Avoidance Tactic

Two posts in one day, WHAAA?

I just did a huge pile of laundry, and now it is sitting in a wet, wrinkled heap, waiting to be hung up. A real dryer that actually DRIES one's clothing, rather than just heating it up into a steaming pile of fabric, does not seem to exist in this country. Exaggeration? Perhaps. Does that make it any less annoying? Definitely not.

To avoid hanging up every piece of clothing I own, including my SOCKS, (what kind of a freak hangs up their socks?!) I am doing this. I just bought a huge rug for my living room, as well as a coffee table that I built (well, assembled might be a more appropriate word) myself, and so I am enjoying just sitting in my living room and taking it all in while I type.

I really don't have all that much to say, except that it's cold as balls and still snowing. I also am wishing that I had a television, because I'm definitely in the mood for some sort of TV on DVD marathon. Curses, foiled again. I have a TV stand that I bought from someone who was moving, back in July when I was sure I would get a TV as soon as I moved into my apartment. Ahhh, those days of naivete, before I experienced the trials and tribulations (and public humiliation) of trying to lug something heavy back home on the tram. Unless I am able to find one of those red wagons that kids ride around in, or someone loans me a vehicle, I won't be owning a TV for awhile. No way am I bringing something like that home via public transportation. I suppose a taxi is always an option, but I seem to have very poor luck whenever I try to call for one of those. All of this is really just a sign from the big guns upstairs that I shouldn't be watching TV, since I could be doing so many more constructive things with my time.

I think I will post some pictures, of one of our latest social outings. Any and all social outings in Germany involve alcohol and sausages, and I believe both of these make an appearance in the following fotos (I definitely typed it that way- the German way- accidentally at first. I decided not to correct it because I feel it is a good example of how muddled my brain has become in it's sad, sad attempt to be billingual.)

These photos capture me drinking hot spiced wine, singing karaoke, and getting up to some general debauchery at the Dresden "Winterdorf." For you non-Deutsch sprachers, that's the winter village. It's a classy place, let me tell you. Weiners for miles.

And with that, I'm spent.

A whole crew of teachers from Dresden Int. School

Well, bullocks. It would appear I am not the master of drag and drop that I just moments ago thought myself to be.

Just imagine that it's flawlessly laid out. Jeff, pipe down, I can hear you laughing from across the Atlantic.

You Positively REEK of Awesomeness.

Before I do any sort of real update, I feel it necessary to acknowledge my dear and faithful friends who actually take time to read this rubbish. I actually started to write an entry singing each of their praises, but when I read it over again, it was just about the most ridiculously corny thing I've ever laid eyes on.

I think you all would have gagged a little upon reading it, despite the good intent. So I will just do the free association thing and write a phrase that pops into my head to describe

each of these amazing individuals.

Krystyn Ourada, above right-and this is reaching way back into the annals of time, I hope she remembers-: (Spoken to a llama) "You wanna go?!"


Courtney Ashford, above left: Me: "Hey is Courtney there?"
Rod Ashford: "No."
Me:"Who the F**CK IS THIS?!!?"
(At four in the morning.)




My dear Anna Walters: "Who wants treatsies?" and "I've made a horrible mistake."

(Or anything Dan Savage related.)















Katy Caldwell, younger sister of epic proportions: "Doggy Monster."


Sorry Katy I just had to do it.









I have to preface my good friend Jeff Hammond's free association phrase with a sad, sad fact: I do not have in my possession any photographs of the two of us together. Tragedy strikes again.

Ok, here is Jeff's: "I can't focus on anything you're saying with your boobs hanging out like that."








Ah, how I love and miss you all! I hope you've enjoyed this little free association game. I know I have. I've also enjoyed the chance to hone my drag and drop skills- they were a little shaky prior to this post.

Truly wonderful people like these are what make life worth living.

And if you are crying to yourself that I didn't mention you, then maybe you should holler at yo' girl every once in awhile.

Oh, how I adore the weekend

Well, dear readers, I am updating again. I feel a bi-weekly update isn't too shabby, considering the facts that a) I have been working my ass off and b) I've been sick. Yes, I somehow picked up an extremely violent strain of a stomach virus that has been going around (apparently). Last night I ate for the first time since last Friday. Ok, I've eaten crackers and on one occasion, mashed potatoes, but that's been it. Nothing else would stay in my stomach, and it was not a happy time. I will spare everyone the gory details, but let's just say that whatever went into my stomach came right back out again. Blech.

