Going Postal

An adorable, bespectacled elderly man, who works at the post office down the street from my apartment, has singlehandedly restored my faith in the friendliness of Germans.

To start with, he was considerate enough to ask me if the DHL boxes I was purchasing were for posting within Germany- since these particular ones couldn't be sent internationally. I gratefully replied that I was in fact attempting to purchase international boxes, and he then scurried to the back room and returned with two international packages. Then, instead of just selling them to me and waving the next customer over (which I expected him to do, since there was an epically long line behind me), he inquired as to where I would be sending them. Mind you, he picked up on the fact that my German wasn't from 'round these parts, and I noticed that he spoke much more slowly and clearly after the first couple of sentences that came out of my mouth. He didn't do it in a demeaning way though, the way so many people do without even realizing. He was obviously just trying to make sure I understood him, which made the whole interaction much more pleasant, especially on my end. So, I told him that one was going to the USA and one was going to Afghanistan. "Ach, Afghanistan!" He said with raised eyebrows. I nodded and tried to explain "Meinen Bruder ist einen Soldat, und er wohnt jetzt in Afghanistan." My brother is a soldier, and currently lives in Afghanistan. Not grammatically correct at all, really, and a little (ok, a lot) on the basic side. But, he smiled and said something along the lines of "Well, you're such a nice sister to send him a package. It must be for Christmas?" I nodded, and he then proceeded to write up a detailed list of how much it would cost me to send a package there, depending on how much it weighed. After that, he wrote me a few little notes on the back of the paper on what I should say to the person when I came back, depending on if I wanted to send it priority or not, and explained in detail how to fill out the customs slip. Finally, I paid, stuffed everything into my bag, and waved goodbye, thanking him profusely. As I left he said "Ich hoeffe deinen Bruder gesund und munter bleibt." I hope your brother stays safe and sound.


It was maybe a seven minute interaction, but I just can't stop thinking about how friendly this man was, in so many small ways. Not only was it more wonderful than I can say to understand EVERYTHING someone said to me witouth having to infer meaning while frantically trying to keep pace with them, it was great to encounter a person who really was just trying to help me and make my day a little better. He could have shooed me off after selling me the wrong boxes, or glowered at me when I spoke hestitantly in German- but he didn't. It's nice to know that there are some truly genuine and caring people left out there. This stranger was a tiny part of my day, but I'll remember him for a long time.


In completely unrelated news, I am obsessed with the new Lady Gaga song/video "Bad Romance." I honestly, honestly don't know why. I just can't seem to stop watching it, even though as my sister said when I convinced her to check it out, "It's pretty effing weird, and what's up with that hairless cat?"

I don't know! But I can't seem to get enough. So I'm foisting it on you fools! Buahaha. Enjoy.

The Makings of a Great Day

I bought a new hat today, and I'm quite enamored with it. Partially because it keeps me warm(er) in this frigid weather, and partially because it is just so stylish. Like me.

All the stores were playing Christmas music today! This warms my heart.

I'm watching The Office right now, and Michael Scott just killed the dreams of fifteen children. I love it.

My attempt to give up diet soda lasted exactly eight days. The upside: I am currently enjoying a crisp, ice cold diet Pepsi and it is delicious and delightful.

I heard via a RIDICULOUS and incredibly annoying amount of almost identical facebook updates that the Ducks won the Civil War. To be honest, I'm more annoyed about this bombardment of idiotic status updates than I am about them actually winning. Sorry Dad and Trevor. There's always next year.

Oops, I was trying to only write happy things in this post. Well, I guess if you're an Oregon fan that is a happy thing, so I'll let it slide.

The lens cleaning spray that the charming salesman at LensCrafters in Salem, Oregon convinced me to buy back in July works like a DREAM. This might not seem like something to get worked up about, but having smudgy glasses makes me want to scream and punch a baby. Thus, me having sparkling clean glasses not only makes me deliriously happy, but saves lots of babies from being punched. In their baby faces.

I can sleep until I decide to wake up tomorrow, because tomorrow is SATURDAY.


I hope this balances out my last post, which I admit was kind of depressing. Don't worry, that kid and I are moving onward and upward. To make the end of the week even better, one of my students left me a note on the whiteboard at the end of school today. It said "Miss Bri, I love you!" and while I was charmed by the sentiment, I did a fist pump in my empty classroom because she punctuated it correctly.

Now I'm on to 30 Rock and I just can't stop chuckling. Whoever came up with the idea of streaming TV shows online deserves a really big cookie.

Here's to the weekend, and two more weeks until Christmas break!

For Mom

So, my mom has promised me she'll read my blog. I am holding her to that promise by posting pictures she wants to see ONLY HERE! Muahahaaaaa.

Thanksgiving in Dresden was fantastic! Even with all the non-Americans who wandered in off the street (ok...we invited them), it was still a great night of delicious food, delicious wine, wonderful company, and of course....gambling. No event hosted by my dear friends, the Spaldings, would be complete without it. You'll be happy to know that I was the victor of ALL gambling activities of the evening, coming out eighty euros richer.

PSYCH! I lost it all. It all being ten euros, but I'm not independently wealthy people. And like Kenny Rogers says, you gotta know when to hold em', know when to fold em', know when to walk awaaaaaaaaay, know when to ruuuuun...well, maybe that's not really applicable considering we didn't play cards, and that I didn't, in fact, know when to walk away.

Also of note: I made a sweet potato dish (with the close guidance of my cooking sensei, Anne Kalos) that people actually, without prompting, said was DELICIOUS. Their words, not mine! It would seem things are looking up on the domestic front.

It was a fantastic night, and made me proud to be one of the 'Muricans in Dresden. Enjoy the pictures mom!


Getting ready to start the night's festivities with a
racing sort of game I don't know the name of.
Before you start, you place up to 3 euros on any of
the little characters. Then you want your little
character to stay on the table the longest. It's
far more exciting than it seems.


In the midst of it. I was still going strong with my
two bets, on the Cubs babushka doll and the Swedish
horse.


But alas, the Hawaiian Hula Bitch was the winner.


Roy getting ready to manhandle the enormous
bird.


Obviously the most attractive table in the room.


Dinner table 2.


Dinner table 3.



After dinner we played a few rounds of left, right,
center, the ultimate dice game for any low stakes
gambler.


The suspense continues as the dice roll, and euro
coins fly across the table.


An after dinner shot of....something we found in
the fridge.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat....

The holiday season is in FULL swing here in Dresden, it's almost ridiculous how Christmas-y everything is. This is coming from a girl who has a deep love for all things Christmas (and Hannukah) related. I think the problem is that they start so damn early! In the US we have the Thanksgiving barrier to keep things from getting too merry too fast. Here there's obviously no Thanksgiving, so the DAY AFTER Halloween, all the Christmas stuff comes out in the stores. Then, about the second week of November, all the Christmas decorations go up around the city. THEN, last weekend the Christmas markets opened. All before Thanksgiving! Come on people, everything in moderation. Three months of Christmas is a bit much.

