Things That Are Destined To Be Fails.

1)  Bill O'Reilly interviews.
2)  Insane Clown Posse comprehending third-grade science and rapping about it.
3)  Hosting a Tropic Thunder movie night with two non-native English speakers, in retrospect a poor movie choice because the jokes and language are all seriously stylized, thus resulting in you  attempting to explain the plot after the movie is already over.

Favorite song of the day!  It's from the movie I'm Reed Fish, which is a terrible movie, but this song is fabulous.

Adios!

The Number 1 Thing I Hate About Germany, and it's not British Soldiers

The number one thing I hate most about living here is not that a sex on the beach costs almost ten dollars, or that shops are clinically unable to stay open past 4.30 PM.  It's not even Germany's uncomfortable fondness for bread that closely resembles human remains passed through a velociraptor's primitive digestive system, assuming the velociraptor doesn't get enough daily fiber.  My biggest issue with Germany is this:

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

In other news, I cranked the armbar on Latvian Friend and Czech Girl last night, and somehow persuaded them to go with me to the British club.  There are two main clubs in Celle, Inkognito, where the Brits are not allowed, and Vanity, which the Germans avoid like the plague.  Latvian Friend and Czech Girl had already been to both, but their description of Vanity's drunk British men made me really curious to see the spectacle. I had to work SO hard--Latvian Friend really, really did not want to go.  But in the end, I swore that we would only go once, and never again.  It turned out to be the best time ever, and I have since revoked this swear.  

When we arrived at about 12.30 AM, and there was basically nobody there.  So we immediately claimed our own table, and sat down to watch the three creepy Sudanese guys grind the air on the dance floor.  Fifteen minutes later, we were still sitting, the creepy Sudanese were still grinding, and nothing else had happened.  I declared that the night would be a waste unless we made somehow made friends with random people.  Right on cute, a British guy wearing a bright blue T-Shirt (Peace Out!) sat down next to me, and said, "I don't mean to interrupt, but are you an atheist?"  I assumed this was the first half of a bad pickup line, and stared at him expectantly.  He stared at me expectantly.  I realized this was a real question, and said, "Sure?  Why not."  "YES!" he shouted, pumping his fists in the air, "And now let me ask you another one:  do you read Reddit?"  "Sure?  Why not."  "ANOTHER ATHEIST WHO READS REDDIT.  AMAZING."  Then he proceeded to rant at me for twenty minutes about how the whole world is fucked, but especially America, and I'm fucked, but what a lovely accent I have.  Then he disappeared, and I was trying desperately not to laugh.

The next guy that sat down next to me was completely wasted, to the point that I couldn't tell what language he was speaking.  He was staring at all of us like he wanted to eat us, so Czech Girl told him to fuck off.  He didn't move.  She turned to me and said, "How do you say 'fuck off' in German?"  "Verpiss dich."  She proceeded to yell it at Drunk Guy at the top of her lungs, but in her Czech accent, it was adorably rendered "Fairpeace deesch."  It took five straight minutes of this before he got the message. But he was quickly replaced by two Sudanese guys, who were all over Czech Girl and Latvian Friend.  Clearly the scenery was not working for us.  I proposed we go check out the other room.

The other room turned out to be the smoking section, and as we turned the corner, two British guys man-hugged so violently, they overshot and punched me in the shoulder.  "Jesus!" I said, "You scared the crap out of me!"  "Very sorry, very sorry!  Are you American?"  "...Yes?"  Thus I became friends with Birmingham and Reading, both soldiers in the British army stationed nearby, both absolutely awesome.  We spent a good hour discussing curse words, trying to do each other's accents, and making fun of America.  I also learned how to say "bastard" in a British accent, AND, according to Birmingham and Reading, win the award for Most Polite American Ever.  Sometime in between debating why you can't say "cunt" in America, and whether using the word "shuttlecock" outside the context of Badminton makes you gay, a lovely Irish brogue to my right yelled, "Me bys, are ye goin te stare at te lady al nigh', or are ye goin to buy her a drink?"  And that's how County Cork and I became friends.

British soldiers.  Are the BOMB.  They are ridiculously awesome and ridiculously entertaining.  With the help of Birmingham, Reading, and County Cork, we wound up making friends with half the squadron (who at one point started up a super awkward "USA!  USA!" chant), and I eventually got dragged out on the dance floor to demonstrate my catastrophic moves.  Courtesy of some sleek maneuvering, Latvian Friend and Czech Girl managed to finally shake the Sudanese, and joined us.  An amazing time was had by all.