But, I am cured! Or so it seems, I don't want to get my hopes up too high only to have them dashed after these frosted mini wheats finish digesting. Now that I am feeling better, I have to start cleaning my apartment. Since school started I have just been letting everything pile up, and haven't really been doing this whole cleaning thing. My kitchen is disgusting, and the floors are absolutely filthy. I don't know how they get so dirty but....they do. Additionally, I REALLY need to do laundry, but do I have the stupid tokens to use the laundry machine in the basement of my apartment building? Well, of course I don't. Have I tried on several occasions to acquire said tokens? Well, of course I have. I seem to have a landlord that is never at his office. Either that or he has a policy of not answering the buzzer for people without an appointment. To tell the truth, I don't really care about seeing anyone....if they could just toss some tokens down to me from the upstairs windows I would be happy as a clam at high tide.
Owing to my current lack of tokens (I feel like I am eight years old and back at that one pizza parlor in Salem that had the really awesome games you couldn't put real money into, only tokens), I have to go to a stupid laundromat and try and do my laundry there. Or I might go to one of my co-workers homes to take advantage of their laundry machines which they have IN THEIR APARTMENTS. I suppose I could spring the four hundred euros and buy my own, but it's much more fun (and much cheaper) to just bitch about not having one. Also, buying something of that size would require coordinating the delivery of said machine, and things like that just give me a headache. Because the exchange would invariably be conducted in either broken German (on my part) or broken English (on their part) and I would most likely miss some vital piece of information. You know, something like "you have to pay us 500 euros upon delivery." It seems that I have a lot to bitch about today....eh well, so be it. I feel this is a fairly tame way of dealing with the annoyances in my life.

The second week of school went much better than the first, I have to say. I was a bit downtrodden at the end of last week, and was wondering just what I had gotten myself into. It was definitely not all sunshine, bunnies, and lollipops, but it was better. I didn't want to cry and/or break something at the end of the day yesterday, so I'll take it. I am really starting to understand though, why teachers get so many breaks. Because they NEED them.

I do have some hilarious kids though, and they keep me going. I mentioned the Portland Trailblazers in class yesterday, and after explaining who they were, I was attacked for details, photos, and memorabilia. I didn't want to tell the kids that I wasn't the biggest sports fan to begin with, so I just said I would try and find some Blazers stuff to bring in. Who knew the Blazers would ever make anyone so popular?

I am hoping to go to Prague next weekend. I need a little pick me up. Hopefully it will work out, and maybe someone fun and interesting from work will want to go with me. Not that I am averse to traveling alone, but I do enjoy company.

Also, I have to admit, that I am homesick. I keep thinking about what I would be doing if I were in Portland right now, and then I think about what I was doing last year at this time and how awesome and easy life was. I would give just about anything to be able to sit on the porch of the Farmhouse, eat some cool whip, and drink a beer with my pals.

Or I wish I could just transport all my favorite people here. That would be an acceptable solution.

In other news, my best friend just completed her first TRIATHALON. And it wasn't one of those pansy ass mini triathalons, it was the real one. And the biggest triathalon in the world, no less. She is pretty much a bad ass. This is her crossing the finish line.

AND my little sister started COLLEGE last weekend. Balls, I am getting old.

Grapes in various forms

I forgot to mention this in the previous post, and it is EXTREMELY important. Today after school, at the first real staff meeting of the year, we were served WINE by our PRINCIPAL.

I feel I need say no more on the subject. All readers should be duly impressed.

Speaking of grapes, I am so effing annoyed that you can't get seedless grapes here. Some of you know of my (so called) strange eating habits. Well, I feel compelled to mention here that these mother effing stupid idiotic seed filled grapes make my favorite breakfast of cottage cheese and grapes IMPOSSIBLE. There is no way to spit seed out around a mouthful of cottage cheese.


German seedy graped bastards.

German speaking children and maternity pants

WELL. Today was the first day of school. My first day as a real teacher. My first day being one hundred percent responsible for a class full of children with no guidance from anyone. My first day of being the responsible adult on recess duty. Yikes.

This was a day that I had built up in my mind for....well, I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd been building it up for years. Ever since I started working on my education degree back at the ol' alma mater, I've thought on and off about how it would be when I had my own classroom. Last year when I was student teaching, I thought about it even more, and I am slightly ashamed to admit, in a rather superior manner. Even though I loved both of my cooperating teachers, and learned SO much from them, at the time I sometimes thought to myself "well, I will definitely not do THAT when I have MY OWN classroom." Well, pride goeth before the fall, wocka wocka wocka, because today I found myself thinking on several occasions "if only I were half as with it as them." BALLS it was a hard day! I thought I had planned for every eventuality but then it seemed like every five minutes something came up that I didn't have an answer for.


I am going to be meanie mcmeanerston teacher for the first few weeks (months?) and just drill stuff into their brains. I am pretty sure that the only alternative to this would be a violent uprising that would end with me being dangled off the balcony that goes around my classroom by a rope crafted from their PE socks. That whole "no smiling 'till Christmas" thing might turn out to be true. Well not totally, but I am going to be a hard ass for awhile. Which is sad, because I dislike being a hard ass, it makes me feel like the teacher from Charlie Brown.

All this aside, I am hopeful. I just have to plan the mother f out of every single day, and have a plan B for every single time period. Today, I had a plan B for the time when I thought my plan A might not work out, but not for the rest of the day, which turned out to be a mistake. Oy, this is going to be the biggest learning experience of my life. I just hope the kids can learn something in the process.

