i'm a german. period.

i know that non-white people in the u.s. get asked where they're from all the time and i've heard many incredibly offensive stories concerning my american-born friends being probed about where they're "really" from. interestingly enough, until yesterday i hadn't heard such a conversation take place here. i would venture that that's largely because the level of offense is different when one has an accent that clearly marks them as foreign, and also because people tend to assume here that brown=turkish, though that's rather often not the case. and of course, even if one does have turkish ancestry, identity is still of course completely complicated, etc. etc. in any case, i overheard this conversation in the changing room at the gym yesterday:

two women (one pale-skinned, one darker-skinned) were talking in accent-free german about their kids and playing outside and wishing it were sunnier. the non-white woman said something about how her son's hair turns nearly blond in the summer and how cute that is. the other woman briefly paused, then said something about her kids' hair. then she asked "so where are you from, actually?" (as though this question would answer the ever so pressing mystery of why this darker woman might have a blond son) and the other woman answered, "germany." "right, but, i mean..." "oh, berlin." "yes, okay, but..." "actually, i prefer not to say anything beyond that, because the fact is that i was born and raised here just like you and that's all you need to know about me. i'm german. period." then she just kind of casually switched back to talking about her son and the other woman took it in stride and the interchange seemed to blow over for the time being.

i found this conversation interesting both because of the tactlessness of the woman doing the asking and also because of the strength of the answer given by the other woman. her resolve to simply not engage with the question as well as her swiftness of response indicates that she must get asked that all the time, most likely because she was clearly not turkish, and also clearly not white german. but if you heard her speak for two minutes you can tell that she's a berliner, sooo, what's the point of asking where else she's from? and this brings us to why this question is offensive in the first place. i love to know where people are from, i love to know family history, i love to talk about travel, migration, and personal history, so i ask where people are from all the time. but i'm also very aware that context and framing are very important, and that sometimes asking about family history directly overrides the identity of the person you're talking to. by asking about the gym woman's family history, the other woman was basically asking "why would you, as a black woman, have a son with blond hair?" and clearly, the implicit biases bound up in this question are huge. but it's also clear that she didn't mean offense, and that she spoke before thinking. which i suppose is why the other woman's refusal to grant information was so interesting, but her ease of moving back into conversation let the questioner off the hook. basically - i'm not going to give you that detail just so you can build a picture of who i am based on my (as germans say) "migration background," but i will continue to talk to you as a person. her identity is german, she's a german. period.

this interchange also made me reflect on a brief conversation my friend marissa and i had in the bathroom (all the interesting conversations happen in these intimate women's spaces... hmm) after the harry belafonte interview, with a jamaican woman who had also been part of the studio audience. the woman was very moved by the interview (which i found moving but also totally bizarre - another case of how weird germans are with dealing with race issues) and commented to us about the fact that belafonte is "a proud jamaican, but also proud american, and a proud black man." in such a compact way, she had covered his heritage, his personal identity, and his racial identity, and was granting him the right to be proud of all three. while i recognize that it's absolutely not easy to always embrace all such elements of one's person, i do still feel that it's easier to do so in the u.s. than in a place like germany. the terms of the debate are simply different here, with integration as a main focal point, and citizenship still largely based on lineage rather than birthright. and then of course there's the whole nazi past that makes it hard for anyone to be a proud german. ak, it's all so complicated. well, for now, i'll stick to being a proud new mexican who's happy to be living in this fair, if identity-confused land.

tally me banana

so i just sent in my LAST TERM PAPER EVER and am going to check out a shared studio space in a little less than an hour. hot dog! seriously though, if i wasn't getting through my fourth cold of the year, things would be just about perfect right now. the whole continual illness thing is really not cool, but i'm trying to deal the best i can with that while still enjoying all the good stuff. maybe the good stuff is causing the illness? naaah.