However now that Thanksgiving is over, and I celebrated it in style with my Dresden family, I've allowed myself to be sucked into the onslaught of joy and Yueltide cheer. I went downtown today and meandered through a mini Wheinachtsmarkt (I'm no genius when it comes to spelling German words, ok?) , and picked up a present to send to some of the relations back home. I also put out all my Christmas decorations, which total the whopping number of three. I need to do some decor shopping this week, and figure out where and how to procure a Christmas tree. Since I'm staying here for Christmas this year, I plan to celebrate in the style to which I've become accustomed. I'm also fully expecting my sister to contribute her baking skills once she's arrived.

All of this being said, I do feel a little sad and melancholy at the thought of not being in Oregon for the holidays. I enjoy the life I have here, and love my friends (who, as my friend Roy said in his Thanksgiving toast, do feel like more of an extended family). But I still miss my family and dear friends back in the US. The thought of being without them on Christmas makes me miss them a little more than usual.

So! A homage, through photos, to the people I'm missing, and wishing were here with me. Happy almost December!


Disclaimer: These are in NO particular order, as I seem to have no control whatsoever over the editing functions of this piece of junk.



My mom and dad! Seen here gettin' down with
their bad selves on New Year's Eve a couple of
years ago.


The littlest sister of them all, Bridgy.


Kristin Ourada, best friend from forever.
This is the first time I've ever
conceded to spelling her name like that.


Anna Walters, my partner in so many capers,
adventures, and inebriated McDonald's runs. We
manage to cause trouble no matter which continent
we're on.

My older brother, Trevor. He's certifiably
awesome and I love spending time with him...
it's hard to believe we used to physically abuse
each other on a regular basis.


Dear friend and fellow lover of all (ok, many) things
nerdy, Jeff Hammond. We've been friends for...FOUR
years now, and this is honestly the only picture I have
that has both of us in it.


THE BEST GRANDPA EVER. Otherwise
known as Papa. He really is the best. Do not dispute
me.


My everything but the DNA siblings: Dave and
Emily.


My one and only Court-dawg. We slept together in
EVERY bed in her old house, including the trundle
beds. I miss sleeping with her. Take that as you will...



Vanessa Hargett, OLDEST friend. We're talking
17 YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP people.


Ali, Mo and Sarah...oh, so many wonderful times
we've had together. They are lovers of my early
morning toy trumpet serenades, and I know they
really wish they could have me back just to perform
that service for them.


What better way to end an already ridiculously sappy post, than with a photo of my entire family in MATCHING SHIRTS!? I enjoy the kitsch value of this picture, and also appreciate the fact that we were all in the same time at the same place. However, I do NOT understand why no one alerted me to the extremely masculine fashion in which I am sitting. Seriously, my brother and I are posed in the same exact way.

I guess you can't win em' all.

Fight the Squirrel

I am most definitely updating my blog that nobody reads as a means of avoiding writing my report cards. Someone just TRY to stop me! Buaaaahahahaha!!

I can also neither confirm nor deny that I had an el gigantico (you didn't know this, but I'm fluent in Spanish) STARBUCKS latte around lunch time, and that it has done two things. Thing the first: vastly improved my mood. Thing the second: hyped me up to a near record level of Sunday evening energy. It's like I snorted a line of coke and then drank seven red bulls. Now, I've never actually done either of those things, but I have an excellent (some might say highly overactive) imagination, so I can imagine how one might feel if one HAD snorted a line of coke and washed it down with seven red bulls. And that's how I feel! Am I channeling this amazing energy to get lots of great report card writing done?! HAH. I laugh in that idea's general direction.

I do my best work under pressure- this has been proven time and again throughout my life. Most notably, in my junior and senior years of college, when the baristas at both Coffee Time and the 24 hour Starbucks in Portland and I were on a first name basis. I pulled so many all nighters my junior year, it ceased to be any sort of abnormal event- my housemates were amazed when I DIDN'T have to spend Thursday night holed up in the corner of some coffee shop, frantically typing out papers and journal entries until 5 AM. And guess what suckers? I got straight A's that year, WHILE taking 22 credits a semester! I feel this is empirical evidence of my ability to get shit done in a limited amount of time.

Did I also mention that I'm a master of rationalization?

Some notable events have taken (I first wrote "have been taking place" and then I had a flashback to Ms. Mclean attacking my DRAG paper's to be verbs with a bright yellow highlighter my sophomore year of high school. So then I changed it. This was an incredibly long parenthetical aside.) place in my life recently, as well as in the Caldwell Family in general. I'll give first billing to the most exciting and shout it from the rooftops-esque of said events:
My brother, Trevor Ryan Caldwell (known aliases include Douche Puppet, Hamster Man, and Dr. Bones) IS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!
Folks who know my broski will understand my excitment. His fiancee Maureen is AWESOME, and an excellent addition to my already unique family. I hope she knows what she's getting herself into......
Compared to this piece of news, nothing else I've been up to lately is really worth getting too jazzed up about. I decided to go with "jazzed" there, rather than "excited" because I'm currently listening to the new Michael Buble CD, and if I had to choose one word to describe it, jazzy would be the one. I'm also listening at top volume, so I hope my neighbors have as deep an affection for Buble as I do.
This post is full of really strange comments. Like that one.

But really, where was I? Oh yes, interesting-ish events.
I just finished planning a six day trip to the city of all cities- LONDON. I'm heading there with my extremely likable and fun to spend time with sister Katy over Christmas break. Got the plane tickets, the lodging, even the bus tickets to and from Berlin! We're flying out from there, because it costs about twice as much to go anywhere from Dresden as it does from Berlin. Lame Dresden, lame. I'm ridiculously excited for this trip, mostly because I'm going with Katy, and we have very similar interests, so there won't be any (well, perhaps I should say minimal amounts of) arguing about where we're going or what we're doing. I've also been to London three times already, but two on two of those occasions I was by myself, so I feel there are many pubs I have yet to explore. I don't really go out pubbing (it's like clubbing, only nerdier and way BETTER) on my own very often.
Also coming up is Christmas itself, which should be enjoyable, even if I won't be at home. Katy will be here, we'll have a little tree, watch some Christmas classics (Home Alone is first on the list), and then go to some friends' for dinner on Christmas day. As long as the musical phenomenon Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is played at some point throughout the festivities, I think we'll both be filled with Yueltide cheer.

My class loves Dave Matthews! I knew there was a reason I went into this education business. It's difficult to describe how joyous I felt when I put the CD on in class on Friday afternoon, and five minutes later kids were jamming in their seats, and telling me how "awesome" the music was. I also taught them that word. I'm sure their strict German parents are really appreciative of me teaching them proper and polite English. I've only ever played quiet music in class before- things like Pink Martini (their calmer stuff), lots of Brahms and Beethoven, acoustic guitar, etc. But boy, DMB was a hit. They've already elicited a promise from me that I would play it again on Monday. Those kids are so tricky.