In other news, I went on a shopping spree two days ago, and somehow managed to purchase MATERNITY WEAR. There are no words my friends, there simply are no words. This was my thought process that led to said purchase:
"Why is there all this extra elasticky material at the waistline that goes up to my boobs?"
"Well, maybe it's to prevent the underwear sticking up from the back of your pants. That has always annoyed me."
"Maybe it's a built in girdle!"
"Man, these Germans have their shit figured out."
"Well, it's not that weird, these are really comfortable pants, so...."

My only defense is that I was over worked, over tired, and dehydrated while doing this shopping, and it may have affected my decision making and logical reasoning skills.

I will probably keep the pants though. I tell myself it's because conducting an exchange auf deutsch would be too difficult, but it could just be that I secretly am in love with elasticky pants.


And I shall end on that note. :)

Oh, death to early rising

Ok, I am making an attempt to write more, I really am!! It's ridiculously validating that people (namely Anna, Krystyn and Courtney) want to read this. And what can I say, I live to serve, as you wish, wocka wocka wocka.

It is however, 12:13 AM round these parts and I have to be at work at EIGHT AM tomorrow. EIGHT! I mean, it's not that unreasonable, I guess that's a pretty normal time to start one's working day but it just makes me feel nauseous after three months of sleeping in until it's too late to have breakfast and I just might as well have lunch. The moral of that story: this will be a short post. Since my balcony door is wide open, I hope that my neighbor can hear the clacking of my keyboard and that it is keeping him awake. Muahahaha.

So, this was her idea....

Ok, I have to admit, I have always been a bit wary of "blogs." Reason the first: they have stupid names. Blog? Really? Come on. Reason the second: it seems a bit presumptuous to keep a record of what one does, on the internet. What is so interesting about your life that people would actually go online and find your blog, and then read it?

However. As you might have guessed, I have pushed aside my misgivings, for a couple of reasons. Reason the first: writing about my life in Germany once on here, and then giving people the link, is MUCH easier than writing twelve emails a day. Not that I don't love you all, but sometimes it's a bit wearing to say the same thing to eight different people eight different times. Reason the second: It's easy to post pictures. As most of you know, I'm a bit of a picture freak. Reason the third: Krystyn Ourada suggested it, and I take all her suggestions seriously. It really was her idea.

Anyway, I can excuse myself from feeling presumptuous by saying this: if you don't want to read this, then....don't! There we go. Now onto the good stuff.

I've been living in Germany now for about five weeks. Can you believe that?! I sure can't, it seems like just yesterday that I was living in the Farmhouse and waking my house mates up with the toy trumpet on Sunday mornings. Now I have a little (very little) apartment all to myself, up on the fifth floor of an apartment building in the Neustadt, which is a very happening part of the city, I have to say. Most nights there are local hooligans getting drunk on the sidewalk down below my living room windows, and occasionally breaking bottles. Surprisingly, this doesn't bother me at all, since they have so far proved to be harmless, and they sing some pretty funny German drinking songs. And I can go into my bedroom and close the door and voila, they're gone! I do live one tiny block from the train tracks, so I get to hear train whistles on a very regular schedule. Those do bother me a bit, I shake my fist out the window at the tracks quite frequently. I have a neighbor who likes to have extremely loud sex, but this has only happened twice. Twice that I've heard at least, he may have gotten the hint when I slammed my balcony door shut during frolic number two, in an attempt to block out the moaning. Perhaps he's as randy as ever, but just keeps the door firmly closed now. I don't ask questions, I just count my blessings.

My German has improved a minuscule amount since being back over here. I was a pretty mid level German speaker when I left Salzburg two years ago, but after not speaking it for so long I am VERY rusty. I still know the important word though....Bier. Yes, I have been thoroughly enjoying the German brews, there really is nothing like a huge weissbier at the end of a hot day. Sometimes I find it more enjoyable to just drink my dinner....don't worry, I don't do it all the time. That beer fills you up, what can I say. I also live in a region of Germany that is (apparently) famous for their wine. Well, I decided that I needed to see if this was the truth, or if it was just a vicious rumor. I'm happy to say that after extensive research, I can confirm that the wine from 'round these parts is indeed fame-worthy.

Well, I think that's about all I feel like saying right now. Today I went to a little town called Meissen, and paid the three euros to tour the castle...luckily, it was a self guided tour with information about each different room in German AND ENGLISH!!! I get sick of tour guides, and I'm the hugest nerd that ever lived, so I do a lot of lingering, which tour guides don't really approve of. It is now pretty high up there on my list of Really Sweet Castles. OH AND THIS IS AMAZING. Well to me it is. It turns out that the Wettin family, who ruled over Saxony for hundreds of years, are actually....the WINDSORS. After WWI they decided to up and change the family name. Quite interesting, no? George "Wettin" is the same George who was married to Queen Victoria!

Ahh, proof of what a nerd I truly am. I was positively gleeful after learning my new and interesting historical fact. On the right you will see pictures of this little town that I visited today. It was totally and completely charming, that's the only word that appropriately describes it. Oh, and it's where porcelain was invented. I saw a few 800 euro TEA SAUCERS in shop windows. Not really my style, but I suppose if you have 800 euros to throw away, might as well throw it away on a tea saucer.

Oh, and I start work on MONDAY. Oy.