Apathy...opiate of the masses....

The ability to evaluate and the capacity to consciously change themselves and their surroundings set humans apart from their animal cousins; opposable thumbs, use of tools, and forms of speech are not unique to this species of 6 billion and cannot explain humankind’s drastically different development. We see our environment and we alter it; we may make rational decisions, choose among several choices, consider abstract concepts such as good and bad, moral and immoral, right and wrong, and distinguish between them. We judge a situation, and we act on this judgement—or not.

Humankind suffers from the disease of apathy: for all our philosophy and altruism, so little of the potential of these combined qualities translates into actual action. So many eyes are blind, not only to the greater sorrows of our world but also to the smaller—and the greatest moral dilemma faced by your average Westerner is whether or not to give spare change to the man with the sad eyes and the scruffy beard. It takes greater tragedy to motivate the masses, and even then tragedy pales in comparison to personal interest where actual action is required and simple moral outrage no longer suffices. Even among the all-to-long list of global sorrows, Free Tibet and Save Darfur do not evoke the riots of labor contracts in France; stories of mayhem in the Middle East score well below the latest celebrity scandal on CNN or BBC.

It’s all a matter of perspective. We take for granted so many things, small as well as large, and the sum of these assumptions compose our worldview. My worldview is limited to the United States and Germany, and though by and large the way of life is similar in these two “western” countries, even the little differences make me realize how much I assumed to be true because I have always known it to be so: how to open doors or windows; how to flush toilets, make tea, or greet strangers; where to place your hands when eating and which way to look while crossing the street. I’ve met people of all walks of life, strangers as well as natives; I have met people faced with decisions I will never have to face by benefit of my blue passport and my “middle class” upbringing, and I have options and choices they will never have. Realizing how much I had taken for granted makes me realize how little I have actually seen, how sheltered I have been—I have seen so little of the world. So many places I know only from stories and pictures. Some of these stories and pictures have been enough to change my life, to make me an activist or even to encourage me to pass them on, to open the eyes of someone else in the hope that they, too, will try even a little to change their world and that of their fellow humans.

To truly see a situation as it, to realize that the starving child in the picture is not a documentary but a life in danger, is the basis for change. And this change will not be easy—if I have learned one thing from studying political science and development, it is how unbelievably complex and interconnected the many issues of development are. Sending 25 cents a day to an adopt-a-child program may make some difference, but this will not be enough to tackle all of the health, sanitation, education, and other problems of a village, much less a country or a continent. Adding up the quarters-a-day, combining all of the “little things” can make a difference, and if through my pictures and stories I can change someone’s worldview even a little it has been worthwhile. I don’t pretend to be able to change the world, but I intend to use my optimism and the ‘options’ and ‘choices’ I have to do the best I can—if I can’t cure cancer or win the fight against poverty, the least I can do is combat apathy.

It's 10 PM...

...and I just finished what passed for dinner (Spinach, which I oversalted in my haste). And for whatever reason, here I sit in front of my slowly dying laptop, trying to mentally unwind abit before I take care of the list of about eighteen things that need to happen between now and Sunday.

I have a love-hate relationship with my computer. I won't pretend I don't know how to waste an evening surfing youtube or blogs or whatnot, or that all my time on the computer is productive. I'm not much good without the damn thing, though; it keeps me connected to the world and, well, to my life.

But I am on it way too much. I'll go blind one of these days. I'm hoping writing a bit will settle my mind, and ranting is just about as good as anything else, and I don't even have other people to villanize my rants (oh ye winds of change!).

I'm a bit stressed out at the moment. My 40-hour-a-week 9-to-5 job has turned into 9-till-you're-finished, which today was 8:30. Today was print deadline; all of the 40 fabulous sessions you find on our website had to be sent, in two languages, to the printer's in Spain. We're busy calling our list of unconfirmed speakers, trying to find out who's coming and who's not. We have half an hour to do all the reports from the database, and of course there are glitches. I do my 40 sessions and find out I have to redo about half of them because the "rules" have changed, and meanwhile people are confirming or declining or changing their presentations, and meanwhile I keep getting phone calls from someone in England who wants to discuss his presentation with me (the presentaiton he will not be giving, because he can't come, a fact I discovered only after four conversaitons with his secreatary and two days of call-backs) and from my boss, who wants to email these documents--that I haven't finished--to spain. Ai yi yi.

But we got it done. I think the Spanish sessions aren't 100% identical to the English ones, but we identified the discrepancies and the translator there will fix them. The website (my normal domain) has been updated (after I discovered about fifteen broken links), everything printed, filed, and organised.

Otherwise, I am trying to keep what passes for my life together. I'm trying to turn in three huge papers this week, except I am in the unfortunate position of depending on other people to correct them-- and "a lack of prior planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" really does mean I have to sit down, shut up, and wait. And these kindhearted people are doing their best and I already have one and ahalf papers back to me.

The nice man at the international office signed and stamped a form I needed, so one more thing off of my list. Now, in my spare time (hah!) I have to find out how to get home from the airport at 11 PM on a friday night, how to get to France without spending 200€ apiece and where to stay when I get there. And I have people coming for dinner friday night, assuming I don't have to stay all night at work (grrrr). It's still relatively inconvenient but I have rainchecked twice and don't want to again--I ahven't seen these people in weeks. Somewhere in there I have to pack for a 3-week trip covering half of central and southern Europe, get things sorted out for my registration for the next two (!) semesters, prepare for the subsequent semester, somehow meet my new language exchange partner, clean my appartment, and not go crazy in between. If I've forgotten anything, please let me know...

So, back to work. I can sleep when I'm dead. Or on the bus/plane/train/bus from FR to Sevilla.

The sandwich band

The patch of sunlight is barely big enough for the two of us as we sit, enjoying the strikingly blue sky, deceiving us into believing the weather is warm, and our ice cream. Someone taps me on the shoulder; I turn around and look up into....a man dressed as a sandwich. What the...? The monstrosity, like the evil progeny of SpongeBob and a hamburger, is handing me an advertisement from our local sub shop. I raise my eyebrows, take the sheet with a slow „thanks...“ and an unspoken ,,...I think“.

„Call me...“ says the sandwich. I’m not sure if sandwiches can leer, but I imagine this one tries.

Er..... ok-ay....

And inside of less than ten minutes, as we still sit on the same bench (the sandwich having moved on to greener pastures—perhaps in search of a she-sandwich, who knows), our conversaiton is increasingly drowned out by....the approaching marching band. The bandmaster is wearing a sombrero; the rest, blue hats; curious passerby trailing in their wake like slightly lost children--the pied piper has come?

Umm..... I wasn’t aware today was a holiday. And yesterday, by the look of the „demonstration“ at the fountain, must have been Free Tibet day. I think last week was Free Hugs. I am continuously confounded.

Apparently Fr. is now home to scientolists, who have bought a building and want to start...something. No one quite knows; it made all the local papers (between the article on local dairy farmers leaving the trade union and advertisements for kitchen appliances).

This place is getting weirder all the time.

Munich in the meantime

Friday afternoon, amid luggage and threatening storm, we pedalled over to an unknown address to meet the unknown person who would be our driver for the weekend. The individual in question, a Bavarian by birth, father of multiple and driver of a toyota combi, serenaded us for four hours with Bavarian Volksmusik and a book-on-tape in the style and subject of Aldous Huxley—I, curled up in the back against the remaining car seat, suffered only strange dreams borne of strange literature and a cramped position; M., on the other hand, had the pleasure of observing our chauffeur’s penchant for pokeln. In any case, with little ado we arrived in Munich, and after a ten minute bout with the ticket Automat, we received our Streifenkarte, the Müncheners’ complicated system of determining how much to pay.


The friend with whom we were staying lived not far from a town at the end of the Subway line—and on the train line between Munich and Augsburg, between the city and the alps. From his deck on a clear day you can see the Zugspitze, one of the highest and most famous peaks, and the other mountains ranging above the green plain dotted with small hamlets and villages. It was beautiful and peaceful. His parents had built the house themselves, and it was heated by a magnificent tile-covered wood-oven.

Many of the American stereotypes of Germans relate to the Bavarians or possibly even the Austrians—the Oktoberfest, the beer, sausage, Lederhosen, etc. Bavaria, as one of the richest (if not the richest) Länder in Germany, is admired for its school and university system; two of Munich’s universities were recently awarded an elite distinction—where Freiburg ended, much to its dismay, a close fourth behind Karlsruhe; the university now distinguishes itself as the almost-elite ALU. Ethnically—though I use the word liberally—the former Kingdom of Bavaria is divided into the Bavarians, the Franks, and the Schwaben; these are something between cultural groups and former principalities; they have their own flags, dialects, regions, and apparently culture. In any case, for such ‘foreigners’ as my boyfriend (he’s from Münster, in the north-west of Germany) and myself (I took my passport, just in case), understanding the loudspeaker announcements in the train was a bit of a trick, not to mention our friend’s parents, who speak in dialect and wear, upon proper occasion of town celebrations or birthdays, Tracht (traditional costumes). They gave extra effort to speak clearly or in High German as much as possible and all in all it worked out well—but it is like hearing a different language. The words are different but similar—not just differences in rhythm, like Scottish or Kenyan English. In any case, they made us feel quite welcome and were wonderfully friendly.

