some things are great:
i bought two scandinavian sweaters second-hand today for a total of less than $50 and am totally in love with them.
i performed in my first berlin pop choir concert tonight and thoroughly enjoyed myself and felt real camaraderie with some of the fun germans in the group and four get ma folks came to cheer me on and it was totally lovely. i'm going to sing in the christmas session as well even though i'll be in albuqueruqe for the december 20th concert, and in the spring i'll try out for the smaller ensemble group, which consists of six people and is more like a true a capella group.
marija and i signed a lease today for our new apartment together and we move in one week from today!
i had my first modern dance class last night and even though there was a random reedie in it who i'd met at tim's party this past saturday and then she was a total reedie elitist bitch to me, the class was great and made me feel healthy and happy, and the teacher was a super gay german with bright blond asymmetrical hair.
tim had a big fun party on saturday and even though 75% of the many many guests were gorgeous gay men (or maybe because) i had tons of fun.
next saturday i'm co-hosting that halloween party and my courtney love costume is really coming together.
so, it seems that most things are good. i'm still kind of unsure about classes, but they seem mostly good. and gudrun is acting weirdly super friendly, so i guess that's good? maybe trying to make me feel bad about moving out? i won't overanalyze it.
anyway, i'm really digging my new sweaters.
xoxo.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
oops, four and a half weeks
so apparently i can't handle public blogging. i kept thinking about what i could post in the past weeks that would describe what i'd been doing without actually being offensive. and i couldn't figure it out, so i simply didn't post. and that's no good, so we're back to private blogging.
so, as for what's been up - i decided that i can't actually stay in my current apartment, basically. while i tried to describe gudrun's ocd/neurotic/mean behavior in a highly diplomatic way for public consumption, for those of you who can now read this i'll give a bit more of the full story. and full story short - she's the cleanest person i've ever met and got angry each time i used something in the kitchen or bathroom in a way that wasn't exactly how she wanted, or put something away in somewhere that wasn't exactly right, or left a door open, or a light on, or cleaned the stove wrong, etc. also, she made it clear that she thinks most americans are ignorant slobs, and while i might in fact share this sentiment to some degree, no one likes hearing such things from a neurotic german. and after a near break-down on her part after i cut beets on a cutting board and after washing it there was still a faint red spot, i decided i'd like to live somewhere where i feel like i can actually live without tip-toeing. also, her intense german weirdness reminds me of my host mom, who i really would die before living with again, so i sure as hell don't want to live with someone again who shares similar traits.
coincidentally, marija had still not been able to find a room in a shared apartment as of about two weeks ago, when i made my decision to move out, so we spent 8 days looking online and visiting at least one apartment per day, usually two or three. on the 8th day we were finally offered one, and we'll move in together on november 1st. gudrun has actually been out of town for about a week now, which made the whole search process less stressful. she was of course rather upset when i told her i was going to move out, though she had in fact stressed to me when i moved in that she didn't want to sign a contract because "who knows how our minds might change," which to me seemed like the beginning of a self-fulfilling prophecy. but anyway, i'm super excited to live with marija, since we'd in fact wanted to before but thought it might be too complicated. and the place is in neukölln, close to tim and to my new american friends marissa, lauren, and hannah. should be great.
in other news, school started this week, which was super exciting. monday was a "welcome day," meaning there were no classes, and language classes start next week, so i actually just went to two electives that i'm trying out and then our first get ma class with the whole gang. it feels so great to have everyone back together, and so exciting to be here instead of ankara. after our first class we all went to one of the dining halls and ate lunch together and joked about how different it is than the dining hall where we always ate in ankara. in ankara we were on a campus way outside of the city, but here the university is like nyu, with buildings just scattered around a neighborhood in the city center, but no actual campus. it really makes you feel like a part of the city, and the freedom offered to german university students is so much greater than in turkey it just makes me so happy to be here.
here is what my schedule looks like right now:
Winter Semester 2011/2012 Schedule:
Montag
Governing Wider Europe (GeT MA)
Unistr. 3b Room 205
12:00 – 2:00
Prozesse und Auswirkungen ethnischer Grenzziehungen in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft
Unistr. 3b Room 002
4:00 – 6:00
Modern Dance
Adlershof, Tanz-und Pilatesstudio
6:30 – 8:00
Dienstag
Ergänzungskurs: Grammatik B2
Sprachenzentrum, Dorotheenstr. 65, Raum 3.54
10:00 – 12:00
Mittwoch
Pilates
Gymnastiksaal Invalidenstr. 110 4. Etage Raum 423
3:15 – 4:15
Donnerstag
Die Arabischen Revolutionen - ein Paradigmenwechsel in den IB?
