Random Stuff

Tardiness

2014-09-06T01:45:00.000+02:00

The bus was late, but it finally came the moment I wanted to call in work (and saying that I might be late). I looked at the clock one more time and got on the bus. Because of that 15-min tardiness, the bus was overly filled. I took off my backpack and carried it as if it were a briefcase, then turned up the volume on my headphone.

I used to take the same bus every morning but towards the other end, when I first started school here as a literature student. It has always been difficult for me to get up early in the morning and I hated to walk into a classroom in a middle of a lecture. When I over slept, I would take the bus two hours later to catch the next whole lecture. If the bus wasn’t crowded, I would even try to finish the last bits of the assignment minutes before it was due. Oh yes, those assignments, thousands of pages and a handful of readers. Bus riding in a sunny day is a day dream trap. There have been countless times I missed my stop because the day dreams blurred out the station name outside the window.

The bus arrived at a popular stop. I pushed myself against the side window to let the people around me getting in and out. When I started my second study a couple of years back, I often got out here to change to metro, like most of the passengers did. Today I wasn’t going to get out of the bus here and tomorrow either since I had decided to put the second study on the back burner. Last week I heard two people talking about schrödinger’s equation on the bus; and I sensed a chill running down my spine. If I had managed my time perfectly, I would probably be talking about the same thing now.

“If”—there is another “if I had…” thought again, I guess I need to turn the volume a bit higher.

We passed the pharmacy at a main cross road – I was half way there, and if there wasn’t any traffic jam, I could even make it on time for work! A man in colorful T shirt and jeans rushed out of the pharmacy, with one hand carrying a bag from the drug store and the other dragging a blue haired girl with lip piercings with him. The young couple slipped through the bus door split seconds before it closed, giggling and out of breath. I don’t know if they knew or cared being stared at from other passengers.

“It is important to observe what people wear.” An artist told me that.

“For you?”

“For everyone! You can know so much about a stranger just by looking at what s/he is wearing!”

“Are you still trying to convince yourself of that?”

“It is true! We reveal who we are through what we choose to wear.”

“Is it important for you that other people notice what you are on?”

That was the last time we spoke.

Through the bus window, I have seen the shops along the streets closed and reopened at an amazingly fast pace in the past six months. I don’t remember what these shops were, but only “shop-to-rent” signs in various colors and sizes. The streets feels like a train station, and the shops are wagons owned by drifters. I am too chicken and cynical to open my own business; I’d rather work for someone.

It was almost a miracle that I made it to work 10 minutes earlier. I went into the office to greet my colleagues then to the kitchen to fix my caffeine withdraw. The pupils were done with school and starting to arrive. That is when I start my shift – at the end of the pupils’ shifts.

8am class...

2013-12-03T12:42:00.001+01:00

I am going to be 30 next week. I don’t feel like it--> OK, as if how I feel would matter.

Since I have been ditching 8am Tutorium for about a month now. I am too scared to go to my tutor’s office and ask for the homework back. I am not sure why I have been ditching pretty much half of my classes at the Uni. since early November. And for the freaking birthday, I wish I can make it to the 8am class.

I am standing in transit again. I hate this. It disappoints me to know that in a faculty where ethic and moral are being preached from the people who’s got none. It has always been my strong interest and childhood dream to become a theoretical physicist. I never used to regret doing my studies in the humanity field (hence the word “used to”). Today, I feel that I might have done my studies backwards. Maybe I should have begun with science to spare me from all this cynicalness and jadedness? Or not? Can growing up too fast not be a bad thing? Or the fact that all these years just confirm the “rumor” that some of those who live in the ivory towers are completely overrated and over paid? I was told that I would never be able to have any opportunity developing a career, not only because I didn’t have a mother tongue, but also because what is being done isn’t going to be needed in the society, “not like science or something like that” they said, “something that actually has visible contribution in the society.” Really?! Do you also think that what you do is senseless and over paid? You are not alone.

At least my private life is good. Marriage has been a pure success and we are going to celebrate our 5^th anniversary next week too! (Thanks love. And we haven’t separated for even a day since we got married! That’s almost 2000 days!) And I can’t complain about work. (Well, actually I could but I am not going to do it today). Since I’ve ditched all my classes this morning and early afternoon, I am going to take a shower and go to work now.

