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.

Uncertainty

Considering that August is halfway through, I decided that today might be a good day to write a blog post so that I don't fall behind on by 2 posts per month average.

I still have not heard anything from Humboldt regarding my application for a Master's program, which would begin in October. I check the mailbox daily. I have been informed that I should receive my answer sometime in August, so this means that I've got no more than 2 more weeks until I find out.

At first my patience was holding rather strong. A few weeks ago I received an email from the application company saying that I was qualified to apply, and that my application would be sent on to Humboldt for further processing. (Foreigners here must apply through a third-party. I am not sure why, I suppose the schools themselves do not want to waste their time with foreigners who don't even come close to making the grade.) At first I thought this email itself WAS my acceptance. But upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was like a pre-acceptance.

I wrote in a previous blog post... that if I was not accepted to Humboldt, that I will just get a job, retake the TestDaF, and try again next semester. This is still my backup plan.

But what is really getting to me now, is the uncertainty. I suppose I should attempt to be more willing to "go with the flow," and submit myself to the fact that I have no real control over what will happen.

Whatever happens, things do need to change. I am getting tired of having no enforced structure on my life. My permanent vacation has become my reality. I have no need to wake up early, or to do much of anything really. Many motivated friends of mine would simply implement their own routine and try to follow it as best as possible. I suppose I could do the same. Why don't I? Or rather, why do I find it so difficult?


I have been keeping up with American current events. It seems like the country is going insane with these "Town Hall" meetings. I've watched a few of them on YouTube. The "birther" movement is a new mutation of right-wing fringe madness. Despite being dismissed by the chairman of the RNC, as well as even many of the Fox News pundits... People are actually saying that Obama was not actually born in Hawaii, but Kenya instead? Wouldn't such a ridiculous "smoking gun" have been vetted by his opponents and critics like 2 years ago? I do not understand how misinformation and patent stupidity could actually be so contagious.

Fanning the flames of ignorance and hatred are certainly not new developments in our society. Not at all. But at the same time, I have heard from adults who honestly believe Glenn Beck's claim that Obama has set up FEMA concentration camps for those who disagree with Obama. America may have a lot of problems... but is not following in the footsteps of Cuba or Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR when it comes to rounding up political dissidents and throwing them in prison. What a preposterous claim!

While being as pretty far away from conversative/republican as is possible... I certainly support their right to exist and to disagree with the me. I've googled things like "political prisoners in america" and weeded my way through various hate-mongering message boards. I usually try to stay away from such websites, but I was curious. I wish I hadn't bothered to look. The internet can be a scary place, sometimes.

Friendship

When thinking of a good photo to use for this post, I instantly thought of Mortal Kombat. I know that Billy used an "Animality" picture in a recent post of his. This is not an attempt to rip him off. I like to think of it as a collective homage to one of the best fighting games ever.


Hello readership. I am writing this en route from Amsterdam back home to Berlin. Writing blog posts while traveling seems to be a reoccuring theme of mine.

First, I'd like to express to you all how glad I am that my last post concerning relationships was answered by or commented on by many of you. Such a bustle of activity has never graced this blog of mine, and I'm really glad to have heard all of your opinions or comments.

Aside from some rain, Amsterdam was fantastic. It is a very interesting place. I must say that Dutch people are incredibly friendly and forthcoming. That being said, Amsterdam is one of the most culturally diverse cities I've ever been to. All major European capitals will demonstrate 5 or more languages on a walk through a crowded transit area... But Amsterdam really seems to have even more groups of people, at least to me.

There was this gigantic chess board where people would play chess with huge pieces. I watched a handful of games, which was great.

So, what now? Now I wait to hear back from Uni-Assist (the 3rd party that German universities outsource their applicants to) to see if I can begin studies in October. I am being encouraged to take the C2 class, the hardest level of German. It would probably be beneficial... And we all know that this vacation of mine cannot be permanent after all.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Friendship. About how our friendships shape us over the years, and how when one looks back over their life, the various "episodes" have distinct and important casts of characters. For everyone who is reading this, I can recall so many different memories from throughout my life.

I tend to care very much about the people closest to me, putting them in places in my perception that are just as close or important as family. This leads to phenomenal friendships but also sometimes to situations where I am confused. I notice that, as humans grow older, they tend to put distance between themselves and "other people," perhaps retaining a small handful of close friends.

Why do people do that? Does having many friends, "close" friends, or "best" friends mean that they all matter less to me than if I only had 1 or 2 real friends?

I don't think so, personally. Maybe we try to surround ourselves with different types of people. That way, we can admire the qualities about them that are interesting to us, confide in people with whom we feel we can relate, or people who reinforce our opinions and beliefs.

In any case, I consider myself a very lucky person to have the friends that I do have. Many of them won't ever read this blog but my sentiment remains the same. Of course, not even the power of friendship can make us feel completely validated. Maybe we require a mix of being comfortable alone with ourselves as well as maintaining other close human relationships in order to feel balanced and socially adjusted.

Maybe I'll write a blog post about solitude next time.

If you're reading this, and I know you, I am glad that we are friends.

The Seeker and The Sought

Hello everyone. It has, once again, been a short while since my last post. Maybe I am afraid that if I post too frequently, my posts will go unread.

In any case, what is new. I am still on Permanent Vacation. Well, it is not entirely permanent. I am putting the finishing touches on my application to Humboldt Universität Berlin. The deadline is actually up next Wednesday, and I'm just waiting on my transcript to get here from FSU. I won't find out if I was accepted or not until August. If accepted, I must retake a German proficiency exam called the DSH in September, because my TestDaF scores were not high enough. I am not at all excited about re-taking a language exam.

In preparation for this test, I will probably be taking the C2 level course for 8 weeks, in August and September, at the same school that I completed the C1 level course in January and February. I am a little nervous about that possibility, because C2 is the last level. I should theoretically be able to do "anything" after that.

