been running through my head because, well, that's what I've been doing (more explanation soon) and, well, it sounds like the book title. But as I think about it more and more, I realize that Putnam's description of the lone bowler in a nearly empty neighborhood bowling alley as a well-adapted metaphor for much of my lonesome smiling activities. Engaging in an activity that's usually done in the presence of others, where continual smiling/bowling is supported by the group, where laughing and cheering is encouraged, group bowling/smiling is even a good first date activity!...the big difference is that bowling is a lot louder and requires a lot more skill. But wait, smiling alone is more infectious, more a cause of general cheer than that lonesome bowler. At least in my experience...
The number one cause of solitary simpering, at least in my case, is the presence of cute, goofy, funny-looking, sleeping, or even completely normal looking dogs or babies on the train. The subway is just such an apersonal atmosphere, but the dogs and babies don't know the rules yet! They stare you down, lick your feet, giggle, eat things off the subway floor, and generally break all the (oh so german) rules of subway personal-space etiquitte. Another related cause is people making faces, jingling keys, talking to, babywaving, petting, playing with or otherwise communicating with these furry/juvenile creaturtes, especially when the respective parents/owners don't seem very happy about it. Also related to the baby theme, especially grin-provoking are small children using what to me seem like absurdly complicated grammatical structures: seperable prefix verbs, subjunctive clauses, genitive possession, all in German! The mother toungue is a marvelous thing.
And then there are those instances that are just too notable to not react to. Those times where you think, I wish there was someone else here who could understand the irony/absurdity/hilarity/tragedy of this situation. There was the time that I found myself with my entire unterwasserhockey equipment, most notably with my flippers and snorkel poking out of my bag, sitting next to a man carrying his surfboard on the subway, in January. There was the man in complete bavarian dress talking on a payphone in Marienplatz. And then there are the people who make you smile because you're making up stories about them in your head to try to understand their behavior, like maybe the crazy businessman who threw the entire contents of his briefcase into the fish fountain and slowly watched them sink just gave up all his worldly possessions and is moving to the Canary Islands. And then there are the little things: funny advertisements, silly hats, people speaking english next to me who think i can't understand, cool houses, views of the alps, congregations of birds floating on lake starnberg, sunrises, sunsets, perfect songs, and of course, there's the smiling alone that comes from thinking of a particularly sappy romantic moment that gets you smiling inspite of yourself.
All I can say is, smiling alone turns out to be an excellent solitary activity, but you won't find me in a bowling alley without at least a couple of other people, namely so no one notices that i only use the 8 pound balls... Mini golf however, I might be able to tolerate solo. Now, i'm off to listen to some Lyle Lovett...
This calls for some blatantly teenagerey internet behavior:
:-) ;-) =) :-P
there, now i'm not alone :-D
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
City Mouse, Country Mouse
Childhood books often provide striking analogies to real life. In this case, I'm feeling a schizophrenic congruence with the book "city mouse and country mouse," the tragic rather romeo-and-juliet- for-children tale of two mice friends who just can't seem to get past their anthropological differences. In my case, however, i'm half city and half country (A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll...?)and instead of bringing fights and disagreements over cow milking and fast car driving, this odd duality brings me a butter-churn-full of satisfaction.
Munich is, like most European cities, bustlingly urban but also quaintly nostalgic. It has all the suited-cell-phoned-workers, late-night-discos, and ecclectic metropolitan flair you could want, complete with the occasional tragic infringement of the all so american-urban-accoutrements: mcdonalds, starbucks, and loud, bright colored advertising, written almost entirely in (if rather misused) english. But of course, there are also the narrow cobblestones roads and fading frescoed facades, the regal and intricate churches, patinaed fountains, commemorative statues, and bustling marketplaces that reminds us of Munich's humble pastoral beginnings as an outpost for monks. And there are huge swaths of green, rolling hilled parks with trickling rivers (even the occasional nude sunbather), tumbling waterfalls, daring surfers, natural and articifial lakes, the river Isar which meanders through the city like a sneaky but peaceful blue and green caterpillar.
