Whiskerino has begun. It's like Moustache May, but better. Four months of intensive beard growth, daily self-portraits and sarcastic/satirical/whatever commentary on others' pictures of themselves, and bearded camaraderie. The worst part--the clean shave and accompanying pain in the chin at the beginning--is over. Now I just have to worry about keeping up my creativity.
I'm still not accustomed to being back. The thought occurred to me today that it took more than a semester to feel at home in Berlin, so it ought logically to take a similar amount of time to get accustomed to the USA again. That was kind of reassuring at first, because it takes the pressure off. It means I don't have to feel comfortable and well-adjusted right away. It will take a while no matter what, so I shouldn't feel obligated to feel at home already. But then I thought, this is going to be an uncomfortable semester then.
I'm back in the US, and I don't know what to do with myself. I've started reading a couple of books at once, I watch movies and spend hours on the internet, but I'm restless. I think I should be moving more physically, but have no motivation and feel sleepy for no good reason. I should do something creative. I should make that bag I bought fabric for. I should go outside and explore the forest. I should write creatively, draw, sing, dance, work out. I should. But I don't. Why? Why do I refuse to do things I know will help me to feel better? The more I think about what might be wrong with me, the less I seem to know. I miss Europe and my girl. I don't feel like I can talk about it to anyone in my family because they haven't really been abroad for anything like how long I was in Berlin. I keep forgetting how miserable I was in Berlin for a while there in the winter. But even remembering that now doesn't help much.
I'm reading The Annotated Hobbit, and it makes me want to go out and travel, walk through the woods and make campfires. I haven't wanted to camp since I tried it once close to ten years ago now, when I was still in the Boy Scouts. But now, if I could have long-bearded and friendly companions, a not-too-pressing objective and plenty of food supplies that I didn't have to carry myself, I would be glad to go. Maybe. Since I am so unwilling to get up and go out of the house, even to clear my head of this fog which has fallen in the space between my ears, how willing would I really be to leave?
The thought occurs to me that maybe what I need is to empty my mind of everything. Meditation or whatever. Might work just to sit outside and watch the trees. Look for pileated woodpeckers. Listen to the wind through the trees. That kind of thing. Maybe I'll do that now.
I just got the urge to write in this a bit. I haven't much to say.
I got a haircut a few days ago, my first in almost ten months. It didn't turn out quite how I expected. It's longer than I thought I wanted and less layered. I like it anyway, though. I hope it lasts a while. That is, I hope it's at least two or three months before I decide it's too long again. I've gotten nothing but compliments, but that might just be because I don't associate with mean people.
I'm up to my neck in work, as it seems to me at any rate, and I'm constantly going out with friends and living it up in Berlin, the best city in the world. Well, I can't really say that, as I haven't been to every city in the world, but it sure seems like the things that make Berlin so awesome are unique to this city.
I think eventually I'll try to figure out how to post pictures on this thing. No time like the present, I guess...
And it worked!
This is a self-portrait taken while I was in Valida's apartment and sunglasses. By the way, I learned about Zeugma in Linguistics class yesterday and have been trying to use it in my everyday conversation for comic effect, but with little effect. Of course I only succeed while writing my blog, which no one reads because I haven't told anybody about it.
Such is life, I suppose. I'm sick of this now, so I'm going to go buy a train ticket to Frankfurt. Bye.
It's May, and I have a moustache. Yes, folks, I am participating in Moustache May, and what a wonderful thing it is. Just go on along to Moustache May and have a look around. It's great fun.Es ist schon Mai. Ich trage einen Schnurrbart. Ich mache Selbst-Porträts und veröffentliche sie am Internet. Macht aber so viel Spaß, ich will nicht daran denken, dass es irgendwann mal aufhören muss.
Oh, and sorry it's taken so long to update this thing. I seem to have other things to do.
So I just got my grades for this last semester and they're a 2,0 for Greek and a 1,0 for Latin. You may not know how cool that is, but take it from me: it's frickin awesome. A 2,0 is pretty much a B+, but a 1,0 is more like A+++ or something. It pretty much makes all the stress worth it. I guess. Germans don't get 1,0 grades.
1,0!!!
It occurred to me a few days ago that I find beauty everywhere in Berlin, even in places that look so similar to home as to make no difference. But I would never have found the beauty at home, because there I have the attitude that I've seen everything, but here I'm constantly looking for the little things in life (also known as details), because often they're different and interesting and worth contemplating. Maybe when I get home again I'll realize that I should pay attention there as well.
Ich habe gerade mit meiner Schwester gesprochen. Es war ein langes Gespräch und hat viel Spaß gemacht, aber ich habe etwas getan, was ich noch nie getan hatte: ich habe einen Fehler auf Englisch (meine Muttersprache) gemacht, ohne es zu bemerken. Ich habe etwas gesagt, wie ein Deutscher das sagen würde und gar nicht, wie ein Amerikaner. Ich werde dies als ein "good sign" annehmen, weil es zeigt, dass ich auf Deutsch denke. Ich habe seit lange ab und zu auf Deutsch gedacht, aber noch nie, wenn ich auf Englisch rede. Sehr interessant.
Auch interessant ist das Lernen von anderen Sprachen, wenn alles auf Deutsch erklärt wird. Man versteht besser, wie die Deutschen denken. Nur das, was erklärt werden muss, und wie es eigentlich erklärt wird, fasziniert mich. Im Altgriechischunterricht finde ich oft, obwohl ich keinen so großen Wortschatz auf Deutsch habe, dass ich mehr über deutsche Grammatik weiß als die anderen Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen im Klassenzimmer. Mein Deutsch ist ganz durch die Regeln gelernt worden, aber diese Deutschen benutzen eigentlich keine Regeln; sie sprechen einfach, und was rauskommt ist Deutsch. Wenn ich Englisch spreche, denke ich nicht so sehr an die Regeln für die englische Sprache, sondern nur daran, was ich sagen will, und wie es am besten verstanden werden wird.
Die meisten von diesen letzten Ideen kommen aus meinem ersten J-Term an Gustavus: Strangeness in Life. Ich denke immer wieder daran, was in dem Kurs gelehrt wurde, und immer wieder finde ich mich dankbar, dass ich den Kurs überhaupt belegen habe. Ich wusste gar nicht, wie wichtig für's Leben er werden wurde.
I was just talking to my sister. It was a nice, long conversation, but I did something I'd never done before: I made a mistake speaking English (my native tongue) and didn't notice. I said something like a German would say it and not at all like an American. I'm going to take this as a good sign, because it shows I'm thinking in German. I've thought in German every now and again for a while now, but never while I'm speaking English. Very Interesting.
Also interesting is learning languages when everything is explained in German. You can better understand how the Germans think. Just looking at what has to be explained, and how it's explained, is fascinating to me. I often find when I'm in Ancient Greek class that although I don't have a very large German vocabulary, I know more about German grammar than the other students in the class. I learned German pretty much entirely by the rules, but these Germans don't really use rules; they simply speak, and what comes out is German. When I speak English, I don't really think about the rules of English grammar, just about what I want to say and how to put it so that it will be best understood.
By the way, most of these last ideas come from my first J-Term class: Strangeness in Life. I'm always thinking about what was taught in that class, and I always find myself thankful that I took the class at all. I never knew how big an impact it would have on my life.
It seems I've gotten myself a wee blog to play with.
I really haven't any ideas what I might do with such a thing, but we'll see how it goes. I won't promise to update very often or frequently, but it might be a cool thing to have. Just in case.
Ich werde wahrscheinlich auch wenigstens ein bisschen auf Deutsch schreiben, damit ich die Zeit nicht total vergeude. Bis später.