If I do not get accepted to Humboldt, then I will end up getting a job and then re-applying for the Spring Semester. This is obviously the lesser of the 2 possible options.

Other than that, not much is new in Germany. It is getting very warm. Since Europeans do not believe in A/C, I bought myself an oscillating fan. It has been worth every penny thus far.


So I've been thinking about writing a blog post about a certain topic for a while. It has to do with the dynamic between two people. This applies (to some extent) to platonic friendships, but moreso to intimate relationships. Since relationships seem to be a hot blog topic, I figured it was about time to throw this out there. I have talked about this with some of you in the past, and it has been a theory of mine for quite some time.

I believe that in every relationship between two people, one person plays the role of the "Seeker," which means that he or she actively spends more time "pursuing" the other person, who takes the role of the "Sought." When I talk about "pursuit," I do not necessarily mean when one tries to make the other into their significant other (although that certainly counts too) but I also just mean when one person seems to try harder than the other to hang out, to get in touch, etc. I would actually say that this dynamic applies to every relationship. And most certainly to every significant other-relationship.

The healthiest couples are usually (of course not always) those that have the smallest "gap" in between the Seeker and the Sought. If it is either so small that it cannot be noticed, or even small enough that the two people change roles back and forth, that usually makes for a relationship that can last for a while.

One must also watch out at the beginning of a courtship (or even a new friendship). If you meet someone, exchange phone numbers and/or add them to your Facebook, you would do well to not send them 10 unanswered text messages a day. If they are replying to your 10 messages, obviously the gap between you is small and you are on the right track. This may sound like common sense, but it's amazing how often people ruin potentially good relations because they fail to exercise restraint.

I have been on both ends of this before. When you are the Seeker, you feel that if you do not put in 60% or more of the total "work" required to maintain a relationship, that it will fall apart. Most often, the Sought KNOWS full well that the Seeker feels this way, and may use it to their advantage.

At the beginning, the distinction between the two can be blurred by mutual enthusiasm for one another. In these instances I would say that both parties are Seekers and thus are both Sought. But, inevitably an imbalance will evolve. In the best of scenarios, this imbalance is negligible or practically non-existent.

Sometimes the imbalance grows exponentially, like a cancer. The Sought becomes annoyed with the Seeker's constant attempts for more affection/attention and then pulls away. The increased distance makes the Seeker panic, and consequently they will Seek even harder. This cyclical downward spiral situation is amongst the worst of cases.

Of course, human relationships can be incredibly complicated. Not every relationship can be boiled down to these 2 categories. But it provides a useful model when one contemplates their relationships with others.

Eurotrip

Today I am trying something new. Blogger has an option where you can email posts, thus enabling one to update via mobile devices. So forgive me if this post is not too lengthy, because I'm typing it out on a BlackBerry.

I am on a train to Lutherstadt Wittenberg, my home away from home. I spent New Years Eve (Silvester) there to bring in both 2008 and 2009. I have a couple of good friends there. They have a son, who will be turning 3 soon.

Children confuse me. They are so trusting and accepting. Maybe that is why people have babies, so that they can be reminded what innocence was like. (That, and we must propagate our species, I suppose)

So a week ago, 3 friends and I split a rental car and drove from Berlin to Vienna. We stopped in Dresden for a few hours, and in Prague for 1 night before continuing on to Austria. We stayed in Vienna for 2 nights.

Traveling within Europe is very cheap. It CAN be very expensive, but that is only if you insist on nice hotels and high speed trains. So, for a 4-day, 3-night trip through Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, the prices were not bad.

My share of the rental car: 40€
Three nights in hostels: 55€
Plus food and stuff like that, it was just over 100€.

Now, that may seem like a lot. In some contexts, it is. But compared, say, with my trip to Sweden... it is absurdly cheap. (Just my plane ticket to Stockholm was 100+€)

The point that I'm trying to make here, is that Europe can be affordable if you know what you're doing and plan a little. Hostels (even the non-grimy/horror movie sort) are between 15-25€ per night. The biggest cost, for those who do not live in continental Europe, is GETTING HERE. That transatlantic flight is a bitch, and can run between $700-$1400 depending on the airline, time of year and how far in advance you book your ticket.

The moral is, you should take your next vacation here. If you want to stop in Berlin, you should. I make a good tour guide.

Permanent Vacation & Stockholm Syndrome

Man, I should stop waiting weeks in between entries. I really am sorry to those of you who have been actually asking for updates. I am notoriously bad about frequent updating. But hey, doesn't that mean that when I do update, it is a little more special?

Important news: I passed the TestDaF! I did not do perfectly, though. So, I have to retake another German language test in September before my classes would theoretically start in October. The Freie Universität Berlin, where I HAD wanted to go is no longer an option for me, as I basically missed the application deadline due to serious misinformation. So now I am applying for a Master's program at Humboldt Universität, the alma mater of: Einstein, Bismarck, Engels, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Heisenberg, W.E.B. DuBois and The Brother's Grimm.

Cross your fingers for me, my friends. I really want to get in to this Universität. I am tired of not being in school anymore. My life has very little structure. I basically stay up late, and sleep in every single day. I have dubbed this my "permanent vacation," which is much less relaxing than one would imagine after weeks go by. One becomes a little stir crazy. I am only allowed to work 3 days a week on my current visa, so that has made me balk at job hunting. I miss feeling like I have a purpose or reason to get up in the morning, beyond a distant "Fall 09" semester. I want to feel like I am accomplishing something.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Stockholm, Sweden. It was a truly amazing place. The sun shines for like 20 hours a day during the summer. The language is totally beautiful. But, I would never bother to learn it because only 10 million people live in Sweden, and they ALL speak perfect English anyway. Some highlights of the trip include:

- Räksmörgås - These are open-faced sandwiches (pictured above) with mayo, egg, and a giant pile of tiny shrimp. I don't even like shrimp that much, but these sandwiches are amazing. Actually, I loved all the Swedish food I tried. I'd go so far as to say that I'm a fan for life. Which is odd, because you never hear much about Swedish food. It's always "Asian, Italian, Mexican..." Where's the Swedish?