"Do you want a cookie?"

2013-10-21T15:13:00.003+02:00

"Do you want a cookie?"

I kid you not; THIS has become my most used sentence in our institute. The reason is simply because I constantly get caught in a situation (mostly because of other people’s fault) that I can no longer repair. Hard to imagine how often have I nothing better to offer than a cookie. Paradoxically the institutes which provide after-school tutoring are sometimes heartless places, it feels like it doesn’t matter how much love you pour into this place, nothing much would ever come out.

Scenario 1

One of the math teachers didn't show up for the second time within a week. An eleven-year old girl who has officially signed up for his class and her mom had been eager to meet her math teacher. Nope, he had not been there Tuesday, nor did he come last Friday.

"Why didn't Mr. G show up?" She looked at me with her confused blue eyes behind thick glasses.

"Well, maybe he is sick."

"He had been sick the week before! And I knew that he was here yesterday."

"I am sorry that he didn't show up, you can come to my class if you want."

"Sure, I like you anyway."

Then we started math class. I helped her with her homework and just 10 minutes after my class began, the secretary came and told me that the French teacher didn't show up either, and I were to take care of that class too.

HOW?! And honestly WTFF?! So I went to the other room, copied some exercises for the French class and told the pupils that if they had any questions, I'd be in another room, teaching math.

OK, now I am back to the math class and tried to explain to her the homework again, but she didn’t want to do math anymore and asked:" Mr. G never comes, is it because of me?"

"No, of course not. What are you talking about?"

"If I had known that he wouldn't show up today, I wouldn't have come. Today is my best friend's birthday and our last weekend before school starts again."

"I am sorry that you missed her birthday. You don't have to come to after-school tutoring during your summer vacation, but you know that right?"

"No, no one ever told me about this!"

I cannot count how many times I had to apologize for other people that afternoon:"I am sorry that no one told you about this, but yeah, the summer school is not mandatory..."

"And I am missing my best friend's birthday while my teacher just didn't feel like coming to work?!"

"...." I didn't know how to answer this... so I asked her when her birthday would be.

"In 3 weeks."

"Any plans to celebrate your birthday."

"Well, I had tickets for Selina Gomez's concert, and I was really happy and excited about this. Then a few days ago she announced that she would move the concert to Frankfurt, and it is on a school night, so I can't go. But that had been my birthday day present...."

Then she lost it.

For the first time I had a pupil broke into tears in my class, and I had no idea how to repair this anymore.

"Do you want a cookie? I am sorry that you missed the birthday party, but I can offer you a cookie."

She stopped crying and smiled:"Yes please!"

So I went into the kitchen and "stole" a few chocolate cookies for her. It is such a childish act, and yet, there was nothing better I could offer.

Scenario 2

I came to work early like a lot of pupils, who have school in the morning and tutoring in the afternoon, while in between we have nowhere to go, so we just mostly sit in the corridor in the institute, playing games in our cell phones.

I sat next to a 12-year girl who spends 4 days a week here.

"Hey, pretty hair cut." I said.

"Thank you." She replied politely, “can I switch to your class?"

She asks me almost every week, but I have to tell her the same thing every single time:"I am sorry, I don't have any influence over the organization, and I don't get to choose my own pupils."

"But I don't want to stay with that teacher!"

"Well... I don't know what to tell you.... I am here 4 times a week and I teach math more frequently than English and/or French. I do sub. for your teachers from time to time, but I really don't really get to choose when or whom I teach..."

Just at that moment, her English teacher went by and said:"Ha! Beautiful hair cut."

The girl replied, politely as usual: "thank you."

Then the teacher turned around, back to us, and said out LOUD:"But the girl is not."

I swear; I almost slapped his face, with a fucking chair!!!! You don't say this to a 12-year old; you don't say this to ANYONE!!!

The girl turned to me with sad eyes: "Do you think I am ugly?"

"No... that teacher wasn't serious, don't listen to him! I find you pretty."

"Do you think I am fat?"

"No, you are slim, and in NO way overweight."

"You are just saying that!"