Really, in Munich, I don't miss open spaces, because there seem to be plenty. It's no Chicago (or Pittsburgh, even), no skyscraper jungle where you only see the sky if you happen to stand in the middle of the road long enough without getting hit by a speeding car to look down the long line of buildings to a small and distant swatch of blue. It is, in fact, quite beautiful in Chicago to witness the genius of the directionally oriented city, when the sun as it sets aligns itself perfectly with the East-West streets and shines blindingly but beautifully directly down that clausterphobic alley of glass. But that is an exception, for in America, the city is usually suffocating. But here, I feel rather at peace with my surroundings, with the pleasant mix between old and new, busy and boring, shiny and crumbling. Which is why I am always so shocked when I step out the back door of my house in Feldafing.
Feldafing has a population of 4,000, but is essentially a suburb of Munich, although the word suburb lacks the necessary romance and brings to mind cul-de-sacs, SUVs and street names which have all decided disgustingly to have a theme, like "shooting star way," "neil armstrong alley" and "moon rock road." No, it's not like that, it's a beautiful little town on a spectacular lake with villas, winding roads, old churches, and a general cozy charm. And it's really in the country. I live on the "outskirts" which means about as far from the lake as you can get. It means that when I sit at the dining room table I'm looking at a giant field, a forest, and quite often a family of deer. When I walk into this (what is now a) vast whiteness with the family labrador retriever, I feel like I'm Peter in Ezra Jack Keat's "Snowy Day," like Polly and Digory stepping through the Wardrobe in C.S. Lewis's "Narnia", the little boy in the wordless "The Snowman" by Raymond Briggs". In other words, it's like a childhood fairytale.
Benni and I have taken many a long walk through magical forests, over white fields, and through frozen creek beds. We've tracked geese over hills, rabbits under fences, and deer across frozen ponds. I've been overwhelmed by the sensation of being surrounded by thousands of footprints in the snow, none of which belonged to a human being but my own, and totally awed by the breathtaking view of the alps silloutted by the setting sun. I fetch cheese, milk, and eggs from the neighboring farm, and watch neighbors transport themselves on horses, cross country skis and wooden tabbogans. I'm Davy Crockett! Tarzan's Jane! Aldo Leopold!
But wait. How can this be? I love the city, I love the rough edge, the action, dancing till 5am, watching my purse, riding the crowded subway, being a part of the throbbing mass of the working, the unemployed, the rich, the poor, the foreigners, the bavarians, the kind, the rude, the children, the grandparents, the whole messy soup of humanity. But I also love the peace of nature, the totally silent moments with just me, the dog, the geese and the trees (hey, they don't call me a treehugger for nothing).
Why did I bring this up, after all? In the last week I've been back and forth between "home" in Feldafing and "the city", Munich, and I've realized how much I love both worlds. It could just be my love for ambiguity and contrast (what hippie-liberal-eurofetishfull-treehugger loves the NFL and the Steelers with such fervor?) but I've come to the conclusion that I'm more than happy to house both city and country mouse in mousey-housey-harmony.
Monday, January 23, 2006
getacklt, gesackt, gefumblt, geblitzt...
so i haven´t been writing much. That usually means that what i´ve been experiencing is somehow too large/ complicated/ innappropriate/ amazing or secret for these very limiting and very public black and white letters. And I would say that the last few weeks have been exactly that. I´d be happy to relay you the juicy details (well, some version of them, depending on who you are) in a more personal correspondance. You know the new email address...
But of course, I can write something here. I won´t pretend that the lack of posts didn´t have some small amount to do with laziness. At any rate, i´m sitting at the computer lab at the University during my last week of university classes in Germany and very well for the forseeable future (goodbye studentstatus, sniff sniff) and making the mental (and bureaucratic) journey to the Arbeitswelt: I start my internship on Wednesday, Febraury 1st.