- The Stockholm Absolut Ice Bar - This is a bar that was made entirely out of ice. Even the glasses were made of ice. They gave us all "warmth capes" and gloves because the whole room is kept at -5 Celsius to prevent the tables, couches and whatnot from melting. They had several varieties of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. I just liked it because one's shoes would freeze to the metal floor so with every step you'd have to kind of un-stick yourself.

- The People Watching - Scandanavians have somehow hit the genetic jackpot. The girls are all amazingly gorgeous and everyone is quite tall. I am also tall, but the people are noticeably taller than in Germany or in the U.S.

- The High School Graduation - There were dozens of dumptrucks rolling around the streets of Stockholm with the graduation high school classes of 2009. They were playing loud techno, "hootin and hollerin," drinking and just generally waving at the citizens and tourists in Stockholm. I raised my hand in a thumbs up to one truck, and was met with a roar of applause. I could not help but to laugh out loud. The government took care of all this, as well. Workers were driving the trucks, and guiding the traffic. If we did something like this in America, we would have 100% graduation rates.

I really want to go back to Stockholm someday, and spend some more time there. Though, I can imagine that it is rather insane during the winters, as it was very cold there in June. So, I can only imagine that the freezing cold of the Nordic winter combined with almost complete darkness all day long would make me a little down.

Traveling has been very helpful in dealing with my permanent vacation. The constant distraction it provides is good for my mind. Less than a week after returning from Sweden, I went on a road trip to Austria, but I am saving that for another entry. (...I won't wait 3 weeks to post again, either.)

German Goths

I'm writing this entry, so soon after the last one, in an attempt to do this more often. I have ideas of things that I want to write about, like I said, and I just let them fade away. But if I write more often, I should be able to capture more of them.

Also, this is the last day of the month and if I don't write today, May 2009 will only have one, very lonely, angst-ridden post.

Berlin is full of goth kids. Not just kids... People. Now, for the record, I want to state that I have absolutely nothing against "goths," or people who identify themselves as "goth." It just seems to me, at least in the U.S., that goths are generally made fun of in the most brutal way. Like, almost as part of a self-identification, they choose to express that they are "different" than "mainstream" society, and therefore don't CARE what the rest of society thinks about their dyed black hair or their Hot Topic choke coller.

But here in Deutschland, while there certainly must be that element of anti-social/anti-society trend as well... it is much less so. And as for piercings and tattoos, while these are of course popular in the U.S., only a minority of people (especially under 35) are free of body modification.

These people, who would just as easily describe themselves as "punks" loiter all over the place. But one of their favorite places in Berlin is the area around the Fernsehturm (TV tower: "fern" = far; "sehen" = to see; turm = tower) at Alexanderplatz, a center of transportation and shopping in the east part of the central district of Berlin, "Mitte," where I live. The Soviets built it back in the DDR days of East/West as a symbol of their superior technology. It's the tallest free standing structure in Germany. Makes sense that there'd be punks/goths at the bottom. There is one kid I've seen a few times in the train station. He has long hair, a huge black coat, huge black baggy jeans, and he draws eyeliner from his eyes in these lines down the sides of his face in straight lines and deliberate angles like a character from a comic book.

In response to Liz's last comment and also somewhat to Billy's recent podcast, I will now say my last piece on this subject for the time being. Not because I don't think it's interesting or important... Just because I don't want it to be the only topic that repeats throughout my writing!
I don't think that nihilism (or any -ism, for that matter) is a common topic of conversation or even consideration by people who may be "less intellectual." Not that we're all geniuses. But that line of thinking is far too abstract for most people. We "smart" people like words. We like waxing philosophical about concepts using our written or spoken words. We like to exchange words with other smart people, so that we can use our impressive vocabularies to prove how lettered we are to each other. Hmm... i started by writing about nihilism and now I'm starting to sound like a narcissist.

In regards to my own nihilistic thinking, I don't think it's necessarily always as depressing and bleak as I may have made it sound before. It's not like I don't feel anything. I went to see the band Telefon Tel Aviv on Friday night and it was a truly awesome and emotional experience. It meant something to me. The friendships that I have with people also mean a lot to me, of course. I think the problem is that I don't always want to care about things. I tend to invest a lot of my energy into the few things that I really care about, and perhaps my nihilistic leanings are simply a defense mechanism because I don't want to commit to anything, or be disappointed by loss or let-downs.

I think I just need a healthy, useless distraction. I really wish I could play Metal Gear Solid 4, or Resident Evil 5. If I think about it too much, I start to feel disappointed. Then I just tell myself, "Oh well..." and stop thinking about it. See how easy that was?

Lebensmüde & The Apocalypse

Lebensmüde = tired or weary of life.

I rather enjoy starting my posts with a fun vocabulary word. This "lebensmüde" adjective makes me giggle a little inside. Leave it to the Germans to have this word. Although, I can say that I have certainly felt lebensmüde before. Some of you out there must be aware of this. Another great word that I recently put somewhere on Liz's blog was Existenzangst. This word means "existential angst" and also sort of something like "fear of existence." I promise, these people over here have been philosophizing for quite some time... and some pretty dark and awesome themes have emerged. But I'll leave that for a philosopher-king to explain, sometime.

I realize that I have been very lax in posting. Today marks one full month since my last post. In the past week or so, I've had plenty of requests/demands for new posts... from people who are not in my "following," which gives me some hope that this is being read by a significant enough number of people to give me the motivation to write. Thank you, to any of you who complained to me that it had been too long. Really.

