Happy Holidays!

Things I Wanted to Know before Dying

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here I go with the Mayan end-of-the-world drama again.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I like making lists, and pretending I'm going to die tomorrow gives me a good excuse to make more lists. Plus, my penchant for trying to make things sound as exciting as possible (which I typically fail miserably at) means I'm a sucker for sensationalism.

So, if I pretend that I am going to die tomorrow, here are some things I would be sad about not ever finding out:

• Who is the mother of Ted Mosby's children?
• Was Django Unchained as good as it was supposed to be?
• Who wrote me that cryptic Facebook message before I moved back to Germany?
• Does Nicholas Brody ever make it to Canada?
• How much wood could a woodchuck really chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
• Why has my asthma been so bad the last year? / Why has a large percentage of my body flat-out given up on me?
• Where is the best place to buy a good mattress that is both affordable and will last me for many years to come?
• Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Because I like Memes and Grumpy Cat

Homeless: Why Giving Calgary, Love of my Life, a Second Shot was Entirely Necessary

I suppose it's kind of difficult to explain why I wanted to move back to Calgary in 2010 without you all (or most of you, anyway) knowing why I loved it there in the first place. This is probably because I haven't shared my coming-of-age story of the years 2006-7 with you yet, so let me break down the basics for you:

• I lived by myself for the first time.
• For the first time, I worked at a job I loved (and many I hated).
• I met three people who would invariably change the course of my life.
• It's when I caught the "dream big" bug.

Background: I hated Germany the first time I visited in 2004. Okay. Maybe hate is not the right word. I was okay with it, but I was desperately homesick, even though our vacation was only for three weeks. When we touched down back in Canada, though, I saw the world I lived in through new eyes, and I wasn't entirely fond of what I saw. It sure wasn't an immediate plan of mine, but I knew I wanted to go back to Germany. It was a gut thing.

Like it always does, life got in the way. After finishing college, I moved to Calgary and loved it. The best way to describe my "decision" to leave Calgary in 2007 is that it was premature. I was at the end of my rope and was 99% I'd never be able to make ends meet in a way that I could continue my life there. So, I went back home, gave up and hated it rather than actually trying to tough it out and possibly fail doing so.

I figured then it was just as good a time as any to move to Krautland. I had originally wanted to do my BA (in German and French, what a joke) and then move over, but I had put off university for so long -- what was another year or two?

So I came.

And all the while, I wondered if I had made the right decision. The move to come to Germany for a year was looking more and more permanent, and I was in a panic. Every time I went back home on vacation, I felt the pull getting stronger and stronger. I didn't want to be in Germany any more, I wanted to be home in an environment I knew and trusted with people I knew and trusted.

Most importantly, though, the whole prematurely leaving Calgary thing was eating me away. When I first moved away and back to my dad's in 2007, every time I would go back to spend time with an ex and my bestie, the fact I was away from Calgary would crush me. I spent as much time in Calgary/on the QE2 as I did at home. When I went back on visits from Germany, I'd spend as much time in Calgary as possible, wanting little more to be stuck on Crowchild in rush hour (a quick perusal through Toytown will introduce you to the fact many expatriates run around with rose-coloured glasses permanently glued to their faces).

DID YOU MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE?? DID YOU??

Despite the fact I'm one to normally make quick decisions, I rarely regret them. In fact, this is really the only one I've ever, really regretted. And it ate me alive. I do not do well with regret.

I was back home in November 2009. And it was then I decided to give Calgary another shot. Not because I was sure I'd actually be happy there, but because I needed to know if I'd missed anything.

Typical rookie expatriate mistake (and an expensive one, at that), but it was worth absolutely everything.

(I am also the kind of person who handles bad news significantly better than no news.)

It was the question that tormented me for three years that I needed answered, and asking it (even though the answer ended up being the one I wanted least) was the smartest decision I've ever made.

In all honesty, it was also kind of interesting reliving history in a way, though it was more like "My History -- The Depressing Version".

• I found my feet again with the official status of "Person Living Alone".
• I worked at a job I loved.
• Those three people who invariably changed my life the first time did not fail in solidifying their places as three of the most important people I've ever come into contact with.
• I caught the "dream bigger" bug.

Obviously, it didn't work out and I left. Again. I miss it there and I miss spending time with those three people. I do wish it had turned out differently. With all my soul, I've never wished anything so much. But, alas, that's the way it turns out sometimes, and even though I was unsuccessful in rectifying my mistakes (if that's ever even possible), giving things a fair chance was a good choice.

It also highlighted the difference a location can make on my general life feelings, and the fact if I don't love the city I'm in, I'll be a miserable wench. (See my weekly ramblings on this blog for examples *ahem*.)

Happy Last Week of Life, Everyone

 So, how have you been spending the last week of your life?

I've been working on my Master's thesis as per normal, and plan to spend the week working my little tushie off to save enough overtime hours to enjoy a mini-vacation until January 7th. Which, of course, is all for naught since we'll all be dead by Friday.

Speaking of which, I have a question...

I live in Germany. My family lives in Canada. Does this mean I die eight hours before they do, or did the Mayans figure out some way for it to be December 21, 2012 in all the world at the same time to flip the switch? Or are we all gonna be blown to smithereens one time zone at a time?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

For the land of Christmas, Germany doesn't go very all-out on the decorations the way we North Americans do. Sure, some people string lights across their balconies or put those little candle-light things in the window, but the full on house-framing, outdoor-tree-decorating, reindeer-on-the-lawn/roof stuff is largely missing from German Christmas decorating.

You know how I know I've been here too long?

I was taking the bus home last night (because I got on the wrong train since I was engrossed in my book, but that's a different story), which is always a nice thing around Christmas because you get to see house decorations on the non-main roads. So, I was looking at the lit stars and candles in the windows, when I saw a couple of trees in the yards strung with lights.

It must be a testament to how rarely that happens, because two things went practically simultaneously through my head:

1. "Huh, you don't see that every day."
2. "Are people even allowed to do that?"

Now, upon reflection of that stupid second question, the only thing I could think was why wouldn't people be allowed to put lights on the trees outside? The little voice in my head remarked "possible fire hazard"? Which, of course, makes absolutely no sense. After all, this is the country where a few good people still insist on putting real candles on their Christmas trees, while much of the rest have those electric candle lights full with melted-wax look in a safe attempt to mimic the real thing.

The thing that worries me is that my first reaction was "Is that verboten?!"

Who's officially eingedeutscht?

I am! Me! Me!

Thanks, Phil

Hooo, back in the day when I was a married person, my ex and I used to watch the Philip DeFranco Show on YouTube. I'll be the first person to admit that I hate 99.987% of YouTube personalities due to their annoying... personalities. Somehow, though, the weirdo mix of news on PDS has always made me happy, and though I don't agree with a significant amount of what is said on the show, it's still something I tune into at least once a week. Maybe out of habit. Or because I then have a 43% chance at laughing. One or the other.

Let's be honest here. As a mid-twenties-something, I'm at the awkward age of being too young to know what real life is all about (according to the older set anyway, which I suppose is true), yet I've gathered enough life experience (read: survived enough crap) to have little to nothing in common with the younger set. So, I'm brushed off as being inexperienced at life without being inexperienced enough to revel in my ignorance.

So, here's a nice video about someone else revelling in their mid-twenties-something madness...

I mean... I don't really find anything he says to be extraordinarily ground-breaking or answer-giving, but it is nice to every so often hear a voice from the mid-twenties set that makes me know I haven't completely lost it.

You know, solidarity and all that.

Leggings are not Pants

Well, it's a typical "winter" day in NRW today. Cold, rainy and dark. It's the kind of day I'd just like to curl up with some hot chocolate, a blanket and a good book. I've left out the obligatory fire in the fireplace mostly because I don't own a fireplace (electric or regular) and I've found that wishful thinking of something you can't have only increases your desire of it.

So: hot chocolate, book and blanket.

Unfortunately, just because the weather is crappy doesn't mean the world stops turning, which by extension means I have uni and work as per usual.

That said, my brain seems to have some desire to let me out of the house in sweats and a sweatshirt. Which, I mean, were I still in Canada, would be completely acceptable university attire. Since, however, I am in a land where sweatpants are normally not seen as acceptable wear for out-of-house (excluding for the Asis, I suppose), the mind automatically moves to leggings.

I mean, I understand that leggings are not pants.

Technically.

But that doesn't stop them from being my weekend wear since I won't get crazy looks for wearing them on the way to the grocery store or the post office like I would if I ran around in sweats.

So, I literally stood in front of my closet in my leggings this morning, trying for what seemed like quite awhile to decide on a shirt that would both cover my ass (leggings are not pants!) and would create an outfit acceptable to show up to work in.