speaking of: last weekend three of my friends and i got to be filmed in a segment for the travel channel about this water park about an hour south of berlin. my friend marissa came across the casting call for four women interested in doing a full day shoot for this new show about water parks all over the world. somehow they picked us and we showed up at 9:30am last friday with our overnight bags and little clue of what was going to happen. we got started just about immediately, with the crew mic-ing us and filming our (fake) first entrance into the park, chalk full of "ooohs" and "aaahs" and "wow, this place is so awesome!" turns out "reality" television is just minimally scripted advertising. who knew? in any case, we then spent the next 14ish hours going through the park ("did you guys know that this is europe's largest free-standing dome?" --> do not say "yeah, it was built by the germans to construct the zeppelin during WWI" "i heard that this is europe's biggest man made rain forest!" "did you guys know you can get a tan in here because there are filters over the skylights that enhance the sun?") our conversation throughout the day was riddled with such gems. but somehow, it was actually an awesome time. we had to go down the slides about a million times, enough to make me a bit scratched and bruised, but most of the times were just a rockin' good time. particularly after it was dark and they'd plied us with booze. weirdly there are zero safety regulations at this park, which led us to witness some super drunk middle aged polish dudes diving head first down the metal slides. yikes. but none of us got hurt, so that's cool! after the long day of filming we settled down in our incredibly hot tents in an area of the gigantor dome not too far from the slides, so that at 6:45 when the little kids started screaming as they enjoyed the kiddie slide, i was up and at 'em to listen. while i had a great time doing all of this for free, if you happen to venture to the tropical island water park, i would recommend going home at the end of the night.

then on sunday a bunch of friends and i met at mauer park, which is where there's a giant hand-made and flea market every sunday in part of the park and a giant hang-out in the other part, to "perform" a choreographed dance we decided to throw together the week before. we only have part of it choreographed thus far and our speakers were too quiet to really hear much, but we just danced through it a few times and enjoyed ourselves, with a handful of people casually stopping to watch or take pictures. because it's a very crowded park and this is berlin, it really didn't seem to surprise or entice anyone too much that there were six bewigged girls doing a choreographed dance, which i kind of think is the best thing ever.

us at the park:

assuming i hit it off super well with the girl whose studio space i'm going to check out, i told her i'll only be able to start renting it if i get the part-time job i'm interviewing for on monday. so cross your fingers on that count! i really hope that i love this girl and get the job, because then i can start my ideal schedule of 2 days of office job, 2 days of thesis work, 1 - 3 days of fun/art. sounds pretty damn ideal.

okay, off to go see the studio!

oh, right, the title of this post is in reference to the fact that i was invited to go see a tv taping of an interview with harry belafonte. sofia, if you happen to be reading, i immediately thought of you and your dad listening to him on vinyl!

ost/west

i got called a "wessi" today while waiting for the ubahn, which i must say was a memorable first. i was taking a picture of this ad campaign for berliner pilsner, a local beer that currently has billboards all over the city showing snippets of stereotypical berlin scenes with the tag line "berlin, du bist so wunderbar." this particular billboard shows a woman's hand with blue finger nails picking up a pilsner off the ground of what seems to be a kind of grimy club, and you can see her funky heels and leg tattoos in the background. it makes me smile every time i see it, even though i recognize that a)it's a beer ad, and b)i'm obviously a member of the targeted demographic. in any case, this guy walked by as i was taking the photo, and while it's quite likely that he drinks berliner pilsner, he was definitely not part of the specific demographic this ad is aiming for. he was wearing his blue worker overalls (all members of trades that require getting dirty, such as painters, construction workers, movers, etc. wear either blue or white jumpsuit/overall type things. except the really old-fashioned folks who wear black suede pants with sailor-style zippers or buttons and matching suede vests. those ones are the coolest) and looked very east german. i immediately started laughing when i heard him mutter "wessi," which is a vague insult for someone who comes from west germany or west berlin. neukölln, where i live and where i was waiting for the train, was part of west berlin but was a border neighborhood and now has a fair population of east german residents. i learned about the terms ossi and wessi during my high school exchange year, as many of my friends would casually talk shit about the way wessis acted, dressed, and most importantly, viewed themselves as better than their eastern counterparts. to be called this term was just such a funny surprise for me that i think i in turn really shocked the ossi who said it to me with my laughter. i've been called an "ami" before, which is the vaguely derogatory term for americans, but somehow the fact that he called me "wessi" instead was a rather bittersweet victory - i fooled him into thinking i was german, but still somehow out of place.