This next item is more interesting in a "well shit, what can you do" sort of way. I think there's a family that has decided I'm the devil incarnate, and that I'm slowly turning their daughter into one of my minions of darkness. The dad, and now I think the mom as well, of one of my students seem to just have it out for me. I can't really tell you why. I work REALLY HARD. I try to be the best teacher possible. I treat their daughter with respect and differentiate instruction as much as I can to make sure she's being challenged. But the dad likes to come to parent/teacher meetings and do things like yell, scream, lean across the table in a very threatening manner. When he's not doing any of these things, he manages to be insanely patronizing, never failing to mention my age, my sex, and my "lack of experience." I've imagined about twelve BILLION ways to TAKE HIM DOWN, all of them completely outrageous, intensely satisfying, and probably not things I should be thinking about a parent. However, I feel he has brought my negative feelings upon himself. AND NOW the mom is against me. I was out sick for three days last week (and I was really sick, there was no getting around it), and while I was gone the substitute collected the kids' permission slips for a field trip we are going on tomorrow. She put what I thought was all of them on my desk, carefully and thoughtfully labeled with a sticky note. Well, this particular child's permission slip was missing from the pile she collected, so I sent another one home with her and wrote a little note on it saying that there had been a substitute, and she hadn't received said student's slip. I then very politely requested that a parent sign it and return it the next day. Well. It came back the next day, accompanied by an EXTREMELY rude note. It was written all in German (which I feel is another underhanded way for them to try and slight me, because they don't know that I speak a passable amount of German.) and basically said "I ALREADY SENT THIS TO SCHOOL!!!!!" Yes, it actually included the five exclamation marks.
I've decided these people can go....fly a kite. Nothing I do is good enough for them, and they seem to think I'm the escaped village idiot who somehow faked a university diploma and teaching credentials. Well, joke's on them, because them shit's is REAL!

Sorry for the crassness. It felt appropriate given the subject matter.

I'm trying to be more positive about my job, as well as life in general. Thus my attempt to deal with the biggest thorn in my side these days with a little bit of humor. I've been in a bit of a funk the past couple of weeks, for a lot of reasons, most of them work related. I've also been feeling kind of homesick, possibly due to the fact that I'll be missing out on a gen-u-ine Caldwell 'Muricahn Christmas this year. But life is only as good as you make it, right? I think the key to happiness is just not letting the jerks get you down.


Another reason I'm feeling positive about life: my box of Fitness Clusters breakfast cereal has a picture of a bad ass looking squirrel on it, and his eyes are narrowed in a very threatening manner....oh, and he's wearing giant boxing gloves . Below the picture it says: "DU VS. HORNCHEN- Fight for your Fruhstuck!" German food packaging often includes a bizarre mix of German and English words, this box of cereal being no exception. It means "You vs. Squirrel: fight for your breakfast!" I've been eating this cereal every morning for a week straight, just so I can chortle at that picture when I stumble into the dark kitchen at an ungodly hour of the day. I've eaten all the cereal now, but I saved the box so that once I get around to charging my camera battery, I can take a picture of the fightin' Sciuridae. (According to Websters Dictionary, this is the particular branch of the rodent family that squirrels belong to.)

I think I may have exhausted all topics of any sort of interest. Oh no, one more.

I watched a FANTASTIC movie on Friday night- Inglourious Basterds. I have to admit, I'm not a huge Tarantino fan. I generally dislike gratuitous violence, and his films tend to contain a lot of it. I found that this one only had minimal amounts though, which made it much more enjoyable, in my humble opinion. I loved the way all the different elements of the plot came together in the end, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I also really got a kick out of being able to understand a lot of the German WITHOUT the assitance of subtitles. Ok, I might have peeked at a few of them, but I understood a lot of it- not too bad for the ol' ego. The icing on the cake was definitely Brad Pitt's accent, as well as the incredibly short appearance by Mike Meyers as a British officer. I've never understood people's obsession with Tarantino, but if all his movies were as fantastic as this one, I think I'd jump on that bandwagon pretty quickly.


I'll post a few pictures below, of recent happenings- just in case anyone reads this and doesn't have Facebook. Haha, look at me, acting as if I have a devoted readership. I do know how to make a joke. And with that, I'm out like an irish stout. Report cards, here I come! (Maybe.)




Katy came to visit! We had a great time, and I introduced her to Dresden's finest Weissbier.




My friend Chris had a slammin' Halloween party. Anne was a vampire (they're so hot right now), and I was Pippi Longstocking....I have trouble coming up with costumes.




I t think Pippi drank one too many G&T's.


My friend Lyn didn't want her fetus to miss out on the fun.



Ok, so this photograph is not recent at all, but I just found it and think it's hilarious. My sister Bridget and I are CLASSY brauds.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary...Some Drunk People in the Street Buzzed My Apartment

I'm just sitting here in my living room, enjoying some of the finer things in life. Candles. My new DVD player. Talking to my lovely mother on the phone. Feelings of peace and contentment wash over me as I enjoy a bite of my perfectly cooked, gourmet quality, genuine American Pop-Tart (all rights reserved.) I'm thinking to myself that life really can't get much better........and then, without warning.....BUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!
I am RIPPED from my peaceful state, jump approximately three feet in the air, and spasm so violently that my right hand seems to, of it's own accord, PROJECT my pop-tart across the room and my left leg bucks so wildly that it manages to kick my poor, abused laptop off the couch and onto the hard wooden floor. After about a minute of these shenanigans, I manage to collect myself, stop shaking, rescue my laptop and pop-tart from their various corners of the living room, and regain control of my breathing. No, it wasn't a smoke alarm, or an ambulance siren outside my window, or even a loud and scary crashing noise. It was the downstairs buzzer (doorbell-ish thing) to my apartment. Anyone who has lived in an apartment building that isn't a crack den (no offense intended to my crack den dwelling friends) knows that to get INTO said building, you have to push the little button labeled with your friend, lover, or stalkee's name. Then they say "hello?" and you say "hey friend/lover/stalkee, it's me, can I come in?" To which the person on the other end replies with a friendly/romantic "Yeah sure!" and then they push their little button inside their apartment that unlocks the front door for you. I guess if it's the stalkee situation the whole scenario might play out differently. But it's generally a simple interaction between two people, and nobody throws their pop-tart across the room about it.

BUT! Not in my case! No words can describe the terrible, piercing, gut wrenching, spasm inducing, ninth circle of hell-esque (Dante would have included it if he'd ever heard it) sound that is my buzzer. I DO NOT EXAGGERATE when I describe my reaction to it. My reaction was, of course, heightened by two factors. 1) I was not expecting anyone. 2) IT WAS MIDNIGHT. Item number one is of importance because I figure that unless one of the (let's be honest) relatively few people I know in this city has informed me of their imminent arrival, anyone buzzing my buzzer (that sounds a little dirty), is either: a German TV tax collector in disguise who will somehow sweet talk their way into my apartment and then, upon seeing my TV, scream "AH-HA! VEE KNEW IT! PAY NOW OR VEE VILL KEEL YOU!" or an Unidentified Scary Person (henceforth referred to as USP.) Call me crazy, but that's just what I assume.

