Random Act of Violence

Yesterday I received a subpoenae from the Berliner Polizei to act as a witness on the record.


...Maybe I should start over.

A few weeks ago, I was out with a group of friends. We had intended to go to a somewhat famous Berlin nightclub called Berghain. Before we actually got to our destination, however, we stopped in a Burger King for a snack. While standing in line with my friends, I looked over casually and noticed that a younger man had what the Germans call a Totschläger in his hand. The dictionary translation of this item is a "blackjack," but Americans would recognize such a thing as an extendable, metal baton. You know, the kind of weapon that riot police usually brandish.

I thought to myself, "That... is a weapon. Strange that he has that in his hand right now." The baton was fully extended, and his grip on it was firm. The guy holding it randomly looked at a German who was standing in front of me in line, and said something quietly to him that I could not hear.

Within 5 seconds of my noticing the weapon, violence erupted. The baton swung and hit the German in front of me square in the temple. The victim fell immediately, attempting to cover his head with his arms. As this was literally one arm's length away from me, I grabbed one of my friends and lunged away. Two of the attackers friends joined in the melee, kicking the victim in the back and abdomen while the Totschläger continued to land blows as well.

Just as quickly as it had started, it was over. The three attackers ran out the door and into a running car that was waiting for them, and they took off.

The victim was upright, being tended to by his girlfriend and two of his other friends. He was bleeding profusely from the head. There was blood everywhere, spattered all over the floor in giant swaths from the blows of the baton. What surprised me the most about this incident was not that it happened, but rather the reaction of the customers and staff of the establishment. The manager and the workers just stared in awe and confusion, as did the customers. Angry, I took some command, demanding that she call the police and an ambulance, and asking for a cup of water for the victim. As I offered the water to him, I asked him if he was alright and if he could understand me, to which he nodded and gave sluggish responses. I am not a doctor, but I am almost positive that he was in shock and probably had a concussion from the look of the side of his head. There really was just so much blood. My group of friends (there were 6 of us in all) were almost entirely useless. Only one other person in our group even offered to speak to the police when they (eventually) showed up.

I told the victim's friends that I would stay as long as was necessary to speak with the police. I spoke reassuring words to his weeping girlfriend, offering that he could have been rendered unconscious or worse. The ambulance came first, and took him away swiftly. The friends remained with me and we all sat around somberly waiting for the police. It might be interesting to point out that during this entire episode, I was almost eerily calm and collected. I even ordered some french fries, when everyone else's appetite had (for perhaps understandable reasons) disappeared in light of this random act of cruelty and aggression.

There was no motive for this. It was not ethnically or racially motivated, as one might possibly imagine could be the case. The two groups did not know each other at all. What is known, is that the 3 attackers were not German. The accent of the attacker had a strong Slavic sound, so maybe he was from Ukraine or Russia... although I don't know enough about the differences in Slavic languages to be able to tell with much certainty.

The Polizei finally showed up, and I gave them my account, as did 1 of my friends. We both received a Vorladung (subpoenea) in the mail yesterday... so I do not know if they caught the attackers or anything. I just know that I have to be at a police station on December 1st to give them my account as a Zeuge (witness).

I mentioned that I felt very calm, almost detached, during the moment. Well, the next day, the reality of the even settled in and began to nag at my mind. The only rationalization that I could come up with was that this random violence was simply "fun" for the attackers, like something taken directly out of A Clockwork Orange.

We never got in to the club, which was probably just as well.

The world is a weird, complex place... as we all know. I read endless accounts of suicide bombings in Kabul or Baghdad, or of shooting sprees, like what happened at Ft. Hood in Texas recently, and I feel sympathy for the victims. But when it happens in front of your eyes, or when it could just have easily have been me, I suppose it forced me to pause and reflect on the nature of violence. On why humanity is so violent in nature. I do not blame the media, and I do not blame video games. Armies fight wars for political reasons (that the majority of soldiers themselves probably do not grasp, or even care about). Militias and terrorists blow up civilians for religious reasons. Disaffected youths shoot up schools like Virginia Tech or Columbine and everyone always reacts with shock or asks the elusive questions, "Why?," or "How could this happen?"

The thing that separates what I saw from the things I mentioned in that last paragraph, is the motive. Some would argue that it does not matter, that the attackers were just "sick in the head," or "psycho." But I think it is more than that. How or what exactly, I am not sure. Who is to blame? And what can I do about it? What can anyone do about it?

Schlaflosigkeit

Schlaflosigkeit = "Insomnia"


I am going to sit here and force myself to write a post, because it is the last day of Oktober and I've only written once this month. I've got to meet my 2-posts-a-month quota!