"No, I can PROOVE it!" So I took out my laptop and opened a website for BMI:"now I want you to put in your height and weight here, then click 'calculate'."

She did, and it turned out that she was a bit underweight.

"See? Science doesn't lie. I want you to stop thinking that you were ugly or fat, you are pretty and scientifically proved slim."

"Thank you. Why can't I switch to your class?"

"Do you want a cookie?"

"Yes, please. Would you bring some for me?"

"Sure, next time when we bake cookies, I will put an extra bag for you."

"But just for me, not for other people."

"I also bring cookies for the entire institute, but I will make an extra bag just for you."

Scenario 3

When someone is psychologically blocked, it doesn't matter what you do, logic has no chance to settle in.

"Do you have any homework today?"

"Yes, we started linear equation today and I have no idea what the teacher was talking about in class."

I spent the following hour explaining only one principle: if you add 6 on both sides, you will need to literally plus 6 on both sides.

"But why do I need to plus 6 on the right side?"

"Because you already added 6 on the left side and in order to keep this as equation, hence the usage of the equal sign, you would need to add 6 on the right side too."

"But in the previous program, you wanted me to minus 11 on both sides."

"Yes, because we want to put the terms with variables on one side, and the rest on the other."

"I don't know what to do: sometimes you said that I would add, sometimes you said that I should subtract... when do I need to add again?"

"It depends on the individual problem..."

"I am not getting this. Sometimes I need to add, and sometimes I have to do the opposite."

"OK, do you want a cookie?"

Tortuga

2013-10-09T14:15:00.004+02:00

Tomorrow I am off. For the first time in a while because of my erratic schedule. Summer break is almost coming to an end, and I haven't started to type that paper. I have decided to indulge myself a second chance for B.sc. and I will surely be less slacky this time. I can't afford it emotionally somehow, not worth it.

Work is fine. Did I mention that I am teaching again? And I will stop sending out my applications for a while (unless the job is math-related). Pupils are surprisingly cooperative where I work and the pay is good. I never thought that I would say this: but I sometimes take work home; although my career plan is the opposite of such nature.

Had a surreal experience with one of the job situations. I was asked to write a hypothetical letter and it turned out that they had wanted a research based letter. I am not sure how they interpret "hypothetical", but apparently I had been misunderstanding it for almost 30 years! Sure, these are elite-academic secret codes I was supposed to decipher, but really, don't they have a less condescending way to express it? They wrote back and said that I lacked the ability to identify them, but if they had said that their hypothetical situation were a real one, I would have done it differently.

It is like "Tortuga": either you already know it, or you will never know.

So I guess I will stick with after school coaching ... it is a rewarding job and the people I work with are really nice. Despite the teenager rebelling, I seem to get along with them just fine, although maybe a more authority figure was expected. I doubt that I will ever be able to pull it off, I weight as much as the pupils, if they are under 14.

Surprisingly enough that some of them spend 4 days a week in the after school coaching institute, and some of them stay until 8pm. We are talking about children cancelled their sport programs after school, and sit in a less crowded classroom to do math. We have children as young as 8, who just barely started elementary school and the parents wish for a perfect academic performance. I had children who got B's at school and the parents told me that the children should be getting A's. Besides math, which I teach 4 days a week, I do English, French and Physics as well. So we'd be speaking English/French or writing their English/French homework about their favorite sports (which they had to give up), or favorite food (which they seldom get to eat because they get home at 9pm) ... or what they would do when "it is all over" (after high school).

Oh yeah, high school time and the pressure of getting a better score at school. I can recall how terrible my school program was --> we had school from 6:40 am (I shit you not!) until like freaking 10pm; and our high school is still one of the worst in the province because you can't just send children to books 24/7 if their hearts are elsewhere. Half of my classmates slept during the day, who wouldn't?! You are compelled to focus on school 14 hours a day!

Well, the silly school program became one of the reasons I left. Now I ironically work in this very field. Children here probably don't have the same pressure as when I was growing up, but I still think it is difficult for them to be happy and enjoy the adultlescence.

Oddly enough, when the pupils asked me, what I had been doing during my high school and all; I had to admit that I also spent 90% of my time trying to get A's at school ... maybe at the beginning the pressure came from the family, but later on, I somehow developed my own academic ambition... but I would say that it came from within and not under the yelling of desperate parents.