Yeah. The only combinations I could come up with were pretty soccer-mom-esque/pulled straight out of the 80s.

I put a shirt on, all the while the "Leggings are not pants!" in my voice was getting louder and louder.

So, I gave up. Normal pants, but with the shirt I tried to combine with leggings just moments before. "But you wore this shirt with leggings dozens of times before!!!" says the little counter-voice in my head.

For a female who normally doesn't care too much about what she looks like (I know it shows), my battle with leggings sure makes me feel like a teenager again.

Bah.

I could use that blanket, hot chocolate and book more than ever right now.

My Bucket List, aka Brag-a-thon

So, today on Toytown, I saw a thread reminding users that, hey, since the world is ending in three weeks, it's time to evaluate our bucket lists to see what's doable in that period of time.

Considering I'm a compulsive list-maker who has at least four or five lists hanging around at any given time, you'd think one of those lists would be a bucket one. Although I did have a similar sort of list I made (what to do by 30) a few years back, I have yet to have a true bucket list.

Sure, there are things I'd like to do, see or accomplish before I die. High on my list of to-dos are getting my PhD one day, actually becoming trilingual (which means I'll actually have to end up sticking to another language long enough to move past the advanced beginner/intermediate stage), finally being able to converse in Russian and creating my own mini-library. I'd also like to actually go to Russia (China, too), live in another foreign country and maybe give marriage another shot some day. I'd also really love to publish a book, if only anyone would find my musings awesome enough to be worth their hard-earned dough.

The chances of me checking these things off some list before the world ends are pretty slim to none. I guess I'm really a sort-of long-term planning kind of gal.

Still, I was curious to see what other people put on their bucket lists. So, since I'm entirely unoriginal, I went to bucketlist.org to see what people think are awesome things to do.

I admit that there are a lot of things on there I haven't done (errrm... trying shrooms, for example), or would never, ever do (hot-air balloon ride, anyone?).

Still, I feel lucky to have done/experienced some things that other random interwebbies-strangers feel important enough to include on a bucket list.

I've learned to bellydance, have seen the Northern Lights (about a gazillion times, mind), have seen a sunrise in the desert, seen some Mayan ruins, swam with dolphins, moved to a foreign country, learned a new language, visited the Eiffel Tower, been in a helicopter, gone to a foam party and had a headbanging competition.

Since (obviously) the world is about to end, take some time to consider -- are you happy with the experiences you've had so far, and are you cool with not having done the things you always wanted to do?

If not, you have three weeks! Looks like it's time to buy that ol' PhD from one of those diploma mills I've seen advertised on the interwebbies!

Reason #1652 the Christmas Season is Awesome!

Christmas oranges.

Also known as Clementine or Mandarin Oranges, but more generally referred to as Christmas oranges by us Canucks since they appear in stores in the month leading up to Christmas, these little bundles of delights ensure I get more than enough Vitamin C. (This is particularly good since I'm sick right now.) They also ensure my fruit and vegetable intake remains extremely one-sided for a month as I power through ten to twenty or so of these lovlies per day. 

Easy to peel, no mess, no seeds... Just little round pieces of wonderfulness.

The Christmas season is awesome.

My Christmas Crutch

*spoiler* -- sappy loser alert!

For an atheist, I'm awfully into Christmas. (Don't be fooled by the fact I run around at work proclaiming that "Gott ist groß." I am just following the lead of a certain co-worker... Hello, co-workers!) Although I'm not one of those weirdos who insists on singing Christmas carols in July, November is the hardest month for me as it's the month that's almost-but-not-quite the Christmas season. If I wouldn't be as socially ostracised as I already am, the tree would totally be up on November 1st. As it is, I try to wait until the end of Rem Day. Considering I barely make it to the eleventh of November, imagine how hard it was for me to be married to an American to insist I had to wait until Turkey Day to put up the tree! (Alas, not Canuck Turkey Day, but the American clusterfuck more commonly referred to as Thanksgiving... at the end of November.)

Anyhoo, my obsession with Christmas didn't always used to be this bad. My first Christmas away from home when I was 20 included a threadbare tree with ornaments I purchased at Walmart. (My mom tried unsuccessfully to hide her disdain considering she uses top of the line Christmas decorations handmade from Germany that she inherited from my grandmother.) The year after was my first Christmas in Krautland, and my first completely alone. I decorated a potted plant (and a fake one, at that). It was sad.

For my first Christmas with my ex and my second abroad, I was determined to nest (as most housewives seem to do), and decided that I was going to do a proper Christmas with a proper Christmas tree, full of proper Christmas ornaments I purchased at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Stuttgart. Aside from my mom's taste in German ornaments, I also seemed to inherit her crappy mood while decorating the tree. By crappy mood, I mean get the fuck out of the way because she is gonna rip your head off while she hangs the garland. (There's a reason I forgo garland more often than not. Hanging lights is bad enough as it is.) The only thing I didn't inherit is her love for real trees. Actually, that's not true. I love real trees (particularly the scent), but there is no way I can keep a tree alive for eight weeks while I can barely keep my houseplants alive. Fake it is.

Believe it or not, though, my frustrations whilst decorating the tree and tree preferences weren't actually supposed to be featured in this blog post.

The thing is, I've spent the majority of the last five Christmases either completely alone or without family. It's a normal occasion that only one or two people (if anyone) see my Christmas tree, and that's saying something, since it goes up mid-November.

One of the reasons I'm so crazy about Christmas is that Christmas is my expatriate crutch.

People don't expect expatriates who don't fly home for Christmasto be well-adjusted.
People expect expatriates to be lonely at Christmas.
People expect lonely expatriates to drink a lot around Christmas.
People expect lonely expatriates to be homesick during the holiday season.

All of these things suit me just fine.

Don't get me wrong -- there is little better about Christmas in Germany than Glühwein at the Weihnachtsmarkt with the Mädels or browsing through the booths trying to find something interesting to send my parents back in Canada. The only thing that's better is setting up and taking down my tree in private (usually mid-November and on New Year's Eve, respectively).

Call me sappy, but my Christmas tree does a good job of telling some stories of the past nine years since I first started collecting ornaments. I have ornaments from my mom, my dad, my ex. Ornaments from when I was happy, when I was trying to make a home for myself for the first time, or when I was crushed. I turn on either Snowed In (don't judge -- it's a childhood thing) or the Christmas album I got from one of my best friends last year, open a bottle of wine, and for those hours when I'm either putting up or taking down the tree, I'm with family and I feel like it's finally okay to just miss the life I gave up.

I don't like Christmas because I believe in God or because I like consumerism. Actually, the second one is a lie. I like buying things, normally for myself. Around Christmas, however, I get my rocks off on buying things for people. Consumerism all the way.

I like Christmas because it represents a feeling that used to be so important to me as a child, youth and young adult that I don't have any more. So, for one month of the year (plus two weeks, if you count from the time the tree goes up), I can pretend that things are good, that I don't second-guess my choice to come here (twice) every day, and that the people most important to me aren't so fucking far away.

Buaha!

"Leider keine Karte"

Alas, I grew up in a world where it was normal to pay for a purchase of $2.43 with a debit or *gasp* a credit card. I stopped carrying around cash around the time I was twelve or thirteen, and used debit for all my purchases.

Some people will tell you that carrying around loads of cash is dangerous, if for no other reason than that you have no real way of getting your money back if you're robbed at gunpoint. You'd think this happens all the time for how often this is used as justification for paying with a card.

For me, I don't own enough cash to warrant anyone robbing me at gunpoint. Even if I carried all the cash I have in my bank account with me, I'd probably get my face blown off for only being able to offer my robber a cool 2€. "SPINNST DU?!" *bang bang*

No, my reason is much more subtle.

I hate change.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't just hate change for the typical reasons like all that coin weighing down my pockets or the fact Krauts have this awesome habit of taking twelve years to pay for their goods at DM because they need to count their seventeen cents out exactly. (Speaking of which -- why is that okay, yet me paying for something worth 4€ in 50c increments gets me a dirty stare?) Anyhoo, my reason is that I hate pennies. 5c coins are at least halfway useful. But 2c coins? 1c coins? The mere fact that both of them exist? The only time I'm pulling those puppies out is when I'm at the bakery and am buying a bun for 16c, and that's the last of what's leftover in my wallet before the first of the month.

Most annoying, though, is the fact I don't always get this far and often end up dumping the one and two cent pieces into a big jar a couple of times per month, letting them waste their copper selves into oblivion. Sure, that whole euro I've accumulated over the last year and a half isn't really that much of a waste. Nevertheless, every time I dump another six cents into that jar, I feel like crying at the fact that, had I been paying with EC card, I wouldn't have these First World problems.