As a poor student in a university town, I found it a luxury to be somewhere with a living room, somewhere with couches and terraces and seating for fifteen. It was lovely to have a big family breakfast—though I had no chance of doing justice to the spread presented to us, although I did my best to the Stachelbeerentorte (gooseberry torte). As someone who spent the last few weeks either working or writing a paper, it was a wonderful change of pace to just….relax and take it easy.



Saturday we spent in Munich with F. as tour guide, with the aid of a small map, short descriptions, much enthusiasm and the occasional downpour we stumped around the old town, viewing the Residenz, the Frauenkirche (the famous twin towers, seen on every picture), multiple churches and squares, the university, and the market.

The Viktualienmarkt, as it is known, is a gigantic marketplace where all manner of edibles and specialities are sold. There are entire stands just for honies or wines or vegetables, with butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers equally represented. Partly composed of tents, partly of permanent buildings, it is possible to buy all manner of interesting—and disgusting—things to eat. During one hailstorm we took shelter under the awning of a butcher’s shop—particularly fine view, in my opinion—which displayed a range of wares that would do my 10th-grade biology class justice. There you could purchase just about any animal part you wanted, including entire feet, heads, udders, tongues, and more things I won’t name or describe. We stood in front of the window and joked about these delicacies—who would want a head? What do you use it for, decoration?—to which the woman standing next to us replied that heads and feet could be used in many fine dishes, soups, sauces, etc., from the days when nothing was wasted. She explained how one could prepare a sauce using the head, and sent her grandkid into the shop. The child, full of enthusiasm—morbid fascination?—returned with…a severed pig’s head. Vegetarianism was starting to look good to at least one of my companions.



After our extensive tour and lunch at an Italian place we headed off to the English gardens, a huge green area stretching for almost 5 k in the city center. There is even a wave pool where you can try body surfing, separate equestrian and bike paths, formal gardens and “English” gardens, referring to the more natural style of artificial gardens (compared to French formal gardens).

We were treated to a Bavarian dinner of Würstchen (sausages), Sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), and Schupfnudeln (pan-fried potato noodles, sort of like Gnocci). Of the two of us non-Bavarians, M. was the one who had never had Sauerkraut before, and despite his best efforts he didn’t manage to decimate his sausages.

We learned that the town, of which our friend’s father was mayor, had undergone tremendous demographical changes after the 2nd world war. In 500 years the town’s population had only doubled, and by the 1940s was only at about 3,000—and to imagine that this town housed and eventually incorporated about 2,500 refugees is a statement of their friendliness and willingness to incorporate others which is not reflected in, for instance, towns in the Black Forest (stories of not-so-recent newcomers to towns in the Schwarzwald tell of newcomers who aren’t really taken in by the locals even after 10 or 15 years).

Our evening entertainment consisted of going to the movies to watch Schwere Jungs (Heavy Boys), a story of the German 1950-something bobsled team at that year’s Oslo Olympic games. It’s based on a true story about team members from the towns of Garnisch-Paternkirche, which are visible from our friend’s balcony. The Bavarian dialect was spoken in the movie, making comprehension occasionally challenging, but it was a great movie and quite funny.

Sunday morning we went running, in and among the pines, along the creek and through the fields. The landscape is beautiful, rural, and a half hour from Munich. The run was lovely, the weather perfect, and aside from a slight altercation with a dog, everything was wonderful.

Instead of rushing off into town, we went for a walk around the Starnbergersee, Lake Starnberg, a beautiful diversion for a sunny day. I can only imagine how it would be to spend a summer afternoon swimming and sunning or just lying on the grass.



We should have spent Saturday’s rainy morning in the museum and enjoyed the Sunday sunshine with a city tour, but as we aren’t psychic and didn’t watch the only-sometimes-accurate weather forecast we had to do it the other way around. So we went to the Pinothek Moderne museum, with a lovely exhibition of modern art, with quite a few from the Blaue Reiter group (Franz Marck, Wassily Kadinsky, etc.) as well as quite a few Max Beckmann paintings. There was also a really interesting exhibition on architecture in literature—with small models and illustrations of literary architectural masterpieces or curiosities, such as Pippi Longstockings’ house or Rapunzel’s tower. There was also a design and a graphic exhibition, though our attendance in the latter cases was somewhat cursory at best.



We didn’t have time for lunch so we bought bread and climbed into the backseat of a VW bus, which would take us back home. As a sort of organised hitchhiking, carpool websites provide contacts for people who are driving somewhere with free places. For a contribution they take on passengers; thus it was that we were riding in this bus with people we didn’t know.

The route from Munich to Freiburg can go one of two ways—once through Switzerland, once along Lake Constance. We took the latter way, and were witness to the most spectacular sunset I have seen in a very long time just as we were driving along the shore. A fantastic end to a wonderful trip.


(picture not from me: http://www.bodanrueckgemeinden.de/Sonnenuntergang1280x1024.JPG )

Why I love my brother... for nerds

(Note: this is an IM conversation between me and my brother. If you know nothing about, or care nothing about, social justice theory you may consider wandering off, making yourself a cup of fair trade coffee, and spending twenty minutes helping poor people in Guatemala than reading the following post.)

[19:58] memyselfandI: I'm writing a paper on environment and justice, and I need another theme... I already have sustainable development and global commons, and I need one or two more issues
[19:59] memyselfandI: what do you think, right to development, carbon trading schemes or...?
[19:59] Brother: carbon trading for a justice paper?
[20:00] memyselfandI: jes
[20:00] memyselfandI: yes
[20:00] Brother: and I'm still not sure I buy right to development, but I come from a fairly privledged position so...
[20:00] memyselfandI: theoretical basis is social justice theories, primarily from rawls and nozick, with hints of locke thrown in for good measure
[20:00] memyselfandI: so carbon trading is an example of trying to design a 'just' system of pollution
[20:01] memyselfandI: based on egalitarian principles, with a dash of market mechanism to make the whole thing work...
[20:02] Brother: viel of ignorance is great... but it misses the huge step of how to get from where we are to where we ought to be
[20:03] memyselfandI: well, who defines where we ought to be?
[20:03] memyselfandI: I'd guess about 2/3 of all justice theorists have some kind of ur-starting point, rawls' veil, nozick's island, dworkin's auction
[20:05] Brother: basically
[20:05] Brother: its the same approach of state of nature
[20:05] memyselfandI: yeah, I know
[20:05] memyselfandI: theories and more theories
[20:05] memyselfandI: some of which are descriptive, some normative, and some simply idealistic
[20:06] Brother: basically
[20:06] memyselfandI: anyways, I have used rawls and nozick as my basis on which to evaluate various concepts
[20:06] memyselfandI: I can't cover the entire field of social justice theory so I picked two
[20:07] Brother: heh
[20:07] Brother: fair enough
[20:07] memyselfandI: and I need another 8-10 pages, though I haven't yet written intro or conclusion
[20:07] Brother: right to development would give some ample room for discussion
[20:08] memyselfandI: yeah
[20:08] memyselfandI: I mentioned it briefly already
[20:10] Brother: what is your general thesis?
[20:12] memyselfandI: that discussion of the environment in terms of justice is often done without considering the meaning of the word 'justice', often resulting in confusing or contradictary conceptions and actions
[20:13] memyselfandI: 'an evaluation of environmental justice'
[20:13] Brother: so if these discussions occur without considering the meaning of justice, how is it used?
[20:14] memyselfandI: as a generally fuzzy catch-all
[20:15] memyselfandI: are we talking justice in terms of distribution, in terms of exchange, in terms of procedure--is it 'just' if the procedures are just but the results not, is 'just' the same as equal, if justice is determined by distribution, is this distribution based on need, equality, or performance?
[20:15] memyselfandI: that was basically the class
[20:16] Brother: heh, welcome to phil 2001
[20:16] memyselfandI: with a whole other seciton on market economy, what that is, what it means, and if and how it could be combined with a concept of social justice
[20:16] memyselfandI: yeah, pretty much
[20:17] memyselfandI: so, if we are talking ecological justice in terms of access to resources, should this be equal access? Even if a person in Africa, for his standard of living or even for twice his standard of living only half the resources 'needs' than your average American
[20:18] memyselfandI: and if we are determining who has access to resources, who decides? who owns them anyways, and why? why is a common good such as the atmosphere even a common good?
[20:18] memyselfandI: and why should we care about future generations at all, except out of guilty conscience?
[20:18] memyselfandI: that is basically my paper
[20:18] memyselfandI: lots of questions, fewer answers but much discussion
[20:20] Brother: not a fan of saving the planet for your children?
[20:21] memyselfandI: theoretically, I would need to justify why, and not just because I like them
[20:24] Brother: what better reason could there be? you want to ensure a better word for your progengy... you live in an interconnected world where the issues of one are fast becoming the issues of all...
[20:25] memyselfandI: true, but what responsibllity do I have to the future? Is there a categorical imperitive to improve the lot of future generations?
[20:25] memyselfandI: Höffe, for example, handles that by saying it's all an exchange, you care for your kids when they are helpless so they care for you when you are helpless
[20:25] Brother: you have an obligation to your children
[20:26] memyselfandI: says who?
[20:26] memyselfandI: (I am playing devil's advocate, so you know)
[20:26] Brother: (I figured)
[20:26] memyselfandI: what is my obligation?
[20:26] Brother: your genes, your personal happiness, ground it however you like
[20:27] memyselfandI: what kind of philosopher are you?
[20:27] Brother: haha!
[20:28] memyselfandI: Rawls' argument, that decisions on social order are done behind the veil of ignorance, such that you don't know what society you will belong to or your place in it, can also be applied to generational justice--you pick the best conditions for possible future generations because you might end up there
[20:28] Brother: it could