naja. berlin, du bist so wunderbar.

a version of the ad i was photographing:

and then it was march

so, i meant to take a little break from blogging during the weeks around christmas while i was home in albuquerque, and then somehow that turned into a little three and a half month break. oops.

since early december i spent a really lovely two and a half weeks in albuquerque, experienced the utter firework-ridden insanity that is new year's in berlin, celebrated my 26th birthday with a fabulous golden party, had a brief relationship with a very slender scotsman named stuart, and finished my remaining coursework for my program. that last bit is probably the most surreal, since i've kind of felt like i'm on this strange vacation since classes ended in mid-february, when really they're never going to start again. the german academic calendar is such that classes end and then you have six weeks to do research and write term papers before the next semester starts. however, since i'm not taking any classes next semester but will just be writing my thesis, the beginning of next semester doesn't actually affect me. once i turn in all of my term papers and receive grades for them i have to pick up this piece of paper with all of my professors' signatures and hand that in at this particular office along with my thesis proposal and advisers' signatures. once that's all approved i'll be mailed a date 5 months down the line, which will serve as my only deadline for my thesis. totally strange and kind of unnerving, but this basically means that i'll be setting my own academic schedule from here on out. gotta get crackin'.

another exciting thing that's happened since december is the start of a five month weekly sewing class. i'm taking it at what's called the volkshochschule, or people's high school, where they offer government run, cheap classes on anything and everything you can think of. my class is in a neighborhood southeast of mine, deep in neo-nazi territory, and 90% of the folks in the class are older women with thick east berlin accents, who don't really know what to do with me, this strange young foreigner. it's pretty fabulous though, and i'm so stoked to go each time and make slow but exciting progress on the 50s housewife style summer dress i'm making for myself. it's also kind of a sociological experiment and a good way to practice german and remind myself that i'm not just living in this little international bubble full of 20-something hipsters.

speaking of which, i am more in love with this city every day, particularly my little bubble, which is admittedly filled largely with international 20-something hipsters. i walk around my neighborhood just staring at the shops, the colors of paint, the fonts used on buildings, the graffiti, the public art, the people walking down the street, the dogs, and i feel like my heart beats faster with happiness and excitement just realizing what an amazing and beautiful place this is. i go sit in a cafe or go to a market or an art opening or a show or a dance club and i find myself smiling uncontrollably, feeling like this is it, i'm living my dream. maybe it wasn't ever a concrete dream, and maybe it's not perfect, and still some days i just want to go back to america and get away from it all, but mostly this place and the intense beauty and opportunity it provides just make me feel like each day is exciting and engaging and somehow amazing. sometimes i get so anxious with the desire to do do do and create and design that i feel like i can barely think straight. and then i have to remember that while i maybe want to just buy a sewing machine and make aesthetically pleasing things all day and wear colorful socks with loafers that make me just want to jump with joy at the very sight of the perfect combination i've just created, i'm still in school. and i still have papers to write and a thesis to start. so i'll do those things. and be engaged with them, and interested in them, and hopefully round out this stage of my academic career with flying colors. but i'm realizing more and more each day that what moves me, what makes me feel giddy and dizzy with joy is not academia, but color and design and creation, and i fear i'm losing the inner struggle against this love. so, come next fall, when i hand in my thesis, my next life stage may involve fabric and photos and paint rather than an office and a computer and 9 - 5.

or maybe not. this is just what's getting my heart beating right now, and it's pretty damn exciting. dear berlin, for now, you're the best.

wintery mix

so in the past few weeks berlin has suddenly started turning towards winter, though it has actually only dipped below freezing a few times and there hasn't been any snow. but it's pitch black out by 4:30pm and what with the gray skies one usually has to start turning lights on by 2:30pm. it's a bit disorienting, but i'm getting used to it, and am continually cheered by all of the intense christmas stuff all over.