*** As an interesting aside, I have actually been known to buy more than I need in order to bump my purchase up to an amount that seems reasonable to use a card for. It makes my fretting over that odd euro in my coin jar all the more laughable, really.

MUSLIM AFRICAN RE-ELECTED TO RUIN CHAMPION OF THE FREE WORLD *cough*

Thank you, majority of Americans, for giving me good news when I woke up. My liver thanks you in advance since I no longer have to start a rape-baby-gift-from-God-and-no-longer-in-the-binder-because-I'm-standing-in-the-kitchen drinking campaign.

PS -- I am fully aware of Obama's shortcomings. I don't actually like him as a president in the first place. But, in comparison to Mittens, well...

Back "Home"

As I've mentioned about a million freeking times, the word "home" is awfully fraught with complications and hidden meanings for a word that is a part of one's basic English vocabulary.

This evening, like every time I return from Allgäu, Stuttgart, or anywhere were they speak a dialect I can actually stand (don't judge, you), I exit my tram, walk down my inevitably rainy street, and wish more than anything that I was back south. The more often I complete this ritual, the more clear it becomes to me that I shrug on NRW like a heavy coat laden with issues that I just can't wait to take off again next month.

So, in a meek attempt at protest, I now text family and friends with "I'm 'home'" to let them know I'm safe and sound, at least physically if not emotionally.

PS -- I don't know when or how often I'll be posting in the next little while. Should you know me personally, you know I'm going through more than one crisis right now, the biggest of which is occurring this week. Maybe I'll talk about it one day when I'm ready to speak publicly about it, but probably not. If my grammar and spelling is worse than usual, it probably means I'm blogging drunk. This will particularly be the case if Romney starts ruining America (which, crisis itself, is unrelated to my shiznat).

The Point of No Return

I have two computers. You see, I have this really old notebook and a semi-new netbook. I got my netbook when I was fed up getting the blue screen of death on my older notebook. No matter what I did, my system kept crashing and I feared for the term papers I was writing.

I'm hardly a computer genius. Aside from wiping everything and re-installing Windows fresh, I neither knew what else to try, nor was interested in spending the money to blow a fresh breath of life into a laptop that was over three years old.

Enter my netbook.

I originally bought it because of its battery life. (Nine hours, HELLO!) That being said, I couldn't get over how slow it was. As in I would prefer dial-up slow. Still, making myself a coffee while Facebook would load was nothing compared to the fact Word would freeze anytime a document I was working on hit the twelve-page mark. (Errrm: how am I supposed to write a Master's thesis or *cough* a doctoral dissertation, then?)

It must be said that, in the meantime, I was still using my old laptop as a DVD player since I don't have a TV. Not being connected to the internet seemed to resolve the crashing problem, so I just went on my merry way with that.

I'm not really sure why I decided to try out Linux. I suppose it was a mixture of boredom and hearing coworkers and people I know rave on and on about how amazingly wonderful the whole thing is. So, I went an installed Wubi to see what all the hype was about.

It could just be a point-of-view thing, but somehow, if something is not working on Ubuntu, I see it as some sort of let me figure you out challenge, and I don't run around yelling "F-U Windows, F-U!!"

Yeah, it's probably just the attitude I go into it with.

Still, the best thing about Ubuntu is that, all the things that drove me crazy about my notebook that I couldn't figure out (mostly to do with user settings) were suddenly fixable in Ubuntu. (And Ubuntu is awesome for computer dunces like me who likely couldn't do anything more than a few basic things with the Terminal if their lives depended on it.)

I haven't been playing around with it for that long (maybe a month or so), but I finally took the plunge and did a full install of Ubuntu to get rid of Windows.

So far, so good.

That said, I suppose I'm not entirely at the point of no return considering I've still got Windows 7 running on my netbook.

Nevertheless, my primary system is now Ubuntu, and I'm happy as a clam.

(Why are clams happy, anyway? Did anyone ask them?)

So there.

Kaaaaaarl, das tötet Leute!!

 

Mein liebes Pupu,

du fehlst mir. 

-Blogger trying to cope with mega-crazy Finnish pangs these days

 

Homeless: The Questions People Ask

I've read a lot of different things about a lot of different people who have moved abroad. For both those at "home" in Canada and here in Germany who have a good sense of Heimat, my overseas moves have been troubling.

When people find out where I'm from, one of two questions invariably follows:

"Why did you leave?"
or...
"When are you going home?"

I've left places for a number of different reasons, often good, sometimes bad. One day, when I feel up to telling stories of my individual homes, the reasons I've picked up and moved so often in the last eight years may become apparent.

For now, though, I'll try to tackle these two rather loaded questions.

Why did you leave?

I don't exactly remember how the quotation I once read goes anymore, but it went along the lines of that, in order to be an expatriate, you have to be a little bit brave, and a little bit of a dreamer.

I'd say it's rather true. Perhaps it's not such a shock for people who move somewhere for a specific job (or maybe it is, I wouldn't know), but the idea of moving somewhere you don't really know, where you know nobody, have no idea where you'll find a place to live, or if you'll be able to find work to finance those rent payments can be rather scary.

It's really easy to pussy foot around the idea and plan, plan, plan. I kind of liken it to standing at an outdoor pool with a cold wind giving you goose bumps. You know you have to jump into the water, but you have no idea if that water is ice cold or blazing hot, deep, shallow, or possibly full of sharks. You've got the option of toeing the water to test it out or jumping straight in. Sometimes I wonder if it's just better to dive right in and see what you're dealing with when you've actually got to deal with it.

Moving abroad, even to a place you're familiar with, can be an extraordinary shock in both good and bad ways. It's definitely a fun, albeit expensive, way to see what you're actually made of.

That said...

Someone once told me that it doesn't matter how far away you move, you'll never be able to run away from yourself.

This is true. Believe me, I've tried.

The first time I came over here, I ran away, and wasn't all too pleased when I found out I was still stuck with myself at the end.

The other two overseas moves have happened at certain times when I couldn't take the way my life was going. (The smaller moves have had different reasons entirely.)

There's nothing like an overseas move to shock your system into trying to do something different.

And, though you're always stuck with yourself at an end, living halfway across the globe often (albeit not always) makes your old reality seem a little less real, and thus less painful. That being said, if your past still catches up to you -- which it invariably does 100 percent of the time -- you can sometimes wonder if you're going crazy because the line between what actually happened in your past life and what you wish had happened can become awfully blurred.

Still, it's hard to tell random strangers you left because you were trying to run away from yourself, even though you already knew it would never work. (Yet here I am, blogging that sort of jibber jabber away...)

So, my official reasons:

1. Canada -> Germany: I wanted to experience something new and different.
2. Germany -> Canada: I knew I wanted to go "home" eventually, so off I went.
3. Canada -> Germany: Money. Plain and simple.

All of these reasons are real and true. They just brush over the fact they were part of larger, more private reasons that ended up tipping the scales in one way or another.

That brings me to:

When are you going home?

First things first (and notice the shift from sentimental to a jerk-Kraut in training):
Why the fuck do you care when I go home? I am more adjusted to life here than many foreigners I know. The whole when-are-you-going-home thing just reeks of "Get out, we don't want you foreign beings in our pure country, mucking everything up."

Overreaction, sure. But the assumption that I'm only here temporarily drives me batty.

I mean, don't misunderstand me. Upon re-entry to Krautland, I did not sign any paper that said "I solemnly swear to stay here until my death day". I'm not entirely convinced I want to spend the next decades here. While there are a lot of super things about Germany, I'm often shocked when I look in the mirror after just five years here; the idea of adding a zero onto that five and then looking in the mirror scares the bejeezus out of me.

Still, when I left Canada the last time, I went with the conscious attitude of "enough is enough". You might get why I actually had enough the day I get around to writing some of my stories of Calgary. But, copious amounts of money required for another overseas move aside, Canada currently has nothing to offer me. It likely goes both ways.

That said, I can think of three specific circumstances I'd move back, none of which are likely to happen ever, and particularly not in the near future. So, the answer to your question is, "I'm not going home." (Read: "I'd prefer to stay in my self-induced exile for the time being, thankyouverymuch."

I haven't committed myself to Krautland for the rest of my life, but I'm not going back. Somewhere new maybe, but not back.

Now stop asking me questions, please. I'm not some weird expatriate exhibit at the zoo.

Night is upon us!

I wake up in the dark.

I walk Maxie in the near-dark.

Soon I will go to work in the dark.

I come home in the near-dark.

Soon I will come home in the dark.

All I hear about these days is how dark it is outside, as if it surprises us every single year. As fall is fully upon us and winter approaches, darkness gets to become just as fun to talk about as the weather.