Unistr. 3b Room 002
10:00 – 12:00
Democratic Theory and European Case Studies (GeT MA)
Unistr. 3b Room 002
12:00 – 2:00
Contemporary Germany (GeT MA)
Luisenstr. 56 Room 123
2:00 – 4:00 or 4:00 – 6:00
Freitag
---
notice that i have no class on either friday or wednesday, which is pretty sweet. i'm taking pilates at school on wednesday so that i'll be forced to go up there, with the idea of spending the morning/afternoon before exercising in the library doing reading. should be lovely. also, the german class i'm taking is a strictly grammar class, which i rather desperately need. on top of that, i'm taking an elective in german, which will most certainly be challenging, but hopefully quite beneficial.
aside from school, i also went to a dinner meeting last night at my friend frithjof's house to talk about taking part in the german senior fellow's board of humanity in action, which is the fellowship i did in denmark. apparently the board is comprised of six people, and while there is technically supposed to be an election, only six of the fifteen of us offered the potential position expressed interest, so it seems that i'm automatically a member. that means that i'll be helping to write and edit the german senior fellows magazine, which is in english, as well as helping to guide the direction of hia in germany and offer a tether to senior fellows in the u.s. i'm quite interested in being an active member of the hia community, so i'm excited to see how this goes.
and in terms of fun, i've still been having lots of it. tim is having a party this saturday and i encouraged my new american friends to host a halloween party next week, so that should offer some good occasions for mixing get ma folk with new friends and potentially also meeting more people. also my chorus concert is next tuesday, which i'm not exactly prepared for, but i'm excited about anyway. so, although the whole housing business has been kind of intensely stressful and the main thing on my mind these past weeks, all is still well!
please do follow this blog, so that i know that someone is reading it! hugs to you all!
so, as for what's been up - i decided that i can't actually stay in my current apartment, basically. while i tried to describe gudrun's ocd/neurotic/mean behavior in a highly diplomatic way for public consumption, for those of you who can now read this i'll give a bit more of the full story. and full story short - she's the cleanest person i've ever met and got angry each time i used something in the kitchen or bathroom in a way that wasn't exactly how she wanted, or put something away in somewhere that wasn't exactly right, or left a door open, or a light on, or cleaned the stove wrong, etc. also, she made it clear that she thinks most americans are ignorant slobs, and while i might in fact share this sentiment to some degree, no one likes hearing such things from a neurotic german. and after a near break-down on her part after i cut beets on a cutting board and after washing it there was still a faint red spot, i decided i'd like to live somewhere where i feel like i can actually live without tip-toeing. also, her intense german weirdness reminds me of my host mom, who i really would die before living with again, so i sure as hell don't want to live with someone again who shares similar traits.
coincidentally, marija had still not been able to find a room in a shared apartment as of about two weeks ago, when i made my decision to move out, so we spent 8 days looking online and visiting at least one apartment per day, usually two or three. on the 8th day we were finally offered one, and we'll move in together on november 1st. gudrun has actually been out of town for about a week now, which made the whole search process less stressful. she was of course rather upset when i told her i was going to move out, though she had in fact stressed to me when i moved in that she didn't want to sign a contract because "who knows how our minds might change," which to me seemed like the beginning of a self-fulfilling prophecy. but anyway, i'm super excited to live with marija, since we'd in fact wanted to before but thought it might be too complicated. and the place is in neukölln, close to tim and to my new american friends marissa, lauren, and hannah. should be great.
in other news, school started this week, which was super exciting. monday was a "welcome day," meaning there were no classes, and language classes start next week, so i actually just went to two electives that i'm trying out and then our first get ma class with the whole gang. it feels so great to have everyone back together, and so exciting to be here instead of ankara. after our first class we all went to one of the dining halls and ate lunch together and joked about how different it is than the dining hall where we always ate in ankara. in ankara we were on a campus way outside of the city, but here the university is like nyu, with buildings just scattered around a neighborhood in the city center, but no actual campus. it really makes you feel like a part of the city, and the freedom offered to german university students is so much greater than in turkey it just makes me so happy to be here.