If Fall/Autumn (Herbst) exists in Germany, I did not notice it. It seems to have just kind of skipped over directly into Winter. Today the "feels like" temperature is -2 degrees Celsius (about 28 Fahrenheit). I still miss riding my bike and I have only seen the sun twice in the past two weeks. Graylight has mostly replaced daylight, and it gets dark around 4:30pm. I'm glad that I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Insomnia, however, has been draining me of emotional energy as of late. I think the next time it strikes, I won't just lay in bed tossing and turning for hours. Instead, I will just get up and work on things so that I'm at least being productive when I can't sleep. Have any of you seen those commercials for the Lunesta sleeping pills, where the green butterfly flies in and magically puts smiling people to sleep? (Do people smile in their sleep?) Anyway, I want that Lunesta butterfly to come visit me sometime.

Despite the fact that my grad program in Germany has just begun, I am already beginning to contemplate my next move after this. I am not sure of much, thus far. Obviously, if I plan on being in an academic, I need to get another degree after this. That is, if I want to have any hope of finding a good job.

One thing that has become apparent to me is that I really like living in a big city. The idea of moving back to Florida is almost painful, so that's certainly out of the question. I think I would have to move to a bigger city in the U.S., perhaps Boston or New York. In any case, I've got plenty of time to figure it out.

I recently acquired a copy of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have not finished it yet, but I've been reading it relatively quickly. It's been a long time since I read fiction, but this book is amazing. I can't believe they are making it into a movie. It deals with survival in post-apocalyptic America, my favorite theme! As I wrote about back in May, it's not that I want the world to end... But I am fascinated with the idea of letting all the materialism, status anxiety and existential angst of humanity fade away. I wonder what would be left? I wonder if it would really be like it is in this bleak book that I'm reading...

Back to School!

*I just want to point out that the kid in the blue shirt in the middle of this picture is so excited to be going back to school that he isn't even touching the ground at all. Has anyone in the history of human society ever been this excited for anything?

Hi everyone.

I started classes last week! I must admit, it is wonderful to have a routine in my life again. Of course, when my alarm goes off, I usually grumble about it for a while before stumbling into the shower. But it feels nice to be actually tired (exhausted) at the end of the day. I have always had issues falling asleep, and now is no exception. But, it has been perhaps a little bit easier.

I have been to all of my classes so far, of which there are 9. Six of those nine classes are Vorlesung ("lecture") classes. These are an anomaly to me. At Humboldt, these lecture classes are worth 2 credits each. But all I have to do is show up and listen. There is no homework. No project. No test at the end. Only half of my lectures have attendance checks, so I don't even have to show up for the others. But I do anyway, because I need the practice.

So, since I signed up for six lectures at 2 credits each, 12 of my 28 semester credits would fall into the "very easy" category.

Yes, I said 28 credits. One class, called a Hauptseminar ("advanced seminar") is worth 10 credits because I have to write a long paper at the end, and give a presentation to the class. My advanced seminar is absolutely the scariest class I am taking this semester. It is about the National Socialism movements in 1920-1945, and how it spread outward from Germany across Europe.

And then yet another class is worth 4 credits. It's called an Übung, which means "exercise/activity," and concerns itself with the "Everyday life of students in Berlin in the 19th and early 20th century." Apparently we will just have discussions and stuff, which I am somewhat self-conscious about because of my accent. Just knowing words, and being able to say them, is not enough anymore. I must also have the confidence to inject my personality into what I am saying. And while I do possess said confidence, I have been feeling somewhat like Chinese exchange students must feel at universities in America... This feeling of alienation is almost totally unfamiliar to me, despite having been here for 10 months now. I must concentrate very hard on what is being said at all times, which eventually gives me what I call "language headaches."

When I get a language headache, all I want to do is sit and an episode of Heroes or read the New York Times so that I can relax a little bit. I am assuming that this level of intensity will pay off in short order. I already feel like I am comprehending more this week than I did last week. The road to fluency is a difficult one, apparently.

Two of my classes (1 lecture and 1 Proseminar ["undergrad seminar"]) are in English. The lecture is about British cultural history and the seminar deals with the various tribunals and courtroom proceedings against Nazi war criminals. These classes are interesting and fun, and require very little effort.

There are many strange, small differences between the atmosphere in European institutions of higher education and their American cousins. One interesting one is that students always applaud at the end of class, to show respect. But they do not clap their hands. Instead, they rap their knuckles on the desks to create a cacophony of knocking sounds. The first time I experienced it I actually chuckled to myself a little.