Sadly, not much has really changed in the past month. I am still awaiting the results of my TestDaF examination, which should arrive in the next week or two. Afterward I must begin my applications to the Universität that I want to go to. I'll keep you posted.

In my last post, I briefly discussed my descent from casual nihilism to critical nihilism. If it wasn't "critical" last month, it probably is now. By "critical," I mean that it has (possibly) reached a sort of critical mass, and I cannot bring myself to care about most things in the same way that I ever did before. I approach many situations with total disinterest. Even the most serious of things fail to stir a proper emotional response. I still do not know if this makes me a callous asshole, or a strong person capable of accepting things that most people have trouble with. I almost feel disassociated with the world around me, relying on fictional narratives and a handful of human connections to keep me somewhat "grounded."

Talking about things like this is difficult for me. Writing about them, for a public audience, is yet a bit more difficult. But then I realize that if you're reading this, you probably at least kind of care about me, and won't judge me too harshly. And if you ARE judging me... well, the beauty of the nihilism is that I just don't care. I will end this rant now, and say that I am looking forward to William's podcast on the subject this weekend, where he will likely bring up other German philosophers who are also bad-ass.

That all sounds very depressing. Almost aggressive... I don't mean it that way. I just want to get my feelings out into words before they escape me, or before I lose the motivation to even do so.

I have been living in Germany for five months now. Unbelievable. It seems like such a short time. I think I have written about my "deutsch-esteem" before. I have gotten to the point where I can comprehend basically everything I hear and can communicate my opinions... just not as articulately as a native speaker. I doubt I'll ever get to that point. But, I am sure that being in an academic setting is vital to this. For the past month, as I've been on what I call "permanent vacation," I have felt the german-speaking part of myself start to shrink ever so slightly. Luckily I had it built up pretty far, and I still make efforts to hear, read and write it every day. I guess my problem is that, in our world of skills, talents, degrees and accreditation.... my being able to understand one foreign language really isn't all that special. So I had better make it count.

As I wander around Berlin, I often come up with subjects for this blog, which I subsequently either discard or forget. I've thought about doing an entry entirely in German, but that would be more of a practice exercise for me than something most of you would want to read. I'll do one in German if Billy does one in Japanese, how about that? At least they have decent internet translators for German <-> English...

Switching subjects, I have always been pre-occupied with the Apocalypse. Not necessarily the DragonRealms "Cataclysm," nor the biblical "Revelations." Just the concept in general. For this reason, I have an strong affinity for Resident Evil, Terminator, Mad Max, I Am Legend, Stephen King's The Stand and Battlestar Galactica. The list goes on and on, but it does not include the Left Behind series with Kirk Cameron.

I think the reason that I am so interested in eschatology is not because I want the world to end. I really don't. I just wonder what would happen if every single infrastructure in the world failed, and only 5% of the human race remained alive. Would we climb back to our former positions? Somehow... I don't think so. Whether it's nuclear war, a zombie invasion, or an army of sentient and murderous machines... we'd need to figure something out if we want to survive. It would give us a genuine purpose to live, beyond just living. We would not be concerned with Starbucks, iPods or luxury cars. Maybe, in wanting the apocalypse, I actually just want something more for the human race.

Badass

Well, I'm still alive.

I took the TestDaF last week. It was quite difficult. I feel like I can never accurately gauge my performance on any kind of exam. I could have done quite well, or poorly. I will get my results in about 6 weeks, which is an excruciating amount of time to wait. Oh well.

I had my 27th birthday last Saturday. A small group of friends and I gathered for the occasion. They brought pointy party hats and extending paper kazoos. I'll put pictures up on facebook eventually... Though I am mildly indifferent towards the idea of birthdays anymore. I cannot believe I am 27 years old. Everyone always complains about "feeling old," so I'll keep it to a minimum. In fact, I won't complain at all. I just have trouble grasping the reality of my age, and how much time has passed since I learned to drive a car, since I played Final Fantasy VII, or graduated from Pine View. [12 years, 12 years, and 9 years respectively...]

On a somewhat personal note, and a different topic entirely, I have been feeling very nihilistic lately. That is not to say that certain things do not matter to me... But on the average, my perceptions of a great many things have changed over the past year or two. It is harder for me to laugh and harder for me to cry about anything. (But when I do, it's really great...) I find myself pulling away from human relationships. Almost nothing surprises me anymore. When confronted with something tragic or astonishing, I just kind of nod and give a cursory sigh. This may be one of the most personal things I've ever written on here, but it feels good to put my feelings to words. I am not necessarily worried about this change in myself, but I do worry that the trend will continue, further diminishing the value I have for anything.

Now I'd like to talk about one of my favorite words: "Badass."

Almost as ubiquitous as the F-word, Badass has so many wonderful applications.

As an adjective, it can simply act as a colorful synonym for "cool," "amazing," or "impressive."

That movie was BADASS!

As a noun, it refers more to somebody who is intimidating, powerful, or tough.

Sephiroth is such a badass...

I find myself using it all the time. I'll say it when someone tells me something that pleases me. Emphasis can make the word even stronger by inserting a pause in the middle and stretching out the vowels: "Baad Aass!" with a tone of sincerity or reverence.

And all of this from a word that, interpreted literally, means "butt cheeks of poor quality" or "a rear end up to no good." English is a crazy, crazy language.

Schadenfreude

according to German dictionary = "malicious joy"

according to English dictionary = satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.


Sorry I take so long to update this...

So the other day I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant enjoying a nice lunch. As entertainment I was treated to the chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between an American woman and her British boyfriend. They were having a very public, very awkward, relationship-ruining blowout conversation. She was, of course, louder... so I mostly heard her side of the fight, as did the rest of the bystanders who were sitting and occasionally making side-long glances of horror for literally 30 minutes. The things she was saying were so stereotypical I literally had to force myself from laughing out loud. But I did chuckle quietly to myself as she uttered a few classic phrases:

"How about you try living my life for 1 day!"