here is what my schedule looks like right now:
Winter Semester 2011/2012 Schedule:
Montag
Governing Wider Europe (GeT MA)
Unistr. 3b Room 205
12:00 – 2:00
Prozesse und Auswirkungen ethnischer Grenzziehungen in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft
Unistr. 3b Room 002
4:00 – 6:00
Modern Dance
Adlershof, Tanz-und Pilatesstudio
6:30 – 8:00
Dienstag
Ergänzungskurs: Grammatik B2
Sprachenzentrum, Dorotheenstr. 65, Raum 3.54
10:00 – 12:00
Mittwoch
Pilates
Gymnastiksaal Invalidenstr. 110 4. Etage Raum 423
3:15 – 4:15
Donnerstag
Die Arabischen Revolutionen - ein Paradigmenwechsel in den IB?
Unistr. 3b Room 002
10:00 – 12:00
Democratic Theory and European Case Studies (GeT MA)
Unistr. 3b Room 002
12:00 – 2:00
Contemporary Germany (GeT MA)
Luisenstr. 56 Room 123
2:00 – 4:00 or 4:00 – 6:00
Freitag
---
notice that i have no class on either friday or wednesday, which is pretty sweet. i'm taking pilates at school on wednesday so that i'll be forced to go up there, with the idea of spending the morning/afternoon before exercising in the library doing reading. should be lovely. also, the german class i'm taking is a strictly grammar class, which i rather desperately need. on top of that, i'm taking an elective in german, which will most certainly be challenging, but hopefully quite beneficial.
aside from school, i also went to a dinner meeting last night at my friend frithjof's house to talk about taking part in the german senior fellow's board of humanity in action, which is the fellowship i did in denmark. apparently the board is comprised of six people, and while there is technically supposed to be an election, only six of the fifteen of us offered the potential position expressed interest, so it seems that i'm automatically a member. that means that i'll be helping to write and edit the german senior fellows magazine, which is in english, as well as helping to guide the direction of hia in germany and offer a tether to senior fellows in the u.s. i'm quite interested in being an active member of the hia community, so i'm excited to see how this goes.
and in terms of fun, i've still been having lots of it. tim is having a party this saturday and i encouraged my new american friends to host a halloween party next week, so that should offer some good occasions for mixing get ma folk with new friends and potentially also meeting more people. also my chorus concert is next tuesday, which i'm not exactly prepared for, but i'm excited about anyway. so, although the whole housing business has been kind of intensely stressful and the main thing on my mind these past weeks, all is still well!
please do follow this blog, so that i know that someone is reading it! hugs to you all!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
hurdling into week two
so tuesday seems to be update day. if i stick to that, i'll be proud of myself - weekly posts on the same day is a daunting task, but having a schedule is always helpful. and man, i thought that being here i would no longer be known as something of a task-master amongst our program folks, but apparently that image has stuck... and apparently people's propensity towards planless days and late arrivals has also stuck. the lack of planning mixed with a few good plans has worked out well for me in these first days, and i feel like i've been both productive and totally having a good time. i've been going to the summer school lectures/workshops every afternoon, and scratching one task off my list each weekday morning. once i turn in all of my paperwork tomorrow (my certificate of a registered apartment, certificate of bank account, certificate of health insurance, certificate of income, letter of enrollment), i just have to wait until i get my student i.d., then make one last trip to an official office to get my residence permit, and bam! all of my bureaucratic tasks will be done. while it's sort of a bunch, compared to turkey it has all gone so smoothly it's kind of unbelievable. so that's good.
on the life/friend/emotions side of things, i've already been having some good swings up and down, but mostly it's been up. tim has a lovely group of friends here which includes these three american girls in their mid to late 20s who've all lived here for a number of years, who've just totally accepted me into their friend group. last weekend we all went out on friday evening, which was marija's first night in germany, but then she and tim went home early and i stayed out with the girls, then wound up sleeping over at their place since it seemed far to difficult to get all the way back over to my, as gudrun calls it "more established" corner of kreuzberg. in the morning we woke up to dazzling sunshine and my new friends set about making a heaping pile of delicious banana pancakes, and tim came over to top off the feast with corner store fixings for mimosas. who could ask for a better first weekend brunch? after a lovely bike ride home (oh, i bought an adorable vintage pale pink lady's city bike, which i'm super into) i met up with the girls again for some leisurely park lounging in a newly opened park near my house. seriously fabulous. the evening got a little darker when i returned home and joined gudrun and two of her friends for drinks on our balcony, only because my german skills are actually negligible enough at this point that i started slipping back into feeling like the helpless teenager i once was, sitting in on a conversation where those around you inevitably think you're less intelligent and interesting than you know you are, if only you could tell them what you were really thinking! so damn, i need to study up.
