Saturday, November 22, 2014

A pause

Hey there.

I know it's been a while since you've heard from me, and I'm sorry to keep you waiting. However, I'm thoroughly unapologetic about the next statement: I need to take some time off from this space. I know, I know, I just began returning, but I'm not apologizing because I know this is something I need to do. Things have been somewhat better over here, but at the advice of a trusted confidante, and my own inner voice, I'm taking a break. Writing doesn't feel as natural at this point in time; it's labored, harried, which is something I never want it to be to me. As a matter of fact, I'm taking a break from several things in my life, and focusing solely on me. I need some quality time with myself and my feelings, and I need it badly.

I know that writing--and other parts of my life--will come back; I just need them to come back naturally, and not force them. So, let's consider this a pause, rather than a break, which sounds like a snapping arm bone, a giant chasm between two cliffs. A pause could be any amount of time at all. It could be a moment, or a year, or a lifetime. (It likely won't be a lifetime.) It indicates refreshment, self-discovery, and ultimate understanding and fulfillment.

Thanks, all--I'll see you soon.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

October 15

The past few days have made me want to scream. In truth, I've periodically felt like screaming since arriving here, but if I could condense my feelings into a shorter time period, the last few jumbled, frustrating days would serve as a perfect example. There's been yet another thwarted apartment attempt, another day of going into work, only to be told I'm "not needed," and more and more conversations that have made me want to shut myself in my temporary bedroom for hours on end.


I'm aware that these are not the usual feelings that a Fulbright scholar shares on her blog, and I apologize for those of you who were looking for breathless stories of fairytale Deutschland in the autumn. In consolation, I offer you this story instead. While puttering around Blogger recently, I found this lovely little essay I wrote this past April that somehow never made it past the draft folder. It made me nostalgic and melancholy, but it also cheered me immensely, and I hope it does the same for you. (Conan O'Brien was recently quoted as saying something very similar about hard work and doing good, and now that it's gone viral, I'd just like to say very quietly that I thought of it first.)

I didn't know when exactly the right time to post this was, or if I should post it at all, but today feels right. Today, it heartened me, and it also does have to do with Germany, in a way, because it tells you how I got here in the first place. Some things have changed--the boyfriend in the essay is now my then-boyfriend, for instance--but it still rings true, which means it's a keeper. Today, for example, my "little thing" was a phone that finally started working again.

 I also like that I'm publishing it on October 15th--it feels significant, commemorative in a way-- and though that will mean nothing to most of you, that's okay. Just enjoy.

***

About a month ago, my boyfriend and I traveled to New York City and Pittsburgh for spring break, straddling both ends of the East Coast, at least width-wise. We encroached on the air mattresses and apartments and lives of friends in both cities, all of whom were generous enough to invite us with open arms.

 We stayed up too late and ate too much meat and drank too much alcohol, and none of the excess mattered, or even really bothered me. In Brooklyn we ate Filipino food and sipped cocktails at a bar that doubles as a flower shop (a beer and roses for $10!) and scored tickets for Upright Citizen's Brigade, which featured a show that created humor out of the sadness of our lives. It was really fascinating, in a grotesque way.


In Pittsburgh we inhaled omelets filled with corned beef and Russian dressing and gyro meat at a diner that my boyfriend can only describe as "rachet"; I was too busy stuffing my face to take notice of the clientele. He'd never visited Pittsburgh, and we took him to the top of the Cathedral of Learning and up Mount Washington to see where the three rivers unite, all of us shaking and shivering in the snow that had just started to fall. (We admired the view for all of 30 seconds.)

 On a much nicer day, he and I drove through the city and ended up in Lawrenceville, the self-proclaimed hipster section, where we had a few drinks and ate lighter-than-air onion rings and donned our sunglasses and flirted until we were sure people were sick of us. I've been to Pittsburgh twice before, and I never saw the charm in it much; I always thought of it as a grey, desolate town that had seen its golden time in days gone by. This time I liked it much more. It was partly his delight in the gritty, no-nonsense feel of the city (he compared it to Boston, his hometown). Probably the fact that I got out of the university section helped, too. In any case, it was a lot of fun.


Prior to break, I'd spent much of my time either sleeping or fretting. The dark winter was not a friend to me, and I found myself slowing to an almost unbearable speed around February. I had no clue if I'd find a job, or receive a grant, or stay in touch with my friends, or really, anything past that May 10 graduation date.

 I watched in half-joking despair as my friends and colleagues, people who knew what they wanted and were determined to get it, received offers of admission from top graduate schools in their field, jobs in places I could only hope to live. I even wrote a post for this blog, a stab at humor combining baking a cake and dealing with existential crisis. But it seemed mopey, and I let it sit in my drafts folder until it withered away in irrelevance.