"Did'ya get that? It's pretty cold and dark, eh?"

The worst part of it all is that I get sucked into it, too. It's probably got something to do with my propensity for bitching about the weather.

But gawsh, it's dark!

Mother Nature, I have two choices for you: either bring summer back, or bring on Christmas so I can start drinking Glühwein at the Weihnachtsmarkt with the Mädels!

Thank you.

Homeless, A Miniseries: Heimat Edition

So, I was walking the pup yesterday when I got to thinking about how the weather sucks here (hey, it's fall), but that those suckers "back home" already have had a snowstorm.

See, the whole "back home" thing is embedded in an expat's vocabulary, and I'm sure some expats really do think of the place they came from as "home", possibly with the desire to go back there some day.

Try as I might, I've been trying to reprogram my internal monologue to say "Canada" or "Alberta", but it's not entirely easy, and I catch myself slipping up pretty much all the time.

The reason I try so hard to avoid saying "back home" (even in my head), is that I don't really feel like Sleepy Suburb is my home anymore. It was a place, to mostly everyone's chagrin, that I would loudly talk about leaving one day, never to return. I never really liked living there in the first place, never really fitting in. Still, Sleepy Suburb is where I grew up, and there's still a pull inside me that says "This is where you're from". That being said, it's not my home, and I don't like to think of it as such. It's not where I long to go back to, and I don't get any sort of belonging feeling from being there or thinking about being there.

Aside from the presence of Tim Horton's, my family and bestie, going back to Canada on vacation also isn't "going home" per se. I'd be just as happy if those things were in the States, Mexico or China.

What I'm trying to say is that the place holds no meaning for me anymore. (Emphasis on anymore... I'll get to that sometime.)

That being said, I still don't feel "at home" where I live right now. Sure, I live here, but it's not my home, coming with all the warm feelings generated by that word.

It creates awkward conversations when Krauts ask me where I'm from, and act totally surprised when they find out I'm not dying to go back, and I don't really have any plans to go home. Ever. And then to try to explain to these Heimat-lovers that I doubt if I even have a Heimat? Does. Not. Compute.

Anyhoo, I started this blog in an attempt to come to terms with what it means to be an expatriate, and to hopefully share that information with people either from "back home" (see, there it is again!) or those who are experiencing something similar. Now, I mostly write about the weather and jerk Krauts, which I suppose is part of the whole expat-experience on a daily grind sort of level. With this mini-series, I'm going to try to look at the big picture and figure out for myself -- with all of you watching me do it -- why I feel homeless in the first place.

Some things I hope to consider in the coming weeks include:

• How much control do I have over choosing a home, and how much does a home choose me?
• How have some of the places I've lived and called home affected my notion of Heimat?
• How does my hybridity (à la Homi Bhabha) and fact I moved abroad in my early twenties affect me in my search for Heimat?
• Can I have a Heimat? And even more importantly, do I want one?

So, yeah. Have fun with my ramblings. I hope that what I'm trying to do here will be more clear after my first official post on this thing.

If you're normally stopping by to read my stories about jerk Krauts and not mind-numbingly dull soul searching, have no fear. There will be plenty of that woven through. I could never give that up!

My Ears Hurt

Every so often, I have the chance to channel my inner housewife again despite the fact I'm no longer anything like that.

Despite the fact I am now a busy bee in the public sphere and have less time to make my cuddle-atmosphere in the private one, I still like home-y sorts of things.

Except vacuuming.

I've always hated it. It's loud, hurts my ears, and I hate dragging a freeking canister around my flat, plugging and unplugging as I go.

In order to avoid my life-long hatred of vacuuming, I got a Roomba when I lived in Canada. I was quite happy about the fact I could turn it on while I took Maxie for a walk in the morning, thus killing two birds with one stone. No vacuuming on my part, and no Maxie howling at the vacuum cleaner. I tried to take the fact Roomba would always end up locking himself in my bathroom with a grain of salt.

Seeing that Roombas are much too expensive for a student budget in Germany (and why in the world would I tote along a transformer to charge my Canadian one here?), I had to get something new.

So, I got myself what seemed like a decent vacuum: the Ergorapido. Now, it may seem like the perfect thing ever. It's lightweight, has no bag (hate emptying them almost as much as I hate trying to remember to buy them) and no cord, which theoretically meant I would finally enjoy cleaning my floors. It also had excellent reviews and a good rating from the Stiftung Warentest.

I mean, in theory it wasn't bad. It was lightweight and easy to clean, but the whole "mit perfeckter Staubaufnahme" (read: perfect at collecting dust for the non-Krauts of you) is an f-ing joke. Ignoring the fact -- for just one second -- it wouldn't pick up dust or dog hair from my parquet floors, imagine my disgust at trying to vacuum carpets with that thing.

A friend who looked after Max earlier on this year even expressed her disdain at the fact you had to go over the same spot about a gazillion times to get it halfway clean, which kinda "defeats the point".

Agreed.

Needless to say, I tried -- and failed -- multiple times in the last two months to vacuum with that piece of garbage, and finally gave up. I couldn't even stand my flat anymore.

So, I went to Real to get a new vacuum. It's a Dirt Devil, half the price of the Ergo, and sounds like a plane about to take off. It also has crappy ratings for having a difficult filter to clean.

BUT it cleaned my floors.

I probably will try to avoid vacuuming with a vengeance as has been my style for the past twenty-odd years, but at least the dog hair is finally out of the carpet.

Okay, I'm off. Time to start my non-housewife-y day now.

I feel OLD.

So, being back in Allgäu last week, I took plentiful advantage of one of my favourite Allgäu pastimes.

Hiking up Grünten, you ask?

No, of course not!

I was playing copious amounts of MarioKart on Wii, silly!

There's something you should know about me and video games -- I don't play a lot of them. I think it has something to do with the fact I hate losing. It's not just a matter of disliking being the loser. No, it goes so much further than that.

Take, for example, family game nights at my childhood home. There I was, Sunday evening after Sunday evening, storming off in a fit of rage after playing Uno-Rummy Up and losing to my sister.

Screaming, tears, red-faced frustration, the whole bit.

Naturally, my dislike for losing extended (and still extends) to video games. I was never a fan of games like Zelda, Super Mario Bros., or anything that required trying to beat some sort of boss. As a kid, I was much more of a SimCity 2000 kind of girl, especially with all the cheats in hand that I could find. (This, of course, ended up extending to The Sims, where I would live out magical fantasies for my Sims who didn't have to work since I graciously gave them one million Simoleans to live off of.) I also liked playing Donkey Kong's 1-3, but only the first couple of levels that I'd mastered. By the time I'd hit Mine Cart Carnage, I was a goner.

Anyhoo, back in the days of SuperNES (yeah, remember that?), I was a big fan of MarioKart. I always lost anyway, but for some reason it didn't bother me in that game. I was always jealous of friends who had the game on N64 when it came out, because I was not only still playing on SuperNES, but since my parents hadn't bought the game for me and my sister, we were still renting it whenever we could at the video store.

So, MarioKart has always been my favourite video game excepting the whole Sim-bit. So I love playing it when I go to Allgäu. Especially on the internet with those losers who are still playing it after umpteen years and have about 9000 points to their Mii's name. Losing (possibly partially because I still insist on playing Peach, though I've recently been testing out Toadette) still doesn't really faze me, and I've started to accept Rainbow Road as a beautiful thing rather than the subject of my (Mii's) demise.

But, yeah... My point about being old. On one particularly drunken evening, we decided to pull out N64 for a go on MarioKart.

WTF.

How in the world did we (as humans) play with graphics like that?! How in the world was this some sort of awesome step-up that was state-of-the-art in comparison to SuperNES ?!

As if Peach's "here we gooooo" wasn't enough to drive one silly, the graphics are ridiculous. In the back of my tipsy mind, I thought that there could perhaps be a problem with my vision, and the game was just as amazing as it was in my pre-teen memory. So, I tried again the next day in a more sober state of mind.

Alas, the graphics are just crap.

(In Nintendo's defence, it was 1996, after all. You know... Like before Titanic even came out the first time in theatres?)

Then I started thinking about other technologies I grew up with.

• I learned DOS to operate my family's first computer.
• The best thing about WordPerfect was getting to print out things on that paper you had to tear the sides off of.
• S., T. and I used to sit on dial-up forever so we could go in the official Hanson chat room. (Don't you judge! I hear you judging!)
• We used to play The Oregon Trail at school and save our progress from Number Munchers on a floppy.
• I used to love playing Dr. Mario on NES. Yeah. NES.
• We were using ICQ loooong before MSN even came along.
• My first laptop was bigger than most PCs, and definitely just as heavy.
• Back in high school, we used Nexopia and not Facebook. (Well, actually we used Enternexus. And who knew that the site was Canadian? Ahhh, maybe that had something to do with it?)
• And the list goes on...