So, when I hear the piercing shriek of my buzzer at midnight on a Saturday, and almost every one of my friends is out of town on vacation, AND it's a little too late for tax collectors to be trolling the streets, I automatically jump to possibility number 3: USP.

So, I've calmed myself down after the first buzz, assured my mother (who yes, was still on the phone while this whole thing went down) that I'm fine and haven't suffered any sort of psychological fit, and restored some semblance of calm in the domain of my living room.


AND THEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN.

AND AGAIN.

AND AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN.


By this time, I've passed the normal state of abject terror that unexpected sound of the buzzer instills in me, and moved on to more of a....primal rage. I wrench open the window, am blasted by the icy October wind, and direct my enraged stare to the street corner five stories below. And lo, to what do my wondering eyes appear- a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer! Oh, whoops. No that's not right. Oh yes. It was a group of drunken imbeciles, having a grand old time and quite a few laughs while jamming their dirty little fingers down on all the buzzers at the front of my building. Over and over again.

Now, I've been a drunken imbecile. On a number of occasions. I'm sure I've offended lots of people. But REALLY. COME ON. These were grown men. As my friend Chris says "If you're seventeen, whatever. If your 25, I lose my patience." AND THEY JUST KEPT GOING. Obviously they were too inebriated to feel the heat of my molten hot death stare beating down upon them.

I was just about to start pelting them with foodstuffs. Seriously. I had my pop-tart in my hand. My arm was cocked back, prepared to deliver the punishing blow. Was I going to slam my window shut and duck down below the sill like a coward the minute the toaster pastry left my hand? Well yes, yes I was. But that's really not the point here. The point is that I was prepared to stand up for JUSTICE. And DIGNITY. And.....other stuff.

But, as fate would have it, the drunken imbeciles wised up and moved on about two seconds before my deathly projectile left my window.


All I can say is, lucky for them.

I Love Oregon.

Possibly infringing on someone's something, somewhere. Apologies.

An excerpt from John Hodgman's "Secret History of the Territory. "


OREGON

Nickname: The Big Beaver Furrier’s Dreamland

Motto: “In Oregon, Where the Shadows Lie.”

Notes: Prior to the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the Oregon Territory was a rugged land, dangerously overrun with beavers and British settlers, and stretching from the tip of present-day Cailfornia to the North Pole. Seriously, it was simply gigantic. Parts of Oregon were regularly found in empty lots and basements as far east as Illinois. When Oregon was discovered hanging around the outskirts of Baltimore, President Polk cried out, “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!” His council of numerologists immediately scryed the meaning: Oregon was to be stopped. After two years of concerted spellweaving and secret bloody battles, the president’s geographimancers at last fixed Oregon’s northward boundary to the 49th parallel. With Oregon’s back to the sea, the government would continue long after Polk’s death to push Oregon south from Canada and west from the Rockies to its current boundaries, where it seethes now, perpetually covered in a dark cloud of marijuana smoke, ever dreaming of conquest.

Some things never get old....

Including "your mom" and "that's what she said" jokes. Really. I'll laugh at them up until the day I die. Maybe I would be laughing at one as I die. There are worse ways to go.


Some things do get old. Parents who are rude and disrespectful are currently at the top of that list. I wish they could all cut me a break once in awhile.


But guess who I gave a reaaaaaaaaal break to last night? YOUR MOM.

"Drucken Sie bitte die zwei...."

No, animatronic and unnecissarily angry sounding German phone lady voice, I will not drucken die zwei. What I will do is throw my phone across the room in a childish but very satisfying fit of annoyance and frustration.

It's times like these when I waver between despising being in a foreign country because I can't always understand what is going on around me (even after living here for over a year now) and despising myself for not yet speaking the language well enough to navigate a mother effing automatic call menu. I go between thinking "Germany, why do you do this to me!?" and "Bri, why do you do this to yourself!? Go get yo' skanky ass down to the language school and git to learnin' some more German!" Yes, I imagine myself saying this in the style and voice of a streetwise African-American grandmother sitting in a rocking chair. It both amuses and motivates me. Don't ask me to explain why- I don't even know. I promise I'm not a racist.

I digress. I'm supremely annoyed at the fact that my German speaking skills have not progresseed beyond the point of "sounding like a demented five year old" status. I'm also embarrassed at this fact because I took two years of German in college, and one of those years was spent living in AUSTRIA. Where they speak....GERMAN. My listening skills have improved greatly, which I suppose is a good thing, since I can understand most of what people say to me, if they speak slower than normal and repeat things when I ask them to. I also like to think I'm charming enough to keep people from becoming impatient with me and walking away shaking their heads in disgust before I've gained the necessary information from them. (Yes this did happen once, but I chalk it up to me looking like a vagrant and the train station man not being at his most cheerful at 5 AM.)

But apparently these skills do not enable me to understand the stupid voice on the call menu, the voice which does not speak slower or repeat anything, for anyone...EVER. It's kind of like Satan, in a way. I imagine Satan wouldn't speak slower or repeat what he said for anyone. So you see the obvious connection. So, in order for me to overcome what is currently a large source of frustration in my life, and to overcome Satan, I need to start speaking some more German. Here is my plan:
1.) Go to Kaestner Kollege (language school) on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday (I like to give myself flexibility in scheduling, ok?) and sign up for the German class I researched three months ago but never got around to signing up for.
2.) Go to said German class and learn lots of new stuff. I'm good at going to school, this part should be easy.
3.) Actually speak to people in such environments as the grocery store, post office, street corner, etc. rather than avoiding eye contact at all costs and keeping my headphones in all the time so no one will even think of approaching me.
4.) Read German magazines and/or newspapers.....at least the easy articles.

I currently do some of these things in a half assed fashion, giving up when it becomes too difficult or embarrassing. But no longer! The next time my neighbor talks to me in the elevator, I'll do more than nod and smile and pray for the doors to open. I'll say.....something.

Ok, enough whining about not speaking the langauge of the country I currently reside in. Some interesting facts concerning my life at the moment:

*I went to the US for a month this summer. It was an incredibly enjoyable trip, despite the fact that I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to see. It sounds lame since a month is a long time but...there just wasn't enough time. I did get to drive a car and go shopping at 10:30 at night though, so there were some definite high points.

*STARBUCKS IS COMING TO DRESDEN. I feel this fact speaks for itself. And don't judge me, all you judgers out there, because once you've had as many bad cups of coffee as I have in the past 14 months, you too would rejoice at the thought of knowing exactly how your coffee was going to taste before it even tickled your taste buds. So get over it.

*My apartment is awesome. My friend Debbie "watered my plants" while I was gone this summer, which apparently is code for extreme home makeover. She scrubbed and cleaned and organized every inch of this place AND stocked my old Mother Hubbard status kitchen with food. It was all a surprise too- I came home from the airport hot, tired, pissed off at having to maneuver two heavy and ungainly suitcases up to the fifth floor- and opened the door to an entryway so clean the sparkles pinging off the floor nearly blinded me. Needless to say, Debbie's work was much appreciated, and has inspired me to keep the place clean and tidy. Good friends will know that this has often been one of my great struggles in life.

