It's the little things in life that make my day. I've been using 100% recycled-paper toilet-paper lately, and I must admit, it's probably a bigger inconvenience than being vegetarian for the environment. The roll is great, though. The sheets are decorated with lil trees and what not and every few sheets it says "Danke". The trees are saying thank you to me! I find that amusing every time I notice it.

It's also nice, when I've been antsily anticipating a grade for a presentation in a class which was worth 30% of my grade, to open an e-mail and find that I got a 97/100. Life is good.

I've been ecstatic lately. Berlin is home. Last week when I was sick and stressed out about classes, I was more stressed because I didn't want the mixture of sickness and class problems to keep me from getting the courses that I need and thereby force me to take all IES courses and go home a month and a half earlier. When I was quite sick and stressed in Barcelona, in DC, wherever, my first thought is to go home - just for the comfort, for a weekend or two. But I've got that here in Berlin.

My mommy told me that she's planning on coming in early August which means I don't have to change my flight at all. I didn't feel an ounce of sadness for missing out on a summer in Minneapolis. I don't even care about missing Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and other great acts at the Folk Festival this year. I do feel somewhat bad that others are not following through on the tradition in my absence (BRIAN), but as for my absence I have no qualms. I just love it here so much.

Classes have been going well, on Wednesday I got 110 Euros from the school as part of a program they have for new students in Berlin (ya, you just fill out a form and the school gives you money; haha, big difference between that and paying a fortune to go to GW, eh?) I also received my internship place. It's not in environmental policy as I initially hoped, but I am tutoring some refugee kids, which should be good for my TFA and JET applications. I'm also going to be making a documentary about the program for them. So that will be easy, and hopefully fun, too.

Then I went to see the first play for my theater course: Brecht's Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui in the Berliner Ensemble, the theater which Brecht founded himself! It was crazy, in a spectacularly awesome way. Just quite an experience.

On Thursday I spent the day in West Berlin, classing it up and then meeting with Antonia's grandma for delicious asparagus, followed by doing some (fairly pointless) tour of Kudamm with a group of girls from my internship seminar. It was almost fun, though. Hah. Then I had this massive urge to party, and here I am, 4:15pm on Friday still not showered. Time to start the party again, I think. Grill Party at Morgan's Turkish workplace! Woo!

Life just loves me right now, and I love it right back.

Today may mark the last turn in my full-circle trip around international relations and politics. Or perhaps I'm just feeling a lil funny. I'd like to document my thoughts in case this really is a pivotal day.

So. I started by reading some articles in the New York Times. Despite being rather disappointed by the stupidity of certain contemporary situations covered, I found myself generally interested in Senate vote that put a time-frame on the Iraq war and also, rather surprisingly, in the news from Democratic Presindential Candidate debate. Then I found myself wanting to read two Op-Ed pieces by Krugman and Friedman (why oh why?), which I of course, and probably for the better, was unable to do because I don't subscribe to NYT Premiere or whatever.

Around this time, I suddenly started thinking about perhaps working on the election campaign of a candidate (assuming I find one with whom I can agree 75% or more of the time) after graduating in December. I mean, I've been contemplating what I want to do with my life in general, and what I want to be doing a year from now, and I don't have any set plans. Abruptly politics came back into my head. Yes, I'm as surprised as you are; if you're not surprised, I guess you didn't know that after taking Intro to Comparitive Politics and Intro to International Affairs two years ago as a freshman at the George Washington University, I absolutely abhorred anything remotely related to theories of international affairs or politics. I even stopped paying attention to the news completely for a lil under a year in order to avoid hearing anything political. Living with my father was particularly stressful at this time of my life.

I then finally decided to start my reading for Theories of American Foreign Policy, a course I'm currently taking at the Humboldt University of Berlin in English but with students from around Germany and Europe (and there's a Japanese girl and a few other Americans). I have to take this course (or another "international" politics course - most of which were equally unenticing) to complete my International Affairs major, which apart from this, I've gotten through without having to take any poli sci or int aff course beyond those horrid intros. Clearly I did not want to take the course at GW / with ambitious, superficial GW students. So here I am, taking a course on American foreign policy and another on US diplomatic history in Berlin. Whoops.

Anyhow, I've been a lil uneasy about taking this foreign policy course since we got the syllabus on Monday. The readings are quite similar to those I did for intro to int'l affairs, but this time around they are a little bit deeper. I hated intro to int'l affairs and it made me hate everything I had thought I wanted to do in life. Reliving it is therefore dangerous.