first though, thanksgiving! we had a really great friendsgiving here, hosted by lauren and hannah, the same girls who hosted the halloween party. they live in a huge old altbau (redundant sentence for any german speakers, i know) apartment that's just perfect for hosting parties, dinner parties included. they shoved together a few tables in one of the huge bedrooms and with about 7 or 8 of us cooking we held a gorgeous feast for around 20 people. probably two thirds of those in attendance were native english speakers, mostly americans with a few kiwis and an irish girl. i made mama moffitt's candied yams and chocolate pecan pie and roasted cauliflower with red onion and red grapes, inspired by brittany taylor. while i got positive feedback about both the yams and the cauliflower, i have actually never gotten such a good reception for any food i've made like i did for the pie. i made a regular (mom's apple pie recipe) butter crust and then instead of corn syrup i used turkish carob molasses and chocolate flakes. surprisingly, i was able to actually find pecans instead of just walnut, and damn, it was delicious.

so that was last saturday, then starting on december 1st basically all of berlin was suddenly lit up with christmas lights and christmas everything everywhere you look. there are about 60 christmas markets all over the city, ranging from giant corporate things in the big touristy areas to adorable little craft markets like the one i went to in my neighborhood this past weekend. while i can certainly see the downsides to legal public drinking and no open container laws, being able to walk around listening to carols and perusing cute booths of hand-crafted gifts while drinking a warm mug of mulled wine is probably my favorite upside.

i'm going back to potsdam on friday to meet up with my high school friend antje and explore the christmas markets there, which i'm looking forward to. while i am very much in love with berlin, i'm starting to feel like i should see more of "real" germany while i'm here, so i think i'll have to plan some trips for the spring. potsdam is like half an hour away and you can get there using berlin public transport, so it doesn't really count. it turns out that the german academic calendar is basically completely malleable and totally strange, so rather than the 6 week break i thought we got in march, i don't really get a break at all. once i come back after christmas we have about 7 more weeks of classes, and then 6 weeks to write term papers. papers can be turned in at any point during that period, or even while classes are still in session. once turned in, professors have about a month to grade them, and once they're finished they let you know and you go pick up this slip of paper that has your grade and the number of credit points for the class. once you have collected all of those you take them to this woman in the registrar's office, who enters them into the computer. at that point you can submit an application for the master thesis, and a few weeks later the woman sends you an official letter in the mail telling you if your application has been successful, and if so, when your thesis will be due (approximately 5 months after she sends this letter). so, basically, if i just don't allow myself a break and finish all of my term papers within a few weeks of finishing classes and then pressure my professors to actually grade them, i can then get to work on my thesis and receive a due date before next winter. that's my plan right now, but we'll see how it goes.

berlin time vs. ankara time

how has it been ten days since my last update? i remember in turkey sometimes i'd wait ten days and it felt like an eternity, though so often i also felt that very little had happened in the interim. here, i feel like a posted just a few days ago, and yet so much has happened. at lunch today we were remarking on this topic over a lovely plate of boiled potatoes (a standard with any german meal), peas, carrots, and delicious little seitan balls for some of us, big german wurst for others. time, how we all notice how fast this city goes, how we all feel kind of perpetually stressed and late for the next event, that every second is filled and yet we all want to be doing more. alina said some days she just wishes to take an "ankara break," and we agreed. yes, turkey time. let me reiterate that life in turkey is not relaxed, or laid-back in the way that many people assume it is, but instead simply moves slower, and drags out more. i listened to a radiolab story some time ago about how average steps per minute recorded in a city's center can be correlated to all sorts of interesting things. i don't remember any of those things at the moment, but often think about the simple fact that there are vast differences in steps per minute, and how palpable that can be when you switch cities as often as i have in recent years.