I suppose it's worse for people who grew up without computers. Nevertheless, it's been interesting to go from my Motorola peanut phone, to wondering who the heck would text in the first place since "It's faster just to call", to wondering who the heck would need internet on their phone, to sleeping with my Blackberry.

Seeing the graphics on N64 made this rather clear to me, believe it or not. Otherwise, I've just been living in some sort of technology bubble without thinking how this all happened.

Anyhoo, not really any point to this all, except that I feel like a technology dinosaur. Also, I am torn between wanting to stick with MarioKart on Wii or better for the rest of my life and trying to get hold of a SuperNES copy to see how bad it really was.

What does your mail say about you?

Okay, wacky topic, but maybe I'm disillusioned (or paranoid) enough after seeing my fair share of postal workers deliver my mail to my door in person (usually in combination with a package). Rifle through the different pieces of mail, raise eyebrows, and hand the mail to me with a smirk.

I'm probably just paranoid. The response probably has less to do with my mail and more with the fact I usually answer the door in my pyjamas and have a howling dog on the other side of the door who happens to hate doorbells more than anything else in the world.

I mean, it's obvious that anyone's browsing history would give away some embarrassing secrets about habits and interests. (I, for one, have been recently recommended to watch "flying dachshunds" on YouTube, FWIW.)

I guess my mail, though, would probably give a fair look into my life, albeit excepting the hints to my ridiculous YouTube watching habits.

So, I invite you to sort through my mail with me! Yay!

• Bank statements: I apparently do not keep my money hidden under my mattress.
• Letters from the Canadian Government: Ausländerin.
• Der Spiegel: I am an Ausländerin who can read German at a fairly reasonable level. (Note the lack of a Deutsch Perfekt abo in my mailbox.)
• Lotta and Clara: I'm a socialist, and most likely a feminist, to boot. (*oh the horror!!*)
• The American Historical Review: I am a historian (or trying to be). I am also apparently bilingual since I can read academic texts in English and the Spiegel in German. Since I'm also a Canuck, the jury's out on joual, but I guess you all know the real answer to that one.
• Paperwork from my local Stadtwerke: I either subscribe to electricity or gas, which means I probably don't live in the dark. (You may think this is trivial, but you try living by candlelight!)
• Paperwork from Uni Köln: STUDENT ALERT! I must really be struggling to pay my energy bills! Still, combining this paperwork with my AHR subscription, chances are good I study history.
• And, of course, various other bills that point to my student status.

See? Sorting through mail is fun! It's also horrifyingly revealing about me as a person.

So, there you have it. I'm a bilingual foreigner from Canada studying History in Germany who happens to be a socialist and a feminist. I also do my best to pay my bills. It can also be assumed I do so, since I haven't included bill collectors in my mail-list. All this information is open to the random who delivers my mail.

It seems the only thing my mailman doesn't know about me is that I watch ridiculous dachshund videos on YouTube. Or watch the Season 6 promo of Gossip Girl OVER AND OVER. T-minus three days, yoop!

The System

One of the hardest things about getting work experience in Germany is that you often need German work experience to get it. The kicker is that not only do you need German work experience, you need the right kind of German work experience.

As I'm sure 99.8% of you all know, I'm not exactly in one of those highly sought-after fields that gobble up foreigners who can't speak a word of German to save their lives. Not only am I attempting to enter a field that is known for spitting out the brightest, most well-connected people out like garbage, I'm attempting it as a foreigner with a colourful past.

Okay, my past isn't colourful as in "I have made my living until now in some illegal sub-sector of the economy", but as in "I am a foreigner who has happened to not only skip the globe a couple of times, but also take the sad advice of doing what other people thought I 'should' be doing, rather than focusing on what makes me happy."

It's not as if I haven't worked. I've worked, done very well at it in most jobs, and enjoyed it. I've developed weird interests like filing and fixing/writing company e-mails that go out to clients and customers that don't come around unless you've ever worked in an office environment.

Unfortunately, these roughly eight years of job experience account for nothing here since a) they're in the wrong field, b) I'm studying humanities and therefore am not "qualified" to do what I've done the last eight years, and c) I don't have a fucking piece of paper saying I performed x-activities for x-years.

The job search is a tough one for a lot of expatriates, and even if you speak the language and don't have visa issues, it's not necessarily a walk in the park.

Still, my year and a half of perseverance has paid off, and I now have two jobs.

Yay for me!

Except for the fact they're still not considered official work experience most of the time because they're student jobs.

You try getting a non-student job as a student.

Hello, catch-22.

I don't know. I mean, what I'm doing feels like work, and I'm apparently getting paid to do it (albeit at the student wage that's actually below the minimum wage in all Canadian provinces, including rip-off-Alberta (where I'm from). I'm also using some of my past non-work-experience to do it.

But really, I suppose it's not fair to always be bitching about it.

I mean, if I were in Canada with a Master of Arts degree in my field, I can guarantee you that my job prospects would be 0 (you know, overqualified for my experience and under-qualified for what I'm actually trying to do), and I would be begging to answer phones for 8 bucks an hour.

...On some illegal sub-sector of the economy, of course, since I wouldn't technically be allowed to work for that wage in Canada anymore.

Germany, your system is stupid. But I'm going to play along anyway, because 8 bucks an hour is better than 0. Besides, my jobs are actually awesome! But you know me... Always find the less-awesome side of the coin and complain about it. So isses.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Hiking

So, about a week ago, I was in Allgäu with the 'rents and my puppy.

Unsure of what to do on a Friday night, it was decided that we would all do an evening hike of a smaller mountain! Yay!

Why such a small mountain, you ask?

Well, to the chagrin of M., I always show up in Allgäu in non-hiking-appropriate footwear. You know, like the leather shoes that everyone runs around in over on my side of the country. To M.'s triple-chagrin, both of my travelling companions were in even less hiking-suitable footwear than me. (Read: Sandals and newer leather walking shoes.)

Therefore, we chose to hike a smaller mountain of around 200 metres or so.

And thus, I present to you an Allgäu hiking edition of "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"!

GOOD:

• My dog cannot only hike mountains, he's f-ing amazing at it. Perhaps he didn't really tire because he's so low to the ground and thus doesn't notice he's going up a steep slope. More likely, he's just a tank and can handle jagged rocks like one of those mountain-running champions. My lovely trooper, I've never seen anything like that before in my life... I wish I had pictures of a Dackel manouvering jagged rocks triple the size of him like a champ.
• I used to hike a lot when I was 18. You know, backpacking, camping and that sort of thing. A nice combination of my asthma getting worse and a nasty break-up led to the fact I haven't done ANY hiking since then. Despite the fact I had to take my inhaler every five feet not because I was out of breath in the "I can't do this" way, but because my asthma is about a quadrillion times worse than it was a decade ago, I am very impressed at the fact doing nothing can still allow my legs to go, go go!

BAD:

• Lots of nice dairy products come from Allgäu. This unfortunately means there are lots of cows in the mountains. I mean, I get this is an Allgäu thing, but I am used to hiking in the Rockies in silence, save a few animal growls in the distance, bear bells tinkling from passers-by, or people singing in the absence of bear bells. The whole "klang-klang" was not necessarily terrible, just a little off-putting.
• Of course, going up a steep trail in leather shoes is fine. I've worn those puppies in! BUT: Going up a steep trail of jagged rocks covered in mud in leather shoes without grips on the bottom is not really fine. So, what do I do? Pretend I'm a yeti and take off my shoes. Yeah, that's right. Barefoot up the mountain!

UGLY:

• As awesome as it was going barefoot up the mountain, going barefoot down jagged rocks while having a Max-who-just-couldn't-get-enough on the other end of the leash pulling me down was not included in my definition of a fun evening hike. Pray, what is better? Sliding down a mountain because of non-grippy shoes, or slicing your feet up? No worries, I did both!

Guess who's bringing their decade-old hiking boots on their next trip to Allgäu??

Half a Decade

September 5th this year marks five years since I first moved across the pond. My Germany today wasn't the same as it was five years ago, not by a long shot. When I make the comparison to what I experienced eight years ago when I first came here on vacation, I feel like I can't even make a comparison because things are so different. The only things that are similar are pretzels with butter and that ridiculous tetra-packed shelf-milk that sits on my shelf until I'm ready to put it in the fridge.

It could also just be that I become more aware of certain things the longer I get here.

Still, there are some significant things that I've noticed in the last five. Let's play show and tell!