To summarize, it was great fun, and I went to bed at 6 AM.  I slept for two hours, woke up sick as a dog (from the lack of sleep, not the alcohol), and lounged around all day in my pajamas.  Until 2 PM, when I hopped on my bike and headed into the city to meet up with County Cork.  We ran around, hit up the Christmas markets:

rode the ferris wheel:

made fun of the taxidermied reindeer sitting on top of it:                                                                                                                       

                                           

checked out the castle, Christmas shopped for his mother, had hot chocolate and muffins, and admired the travesty that is our propeller-controlled nativity scene:                                                                                

Plus he has that accent, where they drop the "h" and turn "thought," and "three," into "tought," and "tree," and I had zero problems listening to it for five and a half hours. 

Tomorrow, off with Latvian Friend to go play pool with New Fabio.  Hooray!  I don't know where all these friends came from so suddenly, but I am not complaining!

EDIT:  Am I the only one who thinks the video pictured above unavailable in Germany is coming from someone named "freaky mouse sex?"

Dissection of the Christmas Pyramid

Thanksgiving doesn't really exist here, unless you live on the British army base, which means that without this important buffer, the German Christmas season started a week ago.  Overnight, all the lamp posts got decorated with fake pine boughs and light-up gold stars.  Then yesterday I headed into the center of town, and discovered that they're already prepping for the Christmas markets.  That means giant trees have been set into the manhole covers, row upon row of recently-erected food stands have killed 90% of the bicycle parking, and weird-looking statues that make me uncomfortable have sprung up in every square.  The Chief Monstrosity is a particularly painful eyesore called the Christmas Pyramid, but it looks less like a pyramid and more like a layer cake designed for a polygamist's wedding.

On the bottom tier, we have a life-size reproduction of a resplendent baby Jesus in his manger, surrounded by his adoring parents, who look thrilled that their spontaneous arranged marriage has resulted in a child whose future religion will one day be used to justify everything from mass murder to not shaving your facial hair.  Or rather, they look like they're in the middle of yelling at you that you should be more thrilled: Mary is holding up one hand like she's going to interrupt you, you atheist, and Joseph's outstretched arms are going for either a hug or a death throttle.  Baby Jesus looks remarkably well-developed for a six-month old infant newborn.

Hanging out on the middle tier are the Three Wise Men, one of whom is politically correct and black, all of whom are bearing gifts that, once you take into account the small parts that represent a serious choking hazard for children under the age of three, were probably fished out of old Happy Meals.  In addition, they all look really lost, which is understandable.  Back in those days, they used Mapquest.

On the Tier Most High we've got naked baby cherubs, holding their naked baby harps, with facial expressions like they want to naked baby kill you.  Gloria in excelsis Deo. Please don't use my intestines as harp strings.

The entire clusterfuck is topped off with the artistic addition of rotating helicopter blades.  Whether these are supposed to work or just look nice, I don't know, but I'm hoping for the latter.  Because although the prospect of being killed by a naked baby taking wing from the floating nativity and hurtling towards the earth at deadly velocity on a collision course with my head is ironic, I'd prefer to go out in a different fashion. Like, any other fashion.

If this objet d'art is any proper indication, it's going to be a pretty amazing Christmas season.

Adios!

DSH and boots.

Seven hours later, I have completed the written portion of the DSH Test, and I feel broken.  I'm also having trouble speaking English, so bear with me--even though I have zero desire to ever speak German again (read: until tomorrow), nothing else seems to be coming out of my mouth.

Yes, I finished it.  Yes, it was awful.  But mostly because it took seven hours, not because of the content.  Truthfully gesagt, I'm pretty confident, and if I don't pass the test I'll be extremely surprised.  My essay, about how foreign students don't stay im Gastland because they're a) discriminated against, and b) offered better jobs in their home countries mit their foreign experiences behind them, came out pretty well, I think.  Hörverstehen was kind of a joke, I understood every word and I'm pretty sure I got, if not a perfect score, at least close enough.  My understanding skills are better than my speaking skills, so that's good.  Then came reading, an article about turning skyscrapers into greenhouses, which was random, but perfectly acceptable.