and yet, so much of berlin is about hanging out, having fun, doing things on your own and how you want to. but i suppose there's just such an overabundance of that that you have to hurry up to get to all of the fun, weird events happening. or to your modern dance class, then home to study for a german grammar test and to do some of this data entry work you just got. so yeah, about the jobs i applied for, i actually was offered both positions, but unfortunately after seeing the lovely gallery and meeting its adorable owner had to turn it down, since she wanted someone for 30 hours a week for only 300 euro/month. too much time, too little money. if i weren't in school i would've taken it in an instant, but as such it's just not possible. so instead i did take the research assistant job, which is basically just data coding/entry right now. i've done plenty of that over the years, so i can handle it, but it's just coming at a suddenly stressful time. but before i blather on about all of my commitments and activities too much more, i wanted to share a few observations from the areas i frequent here.

while i d.c. i would listen to everyone around me and really enjoyed hearing so many different languages on a daily basis. somewhat surprisingly, i can do the same thing here, though of course the smattering of speech is a bit different. in my daily life here i hear, in roughly descending order of frequency:

german
turkish (close second to german in my neighborhood)
spanish (sooo many spaniards everywhere)
english (i would wager at least half the time it's not native speakers but instead people using it as a common language)
west african languages
arabic
russian

and now, back to studying german

yep, i live here

after being turned down for the handful of jobs i applied for upon first coming to berlin, i kind of put the part-time job search on hold while getting settled in here. after looking at my bank account last week, however, i decided to get back on the searching wagon and immediately applied for three positions, two found on the website of this berlin english language magazine called the "exberliner," (ex as in expat), and one found on the social sciences listserv at my university. i received a quick and friendly rejection from the boutique hotel looking for a marketing assistant (duh, not the right job for me), and highly positive responses from the other two - a research assistant for an international relations professor and a gallery assistant in a new gallery opening in my old neighborhood in kreuzberg. i must say, while i'm always happy to be a research assistant, being a gallery assistant in berlin would kind of be like a dream come true. the gallery is called FELLINI gallery, and is opening in a few weeks as a sister gallery to one of the same name in shanghai, both founded by the korean-american filmmaker yuri lee. the one in shanghai looks beautiful and kind of over the top, so i'm quite curious to see how the one here will be. i have an interview for the position on monday, so i've got to bone up on my art knowledge in the next few days...

in other news, i've made another new american friend, who went to high school with my friend marissa schneidermann, who introduced us briefly when i was in l.a. a few years back. michael also lives in neukölln and apparently has no american friends, so he was happy to make a new one. we went to this british hipster bar last night with a big group of other native english speakers (plus one swede, but they basically speak english like natives) and played trivia, which was loads of fun, even though we didn't win. after that we checked out this new bar that opened on the ground floor of my building in the time between when marija and i looked at our apartment and the time we moved in. that's something that still happens in this city all the time, and it's kind of wonderful. while rent is far more expensive than it was even three or four years ago, it's still affordable to just rent a small space, get a liquor license, tell some hip people about your project, get a local artist to hang something on your walls, and bam, you're the next it spot. literally, the place in my building is just the front room of an old apartment with the basement turned into a space for djs/hipster dance parties. it's kind of fabulous. i introduced myself to one of the owners last night, who's this young american guy who just decided to open something up with a few of his friends. i told him i was a neighbor and a photographer, and he seemed amenable to the idea of showing some of my work sometime in the next few months, so i hope that that pans out. i changed my "25 in berlin" project to "twenty something in berlin," due to a surprising dearth of 25 year olds in my immediate vicinity, so i need to get going on the new iteration of the project. so much to do! that's how i feel here - i want to be involved in everything i see, basically, and i want to make art and make friends and go out and see new things and practice my german and just fully enjoy berlin. because, berlin is not ankara. there is so much to do it makes my head hurt, but also makes my heart flutter.

for today though, i'm going to do some reading then help marija move her new bed into our apartment. oh, before i go to an 11.11.11 dinner party at which all of the guests have to introduce themselves/perform short pieces of some kind of work for 1 minute and 11 seconds. should be fun.