(the punchline, and the reason I posted this)

[20:28] Brother: I'm just having visions of invisible hands fighting viels of ignorance
[20:29] memyselfandI: hahaha
[20:29] memyselfandI: hayek would be proud
[20:29] memyselfandI: like a philosophical fencing match
[20:30] memyselfandI: touché

Um.... Veil of Ignorance, anyone? Or veil of verbal incontinance?

I won't take much of your time, ye honored reader, mostly because I haven't got much of it myself, or better said, such time as I have is better spent waging war with my computer and my paper (not the same thing--the first is inhibited by the pile of keys sitting on the table next to the keyboard, and the second is inhibited by the fact that I have been sitting in this chair about 80% of the last twelve hours).

This may come out as a bit of typographical expressionism, a linguistical Wassily Kadinsky, with much enthusiasm, little forethought, and a deep and profound happiness not to be writing about Justice With A Capital J. It's harder to do Eddie Izzard-style tranitions in writing, but I suppose I can non-sequit with the best of them, so I will try.

So, Language. Learning language is fun. I do it every day. If I had been smart I would've written down all the funny and stupid and hilarious and inappropriate things I've inadvertently said in the course of learning German, but because I wasn't, I'll have to suffice with some of the more recent examples.

"Bubble Orchester?" (b.l.a.s.e.n.o.r.c.h.e.s.t.e.r: he looks confused. bemused. more bemused than confused. I'm explaining with enthusiasm why I couldn't pay attention in class because a marching band was wandering around under the window--true story) "You mean a wind ensemble?" (b.l.a.s.o.r.c.h.e.s.t.e.r is what I wanted to say. certain friends pointed out the other possible mis-interpretations of the first spelling; I will leave that one up to the German speakers.)

My bike has no light on it, speaking of changing lanes without signaling. Every week something else is wrong with it, and I have jiggled all wires, turned all the screws and bent and pulled and tried and still no luck. So I am now practicing the quick-jump-off-and-pretend-I-was-pushing-all-along manoeuvre, in case the police come.
Running a red light at 3 AM at an empty intersection? 90€
Taking the tram without a pass? €40
Riding without a light? €10
...
Knowing you're rebelling in a country where that Just Isn't Done? Priceless. There are some things money can't by, and for everything else there's an Überweisung.

You know what I dislike? Potatoes. I don't hate them, I just have a certain lack of respect for them--potatoes are not elegant or glamorous, they are knobby and brown and not even a proper sphere and you have to scrub them or peel them or somehow turn them into something edible, which is anyways a lot of work and boring and gives you blisters in strange places or verschrümpfelt your hands. Pommes de terre, c'est tout. Yet in comparison to their shiny red and green friends, to those spherical objects of biblical and mythological reference, they are lowly, and not just geographic. And they taste, more or less, like the seasonings in which they were cooked, kind of like Tofu except without the health benefits. I wonder what the total historical death toll of the potato is? The potatoes of mass destruction (vgl. 1849 Ireland).... I like the sound of that...send in the troops...

Monthly Report from the "working world"

Monthly report

I've been here for over a month now. I've had a living-in period and now feel I know my job and my coworkers.

My job: about 95% of my time is spent on the Sevilla conference, and the other 5% goes to the odd jobs I receive in my inbox or tasks for an upcoming Local Renewables Conference in Freiburg in June, for which I will probably become quite active. My main responsibility has been to support the program officers, who are collectively responsible for designing and organising forty sessions, each requiring speakers to be considered, selected, and invited; rejected speakers are often invited to present posters, and speakers who decline must be replaced. My job is to draft the invitation letters and registration forms, combining database information, a form letter, and a lot of CTRL-C and CTRL-V. The drafts are then looked over by the responsible officer, combined with other documents to create the invitation package, and are sent off. It's a bit tedious for everyone involved. Once the sessions have more than half of their speakers confirmed, they may be released on the website, which involves a final English and general check (also my responsibility), creation and upload of a PDF. My fellow interns, for their part, process the participants' applications, the completed
registration forms from speakers, update the website, the program information, track down people who have or have not paid, etc. The program officers maintain contacts with speakers, decide who receives fee waivers, fix problems, coordinate with partners, and try and get all of their sessions as final as possible, as soon as possible.

It's a lot of work. Much of it is repetitive. I am constantly astounded by how much work there is to do; I often leave my desk with a stack of tasks still lingering in my inbox, glaring reproachfully at me as I refuse to spend a tenth hour in a row working on them.

But it's coming together. The registration of participants, at first a trickle, is now a steady stream and threatens to become a deluge as speakers register and as people make final decisions on attendance. We have borrowed one person from another team to keep up and may acquire another intern.

The organisation still runs smoothly, as far as I can tell, with training for new staff, team meetings, secretariat meetings, extracurricular activities in the form of going-away parties, frequent communication and people who are willing to answer a question. I would be interested in learning a bit of what the other teams do, but that would first happen after the conference if at all.

Some of the skills I have learned and the tools I have worked with:
- website content management systems: I am now a familiar user with typo3 content management system. It allows mere mortals to create and edit webpages without knowing one iota of HTML and with a very small chance of screwing everything up. It’s actually ingenious how the whole thing works, and I am constantly learning new tips and interesting tools. I hope to one day be able to set up my own typo3 system but that is currently considerably beyond my skillset.
- Database: how to manage, in the case of our maindaba, some 30,000 and in the case of our conference daba, some 700 contacts in minutely complicated fashion, interlinked in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend. One (sometimes three or four, but still) press of the button and you may have one of fifteen different outputs, forms, letters, whatnot, all customized to the desired record. Mostly what I learn is how to get around the program quirks, for example that one particular form may only be used by one individual at a time so we have to coordinate among six individuals who gets to use the—Murphy, ye be praised for your wisdom—registration form at a time.
- Multitasking: on my desk is a list of things I have to do, specific tasks for ongoing projects (‘fix formatting on session XX’ or ‘update pages XX, YY, and ZZ on website A’). My inbox is full of little tasks from random people (ranging from ‘please proofread this grant proposal’ or ‘please prepare 20 invitations’ or ‘please pick something up from the printer and bring it to me’ to ‘do you have any ideas about XX?’). Some are creative, some are tedious, and trying to figure out others’ and set my priorities—and combine these priorities with my estimate of how long each task will take—keeps me on my toes. Multitasker that I am, I tend to keep several long-term projects going (update a session description or fix formatting on 30 webpages) which I intersperse with anything urgent, anything that doesn’t take long or, if I’ve just been fixing formatting for an hour, anything else. But my computer isn’t the fastest and doesn’t always keep up with my six applications.
- Good and not-so-good ways to run a meeting or training session: the fact that there are meetings and trainings speaks well for the organisation and its communication, and in general, they are run well—such that, in the case where they aren’t run well, I get annoyed. A well-run meeting has an agenda, it is moderated by someone in a useful manner, it addresses the points that need to be addressed in the manner in which they need to be addressed, it keeps some people from talking to long and, hopefully, leaves you in a better place in regards to your tasks or the projects than you were in before.
- Balancing communication and initiative: taking initiative hasn’t really been a problem, it’s just sometimes my good idea conflicts with the needs of the project—throwing things away too soon, or making a decision regarding formatting or procedure. However, asking if it’s ’ok’ to do everything only hinders the project and irritates the coworkers, so I have to decide in the best interests of the project or task, try and make sure the involved people are aware, take criticism where it is due and be willing to fix mistakes—and there haven’t been many.

And among all the hectic and frenzy of planning colleagues are coming and going; many are on six-month or year-long contracts and move on at the end of their allotted time, receive jobs in other countries or are looking for them. The aspect which impresses me the most is the internationalism of the office: most people are not Germans, and their next job may be in a completely different country. The telephone rings
and is answered in either English or German, but the conversation may take place in any one of five or six languages, and the ICLEI staff person speaking may switch among them. If someone calls and does not speak a particular language, there is about a 90% chance that someone else in the room speaks it, English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Russian, Swedish… And I ask how they learned these languages: living
and working in different countries. They have studied things like international relations, diplomacy, development management, environmental sciences, ecology, biology, international business management, politics, economics. It inspires me, both regarding courses of study and choice of location. After I have finished my bachelor I need to learn French, and probably Spanish as well, if I want to be competitive in this field. So I hope to do a several-month internship somewhere where they speak French, preferably Paris or Brussels, though if I got a chance to go to Kigali or somewhere I would take it even if that means learning funny French, and then I will probably need to go for a Masters' somewhere. And after that? The
world is my playground.

The Midterm Report

I'm 20 and a half today. No, there won't be a party, no cake, none of that. Keine halben Sachen, no points for halfway.

What has this half year looked like?

I celebrated my birthday in Hhfn, for the second time in three years. As I recall, we spent the morning of my birthday in Kiel, because R. was taking part in a triathalon. It rained, and they had to keep postponing the swimming. In the evening we went to see Das Leben der Anderen, which was a great film. It was nice to be there, nice to celebrate with them. I have pictures.

I went to Braunschweig after that, visited my sister, met a girl who would become one of my best friends in Freiburg. I spent a week without coffee and with withdrawal headaches. I ran. Every day.

I went to Freiburg. I spent a rainy week with wet shoes and decreasing spirits, trying to find somewhere to live that was a) more or less central, b) not filled with strange people, c) furnished, d) not horribly expensive, e) some place I would want to live. I found everything but (c), signed my lease, left the Jugendherberge that had become my home and, with the trepidation of a new location, moved to Mainz.

There I spent almost two months working in the Parliament, living in the House of Representatives with a wonderful Czech girl who was my constant companion. We spent our evenings watching TV, hanging out, wandering around, walking along the Rhine, swimming, what have you; we spent our weekends on trips to the Rhine valley, to Heidelberg, to Trier, with friends of hers or alone. I learned a lot, grew up some, met some lovely people and was sad to leave.

The stuff I had brought and bought barely fit in my backpack and three plastic bags, and I barely made it in to Freiburg where A. picked me up at the train station. I was promptly interrogated by the ticket guy on the tram in my first and only such experience. I moved in, I registered, I tried the hard way to learn the German system. I transported bookshelves in the bus. I bought things. I ran. Every day. I went to classes. I sat in the back, was very confused, and spent all day reading, grocery shopping, and running in the time I wasn't in class. I spent my weekends with long walks, with friends, in town, going out, staying in, watching movies, going to concets, going to the movies, talking. I built a circle of friends, slowly but surely. I gave presentations; each one became easier and less stressful. I tried hard. Mostly, I succeeded, if sometimes imperfectly.

I went to Bonn, got to know some great people and one person in particular. I had a blast, heard some interesting and some boring presentations, fought off a cold and had a time of it. I went to HHfn for Christmas, celebrating in a house full of people, of laughter, of music and baked goods, chocolate and champagne. I ran. Every day. I enjoyed the sea and the sand, the bit of freedom you get from looking out over the water.

The very first minute of 2007 found me somewhere between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, celebrating amid the madness and mayhem that is Berlin at New Year’s. Once again, nice to be with my adopted family; I always look forward to seeing them and being there, and they are part of the reason that my experiences in Germany have been so good, as well as the reason I love Berlin. It was wonderful to see my other sister, whom I had not seen for a year and a half, whose adventures and wanderlust had taken her to far off places, left her with many memories and hundreds of pictures.

I took their guitar back with me, back to my little corner of Germany and my high-ceilinged room. Several of my friends and relatives noticed the frequency with which I was either dinner guest or host to a tall (light and) handsome stranger who, over the course of our evenings became less and less strange; perhaps I was slowly realizing how familiar we were. The end of January marked the turning point.

Such of February that has already passed has been completely new territory to me, wonderful and disorienting. I think I’ve sort of got my balance back now. I don’t know what the future holds for us and I don’t want to think about it; in the meantime I am enjoying every minute I can get out if it, I am enjoying that my toothbrush isn’t alone, that there is someone to whom I am not a blood relative who is there for me and for whom I can be there, that I would have a shoulder to cry on (if I had a reason to cry, which I don’t, and if I could reach it), that someone makes me laugh and keeps me from taking things too seriously, that I don’t have to pretend to be dumb, or smart, or older, or anything but who and what I am.

Happy February to you all, whoever you are. Hope yours is as good as mine, if you pardon my immodesty.

Ist der Krieg vorbei???

"Excuse me," the voice stops me. "EXCUSE ME!!" I'm a step and a half past her, two heads taller. People don't do that here, don't stop you on the street unless you've done something wrong.

I stop, turn, smile. I'd seen her on the corner as I approached, mumbling to herself; I had passed her, passed over her, passed by her, not a thought to spare. She's tiny, not even five foot, wizened, shriveled, white hair covered by a cloth tied under chin. Her companion, a cane, accompanies her wobbling steps as I am about to sweep on past her.

"Excuse me," she repeats. I smile expectantly. "Is the war over?"

The little hamster wheel of my brain comes screeching to a halt, my feeble version of reality wheeling around me like a two-year-old on a two-wheeled tricycle.

"Yes, definately," I reply, too astounded to think first. She hasn't got all her teacups in the cupboard, as they say here; a few fries short of a happy meal, as they say there.

"That's good," she mumbles, her eyes somewhat unfocused. "That's good. Maybe my husband will come back. He said something about..." I can't discern much of what follws, mumbles of promises and hope thinly connected to coherence, even more thinly to even her version of reality. "Thank you," she finishes, looking at me, seeming to see me for the first time, a faint smile on her face. I nod, depart.

Wow.

What do I do with that?

Here I am, standing on a corner of a street in Germany amid new houses, my astonishment and the vantage point of my twenty years--years spent without words like war, need, or ration, not even to the extent of my classmates here, second-generation war kids, kids who lived with walls. Maybe she's a few bricks short of a full load, maybe she'll ask the next person she sees the same question--to be constantly unsure, unaware, afraid?

Yes, the war is over. I hope she's happier for the length of time she remembers...

The Circle Game

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like “when you're older” must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

Time is elastic. When you are young it is very slow; ‘just a minute’ is intolerably long, ‘soon’ takes forever and ‘tomorrow’ may as well be an eternity away. Nothing can go fast enough. You wish you were older; with age comes privilege but also responsibility—and through a child’s eyes responsibility is a word which means doing what you’re told even when no one tells you to do it, restricted to discreet instances, bound to potential consequences and largely irrelevant. Few people can, at the age of six, recognize that growing up means shouldering more of the world; for you, growing up means a bigger piece of pie and a half hour more television.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

The older you get, the more time stretches. Sometimes time passes quickly in leaps and bounds—all of the sudden months or years have passed—or excruciatingly slowly still. Normal speed is tolerable—you still wish you were older, you still want to be allowed to have sleepovers, stay out late, go out with friends, whatever—but you can tolerate normal time. The week stretches endlessly, the length proportional to the amount of homework required or the size of the Friday exam, and the weekend passes on winged feet. Summer can’t come soon enough and May drags on as if it were chained down and had to first fight itself free, and as soon as you know it is August again. Each coming year increases your allowance and decreases your bedtime. Your grades matter, your hairstyle and your clothes matter, and your young shoulders strain under the weight of other people’s expectations.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

You learn to drive. You get a job. Some of you start to drink and smoke and do other things you’d rather not tell your parents about. You learn to juggle all of these things, with more or less success. Other people’s opinions of you become important, sometimes more important than your opinions of yourself, which only very few people have anyways. A pimple is a tragedy and you arrange your entire morning to have a ‘chance’ encounter with that one person whose flaws you have smoothed with your imagination and your conviction that this person is your special someone, regardless of the fact that you don’t know them, they don’t know you and you don’t ‘have a chance’. Your dreams far outstrip reality; you no longer want to be an astronaut or a fireman or a ballerina and the loss of these ideals is not always replaced by “better” ones. You’ll go to college, and to do this you take the right classes and make friends with the right teachers, you study for exams and standardized tests, you sign up for the right clubs, you increase your extracurricular activities and you consider whether debate or DECA looks better on your resume. Time accelerates.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

All of the sudden there is no more school. Your applications and essays pay off and you receive the thicker packet among the thinner “It’s nothing personal, but…”. You fit everything you own into a car or two and then half of a 12 x 12 room and try not to get swept away. Among four hundred other confused and bleary-eyed students, some hungover, some still drunk, many just confused, harried, scared, excited, you hunch in the back and squint at the powerpoint and the small lone figure pacing the stage with a gravelly wireless for company. You take notes, you sit exams, you join clubs, fraternities, sororities, and it all comes piling in in a frantic rush. Finals week becomes hell on earth, you sit five exams, work 20 hours, sleep five a night, study, stress, eat poorly, drink far too much coffee and in the end are so unbelievably happy to have survived that far that you don’t even care what grade you got. Time accelerates. Soon enough you’ll be finished, words like Senior Thesis, Graduation and Career Fair loom in on your consciousness. Perceived time is now faster than real time; in no time at all a week or two or five or fifty have passed and you fend off tomorrow with such of your youth as remains.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Somewhere amid the stress and the dreams “real life” begins; or rather, at some point you realize that it was there all along. The current carrying you is strong, powerful with the weight of tradition and expectations, yet you may still change it, swim to the other side or even climb out if you choose. You may drift and yet steer. You no longer yearn for the future or gaze longingly at the past, you simply are, you exist, you enjoy the moment you are in. Your perspective changes and you see something of the future though there are bends in the river beyond which you cannot see. If you are lucky you find someone with whom to drift along, or you prefer to be alone and resent when others ask you if you are “getting by” alone. Your expectations for yourself become more important than other people’s expectations for you, and it is shattering for the parents if the pedestal on which they have placed their little darling is more a painting of dreams than a mirror of reality. And this is your life; what will you make of it?

Introspection

Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. You might try washing it once in awhile; I know you’re busy, but it’s hard to get anything useful out of a mirror if you have to spend twenty minutes scrubbing a brown spot off of your face only to ascertain it was dirt on the mirror all along. Go on, stand there properly. And stand up straight, you’re slouching and you know it.

There, that’s better.

And what do you see? What do you notice? Well, if you don’t see it I’m not going to tell you. Look closer. No, don’t fidget, don’t change anything, you’ll spoil it. Closer, closer. There. See it?

That’s you. If you squint you can see past the clothes and the hairstyles, past some of the masques you put on when you go out, past your worries, your stress, your hopes or fears, past the fact that you didn’t sleep much last night, what you had for lunch and what you’ve planned for next week. Sometimes you really have to squint hard. Some people are really tricky. Try for the eyes if you’re having trouble; it may be hard to get a glimpse. Most people don’t often look other people in the eyes, so good luck trying to look yourself in the eyes. They say the eyes are the window to the soul. If we have a soul. Except windows don’t get shifty and blink a lot. Whatever it is that’s in there, you can see it through the eyes. Or so they say.

How much of you is left, when you strip off all the layers of other people you carry around with you? Their expectations, their preferences, their opinions—worst of all—tend to collect in the forgotten corners of you. Can you define what percentage of your behavior is pure you, unconstrained, uninfluenced by other people? Quantitatively or qualitatively?

Does your speech change, depending on with whom you are speaking? Does your manner change, depending on with whom you are? And who are you, when you are alone?

But don’t just stand there looking in the mirror all day. Narcissus died of that, or something similar, and anyways too much introspection is bad for the complexion.

It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803 - 1873), Paul Clifford (1830)

My windows are shaking. If I turn off my music I can hear the wind howling, the pained wailing punctuated by banging doors, the spare trashcan skipping like a tumbleweed in the wind. More worrying is the distant strains of the doppler effect, the sound the sirens here make that are so different from American cop cars. The joy of living in the fourth floor in the corner appartment is that the wind seems to take extra joy in tugging on our house as it passes, the rows of houses funneling and concentrating the air into buffeting gusts. The building doesn’t shake, for which I am grateful, but the dull roar sounds sometimes like a waterfall.



The storm isn’t too bad here, compared with other parts of Germany. The entire long-distance rail network has been shut down, and there are probably plenty of poor souls stuck somewhere they don’t want to be, waiting for trains that won’t come. It’s like Waiting for Godot plus The Tempest, without the silly tights. Nine people have died so far, either from trees or doors, come uprooted or unhinged. It’s strange in such a storm; everyday objects, objects of utility or beauty become dangerous, menacing, posing the greatest risk to us is our very environment. It makes you jumpy, wind saws on the nerves like hyperactive kids when you have a headache. A dull thump echoing from a block away tells me something has broken loose.



I love a good storm. Taking shelter, nothing is more spectacular than a fantastic lightning storm, the kind best watched from the back deck looking out over Green Valley of a summer evening. Exposed, nothing is more dangerous than a bolt of lightning on a tree-lined ridge, nothing more terrifying than being abord a ship buffeted by winds on an open sea. It’s exhilirating and frightening, exposed before raw power and forces I cannot even begin to comprehend.



Global warming has gone from far left field to mainstream, to mix metaphors; it is a phenomenon either created or abetted by human folly and greed, making these storms, ice storms, snow storms, droughts, hurricanes, floods, and any other natural disasters you can dream of even more a part of our daily life and, hopefully, our consciousness and conscience. I don’t know if there is anything to be done to prevent the increasingly inevitable; undoing the mistakes of the past—particularly in light of the sheer magnitude of human presence, in numbers and in effect—may well be beyond our control, and avoiding the mistakes of the present and future—as elusive as even this prospect may be—may well not be enough. As a friend of mine once wrote in a song, as we sat on his couch listening to the wind howling: "You can't fight the weather, 'cause you will always lose..."

Socialism failed because it couldn't tell the economic truth; capitalism may fail because it couldn't tell the ecological truth.
Lester Brown, Fortune Brainstorm Conference, 2006

That is what scares me—as I sit and listen to the wind, enjoying the tingle down my spine—that my seldom glimpse of natural violence may well become my daily fare. Who needs terrorism when an unsecured door can kill you, when everything burns, when the wind and weather tear your house to pieces?

Are you sure you don't want to quit?

Anybody who accepts mediocrity - in school, on the job, in life - is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.
Charles Knight

"Are you sure you don't want to quit school and come work for us?" one of my bosses asked. I was in the middle of donning my coat, gathering my stuff and getting the hell out of dodge. As much fun as that would be, I don't think I'd get too far without an education of the signed-stamped-and-sealed kind, so, no.

Monday saw me sitting in my corner, reading texts for class, doodling around on the internet and not doing much that was productive. I corrected the occasional text sent my way, perused the filing system and wished I had brought more stuff to read while repeatedly and unsuccessfully seeking my boss for an undetermined assignment. "This is only temporary," someone told me. Yeah, okay.

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859 - 1927)

And it was temporary.

The conference has forty sessions, each with between three and five presenters. Each presenter has an abstract which, in addition to the session description, needs
to be proofread by me, and then an invitation letter and a registration form for each presenter needs to be drafted via a template. I am responsible for all of the steps for only some of the sessions, but I am responsible for all of the proofreading as well as correcting random texts from other people, anything from resumes to
business letters to funding proposals. It's lots of fun, plenty to do and the time just flies by.

I am also increasingly impressed with the organisation itself. Today was Team Meeting, which involved representatives of all departments and most of the 30-odd staff of the European Secretariat. The meeting was relatively short--one hour--has rotating chairmanship, and allows for the director and each of the team leaders to update the others on current projects. Many of the reports focused on which team leaders were attending which conferencs in which far-off and lovely-sounding cities, in Italy, in Spain, the Canaries, Nairobi, what have you. Sign me up, please.

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.
Alain van der Heide

Our team meets weekly on Mondays; the meeting is conducted while standing to keep it from getting long and is run from an agenda to which each team member is encouraged to add. Each person has initials, and the person in question is listed under the respective agenda item for which they have responsibility, and the entirety is formatted in terms of specific tasks relating to a certain item. So, speaker invitations--our project this week--has a list of what things need to be done and by whom. What seems to be crucially important--and what continues to impress me--is the development of process. Things aren't done haphazardly; they are considered and a process is developed before anything gets done, sort of a checklist. The filing system is immense and the entire project works off of several enormous databases with more functions than I could possibly dream of, so it is important to keep things straight and not muck it up. The creation of theses processes, however, has been whittled down to a science such that it is not complicated to draft an instruction sheet for creating invitations or updating this or doing that; instructions are often written out; paper drafts are kept and organized and filed. It's efficient, transparent, and simple. Everyone knows what they have to do, how to do it, whom to talk to when something goes wrong or is unclear.





In high school I always loved correcting texts; my friends called me the "editor from hell" because of my love of the red pen. Now I have a red pen and a green pen and couldn't be happier--subtle symbols of my power. I love languages, I love how they work and how they sound and how they flow. Of course, making sure items in a list end with semicolons instead of commas is not necessarily my idea of a rowdy good time, but I generally enjoy it. Many of the texts--almost all, excluding some session abstracts--were written by non native speakers of english. This means anything from overenthusiastic use of commas to having to find a Spanish or Italian colleague to translate the original document because I can't make sense of the English. One of the worst texts I corrected, however, came from Scotland (no cultural inference here, just an observation). Correcting these texts also differs from correcting someone's creative or academic prose--in this example, it is not about keeping someone's "voice," helping them learn from mistakes or merely pointing out poor style, but rather that myself or someone else will enter my changes in exactly as I have written them, and this document will be sent to quite a few people so it had better be correct.