*I can cook! I really can! I might not be auditioning for Top Chef this summer (I'm thinking 2012 has a nice ring to it though) but I have actually started to eat more than tofu patties and cereal and milk. I know, I know, it sounds like a meager existence, but I think you underestimate my love of both tofu and cereal, as well as convenience. Last week I made chili, which turned out better than I ever thought anything I made could have. Yesterday and today I made both garlic bread (not that exciting but I'm trying to celebrate my successes here, people) and french toast. Both delicious. And easy. I'm finding that once you actually have the right kinds of ingredients and equipment around, cooking isn't all that hard. I've become better about buying something other than condiments every time I go grocery shopping. Just ask my friend Anne Kalos about this one. It's a serious problem I have. What can I say, the siren call of the salad dressing/dipping sauce aisle is just too hard to resist. But those days are over! Well, mostly. I did have cereal for dinner last night.

*I threw a party Friday night, my first hostessing of any sort since moving here. I think the word party might even be stretching it a bit, but there were food, alcohol, and a bunch of my friends all in my apartment at the same time. The phrase "glory hole" was tossed around a lot throughout the evening as well....I'll take it.

*I got a new sports bra last week, and am currently trying to break it in. Yes, these things need to be broken in, do not question my authority on this issue. I'm having some serious misgivings about this one on the comfort front, but I already took the tags off. Curses! Guess it'll have to do. At least it does provide the necessary squashage. Shut up, it's a word because I say it is.

*The new school year has started and we're almost a month in........................................I don't really have much to say on the subject at this point. I feel like a lot less of a fraud than I did at this time last year, but I still sometimes feel like slamming my head against the wall repeatedly at the end of the day. But I didn't cry at all during the first week, so I will consider this the mark of true growth and success and just ride the wave, baby. I also am still counting my blessings, because although my school has no language curriculum whatsoever for me to follow, as well as very unique parents, and this makes me feel anxious and upset on a daily basis, I still only have SIXTEEN STUDENTS. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, American public school system.

*I have been going to the gym three times a week. This week is the big week where I'm going to bump it up to four. Even if it kills me. It's worth it just to watch the outlandish shows on German cable television.

*I'm going to London for a quick weekend visit in two weeks. The plane ticket was twenty euros, round trip. Germany may have the annoying quality of not catering to my language needs, but if there's any European country more perfectly located for someone who loves to travel the continent, then I'm a monkey's uncle. Now if only Dresden had a bigger airport....

*I bought a vacuum and may possibly love it more than life itself.

*This last piece of news confirms the fact that I am turning into an old person.


Well, holy mother of all blog posts. If you made it this far, then here's a cookie. Enjoy it.

More to come, as soon as something interesting happens, or I buy another home cleaning tool.

Iron Chef Europe

I've just finished cooking up a veritable STORM, and feel inclined to share this good news with the world. After dining with my good friend Anne Kalos last night, and eating some delicious food she prepared, I felt inspired to do my own cooking. So I actually did it! I made tofu and veggie stir fry with peanut sauce, and a vegetable cheese frittata.

Well, the stir fry was mildly successful- I forgot to add the vinegar to the peanut sauce, and I think that made it a little bit on the salty/oily side. But it tasted good, and there are LEFTOVERS. And you know what that means people- lunch tomorrow, easily reheatable in the staffroom microwave. The fritata just came out of the oven, and it LOOKS perfect. I haven't tasted it yet, I'm saving it for breakfast- and I just hope that it tastes as good as it looks.

I will admit, I feel quite proud of myself. And here's the part that really surprises me and makes me feel like maybe there IS hope for my domesticity- I actually ENJOYED the cooking process! It was extremely relaxing and slightly therapeutic to spend two hours chopping and slicing and dicing and frying and mixing and baking. To those of you who know me well, you know I've never been much of a cook. My most impressive meals were egg scrambles or microwaved veggie burgers stuck between a couple pieces of toast. So I feel like this is a milestone in my life...I enjoyed cooking something! And it's not like I was even doing it to impress someone else who was coming over to eat- I did it just because I wanted to.

I'm uncharacteristically excited about my culinary adventures.

Well, it's been quite awhile since I updated, let's see what I have to say. I need to just sift through all the rubble and come up with the most important things.

I went to London, which was a great choice and a fantastic trip. I stayed for five (and a half) days, and really fell in love with the place while I was there. I'd been once before when I was studying in Salzburg, but I only stayed for three days so I didn't get to see everything I wanted to. This time, I really got to do some amazing exploring...and shopping! Boy, did I shop. Books, clothes, books, coffee...what a fantastic city. I saw TWO musicals, spent hours in the British library, haunted multiple coffee shops, visited a couple of castles, strolled through a few perfectly manicured gardens, saw a movie (English movies are few and far between in Dresden), met some funny boys and girls at my hostel, ate lots of Cadbury products, and bought some non-H and M clothing.
I can't wait to go back. I think I'd be quite happy living there actually- who's up for a London flat share?

About two weeks after the Great Britain Experience, TWENTY other people and I headed off to Stockholm for a long weekend. My friend Roy planned the whole thing for us- it's the easiest trip I've gone on since fall/spring tours back in the Salzburg days. Sadly, there was no meal allowance on this trip (which actually should have been called the booze allowance), but really all we had to do was follow Roy's directions, sit back, and enjoy the ride. He booked our flights, our transportation to and from the airport, our hostel, and managed to find us two restaurants that served us DELICIOUS dinners.
Highlights of this trip included our three hour tour (really) around the archipelago of Stockholm (who knew the city was spread out over several islands?) and a visit to the ICE BAR. The name really says it all- EVERYTHING is made out of ice. The chairs, the tables, the bar, the walls, the shot glasses. Before we went in, a big burly Swedish bouncer literally threw heavy fur capes over our heads, and then shoved us in the door. I was a bit skeptical about the necessity of such a ridiculous piece of outerwear, but it turned out to be a necessary addition to my jeans and t-shirt. That place was CHILLY. I loved every minute of it though- I just couldn't get over the novelty of the icy-ness.
We also stayed on a bostel- boat/hostel. Sleeping on the boat was pretty hilarious, especially when waters got a little rough while I was trying to take a shower. Combine the rocking of the boat with the slippery shower floor- yowza, things came close to getting very ugly. Luckily, I have cat like reflexes and balance....also luckily, no one else was in the shower room at the time to see me being pitched through my shower curtain and almost falling flat on my face.

And now, there are only 8.5 days left in the school year. 8.5 days left in my first year of teaching, a year that I thought would NEVER END. I have many conflicting feelings on this past year, to be shared at a later date- it's a long post in itself, and it seems to be way past my bedtime.