Then we hit the Grammatik part, and I wanted to kill someone, preferably someone other than myself, preferably someone with tea party affiliations.  I knew going in the grammar would be the hardest part, because, while I'm pretty good at knowing if something is right, I'm pretty sucky at knowing why it's right.  And, sure enough, it was obnoxious. Because on this portion of the test, they give you sentences with seemingly arbitrary words underlined, and you have to rewrite the sentence, reformat the underlined part, pay attention to grammar, and punch yourself in the groin, all while not changing the meaning of the original sentence or taking your frustration out on the Haitian girl sitting next to you. For example:

It is possible that we'll have to change the meeting time.

When I look at that, I think of several possible answers right off the bat, most involving grievous bodily harm, but this is incorrect.  The correct answer is either "I don't know if we'll have to change the meeting time," or "Maybe we'll have to change the meeting time." Now try doing that bitch work in a foreign language.  Actually, don't, because I already did, and it's not something I would wish on anybody who doesn't have tea party affiliations.

Personally, I think that whoever writes the test just underlines out of a combination of boredom and spite, because that's what I would do.  I would sit there with the pen in my hand, going, "And if I underline THIS part, then it looks like a baby doing a headstand!  And if I underline THIS part, it looks like a T-Rex is eating the baby!  And if I underline THIS part, then all the lines on the page turn into a recognizable, if impressionistic, reproduction of Picasso's Guernica!  WHO EATS SAUERKRAUT NOW, BITCHES."

The good news is that I need at least a 67% to move on to the oral part, and if I scored an 87% or above, they assume you're good enough that you can skip talking about random shit and just go study already.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

DSH Prüfung aside, I went shoe shopping yesterday, and bought boots. Anyone who has ever had the unpleasant experience of going shopping with me knows that I've been trying to buy boots since sophomore year of college, but they don't fit me. Seventeen years of horse-back riding and five months of intensive bike-riding have whittled my calves down to negative air space, which means that boots that fit my feet could fit two of my legs, and boots that fit my legs are made for Asian drag queens. However, I've discovered that if the boots have enough fur on them, the extra padding can more or less take the place of all the calf I'm missing, and that's why I now own a pair of brown furry pirate boots.

I also bought the greatest slippers the world has ever seen.  At first glance, they look like a hideous Christmas sweater from a seventies Sears catalogue came to life and wrapped itself around my feet, and at second glance, they like my feet are being raped by said hideous Christmas sweater.  I've never been this excited about slippers.

Here's my new favorite song of the day for you.  Let it never be said my musical tastes are anything but terrifyingly eclectic.  Plus, I really like the one guy's glasses:

The One Where Tina Goes to the Motherland

Here are the reasons I am actually the worst Portuguese citizen on the planet:

1)  I don't speak Portuguese.
2)  I don't eat octopus.
3)  I have never been to Portugal.

Not much to be done about the first two, but number three is going to change in exactly a month.  I know this, because I just booked the ticket.  I'm going to visit my aunts, whom I have never met, or at least not since developing a memory, but knowing my parents, they've probably been getting pictures since I was a blip on an 80's ultrasound.  And I'm pretty sure the one reads my blog, if so, HI TIA I AM COMING TO VISIT YOU.

Other than that, I have no idea what's going on, but I DO know that I will a) finally get to meet some of the Portuguese family, b) add some fun stories to my repetitive arsenal, and c) embarrass myself terribly.  So basically, a normal weekend in the life, with the slick addition of relatives.

In other news, the first entry for the (Tia, cover your eyes) Fuck the ß!!!!1 contest came, and it is pretty amazing, so thank you Jon**!  Your ß is fabulous, so everyone else, bring your A (or ß?)-game, because Jon wants German chocolate VERY BADLY.

Favorite song of the day!

And that's all I got.  Adios!


**No, Philadelphia, a different Jon, this one has never been shot.

all is quiet on the German front

Hey friends!

All is quiet on the German front, so I unfortunately don't have much to tell you.  But it is Sam's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!

I realized today my hair is creeping steadily closer to the line between Attractive and Live Action Role Playing, so I will have to arrange a hair cut in the near future.  In Germany, this unfortunately involves making an appointment, so it'll be a while before I stop being lazy enough to pick up the phone and call people.  In the meantime, it is quite possible my hair will hit larping status, and I'll start getting hit on by people in black who braid their beards.  Male and female.