The quality of an organization can never exceed the quality of the minds that make it up.
Harold R. McAlindon

The informal environment also makes it particularly enjoyable. The staff are young and international, but we are all on a "first name basis", with all of the German cultural connotations that implies; the policy is "open door". Everyone has gone out of their way to get to know me, who I am, where I come from and what I am doing there. With my inability to remember names I am having a bit of a trick keeping it all straight, but as soon as I can connect a story to a face I am in the clear. In mixed company the language is English but often devolves into other languages according to those present. And besides, they offer me all the Fair Trade tea and coffee I can drink and have an international book exchange (source of the Isabel Allende novel I picked up and have not read).



They asked me if I could come in on Friday for some meetings and training, but I would have to miss a seminar and I need to be clear that this is not going to take over my life just because there is lots of work to do. With that in mind I have been resolutely pursuing the rest of my life, so except for an occasional sleep defecit it couldn't be better.

Denglisch

Denglisch

The Academie Francaise exists to protect and preserve the French language. Americans find the institution peculiar, and describe it with the typical and unconscious slight derision arising from the mutual loving animosity which has marked historical Amero-French relations: “That’s a French thing,” or “well, the French do that sort of thing”. English now has “to google” as a verb, has adopted and bastardized most other languages in adaptation of words like ‘savoir faire’, ‘hinterland’, ‘doppelgänger’, ‘hors d’œuvre’ and others whose original context or usage has been lost or forgotten. And we’re happy about it. We like our mutt-language, just as we like our mutt-culture, just as long as it doesn’t become too inconvenient or too specific.

As I was learning German, I resolutely determined to speak no English, to learn the German expressions and use them. The more I learned, the more I realized that if I wanted to sound like a German, I would have to incorporate English expressions. ‘Feiern’ means to party, but many say ‘Party machen’. ‘Coffee to go’ may be found everywhere, even though ‘Kaffee zum Mitnehmen’ is a perfectly good expression. If I’ve noticed something, it is something I have ‘gecheckt’.

The field of politics, particularly of development, is particularly full of these Denglisch words; in some cases because no German expression exists, in others because the English is more fitting, more widely used or shorter. Consider the following example, from an article on Yemen’s educational policy from InWent, a government-affiliated organisation: (Denglisch in bold)

Top-down-Bildungspolitik gescheitert

Diese Einsicht war auch Ausgangspunkt eines Prozesses in der Republik Jemen, der in die Entwicklung einer Grundbildungsstrategie durch die jemenitischen Stakeholders im Erziehungswesen mündete. Angestoßen wurde der Prozess durch die Erkenntnis der „Modernisierungsfraktion“ im Erziehungsministerium, dass die überkommene top-down-Bildungspolitik im Jemen trotz erkennbaren Engagements der Bildungsplaner nichts mehr war als ein fallweises und kurzatmiges Krisenmanagement. Weit entfernt von der Lebenswelt der Schüler, Lehrer und Eltern, schien das ministerielle muddling-through unbeabsichtigt mehr Probleme zu schaffen als zu lösen

Source: http://www.inwent.org/E+Z/content/archiv-ger/05-2003/schwer_art1.html

Seriously, what is this?

January thoughts

Today's webcam bild. Am Schwabentor.

It's an odd thing, sitting here in January, listening to the birds chirping and discovering the tiny little flowers blooming guiltily amongst stems of grass. The sun is shining and the world seems brighter, more vibrant somehow. Goes to show I'm solar powered. Or perhaps it's just a lack of sleep.

I haven't decided if I like the weather. The part of me that needs to be outside all the time, the part of me that likes running and hiking, the part of me that is solar dependant, loves the 50-degree weather, the sunshine, and the budding trees. The part of me that is somewhat attuned to natural rhythms, for example, thinks this is just pretty damn weird. Or is it wierd? (I never know). Some small part of me hopes for snow, (yes, me...snow...and no, I haven't suffered a recent head injury) at least to try out cross country skiing, which is apparently quite fun. I'd just be happy with more daylight; I don't like the fact that the 'day' doesn't start till about 8 AM.

A conversation with a friend recently gave me the solution to my time-wasting problem. I tend to spend far too much free time screwing around, surfing the 'net, not researching, not writing, not doing much of anything productive. So I unplugged my internet, told myself I could have it back in an hour, which turned into an hour and a half, and got more done in that time than I had completed in five hours the day before. Amazing. But now that my time is somewhat constrained by my internship I actually have to plan ahead again and actually get to work during the time allotted.

But enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think of me?

No, seriously, subject change. Forgive me if I become somewhat philosophical, or at least reflective. My aspirations tend more towards the latter; even your grandma knows I'm no philosopher.

Why are we here?

No, too philosophical.

The pressing question (here I imagine the question as a giant airbag, laden with implications, seeking to physically push me into the ground. Perhaps other people have hard questions, but I like mine squishy) is, what makes people the way they are? It is my favorite question to ask people, ask them where they came from, how they came to be doing what they are doing, why they picked this or that subject to study or none at all, how they came to be florists, dentists, why they dreamed of being an electrician and why they now design paperweights, how they met their significant other. I try to imagine what the perspective would have looked like--how much of the decision was intentional, how much accidental? Some people, I am pretty sure--after being unable to discern any intention or direction whatsoever--just "end up" somewhere, doing something. Sometimes they are happy, sometimes they are not happy.

Stories. Personal histories. Choices. Lack of choices (the worst curse). Alternatives. Hope and enthusiasm. What happens when you have a dream? How does that change you? Are you afraid?

Let's change the subject. Hypothetically, if you were sitting on a public bus, if you were the only passanger seated next to the window, and someone got on.... and instead of sitting in one of the myriad odd free seats--using the normal calculation: distance from person seated to door, divide by half if you don't want to sit in the front; or, more simply, seating yourself at approximately one-half-bus-length from said person, wherever that puts you--instead of doing that, this person sits down *right next to you*.

What would you do? What do you think about that? Would it bother you?

Tell me. I want to know.

Where do you see yourself...

1. in ten minutes?
In front of my desk, writing a paper on Kafka and wishing I were hiking or playing guitar or something.

2. in ten hours?
Eating dinner? Jamming with friends, perhaps.

3. in ten days?
at my internship, trying to explain the difference between federation and confederation (if you want to know, confederation is a looser bond than federation among independant actors).

4. in ten weeks?
In France? Hopefully. Yay.

5. in ten years?
Driving a desk. Sunbathing on a beach. Running an orphanage in mongolia. Trying to teach my kid not to throw food. I have no idea.

Miscommunication

My main resolution for the coming year--my only one, actually--is to be punctual. Germans love their Pünktlichkeit, and though there seems to be two categories of Germans, those who are exquisitely on time every time and those who are not, it is in quite poor taste to show up anywhere anything but precisely on time. Appointments are to be kept. In some Latin American countries--this rumor is from a Peruvian friend--if the invitation for a wedding says 10.30 guests won't start showing up until 11, and the wedding itself won't start until 11.30. My incapability to be punctual, or more accurately expressed, my laziness towards punctuality where meetings with friends are involved, has strained my relationship with some people unnecessarily. My one and only fight with a good friend was actually a miscommunication that became 'fatal' when it was attributed as a further example of my habitual temporal imprecision. I don't want to repeat that. If I can dress like a German, talk like a German, and forget basic English grammar like everyone else who lives here for a long time, the least I can do is acquire the German punctuality. Thus: resolution.

On another note, you should go see Babel. It's fantastic. I would subtitle the film 'miscommunication' because it is basically a series of linked stories whose entire plot depends on crossed signals, translation problems, inability to express oneself and chance. Fantastically well-made and enthralling.

Ohje...

I've had, at the maximum, about an hour a day this week to sit, drink my coffee, answer emails, etc. Otherwise, I've been on the go; I leave my house at 9 AM and come back at 1 AM the next morning. And I love it. Except I've got no food and don't know when I'm going to be able to go shopping.

I started my internship on Monday. The organisation is an NGO working on climate protection and sustainable development. They work on various projects supporting green procurement and the implementation of the Local Agenda 21 and Aalborg commitments. They also have a department which plans conferences, including one in Spain in March, www.sevilla2007.org . This is my new department. I am the new go-to person for anything involving English, the working language, and will probably receive other tasks as time goes on.

Of course, right off the bat I was introduced to the thirty-odd people who work there, and I am trying my hardest to remember who each of them is and what he or she does. It's not easy. As a whole, the group may be summarized and generalized by saying that they are exceedingly international and on average quite young. I would judge most of them to be around 30, with the few slightly elder balanced out by the multple mid-20s-employees and interns. My new office is shared with two italians, a german, a german/spainiard, and me. There are canadians, mexicans, dutch, belgians, people from all over Europe, one british guy, and me. Everyone seems to speak four or five languaes. I wish I could.

I've been sitting in on meetings, trying to follow what is going on and how it all works. It's quite a dynamic group, and my impression is that they help one another out. Communication is clear and frequent; goup tasks and projects are openly discussed and shared. I proofread the website and learned how to work their web editor, so I can apply my changes.