"Oh your life is SOO hard, poor you!"

"You have such an EGO problem. Eeeego! Eeeego!"

"I'm glad I kept part of myself back from you because I KNEW this would happen!"

"Don't TELL me to calm down!"

"Don't TELL ME TO LOWER MY VOICE!"

"You're doing this to me Here so I'm gonna throw it in your face in front of all these people."

"I don't CARE if I'm making a scene!"

"I can't believe I trusted you!"

At one point she got up from their table and came over to the kitchen/staff area and was asked, "Can I break this bill?" Meanwhile this poor Asian server lady was struggling to make sense of her frenzied, emotionally distraught English. She did not understand that by "break" our heroine meant "separate checks." Eventually an understanding was achieved. As the server went down to deliver the checks, she shot me a "knowing" glance to indicate how uncomfortable she was with the situation. I almost choked on my meal.

It is probably wrong of me to derive SO MUCH pleasure from the suffering of others (Schadenfreude) but I can't help it and I had to share it. So I figured I'd write a post about it. It was epic.


In other news... I have recently moved into a new apartment. It is much larger, cheaper, and more comfortable than my last apartment. I have only been here for a few days, but I am working on making it feel "home"-ish. My last place was far too sterile. This place is at least customizable, albeit not as posh as my previous abode. Whatever. I'm really happy with the change, and I feel like I'm finally beginning to settle in here.

My new pad also came with a bicycle! I have been riding it around and slowly remember how fun it is to ride a bike. I am also glad that it isn't one of those things that one can never forget how to do. It is great exercise and it allows me to travel much farther than my petty human legs alone could.

I also recently got an iPod, which I cannot believe I have been without for so long. Having music playing all the time is really a tremendous luxury.

Absolute Magnitude

I know I haven't written in a few weeks. While I am not sure if my three followers noticed my absence, I missed my own absence. I am actually writing this as a text file because I am currently somewhere over Canada, about to cross from Quebec airspace into Ontario airspace on my way in to Chicago O'Hare airport. More on this epic journey in a moment.

Last night, I spent a sleepless night in the InterCityHotel at the Frankfurt Airport. I stayed up all night (not really by choice) thinking of things that I wanted to write about. I have probably forgotten most of it by now since I've been awake for over 30 hours so far. But there are a few items that I do remember.

Billy's blog, especially when it involves people that I've known for almost 20 years, reminds me of things that would normally be filed neatly away in the memory banks. I want to talk a little bit about my senior year Government/Economics class taught by (1) Mrs. Salzman (or Mrs. Mosckowitz, as we first knew her). This all occured 9-10 years ago, so a lot of my memories sometimes feel as though they may as well be dreams that I had once, and tend to blur together. So instead of giving a narrative, I will just cover a few awesome highlights. I will not be includinig any last names to protect the innocent.

This class had an all-star cast of characters. In the U-shaped horseshoe of our classroom desk-configuration, one side was occupied by the following people, in a row: David, Jeremiah, Mike, myself, Cameron. If you know/knew any of these people, one could actually start to feel sorry for Mrs. Salzman.

I do not have the penchant for giving 20 nicknames to people. But this is about the time of the year that Jeremiah and Mike (and Matt J, right?) called each other "Bruce" just because it was ridiculous. So Bruce and Bruce were the best at pissing off our J-dating teacher. I wasn't bad either. But she knew that I actually liked her (true story, she really wasn't bad at all considering who she had to put up with daily. The name of the game was to see just how much one could get away with before getting a referral, or at least a good head-cocked, wide-eyed scolding from Suzy.

I never really paid attention, which is funny because I got the highest grade the Economics portion of the class and the subsequently useless "Honors" award. One day I was daydreaming and playing a game where I write the number of minutes until school was over (it was my last class of the day) on a piece of notebook paper and try to see if I can go 1 full minute without looking at my watch. Anyway, Suzy was lecturing and it was something about governmental authority. Her voice went like this in my head: "blablablabla blabla's Power is absolute." Upon hearing the word, I pumped my fist in the air and yelled at an inappropriate volume: "Absolut Vodka, Yeah!" The class waited about 1 full second before the laughter starting, earning the aforementioned look of death from Jared and Eric's Mom (Hell, one of them might have been there too, it was often the case...) Another time she openly mentioned her frustration with my behavior, to which I jumped up on a desk, jumped down to the floor and walked over and gave her a hug to diffuse her anger. She actually hugged me back, earning a wave of "Awwww"s and (as I like to think in my dream-like, exaggerated recollection) a few scattered bits of clapping.

Jeremiah was pretty good too. He earned my life-long respect by using the then-antiquated Apple LCIII classroom computer to "hack" into websites and would turn some off and on. Jeremiah and Mike fed off each other, mostly in trying to make David laugh (definitely a worthwhile endeavor though). One of my favorite memories is when Mike was "seperated" from the rest of us because of his shenanigens, which I believe followed a referral. Suzy and Mike definitely had a love/hate relationship. Anyway, one time Mike got in trouble without saying any words. In fact, it was Because he didn't say anything. He just stared at her with an slack-jawed guffaw on his face, unquivering. Smiling because it was part of the joke, but never laughing despite how much his peers were failing at trying not to chuckle. Upon being asked to stop making the face and to respond to her, Mike continued to stare until she blew her top. It was the most passive-aggressive thing I have ever seen in my life. He sat across the room for a week or more, trying desperate to get my attention (or David's) so he could perpetrate the same "I'm going to stare at you with this dumb grin until you crack" ploy against us. I think it ended with Mike coming back and sitting on our side and nobody ever saying anything about it. Maybe Mrs. Salzman was just tired of fighting when she knew she couldn't win. But then, both she and Mike had been known to make Katie F. cry (admittedly not a hard thing to do. Katie, if you ever read this, you know we love you but I am not lying).