It's balls to the wall for all of this week, squeezing in as much teaching as I can before all those pesky year end assessments are due. Wish me luck.

Spring Break '09! WOOOH!

NO PARENTS! WHO'S GOT THE MERLOT?!

Ok so it's really not going to be that kind of a spring break. But I am going to go somewhere interesting. I just can't seem to decide. And said break is a mere THREE days away! Oh man, I can almost taste it. The kinder and I both need a break, that's for sure.

So here is the million dollar question. Or rather, the approximately 300 euro question (the maximum amount I have allotted for spending). Where should I go? I have two possible locations.

1) London. I have been there once before, but only for a couple of days. I've been told by natives that this is laughable and that I have to go back.

2) Edinburgh. For some reason I've become obsessed with visiting Scotland. Only problem: I don't know much about it, or if I would have a good time by myself.

Ok that's all. Input would be appreciated. Not that I won't just do what I want anyway, but maybe you can help me decide.

Peace friends.

Dinner in Deutschland

Well, that's the last time I do any impulse buying in the frozen meat section.

While grocery shopping last week, I couldn't be bothered to take time to decipher the description printed on the front of a box of what I thought were frozen chicken breasts. I tossed the box into my shopping bag and went on my merry way, coming home with the chicken, and about eight billion condiments. I have developed this strange habit lately of going into the store intending to buy, you know, real food, and coming out with nothing but condiments. I have more gourmet mustard, salad dressing, dipping sauces, etc. than anyone could ever ask for. Do I have anything to apply said sauces to? Nope. Nothing.

Thus my feeling of accomplishment when I bought an entire BOX of chicken. I could dunk and slather to my heart's content.

Well. It would seem reading the front of a box of frozen meat is a highly advisable thing to do. Imagine my shock and dismay when I opened the box of chicken breasts to find an extremely strange looking array of parts. Yes, it was an entire chicken, butchered in possibly the weirdest manner I could ever have imagined. There were two pieces that looked very claw-like...I've had trouble banishing the image from my mind. I was kind of at a loss as to what to do with this pan of chicken...it was a WHOLE chicken, and thus full of meat. But it looked absolutely diiiiiiisgusting. 100% unappetizing. And this is coming from someone who will eat just about anything. Or, at least try just about anything. I cite the gumball incident junior year of high school as a reference. (Krystyn, this citation is obviously for your own personal enjoyment.)

Well, I ended up half-heartedly sliding it into the oven, hoping that maybe it would improve with heat. Of course I then proceeded to start a craft project and completely forget that I had something cooking. I didn't remember until I went into the kitchen to get some orange juice and sniffed the air thinking "What is that strange sme- oh shit!" So I ended up with chicken...jerky. Which is even grosser than what I started with. It's currently swaddled in foil, taking up room in my teeny tiny refrigerator. I'm unsure what to do with it.



Priamary moral of the story: read the fucking label.

Tertiary moral of the story: memorize the German words for "entire" and "carcass." Avoid anything in the future that includes these two words.

Run for the Border

That used to be Taco Bell's slogan, and then they had to get a new one. I don't know why, it's not like that's at all offensive to anyone....

The only reason I bring this up (aside from the fact that I often long for any kind of Mexican food in this country of nothing but sausage and potatoes), is because yesterday I did some running for the border myself. Dresden is situated at the eastern edge of Germany, pretty much equidistant from the Czech and Polish borders. I am a fan of this location, and I'll tell you why. Because the novelty of being able to hop on a train, spend a pleasant one to two hours staring out the window at idyllic landscape, and then hop off in another country, never gets old. I hesitate to leave the previous sentence in it's present form, as I don't think it is grammatically correct. But I don't really feel like going back and fixing it, so I'll just have to let my grammar neurosis simmer for now. So, my current geographical location looks something like this:

I live in Dresden, one of those red dots.

As you can see, it's quite easterly. Yes, that is a word! Do not dispute me. An interesting observation that comes to me while viewing this map is that Berlin is really almost a straight line north, but is considered to be part of WESTERN Germany. Yes, the whole country has been unified for twenty years now, and everyone is one big, happy, beer swilling and sausage eating family. But people here still make comments all the time about those "westerners." Light hearted (and e-blogger can suck a big one for underlining that word in red and telling me it's incorrect, because I KNOW IT IS. Stupid machines trying to take over the world) comments to be sure, usually made as a joke. But there still seems to be a bit of cultural differences between the western and eastern parts of the country. Anyone who is actually German, or actually more knowledgeable than me on the subject of German reunification (so really, a lot of people) please take my remarks as the ramblings of a young American woman living in Germany, who really gets a kick out of over analyzing things and psycho-analyzing people and what they say. Nothing more.

Ok, ok, I am getting to the point. Not that any of the "points" I make on this thing are all that interesting or newsworthy. Yesterday, a couple of pals and I got on the train in the morning, and an hour later, voila! We were in Poland. Well, technically, we were still in Germany. The town we arrived in is a town on the very edge of the German/Polish border. Through the years, it's gone back and forth between being officially German and officially Polish. At least, I think that's what I read in the guide book. Like I said, I'm no expert. After World War 2 though, when countries were being hacked up and doled out like a Thanksgiving turkey (nice metaphor, I know), the mucky mucks in charge of the hacking decided that a great solution would be to just split this town down the middle, since it was right on the border. There is a small, sluggish river that flows through the middle of it, and this became the border between the two countries- effectively dividing one city between two countries. It's definitely a unique experience to take a two minute stroll across a bridge, and suddenly be in another country. All the street signs go from German to Polish, the food goes from German to Polish, the people suddenly sprechen more Polnish than Deutsch, wocka wocka wocka. You get the point.

The really stunning thing was the difference in upkeep on the two banks of the river. The German side was filled with well preserved ancient buildings, and was clean and orderly. Typical Germany. Well, the clean and orderly part, that is. The Polish side was...well, as my Polish traveling companion put it "a real shit town." Her words, not mine. I've got nothing against Poland...I happen to quite like the place. I don't know what this says about politics or anything, I just thought it was extremely interesting to see that juxtaposition.

Aside from the whole division of countries part, the town of Goerlitz (it's supposed to have an umlaut over the 'o' but I don't know how to make my non-German keyboard do that) has a few other things going for it. It's one of the very few places in the eastern part of Germany- no, scratch that, Germany as a whole- that wasn't totally decimated during the war. A lot of the cities have done a ton of rebuilding, and so it looks like all the cathedrals and palaces miraculously survived the bombings, no problem. Dresden is probably the grandaddy of all these places, because the whole place was levelled, and in the past ten years or so they've rebuilt a lot of the major architectural landmarks. If I didn't know better, I would assume the buildings had just aged really well.

But, I digress! Goerlitz happens to be a survivor of all this. There are buildings there that date back to 1230. It was a very enjoyable place to stroll around in, and imagine all the people who had gone in and out of those buildings for centuries. I love to think of what places would have been like in another time, and so my imagination really runs a muck in places like that, where all I have to do is zap passerby into 14th century garb and call it good. No modern buildings to banish, and I don't have to ferret out which buildings are really ancient and which ones are impostors.