Getting ready to go to work. Although we are in school break.

Oh, never mind, tomorrow I am not off anymore .... just got a call to sub for someone.

First note for the first month after June....

2013-07-02T13:11:00.006+02:00

So, officially we have gone through another half-year.

First day of the month starts with a Garfield Monday. Not only have I overslept the first lecture, I am missing the last theo lecture before the final exam coming up Wednesday.

It is a curse! Every single semester is two weeks too long for me. And you would think that I must have gotten used to it after all these years, doing nothing but homework and going to classes.

I am going to be 30 in a few months, an age where many are having the prime of their career; while I still panic over unfinished experiment protocols, crawling through science 101, sending out job applications for the upcoming summer break.

I am content though, although for many I might not appear so. I listen to "hier encore" and remember that I was singing that song in the car when I just turned 20. I recall being euphoric just to know that my paperwork and legal status had been sorted out...

It is a progress, I keep telling myself, besides being a student, I have other roles to fulfil in my little life and I am quite satisfied with what I have. Comparing to all my high school classmates, I am no doubt the luckiest one; despite Mom's regret to let me leave home as a minor, and I am more than happily married without kids. (Sorry, Mom, unhappily married with children is not on my list, and it never will.)

Really, I do feel grateful and the itchy feeling of imperfection only indicates my earning to change for the better. (well, better grades if you want to get specific; I sense the uncomfortable "in-transit" impression constantly crawling under my skin when I was applying for the professional journalism schools in France -- what I know is better than the average, but not good enough to get into the top 100.)

However, it is OK. The long and horrific winter promised a bright summer; Grandma would be happy to know that we are using her recipes and we are sharing them with others, Grandpa would be pleased to know about my academic ambition. And for the first time in my life I get to work for myself instead of for other people. (See Neutrale Zone)

Supposedly I have too many distractions, supposedly I am not a "either or" person, supposedly I am allergic to self-discipline, addicted to staying up all night whilst ditching classes in the morning (never work though; I have never overslept a work day)....it will all work out. (Am I the living proof of pure luck?!)

Just got a call and an email from a job I applied for two days ago (a good sign right? They contacted me separately because they are from different branches of the same company. I am not sure what to do yet.) I will likely to be working as a after-school-coach (at some Nachhilfe institute) this summer, although I am not sure what I will be teaching, I did apply for 6 subjects (!!! I really did.)

Busy summer, here I come :) And bring the Sun with you!

On Hold

2013-04-16T17:34:00.002+02:00

April, the weather finally shows some signs of spring, with constant reminders of the winter.

Linear Algebra is on hold; both theoretical and experimental physics are on hold, the Lab participation is on hold; my freaking (long overdue) thesis is on hold. Life seems to be on hold.

Chop it off, chop it off. I finally got a hair cut after 4 months (although winter had lasted way longer than that); it cut away all the little scorns, regrets and sadness. Chop it off, chop it off. Supposedly I needed to trim the rough edges -- perked up like quartz and crystal, used to slice open the skin, for I liked to watch it bleed.

Invitation for a literary lecture about time and space – sorry, can’t make it: I have “real” calculation to do about real time and real space, struggling on relativity’s theory and Kepler’s problems. Sure, if I failed the class, I might go back to sitting a circle with them, talking about fiction without having to know anything about how our universe works. The literary aesthetics might not bring us to any practical developments (I don’t know, building a space ship and explore other parts of the galaxy? Or improving people’s lives by introducing new technology?), but it does give you a sense of compliment, I am sure there are people who are grateful for these written contribution to the mankind.

Maybe it is because I’ve got the impression of returning to “career-teenager” days again: the world is disappointing and I am resentful. I am having a hard time adjusting to turning in homework 4 times a week, school 5 days a week; revise the lecture notes after dinner, confused to the point where I cannot even formulate the questions. But isn’t this all I wanted? Although I am not going to the first one to graduate from class this time.

Flip a coin to check that box; if it lands on head I might actually take the tail. What difference does it make? I’d rather bet on the wrinkles on my knuckles. They say that we’d know the answer when the coin is in half air, but it didn’t happen to me. Life is still on hold.