Mainly I am fascinated by what it takes to put such a conference together. It's the same sort of thing we did back at CU for our Darfur events, except on a much larger scale. 1,000 expected attendees, 40 panels, roundtables, four plenaries, four days, six or eight partner organisations and the whole thing takes place in Spain. I can learn a lot.

And after 'work' each day I go to class, which is the same as it has always been, except my evening class has finished. We ended with a four hour session followed by a small party. I'll be sad to see it go. I hope we can keep some portion of the group together, but you never know.

In the meantime I will be eating canned peas and dumplings until I can go shopping again, and save my sleeping for the weekend... :)

Turn the corner

Breeching from the U-Bahn, escaping the underworld with its damp and consistent odor, seeking fresh air and instead finding war. Smoke filled the air and drifted in rivulets across the barricaded streets, swirling around us, turning the unknown into the unforeseen. Remnants of the wall, spray-painted memories of a terrible time, huddle among the glass facades of Potsdamer Platz, looking out over the Holocaust memorial. The sound of shattering glass, the crack of firecrackers like gunshots, vaguely visible figures dodging in out of the mist, the smell of alcohol almost tangible in some corners, the street littered with remnants and rubbish, all ghosts of a past not long ago and not forgotten.

The crowd--the living, breathing, drinking, pushing mass--sweeps the streets. Any and all in its way are swept up in the current until a police barricade halts the flow. Firecrackers ricochet from the buildings and smolder sullenly in the gutters along the road. Unofficial launch pads dot the streets and the crowd keeps a respectful distance. The country mouse startles at large cracks, clutching purse and sister, towed along until there is nowhere else to go. The anticipation is almost tangible, though almost overwhelming.

No one is exactly sure of the time, until about the last twenty seconds and someone begins counting. Across the street and above the trees explode the first of the official fireworks. Cameras and cell phones are held above the masses, seeking to document, swaying like peculiar antennas, feeding the new YouTube. Lovers kiss, friends hug and wish one another a happy new year, the couple behind us bickers about his cell phone, some kids behind us begin to sing, swaying arm in arm, and someone sprays champagne through the crowd. Fireworks rocket around us like good wishes and we stand arm in arm, bouts of fire reflected in our shining eyes.

The crowd dissolves into chaos, singing, dancing, spraying champagne and tossing crackers into the cleared streets or air. Slowly; walking normally is possible if hindered by the bottles littering the street but we make it more or less back to the station and buy some glasses of champagne and some roasted almonds, watching the tourists stagger and take pictures with sparklers. The street acts as an acoustic chamber, amplifying the cracks and bangs of the rockets shooting out of the crowd. Debris rains down; a gap in the crowd is an invitation for black cats or other small diversions and we jump aside to avoid a small lump of red paper, which suddenly springs to life and began to spin and glow with green fire. The first of the sirens wail in the distance, trying to force their way through the crowds towards the first of the unlucky or careless.

Near a million people were expected, with a two kilometer party mile between the Gate and the Victory Column, though all intermediate streets were equally full. We’d gotten in just under the wire, having spent the evening with K.’s school friends and family, and had no chance of getting to the gate itself but it didn’t matter. The party mile, for those who wanted to come earlier, was the site of several stages and performances, and turned into an open-end disco in the New Year. Over 500 people injure themselves every year and the ambulances frequently shove their way through, but the atmosphere is always positive. Strangers wish one another well, children are towed along by their parents, the crowd itself a celebratory beast, enjoying living, enjoying being where they are.

The New Year has come, for better or for worse. But somehow, standing arm in arm, watching the fireworks bloom above us, it’s hard to believe the next year will be anything but good.

Since then

I know, I know, I haven’t written in forever. I’ve been busy. I’ve got my traveling boots on and I am rolling.

But I will try and recap.

Bonn

I’ve always liked class trips; not the wimpy day-at-the-art-museum field trip sort of thing, but the kind where you all travel somewhere together. Living with someone, ipso facto means you get to know them, really know them, for better or for worse.

But this time it was for better. We took a 1 PM train from Freiburg to Bonn, no connections, filling almost half a wagon with our assorted baggage and ourselves. Most of us would be traveling on to our Christmas destination instead of going back south, and were thus equipped for visits with grandparents, gifts for smaller siblings and relatives, and large quantities of alcohol for consumption during the week as we had been told the bar in the hotel was not priced “student friendly”. We spent the train ride reading horoscopes out of a trashy Swiss magazine we had found, pretending to read our assigned material and getting to know one another.

After a minor disagreement with the ticket machine we managed to find the correct S-Bahn to the hotel, following our professor like a row of ducklings with backpacks. The room assignments followed with little ado, and I ended up sharing a room with Sandra, a girl I had gotten to know from class who grew up in Indonesia and studies in Germany.

Our contact at the hotel, a Frau L_ffe, managed to spend about an hour telling us what we already knew or weren’t interested in and eventually turned us loose for the night.

The schedule for the rest of the week was invariable; breakfast until 9 AM, at which time we would hear a presentation for an hour, followed by two hours of Q&A. The subsequent hour was reserved for our working groups, then came our two hour lunch break, then working groups for an hour, another presentation, another two hours Q & A, somewhere in there a coffee break, and dinner. Evening program consisted of working groups, either planning or presenting.

Planning or presenting what, you may ask. Well, our themes, I would reply.

We had been split into groups based on different themes, which we were to condense and present. We had about three hours total to plan a half hour presentation, with substance, but mostly something that was supposed to be funny. The groups were: Good Governance; Fair trade vs. free trade; Women and Development; Financing Development; Theories of Development; and Climate Change. I was in the Trade group, as the only female with eight guys.

I should mention that our group was not the only one attending the seminar. A group from Freiburg (us; bottom left corner of Germany) plus a group from Rostock (upper right corner of Germany) were meeting in Bonn (center left). Our class was an upper division class; in order to take part you have to be in at least your 5th semester. I am between 3 and 5 years younger than most people in my class. The class from Rostock, however, was a lower division class, with some ,,Ersti”s, some first semester kids. Which means, they are lacking some of the base knowledge.

The group on Free Trade vs. Fair Trade consisted of nine people, myself, four from Rostock and four others from Freiburg. Our group consisted almost exclusively of economists and one individual with a desperate need to control everything, whose deepest desire was to give a factual presentation on Ricardian Trade Theory. This theory is the theory explaining comparative advantage, and how a land with a comparative advantage in a specific good can gain from trade even if other nations have an absolute advantage in that same good. It’s been referred to as the most basic economic principle that is completely counter-intuitive. We wasted an hour of our lives trying to explain this to some of the Rostockers. For those of us who understood it, the explanation was superfluous, and for those of them who didn’t, they still didn’t completely understand. And in the end, this trade theory is the basis of many free trade arguments but has nothing to do with fair trade. In the end, amid protests from our self-proclaimed ‘leader’ we decided to do a mock WTO round to air some of the free trade/fair trade arguments, and ended up hammering out what was to be said only a half hour before our presentation. I was the moderator, so I had to get someone to help me with parliamentary procedure in Germany. (‘enthalten’ means ‘abstain’, by the way). It went well. A bit long, but whatever.

Other presentations included several skits, one for Good Governance with a dictator who had to decide whether to trade with the EU, with China, or follow WTO guidelines, one for Women and Development with a poor starving mother with a million kids who manages to get a micro credit loan at 20% interest, one on climate change (a theater piece in three acts—the best presentation of the conference), one talk show presentation, and one CNN news report.

Everyone brought drinks to the presentations and had a good time; they were an opportunity for us to take things less seriously. Afterwards we adjourned to the cellar, where there was a pingpong/foosball room and a bowling alley. Except it wasn’t bowling, it was Kegeln, and the ball has no holes. Some kindhearted individuals took it upon themselves to supply the group with alcohol and managed to smuggle in several cases. We sat around and talked and bowled, sometimes until 3 or 4 AM. And our professor, a gentleman in his late 50s, I’d guess, sat right there with us, beer in hand, till 3 AM. He was looking decidedly more chipper at breakfast the next morning than most of his drinking partners.

The presentations that we had every day consisted of various people out of the Development Politics world. In Germany there is such a thing as a Ministry for Overseas Development, with main offices in Bonn, and the head of the Asia department gave us a presentation during our visit there. The head of the HR department also came and gave a presentation on careers with the ministry. Other presenters included a representative from Miseror, which coordinates religious and missionary development aid, from Global Policy Forum, an NGO, and related. All fascinating subjects, mostly decent presenters and occasionally fantastic presentations.

That was Bonn. I was sad to leave, sad that it would be over. We spent a week together, three meals a day and everything in between. I got along smashing well with almost everyone I talked to, and I made an effort—which, every time I do something like this, gets easier—to get to know as many people as possible. I made some good friends. Our seminar has one session remaining and then it is finished for the semester, so if we want to see one another it will only be by private initiative. But I think we will, I hope we will.

