Sticky Apple Kisses

I am sure that this time last year we had sun in Germany! Yesterday we went for a bike ride and on the way back I was sure my fingers were going to crack off. At the moment I am not thinking about debt consolidation but rather how to finance getting my grip heating fixed. Betty goes in Wednesday night for her repairs, she needs a new chain, the grip heating needs to be fixed, and her steering needs to be adjusted. It’s not going to be a cheap month! But in 2 days I will be on countdown to Cuba!

After another one of my grueling crazy weeks where I began to seriously doubt my sanity and my ability to continue juggling language learning with a job that sends me from one end of the city to the next (and trying to squeeze in my taxes and looking at term insurance quotes as ALL my insurance policies are up for renewal at once) I get the best news I could hope to hear.

I was accepted into the Science Masters program I applied for. Wheeeeeeee!

I was terrified I was not going to get in. During my undergrad I started off as science but decided as much as I love Biology I hate Physics and Math. 2 years of Physics and Math electives to finish with a BSc after my name instead of a BA was about as attractive as driving sharp nails into my eyeballs. Needless to say I went the Arts route, and when I decided that I no longer wanted to do Psychology I went to History. I was much more interested in policy rather than lab work anyway.

So when I realized that my stay in Germany is to be extended indefinitely (the German loves to travel but wants to live and die in Germany) I knew I had to start looking for something that didn’t involve teaching English. Perhaps if Germany has schools that offered contracts and set hours I could be happy with it. Not so with contract work and split shifts. Perfect for taking off months at a time, not so much when you think you may be doing this for years.

And so I have been searching like mad for a program. I debated doing mhy PhD in history, but really, except for allowing me to tell people I am a Dr., an unemployed one, but one nonetheless, I started looking for other programs.

And I found one here in the area that is taught in English and based on environmental protection. It is pretty evenly split between agricultural biology and electives in gender, economics and policy. Except for one course with more math than I want to think about, it was designed for me and what I would actually like to do with my life. Namely working for equality, the eradication of poverty and food that doesn’t kill us or the planet. (Dont get me wrong, I dont expect to actually solve any of this things, but I do want to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem).

So for the past week I have been on cloud 9, and I wanted to share it!

Courtesy of Tom over at what was Burnt Maze and now is (I think) Southwesterly. (forgive me for not knowing!! You can give me a beats downs later). He posted for Hugh Laurie, but I do so love Stephan Fry.

Enjoy!

If you would believe it I am still sick. I think I am in fact in worse shape for ignoring the mounting phlegm and eyeball exploding sinus pressure and continuing to go to German classes and work. I have paid for it by spending this evening wrapped up with a tea instead of going for our planned bike ride or the back up plan of going to a resturant with friends and eating Japanese hot pot! Although I must confess its nice to have the boy fetching the tea instead of vice versa, I am instead looking into links on Sales, and watching a Best Buy Howie Mandel commercial. I loved the movie Walk Like A Man when I was kid.  But Howie bald reminds me way too much of Mr. Clean.  And that was not a poor reference to his OCD.  You can check out the commercial here for yourself, but I have seen him funnier.

I am sitting here thinking of what I can write about zero radius sinks, and the only thing that keeps popping into my head is how dirty my own sink is, and how I have no desire to go empty it and wash the dishes in them. I can tell you my next kitchen will have two sinks, and both will be larger than what currently passes for a sink in my kitchen. I have less than an hour before I head off to work ( after sniffling and snotting my way through German class) and I am being anything other than productive. Instead I am plotting which Ritter Sport I am going to buy on my way to the train before curling up with a book for my hour long train ride to work.

If you don’t want to see an overload of cuteness go elsewhere! This weekend was exactly what I needed. Escaping from cell phones and laptops was fantastic (especailly since once I did come home and open my email I was sent straight into negativity again. But no worries, I just used my delete button and now such things will no longer plague me!) But seriously, how cute can safety equipment get?:

That is the suffering 3 year old look. He had spent the day skiing with the big people and wanted to continue with his uncle Patrick. The big people however decided they wanted to do some real skiing. One apple strudel in vanilla sauce later and all was once again well with the world.

The idea of my own kids freak me out (kids are great, at least ones you can give back. The whole permanency thing however freaks me out, especailly when you factor in they do become teenagers), yet despite feeling more than a little hesitant at the thought of babies of my own, I spontaneously ovulated on the train when within minutes Patrick was curled up with his nephew and asleep.

Sliding the next day:

Arosa:

I have decided to spend this weekend hiding. Tonight we head to Switzerland for a long weekend. Whereas everyone else skis, I will hang out with small children and otherwise hide. I am finding that though I am a completely different kind of exhausted every night (at least this way I am making progress in the language in terms of my grammar structure, which after 2 years is really about time), I am still shattered at the end of day, and by Friday especailly. AND I am leaving behind all electronic devices. Yes, that is right. This weekend no contact with the outside world! I need to forget about work (because half my day is still spent teaching) and instead plan my garden: touch of class hosta. Just to remember there is so much more to life than work and money, especailly when the school shooting happened so near to where I live. It just reminds you how fast everything can change.

For those of you not only watch the podcast (or vidcast or vodcast or whatever it really is called when its a video, on that point I dont care, it will forever be a podcast to me!) but actually watch the whole thing, halfway through the talking slows down and it focuses on the scenery, including some shots from the night we spent on a hill top with some sheep farmers who were kind enough to let us stay. Again, at times my boss asks me why I don’t buy more new clothes (I think she was almost as excited as I was with all the new outfits I brought back from Canada, we do train people who have multiple Zenith watches). But I can not help it, I would much rather take every penny I have and travel. I find teaching English here means I dont get to travel as much as I would like, and I am actually doing a lot better than the average Joe. But even if money was not an object, I would not want to be spending every night in a hotel. The experience of being woke up on a hill top by bleating sheep and friendly sheep farmers (not all our sheep farmers were friendly) is the kind that money can not buy, and you miss out on so much when you spend every night in a hotel.

The newest Journizer podcast is out, and I lied. This one does not have the bridge of death, but rather its the journey TO the bridge of death. That actually kindve fits with what happened in Romania in general actually. We had planned to meet Joscha and Ed at 12 30 ish in the afternoon, and at 12 30 we had just escaped the transport truck hell we were in. 7 that night we finally admitted defeat. We didnt actually meet until about 5 in the evening the FOLLOWING day. Patrick found it stressful. He went around the world on his bike already. This was my 5th day riding or something equally ridiculous. (It may have been my 4th day). Those trucks scared the crap out of me, no ifs ands or buts about it. But next episode really does have the bridge of death. Promise! Anyway, enjoy it, we may not be all fancied up in fancy tuxedos, in fact most of the time we are 3 and 4 days in without showers and wrapped in leather. But it was awesome, even when I’m complaining about transport trucks and squished grills.

And I am ready to curl up and just sleep until next year. Being on the other side of the teacher student divide is so much more exhausting than I had remembered. And I had remembered that 4 hours straight of German was rather grueling. The great news is that my trainer is awesome, very sweet (lets hope this opinion remains instead of fading) and it actually looks like the book we are using is good, as in I will be able to discuss things in real life instead of just talk about the fact that ceiling fans are in fact above me and on the ceiling. But Eddie Izzard does the learning useless phrases in a language in a way I just can never do justice to, so here is Eddie’s take on learning French: