Every damn day

If April is the cruelest month, and I'm not dissenting that, then August is definitely the strangest. It starts with the peak of my birthday and beach vacations and ends with the slump that is back-to-school. Apart from that general guideline, August seems to have a strange aura about it. The weather may get increasingly oppressive, but it threatens you with the whisper that it won't last much longer.

August has always been surreal for me, particularly with the turn to adulthood. I've had my heart broken, royally bang-up broken, twice in August. Cakes I bake fail to come out of their pans, and I squash them with my toes in the garden in fits of anger. I find myself listening to Mumford and Sons' first album with a certain amount of nostalgia and wistfulness that makes me want to weep right in the middle of driving down I-83. And it's not all bad--it's the inexplicable interweave of the good with the bad. Take this August: I got a job. I went to New York and had my birthday, and Pittsburgh, and it was fantastic, and then I came back from Pittsburgh and everyone was sick, including me. Then my mother ended up with a broken toe, I ended up in the emergency room, and earlier this week, we said goodbye to this little friend, rather abruptly.

Brandy had been licking the dirt at a friend's house as we all sat at a picnic table slurping our summer sweet corn. We thought it was funny. "You sure you never put down a salt lick here?" my dad asked (and then everyone got drunk and talked about the disco age). The next thing she tried to eat was the concrete out by the pool, making us shiver as she scraped her canines against the cement. She progressed to baseboards, bricks, and various pieces of furniture, all while refusing ground beef and lunch meat. I came back from Pittsburgh and she'd begun hiding. I read somewhere that dying people will expel everything from their bodies in any way they can, and she was certainly doing that. It was time.

Millipedes notwithstanding, I'd never seen a living thing die before. I was both dreading it and-- somehow--looking forward to it for. For the first time in my life, I wasn't shrinking back from my grief. I was embracing it, accepting it as a natural and healthy part of my emotions. I let myself cry openly, without shame. I viewed my mothers' tears with something less than the terror and vulnerability I usually feel the few times I've seen her cry. So we gripped each others' shoulders and cried.

The hardest part was watching them carry our dog out of the room, wrapped in a pink swim towel. Her eyes were still open, and that jarred me. How could she not still be alive? She looked exactly the same as she had seconds before, except she wasn't squirming. She was still warm and fluffy, and I didn't want to leave her, knowing I would never see her again. Her eyes still haunt me at night, looking right at me again and again as they carry her out of the room, all light behind them extinguished. I'm still trying to cope with that.

My mother and father and I went all together to the vet's, and afterward we went out for a stiff drink at the local bar and toasted a dog who never met a squeaky ball she didn't like. I came home, took a mild sedative, and played solitaire on my phone until I fell asleep. My first thought the next morning was that I had to get up and let the dog out, and then I remembered there was no dog. I moped around for a while. It was my mother's birthday, she was working all day and evening, and I wanted there to be something nice for her when she came home. So I packed all the dog toys and food up, sniffling, and then I made chocolate brownies with peanut butter frosting.

My mother has never met a chocolate-peanut butter combination she didn't like, and I've been meaning to try out Ashley Rodriguez's brownie recipe for ages, so that was a no brainer. We're on some kind of healthy eating kick in my household, but even more than healthy eating, I believe in celebrating birthdays, and any excuse to celebrate at all, actually. When you've only got an average of eighty years to stick around, and other lovely creatures have even less, you'd better be celebrating something every damn day.

P.S. By sheer coincidence! I never read my LinkedIn updates, but something made me today. I came across this lovely short essay, and it gave me all the feels, and said everything I could not. Especially that last line.

Bittersweet Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting
Adapted just a touch from Ashley Rodriguez's Date Night In

These really are just as bang-up as they sound, with a lovely depth of flavor, and definitely more fudgey than cake-like, which is how we prefer them in our household. I subbed in turbinado sugar for white, which lent them even more depth and a nice variation in texture, although certainly feel free to use white if that's all you have.

For the brownies:
170 grams (3/4 cup) unsalted butter*, plus more if you're using it to grease the pan
90 grams (3 oz) chopped unsweetened (baking) chocolate
175 grams (3/4 cup plus two Tbsp.) turbinado or white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
40 grams (1/2 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
70 grams (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour

For the frosting:
85 grams (6 Tbsp) salted butter, at room temperature
100 grams (3/4 cup) peanut butter, smooth or chunky
40 grams (1/3 cup) confectioner's sugar
Splash of vanilla

Brownies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square pan, lay in a piece of parchment paper that overhangs the edges, and grease that too. Bring all your ingredients to room temperature (this really does make a difference, so just do it. Go pay your bills or take a shower or something).

In a medium to large saucepan, melt the butter over medium to medium-high heat, then let the milk solids separate and bubble up. Keep a close watch: they will settle and begin to caramelize, and the butter will begin to brown. Swirl the butter to keep an eye on the color, and take it off the heat as soon as it begins to darken, about 3 to 5 minutes. Butter can go from a lovely caramel color to burned very, very fast. It should smell toasted and slightly nutty.

Pour butter into a medium bowl and add chopped chocolate. Let sit for one minute to melt, then whisk together. Whisk in the vanilla and sugar (don't worry, it seems like a lot, but it's not too much), then whisk in the eggs. Whisk in the cocoa, salt, and flour until there aren't any lumps, but don't overmix.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (30 minutes was perfect in my oven), or until a tester comes out without brownie goop. Let cool completely (you can put them in the fridge to speed this up, if you want), then remove the brownies from the pan using the parchment paper, frost, and cut.

Frosting:
With a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip together the peanut butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and butter until the mixture lightens in color and everything is incorporated. Frost the completely cooled brownies. Leftovers should be refrigerated. Birthday candle is optional.

*I only had salted butter on me, so I just used that and only added the vaguest pinch of salt.

To have that back

I've been doing this thing for the past few days where, after waking up around 8:30, I make a cup of coffee and then sit in bed drinking it while I peruse my emails and social networks and the food blogs I frequent. I think about the good things that have been going on, and I fill up my eyes with the morning sun (because THE SUN'S OUT GUYS OMG), and I make a rough plan of my day. If it doesn't go exactly according to plan, that's okay, but more often than not, it follows some semblance of what I originally thought. I'm aware this ritual will probably die when I have to go back to work in a week and a half, but for now, it's sticking.

I've also been writing down three things that made me happy during the day, right before I go to bed. The rule: they can't be big things. I can't write down anything about jobs, or fellowships, or earth-shattering life events. It has to be little things my senses pick up: being able to smell spring on my morning run, or the way the poppy seeds sprinkle the top of a muffin. (Apparently there's a TED talk on this? I haven't seen it, but according to a friend who did, this activity teaches us to appreciate the now, and if you keep it up for 21 days or so, you start noticing the small good in every day.)

With that, I'd like to share with you some of the things I've been jotting down:

Finding a nature trail that leads to Hartenberg Park, a new place to run.

Dying of laughter in public as I text my friend Brandon about our misadventures of middle school.

Curry noodles and snow peas for dinner.

My neighbor, who I see almost every day now, who always smiles and gives me a "hallo" when we pass each other coming into/out of my building.

Remaining with my intention in yoga; observing my emotions without judging them.

A successful time dress shopping for a ball.

Taking a walk in my trenchcoat and Sperrys and not being cold.

The best piece of red velvet cake of my life at my new favorite cafe.

Breaking out my sunglasses again.

Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary show, complete with Norm Macdonald's Burt Reynolds impression.

My favorite student shyly asking if we could talk about her creative writing. (CAN WE?!?!)

Coldplay's "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall."

Storm clouds at sunset.

Photo booth pictures of happy couples someone dropped on the path.

And the list goes on. I've also been getting the urge to write again lately, and it's oh so pleasant to have that back in my life. It began with writing a play (my first full-length) to get some feelings out, and now one of my favorite professors is meeting with me about it when I come home for Easter break, aka I have to have the first draft done by then. But also, I was going through some old exercises I did for graduate school, and while most of them were rather dreadful, I found one that I really liked. I spiffed it up and submitted it, and that seemed to open the floodgates for more ideas. I found myself jotting down endless ideas for a new piece at lunch yesterday, and I stopped in the middle and realized how lovely it is to have that back.

Finally. There's nothing quite like sitting in your bed, drinking your coffee, looking out the window, and thinking, I've got to get to Berlin sometime this weekend. The charm of Europe, I suppose. I actually do have to get there; my program has our conference there next week. I'm looking forward to being back in my favorite city. I'm dreading the constant socialization and the panels that will last for hours. In short, I'm bribing myself there with promises of runs in the Tiergarten, coffee and cheesecake at Five Elephant, döner at Mustafa's, snakebites at Clash, and sitting on the couches at Hannibal, my favorite bar in the whole world, where I once stayed until 5 AM and once almost got run over crossing the street. For those things, it'll be worth it.

Have a lovely week. 

It's catching

I mentioned in my last post that I'm unspeakably grateful to my friends. I didn't mention the friends who don't actually know me. Ah, but I know them! They tell me all about their days and lives, from their hopes for 2015 to the espresso they brewed for breakfast this morning. I know their spouses, their parents, their children.

Lest you think by this point I'm some expat stalker, I should tell you that they're very up-front with this kind of knowledge, not just with me, but with the entire internet. These are the good people of the blogosphere, namely, the food blogosphere. They are the Molly Wizenbergs and Adam Robertses of the world.

I make a routine check-round of all my favorites once every few days, sometimes more, if I'm feeling particularly bored/lonely/hungry. In my mind, I refer to them on a first name basis--let's see if Luisa's found a new apartment yet. Fortunately, my best friend and I are very like-minded in this respect, and we'll bring them up in casual conversation this way, like mutual friends: Did you see how fast Deb's son is growing? Check out Jenny's meatloaf--tried it last night, insanely good.

Their posts and pictures are an invitation inside their lives--but a cozy invite, not a stiff, formal one, written out on card stock. In my mind, they're inviting you to their kitchen table for a cup of coffee and a chat and maybe a cookie, like you're a neighbor who stopped by. It takes me out of my own apartment, with the soaked, aggressively-dripping bath rug hanging from the heater because my shower routinely floods and there's nothing to mop it up with except said rug.

My longtime favorite was Molly Wizenberg (and if you haven't read A Homemade Life yet, you're seriously missing out), but over the past few months, I've made a slow turn to Megan Gordon, Molly's real-life friend. If Molly is my opposites-attract friend, Megan is closer to my soulmate. (Sorry Molly--I should have known when you 'fessed up to loving Bruce Springsteen and various bands I've never heard of. We can still be close, right?)

At first, I turned up my nose at Megan, her blog, and her book--whole grains? Who does she think she is, telling me how to eat? But living in a bad homestay compels you to do something--anything--instead of interacting with your host, which is how I found myself melting into Megan's writing. And I found out, Megan never tells you how to eat. She's just so darn enthusiastic about her way of life, and about life in general, that you find yourself wanting to try everything she suggests, to see if her attitude is catching.

I bought her book shortly after succumbing to her blog, and it's quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. Megan writes beautifully (and it's nice to find kinship with someone else who worked a stint as an English teacher), and her recipes are simple, but they revolutionize even the most basic of dishes. For me, oatmeal was always an "eh" breakfast: fine, but not something I'd rhapsodize over. But Megan's! It's toothsome with every bite, not mushy, with just a hint of cinnamon, and infinitely adaptable, whether you're looking for a sweet or savory breakfast. I find myself running to the kitchen to make it these mornings. (Well, running the three steps, I live in a studio.)

These days, I find myself looking forward to reading Megan's blog if I'm having a bad day or just need some cheer in general. When the weather's grey and the train from work seems to take even longer than usual and I miss home, I think to myself, let's see what Megan's up to.

I could consider writing the Book of Megan. For now, I'll just give you the oatmeal.

The Very Best Oatmeal
adapted, barely, from Megan Gordon's Whole-Grain Mornings

*Megan advises using a bigger pot with a lid for this so the oats cook more evenly. I concur, and if you don't mind making this a two-pot dish, you can toast the oats in a frying pan or skillet for maximum toastiness. You can definitely toast them in the same pot, though. Also, during the toasting step, watch and smell the oats carefully; they can go from toasty to burnt rather fast (which I know from personal experience). Even slightly burnt, though, these are still pretty damn good (which I also know from personal experience).

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup/100 g rolled oats
1/4 cup/60 ml milk, soy milk, or nut milk
Generous pinch of salt
Pinch of ground cinnamon
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon/195 ml water

1) Melt the butter in your large pot or frying pan over medium heat. Add the oats and toast, stirring every so often, until they smell toasty and fragrant. Takes about 5-7 minutes. (This is the part where you want to watch for burning.) If using the same pot, empty the toasted oats into another container.

2) In your large, heavy-bottomed pot, bring the rest of the ingredients to a rolling boil over medium heat. This won't take very long, so keep your eye on it. Add the oats and gently stir, just once or twice, to incorporate them into the liquid.

3) Cover the pot and turn off the heat. Set a timer for seven minutes. Don't stir or peek! Resist temptation. Go wash your frying pan, if you used it. Set out your bowl. Get your mix-ins ready. Do not check that oatmeal. Trust me on this. After seven minutes, uncover pot and check the oats. You can recover and let them sit for another few minutes if they're a little wetter than you'd like, but I'm usually too hungry to do this.

4) Serve hot with your favorite mix-ins, sweet or savory. Megan advises a splash of cream and a little brown sugar, but my personal favorite is Nutella and bananas. To each his own.

Serves 2-3, although it's so good that I usually end up eating it all over the course of a few hours. You can reserve the leftovers, refrigerated and reheated in the microwave, but you'll want to add a little more liquid if you go this route.

To be honest

Well hello there. I don't know if this is sooner or later than you expected me to be back, but either way, it's good to be back here.

I'm sitting in the window of the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (main train station) Starbucks, drinking a decaf latte and trying not to make a face at the kid staring in the window at me. His dark, unblinking eyes are unnerving me, and I'm nervous enough already about writing this post. Shoo, German child, shoo.

I've contemplated writing this post many times; to be honest, it scares me quite a bit. I thought of writing it back in September, then October, then November, and then I went through a period where writing seemed impossible, and I decided it was best if I put it on the back burner. But, for the first time in a long time, I woke up this morning with the itch to write. What's more, I knew exactly what I would write. I've felt the beginnings of the itch for a little while, but I put it off, wanting to make sure it was sincere. It is. So here I am.

If I'm being completely sincere, I'm human like the rest of you, and I'm terrified of the backlash. I'm afraid of being treated differently, looked at strangely, getting whispers. I've always been the paranoid sort. (My nickname in high school was Nixon for a while.) But being afraid of being seen as vulnerable isn't going to get me anywhere in life, and at a time when we have more and more people speaking out about this sort of thing, it feels fitting to add my voice to the conversation. Nothing's going to get done if we don't speak up. And so, when I tell you that depression's a bitch, and it's what's been keeping me silent for months on end, what I'm doing is asking you not to look at me sideways. I'm asking you to take a cup of coffee, sit down with me, and listen. Feel free to ask questions, but do try to keep an open mind.

People have many different ways of describing depression; all of them are legitimate. In my own experience, depression is the meanest playground bully; he's the punk who takes your lunch money, then holds you in a head lock until you're gasping for breath and begging him to stop. You say anything he wants you to say so he'll let up--and he still doesn't let up. He'll sometimes let you think you're getting away, a brief respite, a moment of sunshine, and then he pulls you back into that headlock, even more relentless than before.

I've had this in my life before. If we're being more precise, I have a specific type known as adjustment disorder. Normally I'm not depressed, but particularly stressful periods of my life can send me into a tailspin of hopelessness and anxiety. And god knows I've had the stress. For a while, I chalked everything--the insomnia, the heaviness of each day, the sudden inability to focus on even a single page of a book--up to getting settled in Germany.

And then, one night in early November, I came back from a perfectly nice dinner with friends and felt desperate, like my time with them had just been a necessary distraction to save me from myself. I had a vision of sinking into a black hole, seeing only the sky above me, trying to claw the walls and realizing they were made of that slippery plastic material on playground slides. And I thought, oh, I'm depressed, aren't I. I called a therapist the next day.

I'm not telling you all this to evoke sympathy, and I'm certainly hoping I don't get the sideways look, although that's your choice. I'm telling you all this not to be a hypocrite. There's been more and more publicity on this lately, particularly when Robin Williams died this past August. In the wake of his death, a rash of articles popped up about depression, all saying basically the same thing: "We need to be more open about this." There was also a slew of statuses in every news feed I opened: "Friends, if you ever feel this way, feel free to talk to me."

 And then we stopped. Silence begets ignorance, and if we want to fight that ignorance, we need to keep this conversation open. We don't talk in whispers about cancer or heart attacks. Why do we do it with mental illness? Let's not, please. I'm not one to harp on and on about illness in general, but when we do need to talk about it, let's not say that one is more legitimate than the other, more deserving of treatment and discussion.

One last thing for today, before I let you go. The biggest thing that gave me the courage to share this in such a public space wasn't my therapist or my itch to write or any celebrity death, it was my friends. At first, I was beyond embarrassed to talk to them about my illness, to let them know that I was still emotional about events that happened months ago. I'm a capable human being; shouldn't I be over these things by now?

 I'm slowly learning not to be ashamed of my emotions, no matter what they may be. And when I did "come out," in a sense, to my friends, they were amazingly supportive. I know a lot of people say that, but it's really true in my case. There have been promises of help whenever I need it, code words indicating I need to talk about specific things, and three hour Skype sessions with lots of laughter. I'm so lucky to have such friends. I hit the friend jackpot, so to speak. You know who you are.

Let's keep this conversation open. Grab that cup of coffee, sit with me, and let's talk.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A distinct advantage

 Our second week in Delhi, much like the first, was packed with so much sightseeing and exploring that it was a relief to hit the sack every night. I haven't slept so well in a while. It's far too much to tell you about in individual blog posts, and to be honest, I think that would bore you.

Hence, I take you on a whirlwind tour of the rest of Delhi. Consider this a distinct advantage: you get to see all the historical wonders of this ancient city without sweating nearly as much as I did! Or taking two to three hour bus rides!

We begin with Humayun's Tomb, the resting place of a Mughal emperor and the inspiration for the Taj Mahal!

Raj Ghat, site of Mahatma Gandhi's cremation! This was my personal favorite place. An extensive museum traced every aspect of the wizened, saintlike hero's life, and afterward we stood in front of his funeral pyre.

A light breeze was blowing, and we all turned to face it, feeling uplifted. Granted, part of this was due to how hot we all were, but it also seemed fitting with the nature of the place, especially if you closed your eyes.

Qutb Minar, mispronounced and misspelled by me as "QuTUB Minar" on various postcards I sent! This is the whereabouts of centuries-old Hindu-Muslim ruins, hotly contested in ancient times and topped off with a massive tower:

It's also a great place to take goofy pictures with your new friends when you're tired of seeing historical monuments!

The pictures that are actually good are not taken by me, but by my lovely new friend,
the talented Rukmini Choudhury.

Once again, photo credit to Rukmini Choudhury.

And while you're there, you can certainly find six lovable new friends and decide to adopt them:

Feel free to name them Mahatma, Jena, and Nehru after India's first freedom fighters. Don't worry; when the customs officials see how cute they are, their hearts will melt.

The National Parliament, seat of the Indian government! A place of many religions, cultures, and dialects (India has 22 official languages, so interpreters are always needed) united under one national heart. After a tour of the Rajya (upper house) and Lok (lower house) (the Indian Parliament functions much like America's Congress), we attended a private talk with no less than the joint secretary of the houses. "I could get used to this," our SRCC friend Charles whispered as white-gloved waiters served us tea and cake in the Parliament press room.

The Presidential palace! India's president is mainly a figurehead, but he's still a well-respected man (the Kinks, anyone?) here. We toured the state banquet halls and receiving rooms and begged to see the famous palace gardens. Officials hustled us through a series of metal detectors and pat-downs, even though we'd already been searched extensively to enter the palace grounds. We were led up a set of stairs to a magnificent arboretum and topiary--"See, there's the garden"--and then marched back to the bus 30 seconds later. To this day I have no clue what happened. I've given up trying to understand some of the finer points of this country.

Us, not in the garden.

Iskcon, a Hare Krishna temple! We arrived just in time to participate in an evening worship. Lots of chanting-singing, clapping in time, the presentation of sweets and flowers to the gods, and crowding the front of the temple to catch a glimpse of the ornately-dressed statues. It was a singular experience, one of the most unique I've had here, and one I'm not likely to forget.

A nighttime light show at the Old Fort! This was our only evening activity in Delhi, as it's unsafe to go out alone at night, and we needed the SRCC guys with us. (Mom, I can hear you now. This was in a protected park; I was perfectly safe.) The show cleverly used the front of the Old Fort as a backdrop to showcase the history of Delhi, a "city of cities" finally united.

As you can likely tell, this was taken by me, not Rukmini Choudhury.

A really cool concept, artfully executed, except for a few things. First, there have been a lot of murders in the history of Delhi's kings. Whoever designed the light show decided to punctuate each of these murders with a bloodcurdling scream and an accompanying squelch of blood across the "screen." Multiply that scream and splatter by about 20 murders spanning several confusing centuries of Delhi history (in which servants killed kings and kings killed servants for the throne) and you have a lot of giggling among the audience.

Add to that a random dance sequence in the middle of the show, complete with whirling dervishes that turn into women and a singer that moans two notes for five minutes straight while swaying in place, and you have an audience who will mock the show the entire way home on the bus. Charles nearly toppled his plastic chair from laughing, which in turn caused me to go into hysterics as stray dogs roamed between our rows of chairs. (Mom: I did not catch rabies. I am fine.) If you're ever tempted to use drugs, just come to the Old Fort light show in Delhi for the exact same experience, sans side effects and risk of death.

Finally, the Lotus Temple! A fairly modern Baha'i temple, but nevertheless an architectural beauty.

There were no shoes allowed in the temple, no pictures, and no talking. For once, we were absolved for not making conversation, for being antisocial. We all filled in our own separate rows. Some people prayed, some people wandered around, examining the building's intricacies. I sat alone, eyes closed, and savored the sound of silence for the first time in two weeks. No horns, no English, no Hindi, no wallahs or rickshaw drivers or peacock calls. Just the Lotus Temple, and inside it me, and outside the rest of Delhi and India.

The magical, the mystical

I think I may have mentioned in a previous post how hot it is here? Allow me to reiterate that. It is hot, and what makes that even more fun is that it’s humid as well. I actually love the heat of summer, but when it’s 95 degrees and the humidity is above 90%, that is too much, people. I’ve been sweating in places on my body where I didn’t know it was possible to sweat. My clothes (and everyone else’s, lest you think something is wrong with me) are soaked by the end of the day. I read a story about India where the narrator described how the roots of her hair were wet. I can now empathize.