So now you can properly imagine the utter shock I felt as I read the first few readings, finding them interesting (almost like a book you don't want to put down), recalling with excitement names and characteristics of theories I thought I'd purged from my mind, and, above all, actually recognizing the merits of the various theories, including realism (well mostly defensive realism, but at times even other strains!) At one point, I even daydreamt a little about becoming a senator.

The world has really turned itself upside down today - well my world, anyway. Yesterday I spoke with Eric about the Foreign Service Exam for entry into the Foreign Service or other diplomatic State Department work: my prevailing career goal at least since the 7th grade (and up to about two years ago). He was commenting on how he's interested in the US History course we have together because it covers a large part of what is tested by the FSE; I was unaffected, or perhaps even a little repelled by the entrance of the particular topic into the conversation. Somehow that has now gotten me more interested in the material of that class as well (I had already been relatively interested).

So now I am going to shower. Shower's change weird moods I get into rather often, so we'll see if I'm feelin' it still after a lil cleansing. If not, you may be reading the blog of a future senator or, better yet, ambassador. (God, I feel like such a GW tool; but if it's meant to be, it's meant to be).

In the past week, I've done pretty much EVERYTHING wrong. I don't understand, I'm usually quite on-top of things, aware of my surroundings and my responsibilities. I've been sick, so I do put some blame on that, but man, I just keep realizing more and more things that I've done incorrectly and I'm losing all faith in myself.

On Tuesday, I signed up for a lower German class than I should have, because I wasn't feeling particularly self-confident. I also completely neglected to pay my rent, which was due on Tuesday, despite withdrawing money on Monday night (I didn't remember about the rent then either). The worst, is I didn't realize that I didn't pay my rent until Friday and I didn't have the self-confidence built up for the C1 German course until Friday, when all the higher level (C1) courses were already full.

I also realized on Friday afternoon that I forgot to pay my internet bill which was due on Thursday. Then last night, I realized that Lana wasn't actually coming in last night, but rather tonight. I thought she was getting in at 11:45 on Saturday, but really it's 11:15 on Sunday. I could have easily checked the text message again, but I didn't.

I've allowed chocolate to melt in my backpack all over my belongings two days in a row this past week. You think I would have learned.

Today, I started to feel a little better. I was at the welcome breakfast in my dorm and talked to a Tutor who said that paying late should not be a problem because I haven't yet been contacted about being late. She said even if I had been contacted, it would only be a 6 Euro fine or so. I hope this is the case and there is no problem tomorrow morning. I spoke for 3 hours or so with several German and international students, and it was just nice to sit around and not worry about things. However we were talking about various universities in Berlin, and someone mentioned that the FHW (School of Economics) started last week and I remembered that it did... WHOOOPS, I didn't go to my class there on Wednesday and it's SUPER important to go to the first class to sign up.

DAMMIT. I hope I didn't fuck up too badly, but if I did, I really was quite sick on Wednesday and spent the entire day at home, so it's not like I had no reason to miss class.

I just can't believe I've been that out of it lately. I feel like a completely different person. Like an idiot.

EDIT: The stupidities just keep rolling in! The course at the School of Economics, which is 3.5 hours long each week, actually started TWO weeks ago. EXPLETIVESSSSSSS. 7 hours missed, and it appears to be kind of a hard class to understand in German since I don't know the economics terms. EXPLETIVESSSSSS. MORE EXPLETIVES. DAMMIT. DAMMIT. DAMMIT. I don't know if I can take the course at ALL now, and I really need to for my major.

For an unknown reason, I took a trip home to MN after being in Germany for the past month and a half. I was chilling with my dad talking about Mensa, when he starts trying to speak some French to me. I'm confused as hell, firstly because my dad didn't speak any French the last time I was at hom, and secondly, because I also barely speak a word; it therefore seemed like a very random endeavor.

Nope! Not random at all! Apparently I had signed up to go to IES Dijon in France for this semester, and not Germany. Why would I do that!?! There must have been some mistake! I have a lease that goes til July, I'd lose 840 Euros! All my stuff - my belongings, my friends, my life - is in Germany right now! AHHHHHH! I don't speak French, I want to make my German better, I am scared of French milk!