The other day I chased down a street musician wearing a Union cavalry uniform to give him some euros, because he was playing some seriously badass harmonica and guitar.  That has nothing to do with anything.

My massive language test is on Saturday, and...I'm calm.  I've never studied this hard for anything in my life, mostly because I suck at studying.  I never opened a book in high school, and in college I only opened them if the summary on the flap contained such key words as "socio-linguistic analysis" or "dragons."  But I have been studying for this test ever day since the beginning of September, and over the weekend, I did my daily assessment of the panic meters, and discovered, much to my surprise, they were silent.  I can't tell if this is what adequate preparation feels like, or if this is the sensation drowning victims get somewhere in between inhaling seawater and hugging Jesus.

So until we've got that point cleared up, here, have my favorite song of the day.  Yes, I watch X-Factor, but only the British version because it's better.  But while procrastinating on Youtube I somehow stumbled across this clip of a contestant from the American version, and now I can't stop listening to it.  I'm not sure why the image is reversed, but that's probably what happens when you rip shit from television.

I WON A GOLDEN GNOME. And other stories.

I have a lot of totally random stories, none of which are in themselves worth an entire blog post, but maybe I can make a blog post with all of them.

German Television!

German television is AWFUL.

No, really, it is really, really awful.  However, we only have 24 channels, so I can't honestly judge if the channels are shit because there are only 24 of them, or if they're a reflection in German TV as a whole.  But I'm going with Door Number 2, because "cable" in this country means you have to pay for MTV, where they dub over Snooki and the rest of the Jersey Shore with the smooth-jazz German of Wolfgang Kaiserkraut.  Whose name I just made up, but it's probably accurate.

On top of being chock-full of naked people, the shows themselves are shit.  One thing I do kind of like about media here though is that super good looks are not a requirement to be on television or in movies.  And for whatever reason, it took me a while to figure this out--we'd be watching TV, and I knew something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Then after a month, I realized no one was gorgeous, they all just looked like normal people.  And I must say, this is quite refreshing.

Now, here are my favorite shows on German TV!

Berlin, Tag und Nacht (Berlin, Day and Night)
--Basically the Jersey Shore, but without the Jersey, the Shore, or the tans, and set in Berlin, as everyone runs around being vapid and retarded and wanting breast implants. I like it because it's so stupid.  Also, it's really good for learning how to yell at someone in German.

X-Factor: Deutschland
--Yes, Germany has it's own version of the X-Factor, and like everything else on television, it is terrible.  Germany never got over eighties tunes remixed over a heavy-bass, so that's what all the contestants bee-bop to for your votes.  I only watch because there's one duet group I kind of find badass, it's a classically trained tenor from New York City who hangs with a chick taller than him with a voice like Celine Dion.  They're the only people on there who don't remix over a heavy bass, and thus the only ones who may or may not be worth watching.  Also the American speaks basically no German whatsoever, and it's funny to watch his face when everyone is talking.

Traum von Auswandern (Dreams of Migration)
--I find the whole premise of this show kind of funny, because it's a German TV show about Germans who don't want to live in Germany.  So they get set up with their dream job, in their dream city abroad, and have to tough it out a month, whereby at the end they can choose whether to move back to the Vaterland or stay in the new place. And, surprises of surprises, they almost always choose to come back to Germany. Who wouldn't?  Even if the Peace Corp they at least train you up a few weeks, show you how things work, and help you get adjusted.  In this show, you have to start working the day after you arrive, and no one tells you shit.  Although it blows my mind that people are so naive as to think working as a carpenter in Bali is the same as doing it in Germany.

St. Martin's Day!


Yesterday was St Martin's Tag, the actual German equivalent of Halloween.  Except because this is Germany, not America, you have to work for your candy/fruit by singing a song.  We had one child come to the door, with her cat.  For that, I have her an extra mandarin.

The Mare!


I had my first jumping lesson on the Grand Prix half-lease yesterday!  And, all things considered, it went well! It was tough, because we were jumping in the indoor, which is too small for a mare this insane to jump around in, plus the fences were all really little. The trainer put the last fence up to maybe 3'3, and the horse just blew through it.  The fences need to go up to back her off, but I'm somewhat worried "backing off a Grand Prix horse" means the fences will be taller than I am.