But wait, back up. THE STEELERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have to say, as I watched the game yesterday in an Austrailian Pub in Munich, Germany, on SKY satellite with one American and one BRITISH announcer (who said "he just LACED HIM UP" a lot which i found quite disturbing with a british accent) sitting with two French and one Polish friend, and surrounded by an oddball assortment of expat americans, NONE of whom were from pittsburgh, I was struck by that most wonderful of sensations: wow my life is weird.
At any rate, I had the luxury of enthusiastic (and patient) company, who listened faithfully to my broken germ-isch explanation of the rules (und dann wenn er "getackelt" wird, dass heisst dass er "gesackt" war, und wenn er den Ball verliert, er hat den Ball "gefumblt", warscheinlich weil die verteiligung "geblitzt" hat) (ironically enough, blitz is a german word.... so really, when i explained "blitzburgh" i think they understood! mostly...) And the additional luxury of German beer (Iron City, I love you, but i´ll take an Augustiner Helles over IC any day...). And I am ready for the midnight marathon superbowl viewing in two weeks, and am already planning my pre-superbowl party (it starts at midnight here....) All I can say is... "EINE FUR DIE DAUME!!!"
Sunday, January 15, 2006
walk with benny
and here's my walk with benni. these photo collage things are great! this is where i live. in the middle of nowhere. isn't it spectacular? and my dog is alio fantastic.
sledding
Yes. I love my life. Last Saturday I was hiking in the Colli Eugani in Italy, this Saturday I was sledding in the Alps. The landscape was spectacular... mountains, huts, cute little children, and these unbelievable crystalized snow formations. We passed a huge frozen lake where people were skating, and everywhere people were sledding, riding black horses, cross country skiiing..you name it. "Rodeln" as this type of sledding is called is not at all tame.. we took a lift to the top of the mountain and then careened down steep hills and rounded death-defying curves. Steering and braking with our feet. Thrilling and Spectacular.
unbelievable
....on friday the 13th I accidentally deleted my email address. Unbelievable, i know. It is now:
emilylflechtner@gmail.com
ah, the dangers of gmail. Luckily i backed up my contacts. I still felt strangely empty inside when I lost it all. I can't really believe how attached one can become to electronic data...
if you've written me any love letters in the past year, i can't read them over and long for you anymore. Other than that i've escaped relatively unharmed....
love,
emilylflechtner
emilylflechtner@gmail.com
ah, the dangers of gmail. Luckily i backed up my contacts. I still felt strangely empty inside when I lost it all. I can't really believe how attached one can become to electronic data...
if you've written me any love letters in the past year, i can't read them over and long for you anymore. Other than that i've escaped relatively unharmed....
love,
emilylflechtner
unbelievable
on friday the 13th, I accidentally deleted my email account. Yes, my entire email account. Don't ask me how, it's a sad sad story. So my new email is the following: emilylflechtner@gmail.com
It's really rather disturbing how suddenly identity-less and out of contact I felt when I deleted my email address. Perhaps it's for the better that I did a little house cleaning...
For all of you who've written me love letters, however, I can't read them over anymore =(
love,
emilylflechtner
It's really rather disturbing how suddenly identity-less and out of contact I felt when I deleted my email address. Perhaps it's for the better that I did a little house cleaning...