So, this is what I wanted! Grad school with the added difficulty of language acquisition/development. I knew not how vastly challenging this would be in practice. But I honestly believe that if I were taking such classes in America right now that I would feel significantly more bored with it. I just have to push through the remaining language barriers.

I miss riding my bicycle. It is getting very cold and graylight is mostly all that I get to see of the Sun during days which grow ever shorter as winter descends.

I am going back to Florida in 2 months to visit my family and some friends. I am looking forward to that, having not been back since I left right after Christmas last year. Unlike most people, I am not at all a fan of the holidays. I am not necessarily an Ebenezer Scrooge about it, but I don't find myself excited at all. I look forward to seeing those people that I care about, and those that care about me. The fact that it will occur over the holiday season is just a coincidence.

I have more to write about, but it will have to wait. My landlord needs me to translate for him again. Someone from the Romanian Embassy lives in my building (in an apartment that is easily twice as large and luxurious as my own) and his wife speaks English but not German.

False Friends // Falsche Freunde

While one is learning German, we eventually hear about something called "False Friends," or "Falsche Freunde."

Otherwise known as Übersetzungsfallen (übersetzung = translation; fallen = mistakes), False Friends can make the language very confusing.

[[edit- if you are reading this and you already know German, this post will not be that interesting, so you can skip to the end.]]

Yesterday, Billy commented on my last post with:

< "I read yesterday that the term "U-boat" is "U-boot" in German, which is short for, "underseeboot." Seriously, how difficult can it be to be fluent in German? We'd all probably be fluent in it if we could stop laughing long enough to remember anything." >

While I appreciate William's mockery of a language spoken by over 100 million native speakers, plus another 80 million non-native speakers, his comment spurred the idea for this post. Hats off to Mr. Farmer, who may or may not also be a "False Friend."

While some German words are almost identical to English words of the same meaning, many are not. But first, let's have a look at a few words that are hilariously similar to their English übersetzungen.

praktisch = practical
typisch = typical
Auto = car
Straße = street
Lampe = lamp
Reis = rice
Wein = wine
Stoff = stuff
unter = under

And then we have Billy's example, the U-Boot, which does in fact mean unterseeboot.

Looking at all this, the beginning student of German begins to feel a brief sense of relief. Maybe learning this new language won't be so hard, after all! Well, I'm sorry to say, this is where the False Friends come in to fuck up your Christmas.

Now, I will give you all a different list. The infamous False Friends:

Gift = poison
Mist = "crap!" (used as a slang, child-friendly swear word: "Mist!")
Hölle = Hell (fire and brimstone)
hell = bright
breit = wide
weit = far
fahr = drive (a car)
Flasche = bottle (think "flask")
Kaution = deposit (like a security deposit)
aktuell = recent/current
Handy = cell phone
fast = almost
bald = soon
Rat = advice
Wand = wall
Stapler = forklift
stern = star
Rente = pension
sympatisch = pleasant, likeable
nett = nice
dick = fat
groß/gross = tall/big
Dusche = shower

I find that those last 3 are the funniest. There are a lot more, but I don't want to make this post too lengthy.

So, next week I start my Orientierung (another word that belongs in the first list) and then the following week I start classes. I will not lie, I have grown much more anxious about this as the initial euphoric glow of acceptance/passing the DSH has faded. I really hope that I am able to keep up with this grad school thing in a foreign language. I already know that it will demand so much more of my time than it would for, say, a native German speaker. But, I am going to give it my best shot.

I have been trying to ride my bicycle as often as possible. I did for the past 3 days, but it is raining and cold outside today. I really like the distraction of exercise. The endorphin buzz that follows is certainly pleasant as well. I am a little bit sad that Summer is over, because now about 6 months of graylight and rain/snow await me... just as I was incorporating the bike rides into my daily routine. Maybe I will join a gym. Or maybe I will just climb the stairs in my building to the 6th floor and back over and over, potentially frightening my neighbors.

This post also marks the first time since I resurrected my blog that I've posted more than twice in 1 calendar month. Try to contain yourselves.

Success: The DSH Conclusion

Well, dear Readership... The last time I posted I was stressing out because of the all-important DSH language test. I had tutoring, I studied quite a bit, I did not sleep enough at all. But last Friday the 11th, I had 3 sections of the test. Reading, writing, listening. As I left the University auditorium where the test was held, I tried to suppress the "Good Feeling" that I had about it, because I did not want to get my hopes up.