Do you guys know anyone so completely insane that they basically can't handle daily life?  But as soon as there's a crisis, they're the most level-headed potato out there? That's what this mare is like, she can't deal with life, but as soon as she sees jumps, at least her brand of crazy takes a focus.

What was entertaining was that half the barn had gathered to watch, and proceeded to tell me afterwards that, while the mare looks completely out of control, they at least give me props for my courage.  Thanks.

Seminar!


So today I had the first of two seminars I signed up for during the summer.  This one was called "Typisch Deutsch?" and it was all about things that are standard to German culture, and where they come from.  There was also a lot of history involved, like how the spread of Protestantism relates to a German desire for order all the damn time, and so on.  It was super interesting, super fun, and I understood everything, which made me happy.  Also being a) the only foreigner, and b) the only person under the age of 50, I was quickly adopted as the day's mascot.  It helps that I've decided to start being candid about my imperfect German, and I am no longer above asking complete strangers what things or called, or what the article attached to it is.  This meant that everyone loved me and helped me out as much as they could.

But the best part was that we ended with everyone getting intro groups, and then competing to win a golden chocolate garden gnome.  The winner was the group that guessed how many million garden gnomes there are in Germany without going over. My group guessed 13 million, AND WE WON.  And because my group thought I was adorable, I GOT TO TAKE THE GOLDEN CHOCOLATE GARDEN GNOME:  My excitement could not be contained.

HERE HAVE A PICTURE:

YES, I UNDERSTAND YOUR JEALOUSY.

Oh, you wanted to know what the correct answer was, and how many garden gnomes there actually are in Germany?  25 million.

And now, the IIGOIIG Round 6 REVEAL!

The rollber-blading, puppy-carrying, hip-gyrating man from the bar on Wednesday night?  He was...GAY.  I know because at one point his gyrations looked like they were getting awfully close to impregnating Latvian Friend), and I said "Latvian Friend, watch out!"  And he responded with "Have no fear, I'm gay."

+1 for German gay men!  Now, when you don't know if it's gay or German, you can safely assume the former, assuming it's simultaneously hugging a small animal and roller-blading.  This puts the official scoreboard at:

German: 1
Crazy and Homeless: 1
In Denial: 1
Danish: 1
Poor Taste in Music: 1
GAY!!:  1

IIGOIIG Round 6! And other things

Before I start telling your ridiculous stories, I got mistaken for my fourth official ethnicity today, which means I only have two more to go before I complete that bucket list task.  And the nationality was... Argentinean!  Which confuses the crap out of me, because the guy making the mistake was Super Attractive Dominican Dance Man, and you would think that if I were Argentinean, I would see his Spanish and raise it +1 unintelligible accent,  instead of answering in German.  But one of American Friend's German friends told me that for this country, I look downright exotic, so maybe that's the issue.  Or it could be the hair.

At any rate, Latvian Friend somehow persuaded me to go to the salsa bar tonight, even though I was totally not feeling it.  But it turned out to be highly, highly entertaining.  For starters, while the music at the salsa bar is good, and the Domincan Dance Man super attractive, the people this bar attracts are so batshit insane, it makes for fabulous people watching.  Second, we went with Latvian Friend's new Czech Friend, who is drop-dead gorgeous and had the heavily-tattooed Majorcan waiter all up in her grill every minute he wasn't trying to convince me to do keg stands with a bottle of wine.

In between trying not to look at the Majorcan's horrible face tattoos and avoiding his wine bottles, we danced with Super Attractive Dominican Man.  Halfway through pretending we knew how to salsa, the door opens and in walks this tiny little man. Actually, walks is the wrong word, because he was on rollerblades.  Also, he was holding a puppy.

When he realized we were dancing, he threw the puppy on the nearest couch, where it curled up into a ball to watch the show.  Hands up over his head, he started spinning in circles, getting really, really close to us, and doing this frightening pelvic gyration which made me fearful for the safety of his hip flexors.

So, that brings us to:

Is It Gay Or Is It German...Round 6!

This is me asking you, if a man on rollerblades walks rollerblades into a bar, holding a puppy, and busts out pelvic thrusts to rival Shakira, is it gay, or is it German?  I already know the answer, because he told me while I was dancing hopping up and down with him.  But feel free to take this opportunity to test your German Gaydar.