So, sad to be leaving, not excited about the coming 7-hr, 5-connection train ride before me, I left Bonn for the Baltic.

I arrived at 10:30 at night, and A. picked me up. She filled me in on the latest family drama, which that day had consisted of a dog that didn’t want to be washed and some problem or another with the new practice. We didn’t chat too long as I was pretty tired.

The rest of the week seemed to go by in a blur. I went running every day. The house was full of people, the five family members, the current aupair, the grandmother, myself, and eventually also the aunt and uncle. Before Christmas was a flurry of packing and shopping, organizing, cooking, cleaning, more packing, more shopping. We went to Luebeck for a day, saw the Christmas markets, and I found my favorite candy, which apparently does not exist in Freiburg, enjoyed the city and had a lovely day.

Christmas in Germany takes place Christmas eve. We spent the morning preparing the ‘dinner’ (mid-day meal) of cold potato- and chicken salads, shrimps, fish, vegetable salads, rolls, antipasti, and all sorts of crazy other stuff. After dinner we got dressed, the girls wearing their ball gowns and I a borrowed skirt, and opened presents.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are the dangerous times for homesickness for me, and of course I cried when I read the note my mother had sent me. But I was thankful to be with a family, with my other adopted family, not to be celebrating Christmas alone somewhere. It was nice to see the happy faces and squeals of delight as everyone opened their packages, candles burning on the tree (yes, real candles). A happy Christmas.

Some of them went to Church in the evening, to 11 PM service, but I of course did not go and turned in early. The entire time I was there I slept poorly, either because someone would come in the room at some point or because the stupid aquarium was glowing like an atomic reactor in the corner. I usually went downstairs and slept for the last few hours on the couch.

The rest of the week sort of slipped through my fingers. I spent a lot of time and effort writing a term paper, which A. corrected for me, finishing up some assignments from other classes. The eldest daughter went to Austria with her new boyfriend to go snowboarding, the middle daughter, her boyfriend and the littlest spent hours competing in the Baltic All-Age Foosball Championships with Ch.’s Christmas gift. I was sort of turned loose. It was nice to be back; it felt like home it was for the year I lived there. I had to resist the temptation to go up the stairs and straight into the room on the left, which was then my room and now belongs to An. (At least she took the posters down—the last Aupair left my posters up and my books in the shelves, and it was just creepy to be in there). On one hand, I didn’t expect everyone to drop what they were doing and figuratively glue themselves to me—it honestly probably would have annoyed me if they had—but on the other hand most of the time people went on living their lives and I was left to live mine, which I am quite capable of doing, but defeated the purpose of my being there.

But somewhere in there I received an email from K., who had spent the last 6 months bouncing around Australia. She had traveled back from Sydney, flew into Frankfurt, took a train to Berlin and rang the doorbell at midnight with $7 in her pocket as a surprised. She was back! We arranged that I would come for New Years, as the family on the Baltic had no specific plans and I was already in Northern Germany. So I snuck down to Berlin to see my little sister, who has grown up.

The London Post

Friday: 5 AM

I fall out of bed. I do breakfast kamikazee style, with much enthusiasm, too much speed, not enough coffee and no regard for my health and well-being. I take the tram with my roommate who has also willingly volunteered to be out at this godforsaken hour. I find my coach at the train station; I ask if I can board, but since the thing doesn't leave till 6:15 he's got a half an hour break. But I may put my bag in the bus, if I like. Jolly good. I go get coffee. I wonder why I was positive it had been a 6:05 bus. I came back, and discovered it was indeed a 6:05 bus, and I had just helpfully stowed my baggage in a bus that leaves 10 minutes later bound for Switzerland.

Curses.

But I got my bag back and eventually my bus, having picked up a somwhat lost American grad student doing the same thing as I. We rode the bus together to the airport, took the same flight, and took the coach to Victoria station where C. met me.

It took a bit of effort for us to connect; we headed off, happily munching krispy kremes, for the tube and spent much of the afternoon trolling Oxford street and looking at all the shiny pretty things. I bought a purse. Which is good, as I had otherwise been carrying my stuff around in a fanny pack, and people made fun of me.

After dropping my stuff at C.'s flat we headed off to a pub for dinner, where I had a very sad and lonely looking sandwich with some excellent chips--with vinegar, of course. And of course we lost track of time and almost missed.....

....our Jack the Ripper tour! That was so much fun! OF course it is cheesy and touristy but that is the best part! The conclusions we came to by the end of the evening were: a) London in 1888 was a hellhole for anyone not rich, and slightly less of one for those who were; and b) it's a Freemason conspiracy involving prince Edward (?). The tour guide was hilarious and managed to surprise us a couple of times while revealing to us the sordid past of the city as if unwrapping a christmas present. After the tour we ended up wandering down to SoHo, eventually ending up at a pub called Shakespeare's Head, whose ceiling beams were painted in too-oft quoted quips, "to thine own self be true" and such like. It'd been interesting if they'd have put shakespearean insults up there: "’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O! for breath to utter what is like thee; you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing-tuck! (1 Henry IV) or " Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows." (Troilus and Cressida). But no, twas not to be.

Saturday I slept in, surprisingly, to 9 AM London time, 10 AM German time. C. lives in a flat with 8 other people, guys and girls, Brits and Americans. Freshmen, who don't do the dishes. The flat is accessed by climbing in through the front window, as that is easier than unlocking the door. Egress, however, takes place by means of the pedantic portal. We wandered on down to the Tate after breakfast, appreciated the Warhols, Klimt, Duchamp, Kadinskys, and other famous and trippy pieces of art. Apparently the thing to do now a days is to go sliding at the Tate at the huge slides they have there. Go figure. The afternoon we spent at the Portabello Markets in Notting Hill, where the posh people live and the tourists shop. But if you go far enough you stumble on a food market with excellent prices and equal quality. Everything we bought was perfectly ripe.

Dinner consisted of guacamole, eggplant and noodles, fresh market bread, and pineapple for dessert. It was fantastic, if I do say so myself. I've never made Guacamole with Marmite before, but trust me, it works.

After dinner we went for a night walk along the Thames, starting down at Westminster bridge and Big Ben, heading up towards Strand and on to Leicester (pronounced Lester) square, Coven Gardens--where we found mulled wine and a very drunk and scruffy American being scared of fake snow blown from a life-sized gingerbread house--until we found a cozy pub of our liking, and settled into the upholstered leather corner seat (much better than the crowded Shakespeare pub from the night before, which insisted on playing irritating music with an insistant drum beat).

Sunday we tried to go to the Tower of London, but as it's not a museum it is free to charge what it wants, and what it wanted was 12 pounds so we didn't do it. We tried in vain to find a show or a play with a sunday matinee, also with no luck, so we walked from the West End up to Buckingham Palace, where hordes of tourists were watching dudes in furry hats march around. Deciding to spend the afternoon in a worthwhile manner we dinked around at the British Museum, saw the Rosetta Stone and a whole bunch of really cool other medieval, egyptian, greek, roman, and etruscan stuff before heading back for dinner. I must say, an electric grill makes fabulous sandwiches.

After pretending to be C.'s roomie so I could use the university library we went to trya nd find a theatre playing "stranger than fiction," but alas--poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!--we ended up seeing Children of Men. That movie is i.n.t.e.n.s.e. It's about the world in 2027 will be like if everyone is infirtile, and somehow a miracle woman pops up, pregnant, and Clive Owen's character has to escort her to safety, of course plagued by both the rebels and the police. Besides the sheer graphicness of the violence, I was particularly disturbed by the thought of England as a war zone, and that what was so horrifying me on the screen is what is currently happening in parts of the world as I type this.

Instead of going back to crash at C's for the night I instead take the tube to Victoria station and take a bus to the airport. My flight doesn't leave until 7 AM, but 7 AM - 1 hour (check-in and security time) = 6 AM - 1.5 hour (coach ride from Victoria to stansted) = 4:30 AM - 45 minutes (travel from C's to Victoria) = 3:45 = night bus, as the tube doesn't run. So I slept at the airport. And by slept, I mean I lay on the marble floor for two hours until I got cold and stiff. And I wasn't the only one: When I arrived, the place was full, and there were no places to sleep either remotely comfortable or even private. But I suffered through it, soldiered on into the morning, checked in reeeeely early and got my Marmite confiscated at security because it's apparently a li quid, though I could debate that.

My bus ride to Freiburg wasn't bad, except for the fact that I was trapped in a bus for two hours with a really loopy english lady, who has never voted in her life yet complains voiceriferously and copiously about politics, who believes war could be ended if all mothers threatened to disown any kid who joins the army, who believes that the only thing man has ever accomplished is war, and who has a compellingly (compelling, like the sore in your mouth you can't stop tonguing or the scab you insist on picking at, furtively, because you know you shouldn't) paradoxical combination of pessimism and running-naked-through-the-woods-hippyism. I was happy to get off.