Year's End II

2013-02-20T16:08:00.002+01:00

Mom called Saturday morning, the day after the school was out. She asked me if I had finished my finals and that Grandma left at 11:15 local time. “Don’t worry,” she added, “we are going to bring the ash back, and put it right next to Grandpa’s.”

“Ok, Mom.” I hung up the phone and crawled back to bed. We shut off the phone and lit a candle.

I never thought that I wouldn’t be around when it happens.

We shut out the world to mourn. Then we realized, it’d be Grandma’s wish that we go out and live. It has always been.

Monday, I followed the routine and showed up in this office. “The doctor will see you now.”

The secretary led me into the office, where a picture of human anatomy hangs on the wall.

“Come in. How are we doing today? Oh have you read this?” he handed me an article in the newspaper, stating that medical doctors are part of the richest professions in this country. “Can you believe it? And me? I am also a doctor. But I am not making as much as they do! I am barely making half of what they make! (We are talking about 8000 euros a month! So around 4000 euros a month is not enough for you?!) The system is not fair towards psychologists I am telling you… anyway… how are we doing today?”

“Grandma left last Saturday.”

“Oh…”

Let me guess, you didn’t say anything contained the word “condolence” because patients are supposed to be only subjects for you? Is that how you define “professional”? Did I hear you correctly, your reaction upon my news, had been, solely, “OH”?!

“You know I am glad that you signed up for that class I suggested.”

“I didn’t sign up.” (Do you ever look at your own notes or listen to your patients?)

“Oh. Eh… why?”

“Like I said last week, the schedule for the coming semester is not online yet, and I need to see when I have time outside of school, for other things.”

He stood up from the desk, and I said to myself: “if you are going to show me your fucking certificate again, for the 100^thtime, I am going to take that piece of paper and slap it you across your face with it.”

“See? Here is my certificate,” I wondered if he was suffering from Alzheimer. “I did a course and it cost me more than 300 euros!”

I am not a violent person, but I really wanted to slap him with it. I am bringing you around 90 euros an hour, and you are pushing it for twice a week. I am not doing it, because I have a life, and more than ever, I need to go out and live, not sitting here and counting your useless certificates and listening to you bitch about how much money you would like to make! Let me out! Let me out!

“We did some great exercises during the seminar, in order to obtain the certificate. For example, we spent 15 minutes with a grape. First of all, you don’t touch it, just look at it; then you touch it a bit, with one finger, afterwards with two, or three; before you put it between your teeth…”

My mind went blank after 30 seconds, while he went on and on and on about this fucking great grape that he had been in love with.

“So, how does it improve my life?” I asked, noticing that he has stopped talking.

“It made everything slower. For example, when you cook, don’t talk to anyone, but concentrate on the things in your hand…”

“Listen, I do not cook; secondly, when WE cook together, we talk to each other, because that’s what people do when they are in a loving and satisfying relationship. People TALK to each other! Even when he is cooking for me, I am in the kitchen too, talking to him… because we are happy together!”

“It always surprises me that you have a functional relationship. But yeah, take that 6-week class I suggested. If this class were not good, that Institute wouldn’t have offered it.” The Doc. uttered.

Well, it always surprises me that you are working here, or the fact that being employed anywhere at all.

“I just lost the most important woman in my life, facing financial and career crises, and all you can offer is a 6-week class from a new age-y institute with the argument that BECAUSE the course is from that institute, it can’t be wrong. Do I look stupid to you? Do you think I am 5 years old? You might as well tell me something is true because it says so in the Bible! I am gonna need a better argument than that!”

Pause. Probably more uncomfortable for him than for me.

“So, when can you come twice a week?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t even know if I want to be here at all, “I am waiting for the semester schedule to be put online. I will let you know though. I don’t have the luxury to make everything slower or to spend half an hour staring at two grapes every day. It takes me 3 hours every time I come here, and 6 hours a week isn’t anything I can afford in the near future.”

“But write to the institute and ask about that class!”

Has this become a religion for you? Do you have doubts in your own belief? If not, why would you try so desperately hard to convince others? If others said yes, it’d confirm your conviction isn’t it? You are not at peace either with yourself, so stop showing me your 300-euro certificate every time I come.