But going back to Absolut Vodka... I also had Mr. Percival for astronomy that year. Considering that was my first major/real hobby/career path, I took it very seriously. I still remember some stars and the constellations and the rest is just a smattering of factoids. I think whenever we had a "constellation quiz" basically 2 tables of people would cheat blatantly off of me in front of Chap. Man, Chap and I deserve a seperate blog post. I'll try to remember.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Absolute Magnitude. You see, every star has both an Apparent and an Absolute Magnitude, ranging from -1 (the brightest star) all the way up into the 20s, with each number representing a difference of a power of ten (like the Richter-scale) to indicate how bright the star is. The Apparent magnitude is how bright a star "seems" to us here on Earth, simply. The Absolute magnitude is what the same star would be look if it were 10 light-years away from us. Therefore, a star that is really bright to us, and still much farther away than 10LY (as most stars are) would have a huge Absolute Magnitude.

I realize this is all probably pretty boring, so I guess I'll get to my point. I guess I have always hung on to this knowledge because I feel like it applies to more than just stars. I think one of the reasons that I always loved science was because it allows one to put things into order, whereas the rest of life is relatively disorderly. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to meet someone and be able to determine their intelligence, charisma or other character traits in both a subjective (apparent) and objective (absolute) frame of reference? You'd be able to size up people instantly. You'd be the best person at the party in terms of calling people on bullshit. Like that douchbag in Good Will Hunting, at the beginning, who was trying to impress Minnie Driver by spewing facts he had learned from a textbook. Then Matt Damon shows up and gives the biggest and most heroic intellectual smack-down ever, like we all wish we could do (whether or not we ever act on that wish) more than we get to.

Having crossed into United States (Michigan) airspace, I will start to wrap this up. I am currently on my way to my cousin's wedding in Kentucky. Before I get there, I will have taken 1 train, 3 flights (the one I am now is the trans-atlantic 9-hour hell), and I'll have spent the night in 3 hotels, obtained 1 rental car, and physically been in 4 States (Illinois, Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky) JUST to see my family for a couple of nights before heading back to Germany next Sunday. I am so tired. I cannot sleep on planes, something I always wish I could change about myself. I've been awake for so long, and don't get to Atlanta (my resting stop for the night) until around 4:45pm EST (five hours from now).

Remember now, everything has both an absolute and apparent magnitude, even if you yourself can't tell the difference.

Sexual War Stories

I decided that the title "Sexual War Stories" makes a catchy headline for a post. Thanks go to Billy Bauer for the suggestion. ("Bauer" = "Farmer" in German... seriously!)

Even those who have never watched 24 have heard of Jack Bauer, the ruthless counter-terrorism super agent. And no one is more American than Jack Bauer, except for maybe Billy Bauer. Think of them like the Baldwin brothers. Alec gets all the exposure, but you still see the others once and a while.

So, on to the Sexual War Stories. Actually, I am not going to write about my personal stories. It's not only crude and embarrassing, but also something that I find difficult to write about, least of all for an internet audience.

Instead, I will take a moment to dissect the sadly understated role that I believe sex plays in society. I'm definitely not the "free love" type of guy, having been (mostly) a serial monogamist in the history of my sexually-aware adult life. I've probably got more hang-ups than the average American guy. Some would say that I'm "picky," but it's more like "careful." Sex, or sexual attraction, is a vitally important spark to the beginnings of a relationship. It's something that no adult can adequately explain without the child being immediately grossed out and/or embarrassed because they find themselves in the middle of the archetypal "sex-talk" with their parents. It's something that we all wonder about from childhood until puberty. Then after we figure out the "point" during puberty, it's an awkward, fumbling race to find the real thing. And then after the first time, you're screwed (zing!), because now it's damn near impossible to imagine life without it.

Still, an impressive spectrum emerges from there. Some people only sleep with one person for their entire lives [and I kind of cry for you people] and some people are always bouncing around from one monogamous relationship to the next. Some people are swingers and others are in "open relationships." These last groups intrigue me, because it seems to me that a lot of (if not most) people are very sexually possessive of their partner. Why? Good question. Maybe it's genetic, maybe we just don't like to share... or maybe both? I don't know. Perhaps many people feel that it is the ultimate form of acceptance by another human being, and thus feel validated in themselves for having been so accepted. Of course... similar to food, drugs, and working out, it can also become an addiction. Maybe some of the lure of monogamy is that it provides the promise of regular sex (along with all the emotional stuff too, of course). That could be the motive for swingers too, but they prefer a wider selection as their vehicle for sexual self-validation.

Really, it's a fascinating part of humanity that most people are too shy to talk about. What a shame, because if we could understand it better, we might not all act so stupid in search of it.

Gregor the Polish Newspaper Salesman

So every day, I either walk home after school (30-35 minutes) or I take the U-Bahn (subway; 10-12 minutes). If I take the U-Bahn, I have to change lines once. This involves a 1-2 minute walk through an underground tunnel walkway. Every day, a man is there peddling the Berliner Zeitung, one of the major newspapers here. He is very aggressive in his sales technique, and has gotten in my face more than once. His name is Gregor.

Finally I decided to humor the fellow... After all, I have no problem talking with strangers. I spent about a half hour talking to him last Friday. The conversation took place in German, but I could tell by his accent that he was not German. I asked him where he was from, and he told me that he came from Poland. Having also detected the non-German twist in my accent, he began to try to talk to me with broken English. I told him that I could understand German too, and he seemed relieved as he is far more comfortable with German.

So, after exchanging some small talk, he began to inquire about some of the strange nuances of the English language. [I have told this story a few times already, but it never gets old.] He got out a pen and wrote out three phrases on one of his newspapers.