• You can get Froot Loops here now. I remember my first couple months here, when my ex brought me Froot Loops from the Commissary in Stuttgart, and I just about wet myself with happiness every time I took a bite from that lovely box. (Oh wait. I mean the Froot Loops box. Hey-oh!) That being said, I probably still would have the same reaction today, since I have little to no inclination to shell out money for something that costs around 10,00€/kg.
• Come to think about it, certain foods are just all-round easier to get here. It's not like I couldn't get them before, but I no longer have to hunt and comb stores for: maple syrup, peanut butter, SHREDDIES and baking soda.
• I see people running around the streets every so often in sweat pants. I see little girls running to school in sweats and runners; little girls running around in thick tights and dresses seem to be more the exception than ever.
• That being said, I see a growing Americanization everywhere. Whereas people used to wear proper trousers, everyone including their grandparents are wearing jeans, running shoes and t-shirts. My mom is coming to Germany to visit, and upon advising her packing list, she was in disbelief that things had changed so significantly in eight years. And the consumerism. Whatever happened to the schwäbisch Sparen, Sparen, Sparen! ?? Even they hit Königsstraße with a gusto!
• Trigger warning for the menz: I remember running around for hours upon hours when I first moved here looking for tampons with applicators. Sorry, but I've never been okay with the ob/finger deal. Still missing are plastic applicators, but I'll get over it. Maybe in the next five, eh?
• Sundays are different now. Bakeries are now open on Sundays in many places. Just not in Möhringen in Stuttgart. Imagine my surprise when walking Maxie one Sunday morning whilst visiting friends, dying of hunger, with no open bakery in sight. We NRW-ians are spoiled.
• You still get your average Kraut running around about the Ruhezeit, but I've noticed this happens less and less often. Being silent between the hours of 13:00 and 15:00 is also becoming less important. Hell, some people even do their laundry on Sundays these days! The horror!
• Just when I got used to the faintly comforting smell of Persil, I noticed that they now have regular Waschmittel with a scent. I mean, sure, there was always fabric softener, but the smell never really stuck to the clothes, so I never worried about it. I remember when I lived down south, my American neighbour would always smell me when I came over because -- having PX privileges and all -- I smelled strongly of lavender and vanilla fabric softener. No, it wasn't as creepy as it sounds. I admit I only tried the Lenor soap because it was on sale and cheaper than my regular Persil, but every time I take something out of the closet and put it on, the smell of orange blossoms shocks and awes me every single time. Especially because it lasts through wearing, too. Boah. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Ambivalent. That's how I feel about it. I like it, but it just feels so wrong. Yes, I know you have no idea what I'm talking about.

But those are just things. For me, both so many things have changed while nothing has changed at all. I'm no longer a 21-year-old exploring a new country and culture. I'm in my mid-twenties, and while that isn't old, I feel like Germany has aged me dramatically into a nagging, ordentlich Kraut who follows rules without fail.

"Hey, you! Do not cross the street on red! What will the children think?! Yes, I realize there aren't any children around, but there could be! Don't break the rules! Jaywalking is VERBOTEN!!!"

I still can't stand 97% of Krauts I meet, and I'm still not sure if I dislike it here, am just ambivalent, or am only here because it's cool to tell people that you're living in Europe, even though it's one of the least special characteristics ever.

Oh yeah, and I can't really speak English anymore. I've long given up on genders for German nouns, and thus speak some sort of Denglish with most people. You know, English sentence structure, German nouns, and a mix of German and English verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

"So, I went spazieren with Max, and dann I saw this Stück Brot on the grass, and had to pull Max weg since he tried to eat it. Er war soooo sauer auf mich, but seriously, es gibt people who are putting razorblades or Gift inside things to make dogs tot."

The worst thing about the whole Denglish thing is that 95% of people I converse with on a (semi-)regular basis are German-English bilingual, so there is no reason for me to give up this nonsense.

So, yeah. There's me five years later. Degenerating and ambivalent.

Funsies, oder?

Errrm... Random

I've always been a big fan of fall. As nice as the heat and sun of summer can be, the beginning of fall somehow feels more productive, retaining enough of the nice weather that you can both get to wear new fall clothes, yet can still pull out a summer tank-top for afternoon/evening drinks with friends.

In theory.

I mean, I neither have new fall clothes (and probably haven't bought any since my second year of college), and I don't have the disposable income at hand for after-work cocktails, but it's the idea I'm in love with. You know, the fact I could do it if I really wanted to.

Or something.

Anyhoo, as much as I like summer, the period between the end of August and Christmas is the best time of the year.

Fall, back to school/uni (although, unless I am able to continue teaching at uni for awhile, it looks like my days are numbered for that one), Canadian Thanksgiving, weather finally gets cold and dreary, as soon as weather gets cold and dreary comes the Christmas season.

Did I mention the changing of the leaves is also one of my favourite features of this time of year? This is compounded by the cool fact this happens over months in my neck of the woods and not in a week like back home?

Anyway, the air is wonderfully crisp, and it's now dark again when I take Max out at six in the morning to do his business. No rollos + fall = more sleeping time in the dark.

(And who said historians can't do math?)

Maybe the rapid decline in temperature despite somehow being a little warm reminds me enough of home that the weather has put a sock in my homesickness this morning.

Did I mention I'm homesick again?

FFS, it's been almost five years since I left the first time. People always say that, as more time passes, trips back home will become less and less frequent, and homesickness will start to fade. For me, though, this year marks the first time I've actually gone home twice, and it's only the end of August. (Though I won't be going back again this year. My wallet can say that much.)

To be honest, I'm starting to feel a little bit desperate about the whole situation.

Okay, deep breath. Focus on how wonderful fall is. Focus on how wonderful fall is.

Ahhhh, okay, I'm better now.

(And yes, in looking quickly over this post I realize how random it is. Props to you if you can follow my thoughts. If not, well, let's just say I don't blame you. I'll try to refrain from blogging at 6:30 in the morning from now on, emphasis on the word try.)

Back Home

I'd like to say that the past week was sort of my bridge week between vacation and the real world. I spent last week in the wonderland that is Allgäu, giving myself time to get back into academic-mode without the pressure of laundry, flat-cleaning and other things that come with living in your own flat.

So, while I managed to churn out an entirely adequate fifteen pages of text, I also managed to do some things that make me sublimely happy:

- Catching up on an entire season of Army Wives. (Yeah, I got addicted when I was an army wife. Sue me.)
- Playing MarioKart on the Wii most evenings and being amazed that there are still enough people playing on the internet with each other.
- Enjoying staring out the window at Grünten.
- Spending time with one of the most important people in my life.
- Eating copious amounts of good food I would never buy for myself such as Smarties yogurt, peppers stuffed with cream cheese, popcorn and watermelon (Like it was a bowl of ice cream. Please see below.)

 

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind of getting up at 5:30 rather than a comfortable 8:00. What does my week consist of? Work, rushing to get papers done and handed in, and trying to arrange my flat in a presentable manner for when my mom and step-dad come to visit next week. (!!)

 

So... Yay for that. I guess.

(I just want more watermelon.)

It tooks me 26 years to realize the benefits of a real vacation.

When it comes to my education (which could also be called: "fear of the real world" or "never-ending pursuit of intellectual fulfillment"), I work relatively hard. I take classes at a distance university on the side for funsies, and I exclusively read secondary literature for projects on the train. In the last years, I've gone on plenty of "vacations", which were normally marked by me only working three or four hours per day on university work in a foreign country rather than most of the day at home.

I don't do it because I have to. Almost everyone I know gets by on far less.

I do it because I love it.

Still, that being said, I'd been at my breaking point for awhile. As much as I looked forward to my trip to Montreal, it scared the hell out of me since I'd promised myself twelve days without work. Why, you ask?

Because the last time I took a break like that was after my BA, and I was so bored after a week that I enrolled in distance courses just to give my brain something to do other than go to work and sit in front of the TV for a couple hours before going to bed. That drove me mad.

I admit, there were times in the last weeks when I just wanted to cruise JSTOR for some literature, and if I'm being honest, I did do a teeny, tiny bit of primary source research for an article I'm writing.

Yeah, I cheated. I did about an hour of work in twelve days, which officially marks the laziest I've been in years.

It's been a slow go getting back into it. Yesterday, I only managed some reading. Today, though, I'm back into writing, and am already a good thousand words into my day. I feel better again, a bit like I did this time last year before things really started piling up. The joy is back in it, and I'm grateful.

I recognize it took me going away and leaving my books behind, but I'm so glad I actually took a "real" vacation for once.

Yay for vacations! When's the next one?

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Montreal

Hello, friends!