Yesterday, the 16th, I had to go see if I had passed the first 3 sections of the test, and to see if I needed to take the "Spoken" (mündliche) portion of the test, which was held today. I did, in fact, have to take the spoken exam, in order to determine if I passed overall or not.

Well, I did it! I passed the spoken section today, and my overall result should be a DSH 2. (The scale goes from 1-3, with a 1 being a "failing" grade.) I needed either a 2 or a 3, and I got it!

This means that I've got about 2.5 weeks left of my "vacation," which is now FINALLY coming to an end. I guess I jumped the gun 2 posts ago when I got my acceptance letter. So... yes, NOW I really am going to Graduate school here in Berlin, at Humboldt Universität! Woo!

This is the result of almost 9 months of paperwork, 2 language classes, 3 language tests, with lots of sitting around and waiting in between. Pride is not something that I feel very often, but I feel it a little bit today.

It means big changes are coming, for me. No longer will I spend the majority of my day wasting time on Facebook (which, despite what I said in my last post, happened all too frequently over the past couple of weeks) or other time-wasting activities. Instead, I will be up to my eyeballs in classes in a language that is not English. Thus, it will require great effort on my part. Although I passed the DSH, that does not mean that I am "fluent" yet. I wrote a blog post a while back about what it means to be "fluent" in a language, and I know Billy has covered the theme of fluency as well...

Fluency in a different language is difficult to achieve, and even more difficult to describe. To be sure, there is a certain baseline level of knowledge... the ability to react spontaneously without thinking about a word or an adjective... but it depends entirely on the situation.

There is an election here in Germany in 10 days, so that has been dominating the news here. I watch the news every day, because it is much less dilute and sensational as American media. The one show I watch every day is called the "Tagesschau" ("Daily Show," hilariously enough). It is exactly 15 minutes long. Very short, very concise and really everything one should know about events for that day. Anyways, they have been talking about the upcoming election a lot as of late, and although I do follow what they are talking about, I do not always know the words for what the hell they are talking about. It's politic-speak. And much like English politic-speak, it is verbose and complex. In these instances, I feel much less fluent.

But then, when I hang out with regular German people my age, I have no problems. So, I expect that being in school here will accelerate this process. But I posit that fluency is impossible to achieve. Instead it is like a muscle that you build up every time you practice, but conversely it can also atrophy if you neglect it.

I can't wait to have a routine again. I have also been riding my bicycle as much as possible, which gives me a nice endorphin buzz, and allows me to better grasp the geography of (at least my area of) this enormous city. After all, if I'm going to be here for the next 2+ years, I had better know my way around, right?

DSH Panikattacken

I am not going to translate that one for you.

So, my acceptance to Humboldt is actually conditional. I have to pass another language exam, called the DSH.

Deutsche Sprachprüfung zum Hochschulzugang = German language proficiency test for university entrance.

This test is on September 11th, or, one week from tomorrow.

And I do not know if I am actually good enough, to get the required score. If I don't pass it, then I don't get to start this semester.

I'm kind of freaking out about it. So, to try to compensate, I am going to try to spend much less time on the computer. At least, as it pertains to English-related, time-wasting activities like checking Facebook every 5 minutes.

I will pop by now and then, of course. But I'm going into Stealth Mode for the sake of my future. I'll be back after Judgement Day.

A New Beginning

Hello everyone. I have been waiting to post until I received an answer from Humboldt Universität (seen above) regarding my acceptance.

As many of you know, I've been in Germany for 8 months (to the day, almost). In that time, I was in the C1 language course for all of January and February. Then I took the TestDaF prep course in late March and early April. The actual test was April 22nd.

So for the last 4 months, I have really done nothing of substantial merit. I have been on what I called a Permanent Vacation for the last 4 months! In situations like this my structure fades away and I tend to not care if it's Monday or Saturday, because it's always the same.

Well, my permanent vacation is coming to an abrupt end.

Because today, I got accepted to Humboldt for a Master's program in History!

I have to take a test called the DSH on September 11th, and then I will be matriculated into the German education system.

I am still very much in shock. Since I graduated FSU in April 2008 (16 months ago?) I feel like I've been floundering through life, directionless and without a purpose. This is not to say that being a student will bestow purpose upon me, but it IS a good start. I will finally start meeting people and my language skills will really take off.

Finally, after 8 months of being in Germany working towards this one thing, I actually achieved it.

For those of you that have been so supportive of me, you have my sincerest gratitude.

I'm going to have to start changing my ways, big time. No more sleeping all day and staying up all night. I've been trying to go on a daily bike ride for exercise and to explore the city. I have to implement these changes quickly if I am to be successful at Humboldt. But for now, I am incredibly excited.