I forgot, as I often do (and I'll bet other people do, too), that if you're working hard and doing good, these things have an inexplicable way of working themselves out. It's so much of a cliché that I overlooked it, pushed it to the back of my brain to collect cobwebs while I wrote my thesis and graded student papers. So I was properly astonished to receive two pieces of news. While in Pittsburgh, Penn State offered me a position teaching freshman composition over the summer, something I had applied for and promptly forgotten. And two weeks ago, I was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach English in Germany for the coming year.

Obviously all this news in the last paragraph of a post merits more on the subject, but I'll leave it at that for now. The big news has freaked me out and thrilled me, on several different levels, but somehow, the fun part of this post was the remembrances of spring break. The medium-rare burger at Tessaro's that I half-drunkenly consumed (with coleslaw on top! Coleslaw! I must reconsider Pittsburgh), the first sunny, half-warm day of the year when we sat outside in Washington Square Park, the five-hour drive between New Jersey and Pittsburgh, singing along with Tom Petty and passing under mountains. Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Schadenfreude

Among those delightful German words that have no direct translation to English, but should, is schadenfreude. Schaden: to harm or hurt, freude: joy or pleasure. In other words, to delight at someone else's misfortune. Go ahead, pretend you're horrified that such a word exists.  I'll wait.


I take it by now that, unless you're in line to be the next Mother Teresa, you've realized that you partake in schadenfreude just as much as the next person. But there's no shame in it; we all do it. I'll bet it's even healthy to some degree. It was made famous in America a few years ago by a musical that, among other things, extolls the virtues of racism and porn (and is very NSFW). But I'd never heard it in common conversation, until today.

Driving home from school, my host mother and I chit-chatted about the usual: the weather, the school day, the weekend, her trip to the vet with her pet turtles (don't ask). Then, during a pause in the conversation, I chuckled darkly. "I heard something funny yesterday," I said. I proceeded to tell her about someone I'm not particularly fond of, someone who had something, not terrible, but not exactly ideal, happen to them. (For the sake of reputations, I'll leave the person and the story itself out of it.)

"It seems fitting," I said, and laughed. My host mother laughed even harder than I did. "Du bist schadenfroh," she said.

"Is that like Schadenfreude?" I asked, delighted. Indeed it was--just the adjective form. That made my day.

You can deny that you're schadenfroh from time to time; it's not exactly the nicest emotion in the world. But I'm here to argue that it's not the worst either, especially if you're only a spectator and not the perpetrator. After all, how many times do we say, karma's a bitch, or, they had that coming to them? Same concept. If someone has wronged you, you feel just a little bit lighter when he or she in turn is wronged.

Also, schadenfreude is just a fantastic word. Go forth, and practice Schadenfreude without guilt--but, quietly.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Easier Said Than Done

Rainy, chilly day. I'm trying desperately to stave off a nap, because I've been having a lot of trouble getting to sleep lately (despite exercise and sleeping pills and cutting back on caffeine and waking up early), and I'm thinking if I can hold out until early evening, that might set my sleep schedule straight. However, that's easier said than done when I'm snuggled under a comforter on my bed to ward off the cold.

So, while my eyelids twitch, a few thoughts on today and the past few days:
-On my recent outings through the vineyards, I've noticed a strange, sourish, acidic smell peppering the air. For a few days I thought, vinegar, they're making vinegar, I guess. Then one day my thoughts started wandering, and I wondered, what kind of vinegar? Balsamic, raspberry, wine vinegar...then it hit me: WINE! They're making wine! Imagine that, while surrounded by vineyards! And the award for overthinking the simplest solution goes to...

So, in case you're wondering what it smells like when wine is made, it smells a lot like vinegar. Sharp, but not unpleasantly so.

-The Onion recently posted this hilarious article on those who enjoy autumn a little too much. My favorite part: "'Nothing beats autumn in New England,' said His Excellency, the Duke of Fall..." The Germans don't seem to embrace fall as heartily as the Americans, and I do miss it, but I don't really miss the Mr. Autumn Men (and Women) that I know.

-Speaking of the Onion, here's an oldie, but a goodie.

-I somehow managed to get through middle school, high school, college, and a master's degree without ever having to read any John Steinbeck. So of course, I now have to read Of Mice and Men to keep up with my upper level students here. It's barely 80 pages--more of a novella than anything--and I began it grumbling, but oh lord, the feelings, and now I'm hooked and have twenty pages left. I'll probably be depressed for a week when I finish.

-Finally, this gem of a video makes me want to do extreme things. Preferably smoke a crack pipe while watching it, and then warn those kids that that man is not what he seems. Or perhaps exactly what he seems.


As I was writing this, the sun came out. Have a lovely day.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I've been hungry

I don't know where to begin, except that I watched five episodes of House last night. Or Doktor House, as they call it here.


I didn't know where to begin because this is kind of a between-the-cracks blog post, the scrambled eggs you make to round out your leftovers night, or the frosting you smooth over the gap between cake layers. Clearly I have food on the brain.