All in all, a lovely place for a huge nerd like myself. Also, feasting on cheap and deep fried Polish perogis (I can neither confirm nor deny if that word is spelled correctly) wasn't half bad either.

In addition to aaaaall of this, yesterday was one of the most beautiful days we've had round' these parts in months. Sunshine, blue skies, lambs frolicking through green meadows. The part about the lambs might be me taking creative license....but you'll never know, will you?

I wish I was more adept at sprinkling photos throughout my blog post, but I seem to have trouble with that sort of thing. So below you shall find some pictures of this well preserved half German/half Polish town.

Some 16th century buildings.

Cross that bridge, and you're in Poland.

Fried perogis, an 11th cenury cathedral, and a large metal man reading a book.

That's the wave I use to address the commoners, who gather below my dais.

I seem to have serious layout issues. Eh well, we can't all be masters at everything we attempt to do, I suppose. Enjoy the photos, they were taken by my friend Lyn. I hope she doesn't sue me for breach of copyright...shit.

That's about all folks- I have a broom and a bottle of all purpose cleaner calling my name. Oh, and no updates on the theft situation yet. I am awaiting response from the bank, after having faxed a righteously indignant letter their way, explaining my current situation of financial distress. I hope they call me tomorrow....if they don't, I'll have to start calling people and annoying them until they give me my money back.

If only my Papa were here, the chant in an especially loud and obnoxious voice "QUACK QUACK QUACK, QUACK QUACK QUACK, WHEN DO I GET MY MONEY BACK!?"

He's really a pro, and has yelled it at us, his grandchildren, at really inappropriate moments for as far back as I can remember. I might have to get a long distance conference call going if things don't sort themselves out soon.

Oh, and I am down to THREE girls in my class. This has increased the number of times in a day when I ask myself if those vitamins I take each morning might actually be CRAZY PILLS in diguise, from once or twice to approximately 1,234. Good thing I love those little gremlins.

FUCK.

My credit card (of the German bank variety) has been compromised. Some thieving, low down, no good, uneducated (well, maybe) ASSHOLE stole my credit card number off of an airline website. At least, this is the theory I have formulated after doing a good bit of sleuthing.

Said asshole purchased not one, not even two, but THREE TICKETS TO AUSTRALIA.Dear Australia: YOU SUCK.

What kind of a world is this?! What kind of a universe is this!? Relatively speaking, I'm a pretty rad person. I open doors for women with baby strollers. I let old people have my seat on public transportation. I lend money to people who need it. I make my neighbor cookies (admittedly with the outside chance of receiving nookie in exchange for the cookie, HA, but still). I teach small children how to read and write and not beat each other to bloody pulps every day. So where the hell has all that good karma gone?!?!?!?!

Can I get a GOB Bluth style OH, COME ON?!


Seriously! It's ridiculous! I'm enraged! ENRAGED, I TELL YOU.

Yes, I've alerted the bank, have my statement asserting my indignation along with my demand to be reimbursed prepared and signed and ready to fax tomorrow, wocka wocka wocka. However, I will not feel better until I have my money back. No, scratch that. I will not feel better until I find the bottom feeder who committed this act of perfidy against me, and take every cent out on their FLESH.

Ok, I may have spoken rashly concerning the flesh part, I'm generally against violence. But I'll turn them over to the authorities. And do a lot of righteous smirking in his/her/their general direction.

Vengeance SHALL be mine......nay.......MUST be mine.

Fuck.

How Could I Forget....

Love and happiness via the internet to two of my favorite people.

First, my seriously magnificent sister Kaitlynn Marie Caldwell. She's nineteen, people. Not really a very exciting age if you live in the US, but once she gets to Salzburg next year (oh yeah, she's GOING), she'll be able to party like it's 1999.

Also to my wonderfully awesome friend Emily Clare Rico. 23 and still spry and fresh as a spring chicken. I've never really understood that phrase but I like it, and chickens make me think of cocks (the roosters- come on, what do you take me for). This of course makes me think of the fateful evening almost five years ago (we're so old), when I screamed out "shit cock" in front of a passing nun, and Emily nearly died of total mortification. If I remember correctly she tried to dive into the bushes to avoid being sent to hell merely by association.



I love you two! Happiest of birthdays to you!

These Pretzels Are Makin' Me THIRSTY

I just ate some cookies, and they have made me ridiculously thirsty. If only Kramer were here.

This shall be a quidate (that's quick and update combined, duh), because it is way past my bedtime and I am a grouchy teacher if I don't get enough sleep. Really, I'm not nice.

The week before last, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding between myself and this German "electrical company" (scam artists), my electricity was turned off. With only one letter telling me this would happen, sent a measly two days before shut off. Well, the extremely short version of the really twisted story is that I was positive I had set up a direct deposit when I moved in here in July. Well, surprise- I didn't. So I haven't paid for any electricity since AUGUST. As you can most likely guess, the bill was enough to make all the air shoot out of my lungs when I saw it. Top that off with all the charges they had piled on because I hadn't been paying, and we're talking hundreds of euros. SCAM ARTISTS I TELL YOU. I maintain that they are trick bitches, not just because they shut off my electricity, but because they have failed to "input into the system" THREE other friends of mine. These people are much smarter than I am, and caught on quicker, thus managing to avoid spending an entire evening and morning in total darkness, having all the food in their refrigerator spoil, and taking a shower in the morning by candlelight.

And no, it was not a sexy shower. Taking a candlelit shower is only sexy if you aren't ALONE.

So that's that. It's over. And now I am against Drewag. That's the group of fraudulent individuals masquerading as a legitimate business who forced this dramatic saga upon me.


In other news:

I am going to Egypt in one week. Seven days. Next Sunday I'll be lounging on the coast of the Red Sea. Yes, the one Moses parted. I'll tell him you all say hi.

I had two symphony concerts this weekend, and they went surprisingly well. I don't know why I was surprised, but I was. I had visions of my clarinet slipping out of my hands in the middle of my one tiny solo, hitting the floor, and shattering into tiny splinters of wood that would fly into all the other musicians eyes and permanently blind them so they could never read music again.

Fortunately, this was not the case. I was pretty awesome. Well, I guess the orchestra was pretty awesome and I just kind of did my thing in the back row and prayed no one would notice if I messed up.


I haven't done the dishes in over two weeks. I am ashamed to admit this but I feel it has to be said. Maybe now that the world knows, I'll actually do something about it.

That shows you how often anyone ever comes to my apartment.


I reaffirmed my love for train travel yesterday when traveling from Hannover back to Dresden. Train stations are WAY BETTER than airports, in every possible way. I also scored an awesome break and got to ride in the first class carriage. For some reason they were herding all the second class passengers into first class seating. Well, I'm certainly not one to object when being offered, for free, more comfortable accomodations than I would ever be willing to pay for. I had the most glorious four hour train ride imagineable. Enough room to stretch my legs all the way out, a huge comfortable seat, great view out the window...man, I love riding the rails.

