march on til spring

This winter is just so long and horrible. I haven't been any where warm for a while (first world problems, right?) and I've been working and going to school. It's actually refreshing, after a whole semester of only going to school without employment. I enjoy the busy-ness.

I'm teaching German to little children, and it is AMAZING. I always go there after a long day though, unfortunately, so that's kind of a bummer. And rather than taking a German class I'm filling that hole by teaching and working at the Essen Haus. Love the dirndl.

I feel like I want to blog this crazy time in my life after I've made this insane decision to flee the country. I hear people around me talking about their life prospects and how much money they'll make right out of school and I'm choosing the European bohemian life over all things material (including paying off my college debt). It's such a me decision, I feel like I'm making the right one. I have so many ideas and open roads to follow, so when I think long and hard about it I am 100% sure I'm making the absolute right choice. It's just when I hear everyone else talk about their life plans when doubts crawl into my mind. It's like jumping off a cliff when no one else is. About not following people on the straight and narrow.

March is my least favorite month. It drags on forever. It's cold. There's snow. Spring still seems distant. The only holidays suck (St. Patrick's day? That's pretty weak, let's be honest). And to boot I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.

I wish I had some deep and profound observation about the world around me, but today I guess I don't. How many of those can one person have anyway? Can everyone's conversations be riddled with depth and ponderences about the complexity of life? Sometimes things are just mundane and we need to accept that. 

dwindle dwindle dwindle

That is the sound time would make if you could hear it passing. It would be this like...squeaky, subtle noise that you could only hear if you listened really, really close. Like a Pokémon making the sound of what it is. Dwindling time.

It is crazy that it is already the second to last day in April. I remember driving around near my Grandma's house a while back and thinking, "Man, I wish it were just Thanksgiving already!" where does this time go? I think what they say is definitely true, each second is shorter relative to your life span so time just speeds up and takes no prisoners. And if this semester, this impossible, terrible, stressful semester is almost over, what does that mean for the upcoming summer? How fast will that pass? I remember last year around this time. I remember two years ago around this time. And three years ago. After that I think each year around this time becomes less distinctive and it just turns into this conglomeration of memories set in my head as this idea of what late April/early May is. Warm and rainy. Warm and sunny. The time when the air smells like dew and the wind finally feels warm on your skin instead of chilling you to the bone. It's a nice time of year.

On Friday my mom was readmitted to the ICU for a myriad of things: low blood pressure, this infection, that infection, this and that. I feel so cold now--so calloused by all this I think the nurses must think I'm a terrible daughter. But sitting in the emergency room until midnight doesn't make me want to stay for her to get settled on the new ward, even if it is an ICU. I know this routine, I've been here before. She was asleep anyway.

Me leaving in 17 days concerns me. In a good way, for the most part. In the normal, "who the hell is going to sublet my apartment!" kind of way. In the, "oh god, I can't speak German! I need to do some serious studying of birth words!" kind of way. But at times, when I see her in her hospital, it reminds me of how fragile her life really is. How it could all go so tragically wrong with such little notice...and it scares me. I guess we all have to learn to live with these fears...and I'll get along and have a good time, and come back with so many life changing experiences and she'll be around to see me come home from the airport. And they all lived happily ever after. The end. 

Mayday Mayday!

I feel like it's been a while since my last post...
My life is still just as amazing as it was before. I found out a couple days ago that I got into the University of Wisconsin School of Nursing, which is FANTASTIC news. It's great, really, but at the same time bittersweet because now I know that I need to be getting back to reality at the beginning of September (and leaving Germany). Guess I don't want to think about that quite yet. Last week was a pretty normal week for school, I have a really large project dealing with the immigration to Wisconsin in the middle 1800's and how it shaped their identities/Wisconsin's identity. It's pretty intimidating to me, but I'm teamed up with another girl who has been here since September so she's able to shed a little light on the situation. This weekend was amazing, as usual. I always have 4 day weekends, but this weekend was a 5 day weekend (!) and I had the whole weekend to genieß Bonn. (Denglish: we use "genieß" here a lot, it's a German verb meaning to enjoy. As in: Hey everyone, let's go genieß the weather!)
Friday was Flunkyball, which I just went to to check it out. It was nothing too great, especially because it started to downpour at the end of the game. We tried to go to a houseparty, but when all 40 of us showed up they decided to charge everyone 10 Euro each so we decided rightfully against it. I went home and just caught up on TV, which was nice. I'm now enjoying the use of my dad's DVR from our house, so I can watch whatever I want to, whenever I want to! Sad only because it's not really helping me learn German.

Hanna from Finland und I in Cologne

Saturday we were aiming to go to Düsseldorf, but it didn't happen because we were trying to figure some plans out for Crete. Oh, wait, did I forget to mention the most exciting part of my weekend? Yes, yes I did. Well, my friends and I all booked tickets to fly to Crete, Greece for Pfingsten (Pentecost) break. We'll be there for SEVEN days, genießing the sun, beaches and greek food. And the best part? The 11 of us will be spending the week in our OWN PRIVATE VILLA with a terrace and a swimming pool. The cherry on top? We'll be spending less than 200 Euro each for the whole week, accommodations and round trip flight. Yep. That's real life! Originally it was just 6 people from UW, Hanna from Finland, but now the group has expanded to include 3 Germans (one of which is my Bonn Buddy, another of which is my sprachtandem partner) and another Badger! words cannot describe...