My dad is a little disappointed that I'm unwilling to try something new, and my mom of course is flipping out that I'm changing my mind again. Changing my mind?! I must have been OUT of my mind when I signed up for Dijon, so this change is certainly a good one. I'm out at the dinner table (this is the cool thing, normally places in dreams get morphed into one another and/or made up spaces, but here, my house was EXACTLY my house - minus the new porch, because I only experienced that for 2 months of my life there so far) discussing how gross the French milk I'm trying to drink is and how I'm going to waste so much money on rent in Berlin with my brother, who is far more interested in some boxing movie (more along the lines of Fight Club than Rocky, I think). Suddenly, what appears to me to be a giant red lobster flies against the window and I'm of course horrified. Again! Nope, it's Bronwyn, a girl I didn't like much during my juggling days. Why is Bronwyn pounding on my window? I see behind her that she is with someone, Haley, another girl from our early juggling days. What the hell? I signal to make them meet me at the front door. As I wait outside for them, I see Holly Lewis, an old soccer compadre, walking across the street towards me with a notebook. At first I thought she was meeting up with the other two to work on some project, but now I think she was more likely proselytising. Anyhow, they all come in, along with one or two more. Once in my house, they discuss how nice it is (and they were being sincere) that my mother continues on with her business in the house after shortly acknowledging the guests. I try to explain in whispers that it's really because she doesn't feel comfortable talking to them and is probably inside quite angry that I've let so many people into the house.

We start discussing my present problem with Dijon, and the lot of them minus one were (not in real life) French Immersion students so they try to work through some language issues with me. But the MILK, the MILK! The whole time, I was trying to down a glass of French milk, and I was using loads of chocolate syrup to mitigate this process. Sometime in here, my "friends" eat a lil food with me and also morph into my friends from Germany: Elke, Alina, Anni, and Daniela were for sure there. So now, they are speaking often in German, and I am understanding everything not even realising at first that they've started speaking German. When I speak back, I still have an accent, though. They aren't Germans in my dream, but rather German-Americans, whose parents brought them up in Edina with German. Then they attended French Immersion, and one of them just got back from Chile or somewheres (this was a trait already established when she was in Bronwyn form) so she speaks to me in Spanish now and then.

So there I was in the midst of this quadrilingual dream. It was more bilingual, if anything though, as the French was elementary and the Spanish was just here and there. Sometimes the Germans morphed back into their Edina counterparts, but they still maintained that added German-American identity and would continue to speak a mixture of German and English. I sat there, listening to the German, and thinking, "DAMN, I really want to go back to Germany, my German has really gotten better, and I want to continue that!"

And there it was, not so bad of a dream after all, mostly because I had my first dream with a considerable amount of German in it since my days, or rather nights, in Neetze three years ago. I was also quite pleased to find out that in my dream world (and some would therefore argue sub-conscious) I do in fact want to improve my German, that is, I do have a reason to be here. After spending the weekend back at the host-fam's, I did start to feel this inkling a lil; it was nice to have it supported in my dream. But man, that French thing really scared the shit out of me. I think I'll go look at the IES Dijon page now, just to try to see the real thing to force my fake relation to it out of my head.

EDIT: There is no IES Dijon. Whew.

Caption: Abdi is the coolest - plus random Turkish men dancing in the background.

This weekend just got progressively weirder as it went on, to the point that it was perhaps the weirdest (in terms of my social activities, not in terms of my emotional state or sudden changes in my life or anything like that) weekend I’ve ever experienced. If you are pressed for time, I recommend that you just read the last three paragraphs or at least skip the first two after this one (they are quite unnecessary, but I wanted to give a full recap of the weekend).

I suppose I should start with Thursday night, which wasn’t all that weird. I went to IES Stammtisch which one is supposed to attend in order to dedicate at least a few hours a week to speaking German. They couldn’t get a table at the usual locale (which apparently is quite cool with over 100 kinds of beer at moderately affordable prices) so it got moved to a trendy, way-over-priced sushi place down the way. ‘Twas not the kind of place I would go to, so here begins the oddity. Then I walked with Morgan and Thomas, who works for IES, to the IES building in order to allow Morgan in after-hours to put her laptop away before we went with the whole gang to Las Cucarachas (which we heard was a dance place, but really we remained seated the whole time and Morgan could have kept her bag with her). Thomas ended up messing up the security system for the whole building and there was a bit of trouble. Oops.

At Las Cucarachas, also a touristy, over-priced bar - this time with Latin flava instead of raw fish - I stayed far later than I should have, til 11:30 or so drinking Happy Hour priced Caiporinhas. I got fairly tipsy but knew that I did not want to get drunk as I had to wake up at 7:30 the following morning and told Morgan for about the last hour that I was there that I should really leave. It was one of those nights where people just kept hanging on, though. I did up until Gasolina came on, when, after procrastinating for an hour, I made a sudden exit, neglecting to say goodbye to most people.