For all of you who've written me love letters, however, I can't read them over anymore =(
love,
emilylflechtner
Friday, January 13, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
a poem
mi manca l'italia
i can't believe
sometimes
the things that happen
i want to grab them and put them away
because i'm sure they won't happen again
and here too
i feel that way
like living a dream, which you know will never continue
but rather from which you awake
dissappointed and confused
and now the talk about sleep
reminds me all over again
and so i'm going to sleep
because what else can i do
i can't believe
sometimes
the things that happen
i want to grab them and put them away
because i'm sure they won't happen again
and here too
i feel that way
like living a dream, which you know will never continue
but rather from which you awake
dissappointed and confused
and now the talk about sleep
reminds me all over again
and so i'm going to sleep
because what else can i do
Monday, January 2, 2006
Fröhes neue Jahr
Right, so new year's eve. Since my normal friends are all home for the holidays, i wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for the evening. The americans are still around of course, and then the other day I got a surprise phone call from Sven...let's see. Sven and I met...well not really...at karaoke at an irish bar. He was sitting at the table next to ours with a girl and they wrote out a slip to request to sing but they refused to turn it in so we turned it in for them. And then we realized that they had requested "stairway to heaven" which in my opinion is a horrible song to sing karaoke to. No wonder she was so mortified. And lame Sven refused to sing with her, so my friend Nicole who was visiting consented to sing along. At any rate I never actually spoke with this Sven but at the end of the night the girl came up to me and asked me for his phone number for him and said something about my eyes. I gave it to her... and then he didn't call me. But coincidentally my friend had gotten his email address because she had taken pictures of the girl singing karaoke and at this point my curiosity was piqued, so i emailed him. He told me i'd given him the wrong number, which I had already thought i might have done, and we met up. But we only hung out a couple of times and then didn't see eachother for a while, so I was quite surprised when he called.
Phew, back in the present. So he mentioned that he had some friends in town and asked if i'd like to come out with them. So I went along, and brought another american friend Christy. It was a low-key evening, and after his rather unfriendly friends from Cologne left, things got going and I got talking to Artur, another friend of the girl. By the end of the evening we'd hit it off (and I learned that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend of six years. six years! jeez!!) and he invited christy and i to his new year's party. Perfect! So on new year's we found ourselves at the apartment of a very nice guy who had just been dumped by his six year girlfriend, and whose apartment actually still belonged to the girlfriend but she was away for the time being and he was staying there until he found a new place. And there were only about 10 people there...but everyone was nice, and there was Raclette to eat, and interactive food is always delicious. So we stayed but had promised to meet the americans for fireworks and midnight. So we left with promises to come back, and took the train to olympiazentrum (the site of the 1972 olympics, the fated ones, and where i play unterwasserhockey). And wow. It was like a war zone. Fireworks are totally legal and apparently that means that everyone should have some, because i think everyone did. And not tiny things. Not bottle rockets. Giant rockets, huge exploding things. Everywhere. By 11:55 our view over munich was an unbelievably spectacular panorama of nothing but fireworks. At midnight it was so loud we couldn't speak. At 12:05 we couldn't see anything because of the smoke. Nothing. It was incredible, and more incredible still was that we remained alive and fully limbed. People were shooting fireworks out of their mouths. There's something about alcohol and crowds that makes people think they're invisible.
And then in a champagne-drunk-muddy (it was raining, thank god for the fire risk, and we sat on my twister mat which got muddy anyways thus our muddy state) state we walked back to the subway and proceeded to fight insane crowds (and i proceeded to suffer an incredible need to pee, which I survived but barely) back to the party, where christy, robert and robert's friend stopped by shortly but then departed to make the last train and I, as always, stayed because they offered me a sofa and fun and sofa is better than no fun and train ride home. It was fun, and in the morning we all went out to breakfast. Me and Niels, Martin, Artur and Andreas, an upright group of german guys. Wahoo for more friends! At any rate I left my digital camera at Artur's which means that i can't post any pictures but also means that i've been invited over to cook dinner with him on wednesday, so i can get my camera. Not too shabby...