So, the last two weeks I was in Montreal on vacation! Yay! The trip was booked rather spontaneously (like most of my trips to Canada seem to be). Rather than giving a boring play-by-play on the happenings across the pond, I thought I'd provide my rundown in the style of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". Now, I realize this is a really old movie, but since I first learned about the whole thing from short daily news clips The Bear used to play when I was a kid, I'll do it that way. Maybe that's similar to the movie. I wouldn't know. I'm not really a fan of older movies, tbh.

So! Montreal!

GOOD:
- Come on. It's Canada!
- The people I saw. LOVE LOVE LOVE!
- Double-doubles flowing in an almost unlimited fashion.
- My first vacation away from homework or other work in years.

BAD:
- Understanding not a heck of a lot more than I manage in Finland. I mean, except when I watched the TV on loud with no other distractions. Then I was fine.
- Leaving to come back to Germany.
- The humidity and being just as wet when you're already out of the shower as you were in it.

UGLY:
- Montreal. Seriously. I have no freeking idea how these people find this place "beautiful". When I was living in Calgary, all I ever heard was about how "European" Montreal is, yet still retaining a good mix of Canadian and North American aspects. I'm sorry, but the only thing "European" about Montreal is the two or three buildings sticking out in the skyline that could be older than my grandfather. A few old buildings does not a European city make. Uglier? Hearing people in the airport who were on business in Montreal saying that the city's "European-ness" is what makes them love coming back a couple times a year. Oh well, they were from Atlanta. Guess that comment should be taken with a grain of salt, all things considered...

Greetings and Salutations to the Interwebbies

Well, hey there! Long time no see!

Where have I been, do you ask?

In a statistics class that ran thirteen days straight without a break!

Basically, I now feel like I got hit by a sack of hammers. Actually, I've been feeling that way for twelve days now. You know, it's funny -- it feels so strange not to be going to school tomorrow morning. It seems like I've been living this routine for so long, I don't even know what my life before looked like anymore.

I always used to laugh at those people on Survivor (yes, I know you're laughing at me right now) who would go on about how, at the beginning, it's exciting to get to know everyone and everything, but at the end, you are sick of everyone's stories and just want to go home. I mean, sure, we had the added luxury of actually getting to go to some sort of bed at night/didn't have to sleep at a campfire in a torrential rainstorm whilst laying on rocks, but yeah. There's only so much you wanna hear about people's dissertations, empirical research, hopes and dreams, etc.

Sure, there's a couple people I actually enjoyed spending time with through the whole thing, but yeah.

Ah, well.

I'm not gonna bother recapitulating my weeks for you. A lot happened, and there were a lot of times I wanted to write something (be it happy, sad or funny), but, frankly, after a 9-5 day of stats and computer-staring, the last thing I felt like doing was coming home, opening up my laptop, and writing a virtual message to you fine people out in the interwebbies.

No offence.

But I'm alive, a little worse for the wear (I suppose I will heal eventually), and have sore arms after trying to carry 20kg of groceries home in a flimsy plastic bag/not in a plastic bag because cornflakes boxes are awkwardly shaped.

So yeah. I'm off to shower before watching Mr. Phelps swim one of the last swims of his career.

Life in the Rainforest

Blame Canada!

No, blame me!!

No matter where I am, that's where there's a guarantee of crappy weather! Don't believe me? Germany's last heat wave was when I was sitting through the non-summer in Calgary a few years back. By non-summer, I mean I still had my seat warmer on in August. Winter last year was unseasonably cold. No matter, though -- as soon as I took off to Canada, Cologne warmed right up and I headed into an abyss of -50. Now, Canada's got a heatwave, and I live in a rain forest.

I don't actually mind the rain. I mean, sure, I would prefer to see some summer before the rain starts in the fall. Oh... wait, never mind. But this isn't about how I hate the unpredictability/extremeness of weather.

Welcome to how I spend my days in the rain forest!

• The nice thing about summer is not having laundry pile up when you are waiting for the previous load to dry on the rack on the balcony. It's been five days, though, and everything is still damp out there. I may as well give up on that one...
• I took Maxie to the vet yesterday. As usual, he was not impressed at the notion of needles. I was not impressed by the fact it started pouring as we walked from the train stop to the vet (and only then was it raining, mind), so I got to lift a wet/dirty Maxie onto the cold metal table, and try to hold a wet/dirty Maxie in place while the vet poked around. Ironically enough, Maxie was so pissed off from the stethoscope, he didn't even notice when he got his booster shot. Until he spent the rest of the day crying and limping around like a wuss, that is. Nice.
• I don't believe in rain gear. I've lost my third umbrella, and I just give up. The cheap ones just turn inside out in the rain, and there's no way I'm spending 40 yoyos on an umbrella I'm liable to lose within a couple of months. It's this exact same reason I don't buy sunglasses that cost more the 7 yoyos. I've also twice tried out the concept of rain boots to avoid sock-changing before going out after walking Maxie, but they go bust so quickly, it's not even worth the money. Also, people get wet when they go in the shower. Why are we so against getting wet in the rain? Das war aber viel auf einmal!
• When I take Maxie out to go to the bathroom when it's raining, he will inevitably prance through the mud, and then stand in the grass with a confused expression on his face for an extreme amount of time rather than just doing his business. If I ask him what's taking him so long, he looks at me defiantly.
• I'm glad the water level went down the last couple weeks on the Rhein. I was starting to worry that it would flood out to the point I'd have to find a new walking-route for Maxie and me. It looks as if this may be once again a concern of mine, and I thought I was off the hook until September. Ha. Ha.
• Too much rain, too few thunderstorms.
• Nevertheless, rain is a good excuse for hot chocolate. Bring on the cocoa, baby!!

No, We're Not Actually Nice

This morning, whilst checking my news feed on Facebook, I got a little upset.

You see, a friend of mine has proclaimed love for the United States because of how friendly everyone is there.

(Dear friend: I'm not being a passive-aggressive Kraut by bitching about you on my blog behind your back. I really actually was going to write a condensed version of this on your post, but I figured that may have created quite the negative reaction. So there you go.)

We all like stereotypes. I know I like stereotypes. (Didya see my super-sneaky use of "passive-aggressive Kraut in the above paragraph?) Back in my days of Social Psych, before I finally got my head around the fact I suck at multiple-choice exams and thus would never make it successfully through a Psych degree, we learned all about how necessary for our tiny little pigeon brains it is to stereotype, since if our brains would overload and explode if they had to always process new information every time they came across it.

Or something to that effect.

But anyhoo, I am fully aware stereotypes are sometimes true, sometimes not true, sometimes wacky. But I digress.

Americans are not friendly, just like Canadians are not nice and Germans are not passive-aggressive (unless, of course, they are engaging in Nachbarkrieg... just some samples from distressed expats). I mean, some Americans are friendly, some Canadians are nice, and some Germans (damn skippy) are passive-aggressive.

From a Canadian (which, if you ask anyone except Canadians, may very well be taken as an American):

People aren't any nicer or friendlier in North America than they are elsewhere. They will, however, engage in copious amounts of small talk, smile a lot, and act overly polite when they mean anything otherwise. It's how we were raised.

Mother to Johnny: "Now, Johnny, that's not nice! Say you're sorry to the old man who stepped on your foot and complained about it! Wish him a nice day!"
Johnny to Old Man: "I'm sorry, Sir. I hope your day gets better." *through gritted teeth, wishing the old man nothing but a slow, painful death*

Okay, yeah, exaggeration, but whatevs.

Since we're gonna play the fun stereotype card today, I'll just come out and say that I actually like that most Germans don't get friendly-friendly with you right from the beginning. Then you know where you stand. If a German gets nice with you, you know that you've made a friend. In Canada/US, if someone starts getting snippy with you and being a general jerkface, you know you've made a friend because now you get to see what they're really like. I guess I've been gone long enough that, when I'm back home on vacation and a teller/cashier is nice to me, all they get is a bewildered look back that says, "Hey, dude, why are you smiling at me? I don't wanna be your friend!"

Okay, moral-of-the-story time.

Americans are not nicer than anyone else. They're just pretending to be. Don't be fooled by appearances. It's all just a different social game than over on the other side of the ocean, and it's a facade.

Thank you for your time.

Hartz IV-Empfänger

Ahhh, the end of the semester!

I know it's not actually the end of the semester (I have way too much to do in the next three days for that), but today is officially the first day where my alarm clock went off, as usual, for Monday morning class and I got to grumble, "Heh, heh, FU."

Speaking of which, I should probably turn the clock off so I don't have the same thing next week when it actually is semester break.