How did the night end, you ask?  With Majorcan man making us all take shots of some weird green liquid that had about as much alcohol in it as my own saliva, Super Attractive Dominican Dance Man (SADD...M.  I like SADD.) telling Latvian Friend she has a nice face, and Face Tattoos begging Czech Girl for her phone number..  Nobody said anything to me because I had already put my Swedish hat on, which, on top of being awesome, also ensures that I receive about as much male attention as a dead squirrel with herpes.

The end.

Fuck the ß Contest!

Hello!  Before we begin, here is the stack of letters you guys have sent me since I've been here.  I keep every single one of them, in the order I received them, in a giant envelope marked "Letters from Friends."  Thickness-wise, they are roughly the equivalent of  one Lord of the Rings trilogy:

one Bolivian and one Swedish hat, stacked on top of each other:

and one box of German Q-tips:

I love you guys.  I love your letters.  When I'm lonely or bored or missing people, I go back through the letters and I laugh my head off.  So without a doubt, my favorite part of your letters is, obviously, the content.  But my SECOND favorite part is turning the envelope over to see how you wrote the ß.

I am kind of in love with the ß (Esszet) because it's the only letter in German that isn't instantly recognizable to English speakers.  At least with Ö, Ä, and Ü, you can be like "Hey, look at those strangely placed dots over perfectly good letters," but when you're hit with the ß, you just kind of go, "Ahhh...fuck."  

Therefore, I thoroughly enjoy watching you guys attempt to write the ß, because no two of you do it in exactly the same way.  I've had a couple uppercase B's, a few lowercase b's, one or two cheaters who know the ß is pronounced like a double s, and substitute it as such.  There's also been a bunch of people confuse the ß with the Greek letter β, or who have just invented their own versions of the ß that involve curls, whirls, or just a general crossed-out scribble.  Then there's Sam, who has the distinction of writing the ß differently every single letter.

Before I show you how to write the ß, let me break it down so that the weird B-thing sort of starts to make sense.  The ß used to be written as an sz, and the s itself, back in the day, was a ſ.  Thus you had typesetters attempting to grapple with the blockprinting T-Rex that is the ſz.  So they saved space, and from there you can kind of see how ſz turned into ß.  Nowadays on most signs you will see it written as "straße," but in Berlin and some other places, you'll still see it as "straſze."

Now here's how you write it!

Now that you know how to write the ß, don't do it!  Because I have decided to host a Tina's Blog Is Having A Contest! and it is called:

Tina's Blog Is Having A Contest!

and it is called

FUCK THE ß

!!!!!!!!!11

DA RULEZ!

--Send me a letter

--Come up with the most awkward, creative, bizarre, or unintelligible ß possible

--The winner is the weirdest ß that still gets recognized by the post office as being my house.

DA PRIZEZ!

--German chocolate!

--And I'll probably photograph your weird ß so everyone can marvel at how strange my friends are.

DA DEADLINEZ!

--Christmas! 

Aaaaaaand...LET THE FUCK THE ß GAMES BEGIN!

Grad App Madness

I spent all day running around like a fiend putting my grad school application in the mail.  For better or for worse, it will be there on Monday, BUT!  the morning was full of small catastrophes.  Which you now get to hear about.

For starters, I got up stupidly early for a Saturday, to bike into town at 8.30.  At the local drugstore, I bought a fancy cover for the application, but they were all out of shipping envelopes, so I had to hit up the post office to buy them.  Then I had to go across town to the copy shop, so I could get the application printed on super fancy paper.  However, the girl behind the counter informed me that they don't make copies of applications on Saturdays.  I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?  I need to send this thing out today, and you're losing my business because it's Saturday, and, despite being open, you won't print this because it's an application?"  Sometimes, I want to punch this country in the face.  She told me to go up the street to the other copy shop and get it printed there.

Back on my bike, I circled all around the train station, the prison, and all the side streets in between, and did not find another copy center.  I called the host parents, and they didn't know of another one, so I went back to the girl for more exact directions. Then I realized she was telling me to print out my grad school application at a call center, and I told her she was exceptionally unhelpful, because you can say these things in Germany.  Then I slammed the door behind me on my way out.

In more or less complete panic mode, I biked back to the house, where I explained to Host Mom my predicament.  She said we could get around it like so: buying the paper myself, getting the photo printed from the pros, and then putting it all together ourselves.  But at this point it was a race against the clock, because the post office was closing in an hour and a half.