the week looked up again though with dinner parties on both sunday and monday, the first hosted by gudrun as something of a welcome party for me. she invited a few friends, including an american playwright working towards a phd from berkeley and doing fieldwork here, and i invited tim and marija. the following evening it was back to marissa, hannah, and lauren's house for a feast based around the mushrooms they'd picked the day before in the brandenberger wald. delicious, and totally fun, including being introduced to a very interesting german girl who goes to my university and previously chose to study in magdeburg, a town in the east quite close to where i did my exchange, because she felt compelled to try to understand the other side of her country that most wessies simply write off as backward, racist, poor, etc. while i would never put myself back in sachsen anhalt, i do feel an odd attachment and defensiveness about it, and we had an interesting conversation about the type of person who puts herself in a situation she knows will be difficult and potentially sad/bad, and it is in fact difficult/sad/bad, but she comes out being glad she did it and feeling better for the experience. we are both apparently that kind of person.
oh man though, i do like happy and nice things too! one such thing i've found here is the berlin pop choir, with which i had my second practice this evening. for our concert in a few weeks we're singing "personal jesus," duran duran's "planet earth," "don't walk away renee," and "hold tight." i'm fucking stoked.
we also had orientation today, and those few stragglers who i hadn't seen yet were there, which was really a happy reunion. next week i'll register for sports classes, then the following week everything actually starts! so exciting!
yes, i still very much miss america and all of my lovely friends and family there, but i think i will indeed figure out how to be happy here. or at least i hope so.
on the life/friend/emotions side of things, i've already been having some good swings up and down, but mostly it's been up. tim has a lovely group of friends here which includes these three american girls in their mid to late 20s who've all lived here for a number of years, who've just totally accepted me into their friend group. last weekend we all went out on friday evening, which was marija's first night in germany, but then she and tim went home early and i stayed out with the girls, then wound up sleeping over at their place since it seemed far to difficult to get all the way back over to my, as gudrun calls it "more established" corner of kreuzberg. in the morning we woke up to dazzling sunshine and my new friends set about making a heaping pile of delicious banana pancakes, and tim came over to top off the feast with corner store fixings for mimosas. who could ask for a better first weekend brunch? after a lovely bike ride home (oh, i bought an adorable vintage pale pink lady's city bike, which i'm super into) i met up with the girls again for some leisurely park lounging in a newly opened park near my house. seriously fabulous. the evening got a little darker when i returned home and joined gudrun and two of her friends for drinks on our balcony, only because my german skills are actually negligible enough at this point that i started slipping back into feeling like the helpless teenager i once was, sitting in on a conversation where those around you inevitably think you're less intelligent and interesting than you know you are, if only you could tell them what you were really thinking! so damn, i need to study up.
the week looked up again though with dinner parties on both sunday and monday, the first hosted by gudrun as something of a welcome party for me. she invited a few friends, including an american playwright working towards a phd from berkeley and doing fieldwork here, and i invited tim and marija. the following evening it was back to marissa, hannah, and lauren's house for a feast based around the mushrooms they'd picked the day before in the brandenberger wald. delicious, and totally fun, including being introduced to a very interesting german girl who goes to my university and previously chose to study in magdeburg, a town in the east quite close to where i did my exchange, because she felt compelled to try to understand the other side of her country that most wessies simply write off as backward, racist, poor, etc. while i would never put myself back in sachsen anhalt, i do feel an odd attachment and defensiveness about it, and we had an interesting conversation about the type of person who puts herself in a situation she knows will be difficult and potentially sad/bad, and it is in fact difficult/sad/bad, but she comes out being glad she did it and feeling better for the experience. we are both apparently that kind of person.
oh man though, i do like happy and nice things too! one such thing i've found here is the berlin pop choir, with which i had my second practice this evening. for our concert in a few weeks we're singing "personal jesus," duran duran's "planet earth," "don't walk away renee," and "hold tight." i'm fucking stoked.
we also had orientation today, and those few stragglers who i hadn't seen yet were there, which was really a happy reunion. next week i'll register for sports classes, then the following week everything actually starts! so exciting!
yes, i still very much miss america and all of my lovely friends and family there, but i think i will indeed figure out how to be happy here. or at least i hope so.
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