But Thursday night was nothing. Friday night I met up with James and his friend Jay from Chicago and we went back to his place to smoke shisha and drink cheap wine to pregame a concert we were thinking about. First we were planning on hitting up a show billed at 10pm but then we changed our minds to one due up at 9pm, so we hurried our practices and rushed over, arriving at White Trash Fast Food around 9:40. Both James and I had heard of this place as a good place to see shows, so we were pretty pumped. We get there and it’s clearly an ex-over-the-top Chinese restaurant with red/black/gold color scheme, two lion statues at the door, and various other “Oriental” architectural features. Covering the deep-red walls were also silly posters such as those depicting naked women with big black penises and half-heart-half-vagina creations. They served, however, American-style food and attitude. However, nothing was going on for a good hour, so we had some beer, finally found a free table, and enjoyed their offensive, all-in-English menu and a few orders of Fuck You Fries.

Then we decided to check out what was going on downstairs since our upstairs band had yet to start at midnight. Downstairs we caught a 50s style Rockabilly band – pretty much the band was straight out of the Flintstones, if anyone remembers that band. I was convinced they were all German, but my pals weren’t too sure. The guy did do a pretty good southern accent, but to me it was quite difficult to understand the girl, but I don’t feel bad about that because she did an exceedingly annoying voice crack at the end of each line. The novelty of the whole place and then of the Germans faking Southern accents and dressing like Elvis was great at first, but we found that it wore off fast. We sat on a stoop in the basement, made to look like a cave, for another 45 minutes waiting for the next band, assuming that the upstairs set was finished, but more and more Germans started flooding downstairs and it just got unbearably crowded and hot that we finally decided to leave. On our way out at 1:30 or so, however, we saw that the upstairs was still lively and that the band we’d come to see, due on at 9pm had not yet played. The opener was playing her last song, with drawn-on facial hair, a tiger cap, and a few other cute props that came from nowhere during what I think was a cover of some song about a Little Tiger and her attraction to a girl. We really wished we’d been up to see more of her, but the place was packed beyond comfort (upstairs was a restaurant section and people were standing between the tables, forcing the waiters to have to force their way through with full plates of food and drink every thirty seconds or so). When we left we saw a sizeable line of Germans waiting to get in, what an odd experience.

Yesterday I met up with James and Jay again for dinner at an Indian/Pakistani place near me. The Mango Lassi that I had tasted a bit off so I was disappointed with that, but damn was my Murgh Bindalloo fantastic. Then began our wild goose chase, or really, more our search for the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow on St. Patty’s Day. We were to meet up with Heddy for a few drinks after dinner, but she was out with Chelsea and her beau. When we contacted her, James couldn't really hear the not-so-clear directions to a place across town, which we’re not really sure really existed (or at least whatever James heard certainly did not exist), and so began our excessive use of public transportation last night. Needless to say, we didn’t end up meeting up with them. Instead we decided to try an Irish pub or two, and on our way Jake called and decided to come out with his visiting girlfriend in search of a Guinness. The first place we went to was standing-room only (but a considerable amount of standing room) with a loud band akin to Flogging Molly. Kira, Jake’s girlfriend, was still feeling hungover from Friday night, which for them ended around 8 or 9 am, and did not want to deal with the loud music. So we decided to try an Irish pub in Mitte, which I thought was not the best idea, but that’s life. On the way there, Jay pointed out some goth lesbians making out hardcore on the tram. That was a sight, but nothing compared to the rest of the night.

We arrived at Kilkenny’s in Mitte and it was absolutely jammed, but we ended up finding a table outside by a heater and waited there for Jake and Kira to meet up with us again (they’d gone off to find food). It got cold and almost as soon as Jake and Kira arrived, we were off back to Prenzlauer Berg! On the tram, we were sitting next to a highly inebriated man who dropped his cigarette on the floor and neglected to put it out until he noticed it about a minute later. He was mumbling to himself, notably shouting out “FUCK” a few times, and then started repeating “Rosenthaler Platz, jetzt geht’s los” (Rosenthaler Platz was the next stop and he was saying “now it starts”). He takes of his suit coat and shirt revealing a camo top and then stands up and takes off his belt and starts to unzip his pants and I’m standing there fearing for everyone that he’s about to take a piss on the lady next to him. Instead he just pulls down his black dress pants revealing the bottom half of his camo gear and yells out “Ich bin Carlos, jetzt geht’s los, jetzt geht’s los. Adios!” and gets of the train. I was trying not to laugh the whole time thinking that I might get knifed, but I cracked at one point and as he got off I just let it all out and he noticed and punched the window as he walked by. After this experience, I really thought I should just go home because nothing better could possibly happen that night.