For the past month, simultaneously, a lot has happened and nothing has happened. Obviously I moved to Germany, and now I have a job teaching English to middle and high school students for part of the week. That all we can cover later. A new job would be enough of a full plate (again with the food metaphors), but I've also had a new living situation. Apart from my first night in a hostel in Mannheim and four days at orientation, I've been living with a teacher from my school and her daughter, which has been interesting, to say the least. But we can talk about that later, too. I've been very hungry.


My teacher/"host mother" doesn't cook a whole lot. She just thinks she does. I wouldn't mind cooking, but I live in a small town, and it's nearly impossible for me to get to the grocery store without a car--and my host mother usually shops while I'm working. She, like many German women, is very protective of her kitchen, or at least I get that sense.

Hence, my diet here has mostly consisted of fruit, bread, butter, tomatoes, and cheese. Granted, German Brötchen (rolls) are something to behold, with their crackly crusts that flake away as you bite into them, revealing their soft, pillowy, yeasted insides. And the fruit is some of the freshest I've ever had--Rheinland-Pfalz is known for its produce--but a girl of 23 years was not meant to live on bread and butter and cheese and fruit alone.


At first I loved it. The tomatoes are from my host mother's garden, tangy and juicy from the vine, and I'd slather half a Brötchen with Brie from the paper store wrapping and top it with tomato slices. This, with a sliced pear or a plum, was most often my breakfast or lunch...or snack, or dinner. (We eat at really weird hours around here, sometimes at three or four, sometimes eight or nine at night.)

Around the third week, I started to get sick of it. I've been exercising a fair amount, and both my body and my mind started craving protein and fat and other good nutrients in the way that some cheese or the occasional yogurt couldn't satisfy. Slowly, my mind became consumed with thoughts of food. I'm not starving, mind you--I'm allowed to eat as much as I want. There's just not a great deal of variety.

These days, I daydream about short ribs, braised in bold red wine and a mirepoix of vegetables, on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes. I like to think about cauliflower, roasted to an inch of its life, until caramelized, wrapped with other vegetables in a creamy, garlicky yogurt dressing, like this. I don't really daydream about desserts--I'm more of a savory gal myself--but one Sunday I did find myself thinking about cake, a rich chocolate cake, the kind you find in restaurants, with stiff, heavy, moussey chocolate frosting, worth every bite. As I ride the tram home from school, my thoughts turn to Asian foods, and I peer somewhat longingly into the windows of the local pan-Asian cuisine spot as I walk back from my stop, imagining curries and piles of rice noodles with sweet and spicy peanut sauce and crisp Mung bean sprouts.


Maybe this is all from boredom--of diet, of life in a small town--or maybe it's something else. And there is more to say about food, certainly. But I'm still trying to piece that together; as I said, my mind is jumbled. So for now I'll just say that I've been positively fantasizing about food, and cooking, and hopefully this weekend I'll get my chance. Friday is a German holiday, and my host family will be away for the long weekend visiting Grandma--huzzah! If I don't make travel plans, I will definitely be here, perhaps roasting an entire leg of lamb on a spit in the front yard, or blasting that new T. Swift song through every orifice of the house.

For now, it's back to Hugh Laurie's witticisms in a right rank American accent (I'm picturing that said in a British accent; I have no clue if that's actually something the British say), and multiple establishing shots of Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. Wherever you are, bake some banana bread or oatmeal muffins on my behalf.




P.S. Just for clarification, I think Hugh Laurie's American accent isn't half bad. Pretty good, actually.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Not even exaggerating

Hey there.


If you're reading this, whether welcome stranger or dear friend (or enemy, hell if I know), I know you're probably wondering about my life (back) in Germany--is it different from last time? How's teaching going? Have I met anyone yet? And the truth is, yes, it's very different from last time, and for that reason and many others, I don't quite know how to talk about it yet.


I've been here for almost one month, but it feels like an eternity already. I have nine more to go, the same amount of months it would take to have a baby. For some reason, this comparison keeps crossing my mind. But instead of growing a baby, I'll be growing my cultural and teaching skills, hopefully holding by the end not an infant, but a greater sense of self. Ideally, to Fulbright, I'll be developing a genuine, interpersonal relationship between two nations. That all sounds a little grandiose for me to comprehend right now. I'm trying to just take it, as the old adage goes, one day at a time. Which is both relieving and overwhelming, when I think of how many more days there are to focus on individually.


Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to say. Right now, though, it's all a perilous game of Jenga inside my head, and I have no idea which block to pull out first. So I offer you some pictures taken on my walks/runs around my current town, taken in the late afternoons of the past month, as the summer slipped away.


Forgive me for holding back on the writing; hopefully in the coming days and weeks, with some changes and a new routine, I'll be more forthcoming about my journey. For now, thanks for stopping by--it means so much to me that you care. And I'm not even exaggerating.