Anyhoo, I like summer break for a lot of reasons. I mean... it's not actually a break, but it's still fun to change my sleep schedule from early-up and early-bed to medium-early-up and late-bed. Morning person as I am, I write best at night, which kind of cramps my Grandma-style-in-bed-by-9 thing I have going on during the semester. All that extra time also means I can twiddle my thumbs all day and not feel guilty about it, knowing I'll be working six to eight hours straight that evening. It also usually means trips to Finland (though that comes later this year), but does definitely mean a visit from my Momma!!

Here's a potpourri of why I like summer:

• Even when the weather's bad, it's not -20 and snowing.
• Crappy weather? No problem. I love walking in the rain, as long as it's not to class.
• The sun is still shining a long time, but not obnoxiously till 23:00.
• I get really productive because I can write nights.
• Even though I actually end up working more than during the semester, since rarely have anything jamming up my schedule, I can work when I want to, which is far more relaxing.
• Maxie is happy because I am with him almost every day.
• I am happy because I get Maxie snuggles most of the day almost every day.
• Ice cream
• Fruit is on sale at the supermarket. Nectarines 750g for 89c! Woowoo!!!

And, for good measure, why I like this summer in particular:

• I no longer live in the 'hood, so there aren't children running around screaming all night in the streets. This means I might actually get to write something, and who knows? Maybe I'll even be more productive!
• I may have to do that statistics course, but I'm also working on two books (authoring articles for both and editing for one), which makes me feel like one of those "productive" members of society that somehow lives with a purpose.
• My Mooma is coming! My Mooma is coming!
• You know the other reason. And therefore know why I'm not running around, publishing it on my blog. I made that mistake on Facebook already. Oh the horror!!

The only thing I don't really like about summer break is taking Maxie out to do his business in the mornings. When I'm up during the semester (sometime between 5:30 and 6:00), I feel like a normal (read: productive) member of society who is just taking their dog out to do their business in sweats before getting off to work to feed the tax machine. It's kind of embarrassing, though, going out with crazy hair and sweats at 7:00 in the morning while everyone is already on their way to work in their fancy cars.

Last year, I'm pretty sure the neighbourhood thought I was a Hartz IV recipient. (For my non-German friends, see here.) I mean, when I first moved in, I was gone reasonable hours that ensured I could have at least been going to some kind of part-time job. Summer, though? Ha. I was always around. And the neighbours always were staring when Maxie's morning business became a later and later event. (I lived in a village. This is what people do, amirite?)

I mean, I suppose I could argue they were the Hartz IV-Empfänger since they were spending the day watching and criticizing me.

But, whatevs.

New city, new neighbours to think I'm a lazy git on Hartz IV.

I wish... I'd be living the high life compared to this. (Minus the random and impulsive trips across the globe, of course. It'd suck to give those up.)

Happy summer break, friends! (Yeah, not yet, but you all know how I like jumping the gun...)

A Student's Rant

I've been a student for a long time. I've been in and out of university for the better part of eight years, which is pretty much all of my adult life. I did, of course, take some time off to work, too. (Oh yeah, and move to Germany)

I had a situation a couple of weeks back where someone I know said to me that students have it so easy. We don't really do anything, and we just basically live life like one big party. The real hard thing in life, according to this person, is working at a real job, and not some part-time, twenty-hours-per-week sort of gig while "studying" on the side.

I really took offense to that. I mean, sure, there are students who don't do much else other than sit around, go to lectures occasionally, work occasionally, and party a lot. Maybe because I finished my four-year BA in around two years and am now a graduate student, I don't really get what the undergraduate student experience is really supposed to be all about. I do know my fair share of people who don't do a heck of a lot and manage to squeak by somehow.

But the thing is, I find such an attitude detrimental to those of us who are working fucking hard for our degrees. I have friends who go to school full-time, work those twenty-hour-per-week gigs (and why doesn't this count as "real" work, exactly?), and still somehow manage to get great grades. They're also always really fucking busy.

Then there are people like me. You know what? I don't work. (Oh no! The horror!!) I study full-time, and I'm taking sociology courses on the side so I can become a better social historian. And statistics classes, to boot. No, I don't work. For money. I work my fucking ass off, reading, on average, at least one textbook a day and aim to write at least 1000 words of text for some paper I've got on the go. Every. Single. Day. Yeah, I sit around and watch Mad Men. I also take my dog for a walk for at least an hour a day. And I spend at least a regular eight-hour working day filled with schoolwork.

The difference between my day and your working-life day?

You get up, go to work, and go home. Then you have "you" time. I get up, dilly dally, go to university, get home, dilly dally, write, read on the train, and work some more. You work five days a week. I work seven.

I am always on the go. Always.

I know it may seem like this, but I'm not actually trying to go on a "studying is worse/harder than working" rant. I don't think that distinction is possible. I just think it needs to be acknowledged that they're so different.

I mean, I get it. I've worked your standard 37.5 hour a week gig before. It's not easy. You have a fixed schedule, are chained to your work and often end up counting down the seconds till you can log off your computer and go home. Working destroys your soul. Students, in contrast, can work whenever the hell they feel like it (showing up for classes excepted) and can fly off on vacation at a whim. Although it's not recommended, it's entirely possible to do absolutelyfuckingnothing for three weeks and then cram everything into seven days. I admit this one of the things I like best about being a student -- the flexibility. But the price of that flexibility is that you're always working. And when you're not working, your planning and thinking about the work that needs to be done. Or procrastinating, I guess admit.

In fact, when I was working a "normal" job, I was so used to student life that having two days every week to myself without anything that had to be done was extremely strange. It was uncomfortable. It was so uncomfortable, in fact, I signed up for classes at a distance university just so I would have something to do with all that time.

Yes, I know most people aren't weirdos like me.

While I would agree (to a point) that working for pay can be more exhausting than studying, mostly due to the time constraints and restrictions (Would I sit at my computer and study for eight hours straight with two fifteen-minute coffee breaks and a half-hour for lunch? No.), you get time for yourself in big blocks of time, which is something students don't get.

I'm talking about the student experience right now, not because I don't believe the other side isn't difficult, but because I think our side needs to be brought to light every so often. Especially when people think we sit on our asses and twiddle our thumbs all day. Or, rather, get drunk and boink all day. Man, wouldn't that be the life?

And as a response to the disbelieving remark of "Don't you work?!"

You know what I did today?

I woke up at 6:30am, handed in a paper to a professor, wrote up and e-mailed my theses for my upcoming oral exam to my professor, read a textbook, cleaned the flat, studied for my oral exam, took the pup for a walk, had lunch (at 5:00pm, mind you), and wrote a book review. It's now 10:00pm.

Did my "work" day include more than eight hours of work? Probably not.

But it's been a long-ass fucking day, and that's how almost all of my days go. As do other students'.

So please stop berating us.

We're working hard, too. (And who says we can't take a day or two off every so often, either? You get two a week!)

Goodbye, Hobo Flat!!

Today I gave up my flat. Lucky for me, I got out of the contract because it's in desperate need of renovation, and the sooner they gut the place, the sooner they can rent it out for an escalated price. Important for me, though, is that I don't have to pay double rent anymore. Yay!

I am definitely in love with my new flat, and the only thing I was fond of about my old, hobo one was that since it was in the sticks, no religious nutters came to the door. Actually, that's not true. Those Catholic children with the little signs for the doors came last year. It was heartbreaking shutting the door in their sad little faces when I said I didn't want a sign, but you do what you gotta do, I guess. (That is hide behind the door and pretend you're not home, I mean.)

I'm trying to say that leaving was bittersweet, but it wasn't actually. It was just sweet. On a sentimental level, I'm happy to leave behind the dashed dreams and rotten memories (except for a few, of course). On a practical level, I'm happy to no longer be in a flat with crazy humidity regardless of how much I air the place, and I'm pumped I have a balcony and no longer have to lean out the window like Krauts do in the Dorf. It's cool that the walls in my new place are even and I don't have to deal with a crooked ceiling/floor anymore. I'm also grateful my neighbours here keep to themselves and neither blast the TV all night nor have loud sex at 5:00 in the mornings. I mean, I did hear someone going at it last night around 20:30, but at least that's a reasonable hour.

Still, I don't like saying goodbyes, no matter how happy I am to leave. (Imagine what it's like when I don't actually want to leave!) But here I am, moving on again. I actually already did, but you know. Trying to be bittersweet. Nope? Still not working?

Okay, let's throw a party then, because I no longer have neighbours who, when I clean my windows, remark that they thought I already moved out and wanted to know why I was still in the flat. Creepers. I don't miss you, particularly because I was becoming Dorf-mäßig after awhile like you and staring out the window all the time. You know you're becoming too German when...

Good thing I have a balcony that stares into some trees now!

Hallelujah, hobo flat is gone!