I apologize if that was graphic, but now you’ll understand if my face is particularly shiny and gross-looking in these pictures from the hottest day of our trip so far. You may recognize this monument. Oh yes, I’m talking about The One. The one you’ve all been asking about. The Seventh Wonder of the World. (Trying to give appropriate buildup here.)The magical, the mystical…

THE TAAAAAAAAAAJJJJJJJJJ!!!!! (Mahal, that is.)

 Yes, that’s right, folks. After a week in Delhi, we made the four-hour trek to Agra to see the world-famous site. And it did not disappoint:

The Taj Mahal is every bit as awe-inspiring, every bit as beautiful, as it is in the pictures. A quick bit of background, while trying not to bore you. (If you happen to be the world’s leading expert on the Taj Mahal, you may skip this paragraph.) Finished in 1648, the Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a maeusoleum for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. He was supposed to build an identical tomb in black across the river, but he died or ran out of money or something before he could. Today, the Taj is an Islamic holy site, which is why you have to cover your shoes before you enter.

Sexy.

I was most interested to see if the Taj’s appearance is more “real” in person than it is in pictures. Do you know what I’m saying? How, even in photographs, the mausoleum has this slightly unearthly quality of being not an actual building, but painted like a picture? I report back to you now that in person, the Taj Mahal does look like an actual, three-dimensional, very concrete structure. (When I used concrete in that last sentence, I meant the opposite of abstract. The Taj is actually made of inlaid marble.)

Of course, we had to go inside after coming all that way. The interior is surprisingly very small, dark, and crowded, with a sort of latticed marble fence surrounding the tombs of the Shah Jahan and his queen. (Did you know that the emperor’s tomb is the only non-symmetrical part of the building? Am I being annoying enough yet with all these facts?) Plus, it smells musty and funny inside, and people keep trying to make spooky noises, which echo and actually do sound spooky. After one too many sinister-sounding “oooooohs,” I was more than happy to go back outside.

I took way too many pictures, but the weird thing is how many people wanted to take pictures of me. My Uncle Mike, who comes to India often on business, warned me that as a white girl, I would get a lot of stares. The staring doesn’t bother me, but the pictures do. Many Indians, especially men, like to take pictures of or with white people. Apparently it’s a status symbol here, but to me, it’s just creepy. We haven’t seen many races other than Indian here, even at tourist sites like the Taj, so I guess I kind of understand. Kind of. Not really.

The bolder ones silently snap photos of us as we’re walking by (not trying to hide it at all, I might add). For those, I try to cover my face or turn my back. The politer (?) people do at least ask, but when I refuse, they beg: “Please, ma’am! Please!” I’ve stopped trying to be polite. I’m not an animal in a zoo! It’s really disturbing that you want a picture with me! Not to mention, what do you say to your friends and coworkers when you’re showing your pictures? “Oh, here’s me and a random white girl in front of the Taj Mahal.”

We did eventually have to leave, and it was sad, but to be honest, I was relieved. We were melting. We had been warned that the Taj tour guides will take you to shops their friends own in return for commission, and ours did not disappoint. I and several other people in my group wanted to see the Agra Fort, but noooooo. Instead, we were ushered into a shop that sells inlaid marble in the same style as the Taj.

I admit, it was beautiful, but I had already bought my inlaid marble souvenir. Plus, I’m turned off by pushy salespeople. Nothing will convince me not to buy your product faster than you pressuring me to buy it, and that’s pretty much the modus operandi here. Bored and a bit skeeved out, I wandered around and giggled and the ridiculous things made of marble that I will never buy.

Seriously, where would I put this?

On the other hand, maybe I just needed a different view of things.

Happy birthday Mom!

Another four-hour trip across the freeway commenced, with our first glimpses of rice paddies and straw huts and people sitting on the side of the busy road. We cooed over the baby monkeys chewing power lines in Agra and, after a rousing and somewhat inexplicable chorus of “Buffalo Soldier”, we were back in Delhi to begin our second week there.