So I turned back around, biked like a fiend into town again, and hit up the photo store. While I was waiting for the guy (who looked like a serial killer) to print my pictures (or kill me serially), I went back across town to the paper store, to buy paper.  Which took forever, because I had to wait for the saleslady to successful fit a six year old for a bookbag (?), because this country refuses to print applications on Saturdays, but has zero problems spending fifteen minutes adjusting small children.

After picking up my pictures, I headed back to the house to print everything.  But then we ran into more problems, because American pages and German pages are sized differently, which meant the German printer kept FREAKING out every time an American document came up.  So I had to turn everything into PDFs and email them to Host Mom, while Host Dad did minor surgery on the printer.

Anyway, we finally got everything printed and organized, and then it was off to the post office, where I made it just in time.

To summarize:

Yes, my grad app is in the mail.
No, I did not enjoy the process.
No, I am never doing this again.
Yes, I had better get into this school or heads will roll.
Yes, I bought Host Mom and Host Dad absurdly expensive chocolates to thank them for more or less rewriting my entire essay and making me sound like an overly-educated German

Afterwards we went to the lantern parade, which is like the German equivalent of Halloween except you don't dress up or get candy.  All you do is carry a lantern and walk around.  So really, it's not anything like the German equivalent of Halloween.  But it's a big deal, I got to carry a lantern, and you can take bets on which kid will be the first to accidentally set their lantern on fire.  Also, the fire department was there guiding the paraders, looking all smug because instead of lanterns, they got to carry torches.  Bastards.

Then we all came back to our house, ordered pizza, and ate cake.  It was a good time.

And, that's it!  Now I can stop freaking out about the application, and get back to freaking out about the language test in two weeks.  Goody.

Favorite song of the day!  I like Elton John, I like Ellie Goulding, and I like when Ellie Goulding covers Elton John.  You're welcome.

The Personal Crisis Game!

Dear my friends,

I know the last few days on this blog have not been filled with unicorns and questionable gay men, but I have always tried to be nothing but honest on this thing, and that requires telling the truth about the not-so-great things as well as the entertaining things.  No one ever said that moving across the world was a cakewalk. And Germany, despite being older than America, has not yet developed buttercream frosting to it's full potential, which means that this cakewalk is not always sweet. Terrible metaphor of the day: check.

The cause of this morning's crisis was that Host Mom read through my grad school application essay, and basically told me it was useless.  It was too superficial, too glossy, and totally lacking in the important information that grad schools want to sink their cannibalistic, research-oriented teeth into.  There was no substance to it, she said, and as such, it was basically the literary equivalent of raping a fog machine.  My words, not hers.

The result was I more or less got picked up by the braid and thrown into a hot, steaming vat of Freak Out.  If I can't even handle the application essay, I asked myself, then how am I supposed to handle grad school? What am I playing at?  How did I ever think attempting to do my higher education in a foreign language was a good idea?  Do I even want to go to grad school?  Am I just doing it out of lack of a better plan?  Is my sudden desire to skip grad school a result of being totally, completely intimidated?  What do I want to do with my life, and why can't I purchase the goddamned manual on Amazon.

So I texted my mom that I was dying, and while I waited for her to call me, I surfed internships in Australia-- because in my world, when the going gets tough, run to the other side of the planet as fast as you can.  Then, when my phone rang, I racked up my mom's phone bill threatening to throw myself from Ayers Rock.  In response, she basically just reiterated for me everything I already know, which somehow always sounds better coming from someone other than yourself.  That I've wanted to go to grad school since forever, that my interests are too broad for my own good, that grad school applications are a bitch no matter where you are, but doing them in German makes them that much harder.  That I should not run to Australia.  That grad school does not determine the rest of my life.  That I don't even technically have to finish it if I hate it.  That the fastest way to see the stuff you're made of is to switch continents.

At the end of the day, I am exactly where I started, only with a Host Mom-approved essay and five hours of self-doubt behind me.  Somehow, it will work out.  I know it.  I don't exactly know how, but in typical Tina fashion, I have an exit plan in case it doesn't.  Coupled with a deep-seated admiration for the grace that is the kangaroo.

Thanks for sticking with me,
Tina

ALL the cool shit.

I'm having a meltdown.  And no, I did not see naked people on tv.