"Look out"
"Look up"
"Stand down"

I had to explain to him that to "look out" had both an objective and subjective meaning. One can look out the window, or look out for danger/suspicious individuals. Likewise, one can look up at the ceiling, or "look up to their grandfather as a role model." He really liked that one. The hardest to explain was to "stand down," which he assumed meant something like kneeling or sitting down. I had to explain it using a metaphor involving the military or police and how a person of authority would theoretically tell his subordinates to "stand down" and halt their impending action. He kept asking me, "Why?" and I had no answer for him.

All of this was conducted in German, which led me to chuckle a bit as I walked away with a gratis copy of the paper as my reward for the mini English lesson. An American explaining a few complexities of the English language, in German, to a Polish man selling newspapers in a subway station.

I guess the whole experience made me realize how absurdly complicated languages are, especially English, and how I guess I'm glad to have that as my first language.

Speaking of language, I had a five hour long Prüfung (test) today, from 9:00am to 2:00pm. It was the first time that I'd had such a long test since the SATs, I think. The test consisted of the listening, reading and writing comprehension to the C1 level of German (C2 being the highest of 6 levels from A1-C2*). Tomorrow I have to do the speaking section, which is only 45 minutes altogether. But I'm not worried about tomorrow. Today was the real deal. I cannot say if I "passed" or not, but I'll find out on Friday. Honestly, it does not really matter all that much. Especially compared to the all-important TestDaF on April 22nd to determine my eligibility for University study here. Still, I'd prefer to pass it. This is my 8th, and final, week of C1 class at the d.i.d. institut. I'm actually going to miss it a lot. But, I'll be back in less than a month, for the TestDaF prep course.

[* I wanted to comment on how interesting it is to me how countries organize their proficiency-levels. Billy was recently writing about the language levels in Japan (1-5?), and I wanted to take this opportunity to see if he'd be willing to further elaborate on these levels, either here or in his own blog.]

I have been wanting to update this more regularly, and often come up with ideas of things to write about... But I always end up scrapping the ideas. I haven't decided exactly which direction I want this blog to go in. Some people handle their blogs like diaries, updating daily (or more than once a day) with details of all the trivium of their everyday lives. (i.e. "today i woke up and brushed my teeth and then went to school/work and then met up with my friend so we could go shopping for shoes," etc.) Not that there is anything wrong with that. One of my favorite things about the Internet is the freedom of speech it provides. (Unless you are in an oppressive country like Myanmar, where the regime simply unplugs themselves from the Internet when the monks/students start protesting not just on the streets, but online.)

Or some people write primarily about how they've been feeling... using the blog as a direct conduit to tell their audience about their emotional/personal ups and downs. There is nothing wrong with this either, in my opinion. It's just that... personally, I sometimes struggle with the idea of publishing my emotional struggles on such an accessible forum. I mean, hell, my Facebook page links directly here. And everyone knows that just because I have 200+ Facebook "friends," doesn't mean they are all "real" friends... or at least not people I'd want reading super personal things about myself. I guess there is an intrinsic degree of exhibitionism in ANY blog... but still.

Tired?

So I was thinking about how we perceive the concept of being tired, exhausted, sleep-deprived, and so forth.

When you see someone in the morning (be it at school or work) and you ask how they are doing, they are invariably going to either say "I'm fine, how are you?" or "Oh, I'm just tired" if they cannot muster themselves to smile.

But what does that mean? To be honest, I really do not know that many people who would ever answer, "Oh, I am feeling very well-rested and ready to face this new day!" or anything even resembling those words.

And really, who is well-rested? I know many people who can sleep for 10-12+ hours and wake up and feel "tired."

So what does this mean? Well, I posit that it has several meanings. Having done this myself, I know there arise occasions when one cannot pretend to be happy when they are feeling down and "Oh, I'm just tired" becomes a rather strong yet subtle way of saying "I'm feeling bad, but I don't want to talk about it."

Or it can mean the person has been burning the candle at both ends and sleeping like 2 hours a night for a few days in a row.

Or it can imply that one is currently fed-up with something/someone/some situation. "I'm so tired of this/you/that." This can either be a sudden, frustrated exclamation "I'm tired of this movie," or a mental weariness that builds over time... like someone who stays in a bad relationship longer than they should "I'm sick and tired of how you ____."

Fuck, I'm almost always tired. When I was a little kid, the saddest part of my day was bed-time. I didn't want to stop whatever it was that I was doing. It's funny how things change as we grow older.

Fatigue is a vital part of our society. I am one of the only people I know that doesn't drink coffee or energy drinks. Sometimes I think that planes would fall out of the sky, power outages would ravage the world's power grids and governments would collapse without stimulants. There are 22 Starbucks in Berlin. Coffee is like cigarettes or alcohol, both the cause and solution of a self-contained problem... though certainly drinking a cup of coffee is far less self-destructive than smoking a cigarette or doing a shot of vodka. ...Right?

Fremdsprachen

(foreign languages)

As of today, I have been in Germany for 1 month. Though truthfully it feels like less than that. I want to write about languages in this post.

I wish that I had been a better student in elementary/middle/high school. I always just did the bare minimum to scrape by. I never paid attention in classes (with a few exceptions, like Mr. Percival's Astronomy class...) I didn't do homework, and put off projects and papers until the last minute. In my defense, I read a lot of books. But they were mostly science fiction or fantasy books, which somehow is less "legit" than reading Shakespeare or Dickens or Tolstoy. [Though I will never apologize for reading every single Piers Anthony book.]

I wish that I had taken Latin. If I had, I feel like learning German would be a lot easier. I think it is more than a little bit sad that most Americans are monolingual. I have written in the past about my experiences with languages. Pine View tried really hard to get us into languages. I took French there for what must have been 5 years, but don't really remember it. I hear they offer Arabic and Mandarin now, though I have yet to confirm that. I took Japanese over the summer when I was 14, but don't remember that either.