And on thursday I have an interview with the paper, because apparently it's newsworthy to be an american exchange student living in a tiny dorf called feldafing and playing unterwasserhockey. They want to publish that embarassing photo of me. Should I let them? ayayay. This is going to haunt my political career forever, I know it ;-)
Phew, back in the present. So he mentioned that he had some friends in town and asked if i'd like to come out with them. So I went along, and brought another american friend Christy. It was a low-key evening, and after his rather unfriendly friends from Cologne left, things got going and I got talking to Artur, another friend of the girl. By the end of the evening we'd hit it off (and I learned that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend of six years. six years! jeez!!) and he invited christy and i to his new year's party. Perfect! So on new year's we found ourselves at the apartment of a very nice guy who had just been dumped by his six year girlfriend, and whose apartment actually still belonged to the girlfriend but she was away for the time being and he was staying there until he found a new place. And there were only about 10 people there...but everyone was nice, and there was Raclette to eat, and interactive food is always delicious. So we stayed but had promised to meet the americans for fireworks and midnight. So we left with promises to come back, and took the train to olympiazentrum (the site of the 1972 olympics, the fated ones, and where i play unterwasserhockey). And wow. It was like a war zone. Fireworks are totally legal and apparently that means that everyone should have some, because i think everyone did. And not tiny things. Not bottle rockets. Giant rockets, huge exploding things. Everywhere. By 11:55 our view over munich was an unbelievably spectacular panorama of nothing but fireworks. At midnight it was so loud we couldn't speak. At 12:05 we couldn't see anything because of the smoke. Nothing. It was incredible, and more incredible still was that we remained alive and fully limbed. People were shooting fireworks out of their mouths. There's something about alcohol and crowds that makes people think they're invisible.
And then in a champagne-drunk-muddy (it was raining, thank god for the fire risk, and we sat on my twister mat which got muddy anyways thus our muddy state) state we walked back to the subway and proceeded to fight insane crowds (and i proceeded to suffer an incredible need to pee, which I survived but barely) back to the party, where christy, robert and robert's friend stopped by shortly but then departed to make the last train and I, as always, stayed because they offered me a sofa and fun and sofa is better than no fun and train ride home. It was fun, and in the morning we all went out to breakfast. Me and Niels, Martin, Artur and Andreas, an upright group of german guys. Wahoo for more friends! At any rate I left my digital camera at Artur's which means that i can't post any pictures but also means that i've been invited over to cook dinner with him on wednesday, so i can get my camera. Not too shabby...
And on thursday I have an interview with the paper, because apparently it's newsworthy to be an american exchange student living in a tiny dorf called feldafing and playing unterwasserhockey. They want to publish that embarassing photo of me. Should I let them? ayayay. This is going to haunt my political career forever, I know it ;-)
book to movie to book
i just finished the book "everything is illuminated" by jonathan safran foer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then yesterday I was reading through the movie listings for Munich, and I saw that a fim entitled "Alles ist erleuchtet" was playing. Funny, I thought, that's almost an exact translation of the title of the book I just read. And then I clicked on it. Lo and behold, it's the movie version of the book! I had no idea. So today after meeting with my language partner who also studied in padova but is german so we do 20 mins of german 20 mins of english and 20 mins of italian, I went to a small artsy theater in a neat neighborhood i'd never been to and saw the movie. I have to say, on its own it was good but compared to the book it didn't stand a chance, and it left out a huge part of the book and changed a bunch of stuff. But it was fun and I ate peppermint chocolate.
Then I came home and cuddled with the dog and then my host mom read aloud "charlie brown's christmas" to me, because my parents sent me the book as a gift and she wanted to practice her english pronunciation. Then I cleaned my room and finally bagged up all the bottles i've been hoarding because they are each worth 15 cents in bottle deposit, and I feel fresh and clean for the new year. Oh yeah, and Robert Nathenson (friend from highschool) was just in town visiting, which was very nice. We went to the Neue Pinakothek (art museum) on New Year's day which made me feel very cultured. A good start to 2006, I say.
Then I came home and cuddled with the dog and then my host mom read aloud "charlie brown's christmas" to me, because my parents sent me the book as a gift and she wanted to practice her english pronunciation. Then I cleaned my room and finally bagged up all the bottles i've been hoarding because they are each worth 15 cents in bottle deposit, and I feel fresh and clean for the new year. Oh yeah, and Robert Nathenson (friend from highschool) was just in town visiting, which was very nice. We went to the Neue Pinakothek (art museum) on New Year's day which made me feel very cultured. A good start to 2006, I say.
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