The main cause of my meltdown is grad school apps.  In my last post, I said I had to pick a minor, but I'm torn between Sweden and Ling Anth/Native America.  My meltdown is coming from the fact that I can't decide.  But, if I'm to be honest, it's not my indecision that's left me with the Godzilla of panic attacks, it's the terrible thought that occurred to me around midnight: what if being an adult means not getting to do ALL the cool shit?

Rewind.  The general consensus from yesterday was that I should minor in Ling Anth, because it's right up my alley, I already know I like it, and it's better for jobs.  Then I got to thinking, and truly, the field of language/culture preservation is actually really appealing to me, and that major/minor combo would set me up for it perfectly.  I've been blandly answering the question "What do you want to do with your life?" with a vague "I dunno, like NGOs or something," for a year or two, but the more I think about it, the more I like this more specific path.  I like languages.  I like (most) people.  I like the idea of preserving and revitalizing languages and cultures, and I like the idea that this will probably a) never be boring, b) involve very little sitting at a desk,  and c) take me to fun places all over the world where I can chill out with people who are wiser than me and who may or may not try to feed me haggis or something equally disgusting.

So now the problem is that I know ling anth would, career-wise, make more sense.  I mean, this is my masters we're talking about here, this is not a BA in basket-weaving, it will have direct repercussions on my job choices for the rest of my life.  But right this minute, I want to study Swedish.  Therefore, the problem has just become, do I do what I know I would enjoy/would prepare me for the jobs I want, or do I just do what I want.  And then, the bad question.  Does being an adult mean that I will only get to do SOME of the cool shit, and not ALL the cool shit?

Well there's a nasty thought.  If there's one thing my childhood instilled in me, it's a sleek employment of selfish tunnel vision until I get to do the cool shit I want.  When it came to activities, my mother never told me no.  I wanted violin lessons?  I got them.  I hated violin and wanted piano lessons?  I got them.  I wanted riding lessons?  I got them.  I wanted a pony?  It took me 8 years of persistence, but I got a giant one.  I wanted to roadtrip to Canada with my best friends?  I got it.  I wanted to go to Germany for two weeks in high school, then study abroad, then study abroad again, then give America the middle finger forever?  I got it.  Then I got older and started having to pay for my own things, but I still found a way to do everything I wanted, when I wanted it badly enough.  Mostly because my mom taught me never to question whether or not I should do cool shit, but rather, to decide what I wanted to do, and then figure out the way to do it.

Except now I'm left with a total existential crisis, because at the moment it's looking like there are lots of roads diverging in a yellow wood, with lots of cool shit going down on all of them, but the roads don't intersect.  What if I don't get do everything?  What if I don't get to do anything?  What if I don't want to?  What if I never work on the pirate ship?  Or climb Mt. Kilimanjaro?  Or backpack Asia?  Or move to Sweden?  What if my life isn't big enough for me to cram so much cool shit in it?  What if I wind up like the majority of grown-ups who hate their job, hate their life, hate themselves, and regret that they didn't do the all cool shit?  WHAT IF I CAN'T DO ALL THE COOL SHIT.




































...Nah, fuck it, I'm doing all the cool shit.  Somehow.

I need your help!

So, in Germany, you require a minor for a masters degree, just like you do in the US for a bachelor's.  For anthropology, I have a choice of a ton of cool-sounding minors, my favorites of which I am listing here so you guys can help me decide.

Anthro-geography
Economic and social history
Gender research
Culture/European anthropology (...one and the same?)
Linguistic anthropology and ancient american studies (also one and the same?)
Musicology
Scandinavian studies

I'm kind of leaning towards the last one, because a) I've never done it before, b) it sounds like I have to learn Swedish, and c) we've already established that Sweden is now a requirement for my future personal happiness.  But then again, musicology sounds super awesome, and completely unlike anything ever, plus I like music.  But then there's this bizarre, but interesting, combination of linguistic anth and native america studies.  What I'm trying to say is, I DON'T FUCKING KNOW.  Help me people.

EDIT:  I did research, and musciology sounds boring as shit.  So it's down between the Skandies (and I would be required to learn Swedish!) and the linguistic one.  Which would involve me further specializing in either linguistic anthropology or mesoamerica, but there was also something in there about preserving languages, and that gets my anthropology bones all hot and bothered.

EDIT EDIT:  Yeah, I decided, Scandinavian studies.  But you have until tomorrow to convince me to change my mind.

EDIT EDIT EDIT:  I don't fucking know.  Help me people!