“I am taking a break from all this next week. So we will see each other in 2 weeks. OK?” I stood up, as the session came to an end.

It hasn’t stopped snowing for almost a week now. Grandma would have loved the snow. She told me that I had been born in the coldest winter of the century. It was the first time she had to go downstairs, filled buckets with snow, than melted it near fire to get water, for the pipes were completely frozen. She said that children survived the hardest winter were to be the strong ones; she said that she was never afraid of winter because she always knew where her heart would be.

Year's End

2013-02-08T18:16:00.003+01:00

We hadn't that many snowy days in early Spring for years. Maybe the Spring didn't want to come. Tomorrow is the last day for the year of Dragon. We welcomed the youngest member in the family, but we didn't know, this might be last year for the oldest member of the family. This, is the first time, Grandma isn't sitting on the table with the rest of them, at New Year's Eve, arguing about how much salt and pepper should go into the filling, or laughing her head off about the clumsiness of Mom, or the fact that they should call me ...

            Mom wrote this morning, and asked me not to call. Grandma hasn't been conscious for a week now, the doctors said that they had done all they could. Mom said, that we should prepare for the worst; but the thing is, there is nothing to be done, all the perfect preparation in the world wouldn't change the course of the development, or our heartbreak. This is not how I want to it end!! Not at all!!

            I told them that I've gotten this rotten feeling in my stomach; I told them that Grandma should absolutely come with Mom last November; we told them that we would even apply for an official accompany from the embassy if Grandma feared long distance flight; we told them that SHE HAD TO COME THIS TIME! But no, Mom came alone, brought handmade presents from Grandma; and Grandma was brought to the hospital the day before Mom headed home, hasn't left the hospital since... We don't know if she ever will.

           I told them that if neither of these so called good sons would take the time to accompany her (and Mom); if anything happened before Grandma saw our life in our house with her own eyes, I would never forgive them. SO BE IT! I won't call them today, any of them, for the only one I want to talk to is still lying in the intensive care, and unconscious.

            "You both don't need to come," Mom said on the phone, "Grandma wouldn’t know if you were here, and we are afraid of phone calls. That terrible phone call from the hospital could hit any moment..."

            Don't worry, we are not going ... we can’t: I am in the middle of final exams (and flunked math already); we have to restart our careers again; there is still rent to be paid and checks to be sent...

            Huge heavy snow flakes are falling silently outside the window, but this is not how I want to it end!! Not at all!!

            I told Grandma that I would get her out; I told her that once my little chaotic life gains a bit stability, I would get her here; I told her that nothing in this world would ever ever stop me from spending more time with her during her senior years; I told her that I could provide things that all the money in the world can't buy, I told her that I would make her happy, WE would make her happy....

            The last time I talked to her was two days before her operation; and this is not how I want to it end!! Not at all!!

            "She IS happy, and content, for all the things you have done for her; she said that she was content all along, for you often called and talked to her; she said that you are her favorite child, and it was all worth it all the love she gave you. You ARE her favorite and she wants you to know it...." Mom told us.

            And yet, this is not good enough for ME. Grandma only saw me and my husband ONCE in the past 12 years. This shouldn't be the end, it can't be, because it doesn't make sense to me, because I left so that I can one day provide her a better place to live; because I am lighting up a candle for her every day, and I would light up a thousand candles for her if it helps, ten thousand? What should I do? Just tell me what to do and I will do it.

            Mom brought two sweaters and two huge scarves a couple of months ago, handmade from Grandma, personally tailored for us. I would have preferred her personal presence, we all have. I am in panic every time the cell phone rings, ... all these "should"s and "could"s and "would have"s..., the tearful eyes that last time I saw her in the airport, before our home flight to Europe, and I promised: this wouldn't the last time, and I believed, that wouldn't be the last time: I still have so many things to tell you, and you said that you have so much to tell me too! What happens to these untold stories now? I could print out my words and post them on the streets, but I want YOU to hear them, directly from ME! I want to hold your hands when I tell them; I want to bring you tea and massage your back; I want to introduce my world to you, just you used to do for me 30 years ago; I have my own loving family now and I want you to see it, feel it and live with us…

The last time I saw you, you showed me the prepaid shelf in the temple, right next to Grandpa’s ash. And you said calmly: “This is where I will be.”