Up in Prenz’l Berg it was looking like I might have been right, as Jake’s recommendation was packed, as was mine, so we were walking aimlessly when Jake got a call from Andrew who had found a party for the opening of a Turkish restaurant/bar in Kreuzberg where everything was free! While this seemed a bit sketchy, we had nothing else to do, and hey, everything was free. We arrive and Andrew is like “fuck, let me explain.” We figured that the place WAS free and then started charging or that the place was too full or something. The problem was actually that he had gotten a ride to the metro station with a drunken Turk thinking that only two people were coming and there were five of us. So we got walking directions from the Turk and got there easily on foot, but found it quite funny that the Turk offered to drive Andrew to meet with his friends just two or three blocks away and also funny that Andrew accepted. Oh drunkies. So we get there and it really is just a bunch of drunken, middle-aged Turkish men and us. It was pretty awesome. When the pictures from various friends’ cameras are posted, you’ll see. Seven twenty-some Americans eating, drinking, dancing, and being generally merry with about twenty 40-60 year-old Turkish men. And there it was: the pot o’ gold. On my way home at 4am, I saw two goth lesbians groping each other on the S-Bahn platform. I think they were the same ones as from the tram.

I woke up at one point and the sun was really high so I figured maybe that meant it was already like 11:30 or so. I went back to bed without checking the time anyways. Then I woke up again and checked the time and read my watch upside down and was like "FUCK it is 2pm". I wondered how I could have slept for 13 hours and still felt tired after doing absolutely nothing yesterday. I mustered up my energy and got up.

I came to my computer because I had nothing else to do. I went on a few sites and then I looked at the bottom-right-hand corner and noticed that the time was 8:42 AM or so. I thought maybe I'd changed my clock to some American timezone yesterday for some reason. I checked the timezone and it still said GMT +1:00. I was confused. I got up and checked my watch again, but that backed what the computer said.

Then I thought, DAMMIT.

Now I am going to shit and I might go back to sleep, but probably not.

When I was in Barcelona, I think I made a total of two or three serious posts about what I was doing with my life. Instead, I’ve been using a “Language Journal” in which I share my experiences and express my feelings thereupon in the language of the country in which I am (unless I cannot speak the language, but then I generally do not write anything). It is quite nice to know that I can express myself in various languages and I therefore enjoy writing in it to a great extent (though I only seem to get around to it every 10 days or so, on average).

However, I feel that since I started this LiveJournal when I went of to Germany for the first time, I should continue to rant and rave about my time in Berlin on this lil page. So far, I’ve noticed several similarities between my two exchanges in Germany. Let me share them with you:

1) I arrived before the other people on my program (which has led to…)
2) I slept for most of the first day;
3) I went out to buy electrical converters from Saturn and get my public transportation pass on the second day (which involved, in both cases, short meetings with representatives from my program);
4) My main activities consist of playing Windows Accessories Games (Solitaire, Spider, Minesweeper, FreeCell, Hearts) – Off to a good start, I think, as I’ve already beat Difficult Spider Solitaire (4 Suits) for the first time ever after just 20 losses;
5) I also find time to juggle and listen to a lil bit of music;
6) I have no internet connection;
7) I essentially live a solitary life in my room (more so this time around as I don’t have a host family).

Well, I've closed the deal on a nice 24 square meter dorm room in Friedrichshain, Berlin. The dorm is huge, but I'll have my own room in a 2-bedroom "apartment" (I share a bathroom with another girl) and then the kitchen facility is per floor (so probably shared with about 10 others - but c'mon, I don't cook much!) Now, I'm just banking that they don't zuruecknehmen the offer, since I haven't signed anything or paid anything (and won't til March 1st, my move in date). That is to say, if this is a sham, I am fucked when I arrive in Berlin on March 1st with all my shit and no place to go. I guess I'd have to inconvenience Eric again or someone else and nobody wants that!

But let us be optimistic for now. This is helping me on the "emotional readiness" prep as well.

PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST
(x) Plane ticket
(x) Place to stay
( ) Classes
( ) Internship
( ) Language preparation
( ) Emotional readiness
( ) Academic readiness
( ) Having my shit in order at GW
( ) Pack

How ready am I for Germany? Not ready at all! But I finally inched forward by purchasing a plane ticket. Under $700 - that's a steal compared to the $1200 I shelled out to get to Spain and back. I am leaving on Feb 28th (that means no dental appointment til August) and I'm not coming home til August 13th, though. :( Well if things change, I can change my return flight for $225 which might be worth it if I get my job back and work like a dog for those extra two weeks or whatever.

PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST
(x) Plane ticket
( ) Place to stay
( ) Classes
( ) Internship
( ) Language preparation
( ) Emotional readiness
( ) Academic readiness
( ) Having my shit in order at GW
( ) Pack