Marc (sprachtandem partner) und I in Cologne

Saturday night a bunch of us went to Cologne to see the Avengers in English in 3D. It was pretty good, partially because we all played a drinking game in the theatre. (Every time the characters were in costume on screen together? Drink! Every time one superhero punched another? Drink! and so on) It did amount to one awful headache though, (moral of the story: don't drink and watch 3D). After the movie we went out to a really great nightclub in Cologne, complete with much better music than one typically finds here in Bonn.

Nazi Rally

Sunday was pretty chill, recuperated before the May Day festivities. In Germany, May Day is a huge holiday apparently, akin to our Labor Day. Everything is closed and everyone is supposed to "Tanz in den Mai" or "Dance in May." Basically that just amounts to partying a lot and dancing through the night. There are also Maypoles all over and a really cute tradition involving giving a relatively large birch tree to someone you have a crush on in the middle of the night decorated with streamers and hearts. It was really cute waking up this morning to such a festive forest all over the city! I didn't get home too late or anything, but it was a really fun night! I think my expectations weren't that high because other people seemed to think the night was lame. I'm not really sure what they were expecting though, it was a Monday night! I also saw the Nazi rally today (there were more Polizei than Nazis, and waaaay more anti-Nazi protesters than Nazis). The parade came right past my friends balcony so I got some pretty good pictures.

Example of May Trees

A part of me still can't believe those people still exist here. It's Germany for goodness sake! You'd think that someone sometime would've learned a lesson. It was cool to be around Germans for it though and hear them calling them apes and whatnot. I don't think they can believe it either...


Hope everything is well for everyone overseas! I miss you all! And to all my Bonners, I'm looking forward to our own little Mifflin Street Block party this weekend... :)

spring break 2011: the beginning

I'm leaving for Minnesota today...I'm excited but sore. I'm so sore. I 'worked' my first shift as a CNA last night (buses don't come to the hospital after 10? are you kidding me?!), and by worked I mean I paid them to have me help them out. I helped people. I loved it, but I almost fainted for some reason. Maybe just intense time on my feet. It was so enjoyable to help people though, especially people who are going to get better. I am about 200% sure I want to be a nurse at this point...people honestly don't give them enough credit. They go through so much to keep all of their patients comfortable and safe, and the doctors get all the glory. It's a sad system because I don't think people who are outside of the health care system really understand the role of a nurse, and I think those in the health care system take the nurses for granted. Honestly, I bet nurses could diagnose patients just as easily after a few years as doctors who went through med school because they interact with patients so much on a one to one basis.
So spring break. Minnesota for the weekend, then just working. I skipped out on the Klein Lab all week in favor of studying for tests, one of which went quite well the other of which I made an 8 point improvement over the last one, but still not even up to an AB. It's frustrating when you take those tests that don't test whether you studied or you know the material, but rather if you studied and remembered each sentence the professor said or wrote down. Frustrating stuff right there. Over the week, it's not really going to be a break at all because I have work all morning, then clinicals at night. On Wednesday (my only day off) I volunteer at the hospital anyway, but that's just another part of my week that I always look forward to anyway. Ah, busy.
I find myself thinking about disappointments a lot lately. I try really hard not to get by hopes up and excited about social things because they always disappoint me anyway. I see two types of people: those who get their expectations up so high they end up falling on their ass and those who expect nothing and are always pleasantly surprised when something goes well.
And of course as hard as I may try, I usually end up disappointed.

Wish we could rewind a year.

april already?

I always get the feeling that time passes faster and faster as I age. It's crazy. When I was younger, a hour was forever, a year might as well have been a lifetime, and ten years? Well I couldn't even remember that far back. Now, it's like, ten years ago was seriously 2000? That was so recently! Crazy. Also, it's already April. I only have one more month left until summer. It's so close. (Really, a month and a half, but who's counting?) It seems like I just came back from the Caribbean with Shaina last week.
Anyway, still in Florida, alone for the day, unexpectedly. We were going to go snorkeling, but that never panned out because Sarah decided to stay in Lake Placid with Phil (a terrible decision on her part). I worry.
It's not the worst case scenario, though, because yesterday was productive but I didn't get all the work I wanted to done anyway. I still have some work to do on my Tambopata debate project, which is taking me longer than I expected. It's not really a big deal now that I've gotten over the initial shock, but I still have a lot of work to do on it.
Yesterday was nice. I went out to meet Aaron's classmates, who were very nice. I socialized most with Simone and Jason, nice people. I didn't even mind all the medical talk, I thought it was cute, like Scrubs. Ha. This one guy there totally paid a prostitute to accompany him, which made me a little queasy because the last thing I wanted was to be seen as Aaron's prostitute. (Although I would like to think that I don't come off as a 6 foot tall silent Asian bimbo with too much eye shadow.) Hopefully. In situations like those, I always have interesting thoughts about the people around, because they are completely separate from anyone I know, and it's interesting to see how various social traits manifest themselves in other people. Like, I could spot several traits that I know the people I associate myself with have, and those people did too, even though they were older and in completely different phases of their lives. It's times like those that make me remember how common I am.
Today is Aarushi's birthday, so happy birthday, love. I miss you!
I'm sleepy. I might forgo homework for a little bit and go hang out by the pool. It's beautiful here again today. Sunny and gorgeous. I love being in Florida, but something tells me I wouldn't enjoy living here, because to me half the fun is being somewhere new and more beautiful than the place I belong in.

revelations

-it's 37 degrees outside, don't break out the shorts quite yet, people.
-i need to reconnect with my inner romantic.
-passive agressiveness doesn't look good on anyone.
-'love story' is just a vocab word now. this may be a major contributor to the loss of said inner romantic.
-people should make more time for themselves.
-i'd rather think freely than think what is right.
-i should devote more time to being productive in my life.
-i love raider.