That last part sounds really dirty. I like it.


Well, that's all from Deutschland for now. I'm thinking of purchasing my own washing machine. We'll see if this actually happens. More details to follow.

I DO Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar

So, my birthday is a mere two and a half months away. I've found the perfect gift, should anyone feel like celebrating the day of my birth by showering me with presents.




Anyone who knows me will understand why I would DEARLY LOVE to receive this book.



More exciting posts, involving my electricity being cut off and then turned on again (it wasn't my fault!), to come later.

Slump funk

For the past week and a half or so, I've been in a bit of a funk. Or a slump. I don't really know what you would call it, but it hasn't been pleasant. Breakdown of my slunk (that's the two words combined, in case you were wondering): First, I turned into a raging, hormonal maniac. About two days into this hormonal rage, I realized that menstruation was imminent, and my rage was caused by increased progesterone and estrogen levels in my body. Did this realization help me to calm down, stop terrorizing those around me (including my students), and control my rage? Pah, of course not!! Having been on the baby pill for about two years now, PMS has been a thing of the past. I would think of it and chuckle at how crazy I used to get for that one awful week each month. "That silly Bri from the past! Why couldn't she just chill?" Well, thanks to foiled attempts to illegally import my special brand of baby pill from the US (the Germans caught me red handed and confiscated a three month supply,right before my very eyes), I've been off the pill now for about three months. Slowly, the old small-on-their-own-but-miserable-when-experienced-simultaneously-symptoms began to creep back in. I won't bore readers (ha! readers! who am I kidding) with the gory details of said symptoms, because well, it's just not that interesting. But the whole being the angriest and least patient person IN THE COSMOS thing hasn't been a problem for the past two months. Why it decided to rear it's ugly head this month is a mystery to me.

So, the moral of this story is that last week was the worst week I've had probably in the past eight months or so. It seemed like everything was going wrong, all of the adults- well, most- that I work with were on my case about one thing or another, and all the children that I work with chose last week to exhibit the absolute worst facets of their personalities. Could I have been hyper sensitive to their possibly normal childish capers? Perhaps. But it doesn't change the fact that a few kids just managed to exhaust every last ounce of my patience and compassion, and I was seriously wishing it were legal to liberally employ the use of duct tape in one's teaching practices. I locked myself in my apartment on Thursday night, and used every ounce of my super psychic powers (hey, I might have them) to make time skip ahead a day so I wouldn't have to go to work the next day. Unfortunately, my psychic powers failed me (curses! foiled again!) and I had to do the usual stuff on Friday. I decided at the end of the day to walk home in the sub zero (literally) temperatures, rather than taking the tram. I stopped off at a new cafe that opened near school, and ordered a LARGE hot chocolate, and I have to say, it may have been my first step out of the slunk. It was absolutely delicious, and kept my hands semi-warm on the walk home. Walking through the beautiful buildings in this wonderful German city that I live in cheered me somewhat, and by the time I arrived home I felt less like kicking a puppy.

So, then came the weekend. My mood continued to improve (but we're relatively speaking here people, I was still pretty bitchy), and the highlight of the weekend was rearranging all the furniture in my cavernous living room. I also finally put up the art that I brought back with me after going home in December, and that made me feel much more at home and happy. My living room is much cozier now, and I get to check out a naked chick all the time. Venus of Urbino, greatest painting ever created, one of Titian's masterpieces.....not porn, Dave. I went to bed early-ish in an attempt to stave off Monday morning grumpiness.

And then, on Monday.....AAAAAAAAAALLELUIA! ALLELUIA! Aunt Flo had taken the night train into town! Raging hormonal Bri was gone, and normal Bri was back. I loved my students again (I still loved them last week but sometimes had a hard time remembering it), and was happy to be alive. I celebrated my good mood by purchasing my FIRST house plant. I know, my former housemates are probably shocked I have lived this long without plant companionship, but it's taken me awhile to get over Schlemiel and be ready to move onto other plants. I repotted this plant myself, and decided that it definitely looked like a Charlie.

On Tuesday, I had the BEST symphony rehearsal since I've joined the one here in Dresden. I feel like I finally know the music pretty well, and I actually MADE A JOKE auf Deutsch to the guy who sits next to me. Up until now he's been cold as ice, but he actually laughed! And then he offered me the use of his gummi bear topped pencil. I took it as a gesture of friendship and peace...on par with an olive branch being flown in by a shimmering white dove. And oh yeah.....OBAMA WAS SWORN IN!!!!!!!! Suddenly this town is in love with all things American, which I find rather humorous and ironic. I got to see part of the ceremony and speech at a local pub, it was pretty momentous. Not quite as great as meeting (and SIDE HUGGING) Dan Savage, but an extremely close second.

Now I seem to be sliding a bit into the land of no motivation. Well, in my personal life. I've been catching up and organizing like crazy at school, and am starting to feel better about everything there. I felt so disorganized and anxious all of last week, so the past few days I've been working late and just deep cleaning and planning like crazy. But then I get home, and have abou eight million things I could do.....but I don't want to. Actually, that's a lie. I have two things I have to do. Clean my kitchen and bathroom, and DO MY LAUNDRY. This may not seem that bad, but when one has to venture out of one's place of residence to do said laundry, it becomes a genuine ordeal. When you hate doing laundry as much as I do, and let it pile up for weeks at a time, it then becomes an ordeal of EPIC proportions. So anyway, the past two nights I've planned on hitting the laundromat.....but then I get home and look at the hamper which has been stuffed to the brim and now exploded onto the floor....and lose my resolve. I really HAVE to do it though, because after tomorrow, I can't think of a single clean article of clothing that i have in my posession.

Instead of doing laundry, I do useless shit like this. Oh and I spy on my neighbors. I "took the garbage out" about an hour ago just as an excuse to see my new neighbor, who I ascertained was young and male from the sound of his booming voice echoing off the walls on the landing/hallway. He turned out not to be that cute (rats), but was friendly. Not a total loss I suppose, although he most likely thinks I'm a simpleton. He had an ESPECIALLY Saxony-ish accent so I understood approximately 1/6 of what he said to me while we shared the elevator down to the basement.

And now for the big news, the whole reason I decided to post today...............I'M BACK ON THE PILLS PEOPLE. I just waltzed into a Frauenaertz (direct translation: Woman doctor), told her the kind of pills I'd been taking, flashed my catchall socialized German insurance card, and VOILA! She handed over a three month prescription as if it were no bigger deal than giving me a band-aid for a paper cut.

AND I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER. It's really big news. Also, gloriously cheap. 20 euros for a three month supply. Take THAT, US healthcare system, and shove it up your.....um, system hole?

Now I've realized how late it has become and I haven't eaten dinner yet. Balls. If I'm going to stick to this nine fifteen bedtime I'd better get my rear in gear.

Oh and to end on a JOYOUS note, it was ABOVE ZERO all day today. It would seem that God hasn't forsaken Dresden after all.