The bottom line is, despite exposure to Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese... I never bothered to see the advantages of knowing foreign languages. I sometimes feel like it is "too late" for me. Considering I started German (which I am determined to master) at the age of 24, I feel like a 3 year old toddler here, who can understand the majority of what I hear but cannot respond in kind. It's getting better though, and I've learned a lot over the past month.

At the moment, I've got friends living in S. Korea, Japan, France, and Ukraine. I know at least one of these people reads this blog consistently. I just wonder how long it really takes to achieve fluency, if it is even possible. I am in class with some people who have been learning German for 7-9 years, and thus feel like I am at a huge disadvantage. I can communicate better than I have ever been able to, but still feel like I am mangling my sentences, or forgetting words that I've learned a thousand times before.

This tone of this entry is beginning to smack of self-pity.

So I've been reading Der Vorleser (a.k.a. The Reader, made into a film w/ Kate Winslet) and it is the first full book that I have attempted to read, and so far I'm understanding most of what is going on. If I stop to look up every unknown word, it takes me 15 minutes to read a page, so I just gloss over and try to glean the meaning from the context. It's pretty exciting to me, though the actual story isn't mind-blowing, that I am even able to read to the level that I can.

Speaking of Pine View, our 10 year reunion (if we're having one?) is next year. I often find myself wondering what has been going on for the past 9 years. I went to college [more than once], I've been in relationships, both serious and less-serious. I've made and lost friends, lived in a few different apartments, worked a few jobs. I wonder if my fellow Classmates of the year 2000 ever feel the same as I do. Though I have seen many of these people since 2000, there are those that I have not seen since the night we graduated. I wonder what those people look like now, and what they are doing.

And now I find myself here, in a city that is currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of a wall that divided the city (/country/continent) from 1961-1989. I am still beyond happy to be here. I have a future plan, which I am sure will continually change, but that's alright with me.

I wonder how many people actually read this... If you are a regular reader, you should "follow" this blog so I can know how large my audience truly is. I would probably be inclined to update more often if I knew that people are reading these ramblings.

Nebel der Zukunft

(Fog of the Future)

I really have been meaning to write an entry for some time. I am sorry that I haven't, because I've had a few good ideas that I wanted to write down... but they always fade before I get back to my computer.

I arrived safely in Berlin on Friday the 2nd. With the help of a friend who happened to be in Berlin that weekend, I managed to find my apartment. For those of you who know Berlin at all, I am staying in Mitte. Fischerinsel to be precise. The closest U-Bahn station is Märkisches Museum on the U2-line (2 stops away [or 10 minutes by foot] from Alexanderplatz). There is an Edeka grocery store directly beneath me, in the same building... which is absurdly convenient. Except, of course, on Sundays... when basically everything is closed. I am not sure I will ever fully adjust to this aspect of German society. At least most items can be obtained at kiosks and in major stations, though.

My course began last Tuesday. They placed me into the C1 level, which is where I want to be. The classes are fun, sometimes difficult (if not very difficult) sometimes not. It is a very different experience than the summer program I went to last year. New students come and go each week. And instead of 1 teacher, we have 3 that rotate depending on the day of the week and time of day.

On the first day, they were showing a PowerPoint presentation showing certain highlights of Berlin. Unfortunately, I had already seen all of these things before. It gave me a certain feeling of snobbery, like I was better than those 28 kids who were visiting from Nebraska (no offense Nebraskaners!) even though I have the advantage of being here for the 5th time, as well as 2.5ish years of relatively intense Deutsch in classrooms, both in Florida and here in Germany...

But the Nebraskans stick to themselves. As do the french-speaking kids from Switzerland. It's all very clannish. It kind of reminds me of prison gangs, where everyone keeps with their own kind. So here I am, the miscellanious American from Florida. The only one who has actually finished my college degree, my purpose here is totally different. I am not pursuing credits, I simply need to improve my skills so that I might do well on the all-important TestDaF. I have been informed that the test consists of 4 parts: speaking, listening, reading and writing-- with heavy emphasis placed on the speaking portion. This could prove to be a problem if my German doesn't exponentially improve over the next few months. The test is graded on a 1-5 scale. I need to get a 4 or a 5 to get into the Universität I want to go to (Actually, I haven't decided which of the 2 major Berliner Unis I'd prefer to attend... Needless to say I'm going to apply to them both).

So, I am without a clique or circle of friends, or even a partner in crime or a wingman. I wish that were not the case, but in a way I am also glad. I am getting to know myself [so cliché, i know] pretty well... as is often the case when one is alone most of the time. And more importantly, I am attempting to be okay with being alone. I just prefer surrounding myself with constant mental stimuli, and have found that conversation is the best form of this stimilation.

It does not help that the sun goes down at 3:30pm every day. That is, if it even comes out. Sometimes we just have 6 hours of "graylight" [coined that myself!] per day and no sun. I guess this is just some form of climate-shock... having come from Florida. I am learning to think in metric and other european systems of measure. For example, it warmed up to 0 degrees Celsius this past weekend, up from about -7 during the days.

Even the river is frozen. I took a picture because I couldn't believe it. It was just so hot here last summer. I suppose my problem is that I am not accustomed to seasons. But, I'm glad to be experiencing them now. I think that my appetite has tripled since I got here. I think my body is trying to hibernate. Seriously. I get tired very early.

All in all, I am adjusting well... but still have a ways to go. I still cannot quite believe that I live here. I have not yet obtained my visa, so I hope that I motivate myself to deal with that soon.

I have seen a whole host of very good movies lately: Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Towelhead and Seven Lives... to name a few.

I miss home in a very abstract way. People will send me messages talking about how they were driving past my old apartment and it made them miss me. Or I will think about my cat and how he is doing. But, these thoughts fade quickly in a fast-paced city like this one.

I think the best advice I can give to myself is to stop seeking self-validation through the approval and affections of others, but instead to seek it within myself. That way, the approval/affection of others would just be an added buttress to my psyche.