Farewell

2012-10-13T15:43:00.001+02:00

Because of the skipped Spring, early foliage, melting Svalbard.

Farewell to "academic quarter", homework during the school break, furry "wanna-be"s.

Supposedly it’s been the rash, and the rush, and the “hush hush”,

Farewell to red and green stickers, idlers sitting on couch full time and bitch about the world whole day,

Do you hear my ears, back to my back?

Farewell to what you knew about "argument", "definition" and "normal";

Red beads with raked beans.

Farewell to the possibility of "if you don't know it, fake it."

It is for the empty entities, raised casualties, trig identities,

Farewell to artificial intelligence, over dosed ignorance ---- forbidding everything not identical to themselves,

Invaded by the mock, slowly boiled into lock, cut through by the look,

Farewell to unhappiness.

The suitcase

2012-07-20T22:20:00.003+02:00

It was my first night shift. We sat in the patrol car and just cruised around. Derek worked only night shifts he said, so that he would have time to be with his son during the day, to take him to the karate and whatnot. I hate working nights because I want to catch the Sun light if I can; the Sun never shines at nights.

We drove down the Main Street at 2am on a Thursday, besides some drunk tourists and regular bar goers, there wasn't much going on. Derek said that he never had any problem with the creatures wandering at nights; but why this odd impression of everything appeared more suspicious then? As we turned on the Second Avenue the radio announced that we were supposed to raid a bar on the Jefferson Alley.

"Now? What? We are raiding a bar at 2am because of what? Someone started a bar fight because he missed the last call? Why?! The bar is probably closed by the time we get there."

"I know I know. This is not that uncommon. Some bars stayed open after the curfew, but these are not the ones on our priority list. We are going in now because of some drug related story."

"Who else is gonna be there? I hope that we are not the only two."

"Don't worry about it, there are 3 patrol cars are being sent to back us up. We will wait for their arrival; we are not going in alone."

Nooooooo. I hate this. I hate working at nights, I hate raiding the bars, I hate my job! I don't even recall why I applied for this, what happened to my interests and the promise that I would only do something that I liked, what happened to... all these choices that I had?! What happened to my passion for novels, or pastries, or gymnastics? How long am I going to work for the police? Gah! I hate raiding places; I hate to come in someone's private place unwelcomed and flipped over random stuff ... when does the Sun finally come up? I will never cover for someone at nights again. Oh man, it is only 2:15am, and my shift doesn't end until 7am! Why me?! Maybe I should start something new, but now? and why? because of this one-time night substitute shift?

"Why the police force?" I asked Derek.

"Pension." he said, "and I hated Math."

It was meant to be a joke but somehow it didn't feel like one. We turned left to the Jefferson Alley and our back-up was already waiting at the door. Oh boy. There were 12 of us.

The light in the bar was dimmed. You could still see people sitting at the counter, finishing up their last glass. This was one of the bars with either name or receipt; in a quarter where we turned a blind eye. You can't make every quarter in the city a saint-quarter, as long as they didn't stir up violence, small amount of grass under the table wouldn't hurt anyone. The deal was, a body was found with needle still stuck to the left arm while in his pocket, the address of this bar was written in pencil on a small piece of scratch paper. We were not likely to find anything, but we had to look for it.

We came in and ordered everyone to put their hands where we could see them. Derek announced loudly:" I am sure you all know why we are here..."

"No..." a stern voice came from the table near the Jukebox.

We all turned around. This happened rarely, and the man at the table didn't seem real: he was in a suit and wore a tie; in a bar filled of people who almost belonged to the forgotten population. The man in suit had a suitcase next to him, a big square one with wheels. Was he a pilot lost in the navigation system?

"Well, there was a body found with the address of this bar in his pocket. So we are searching for hard drugs." Derek rolled his eyes to the ceiling and uttered:"any question?"

It was supposed to be a rhetoric question. It had always been.

"Yes..." What a surprise, the man in suit.

"Yes?" I asked him.

"Can I see your search warrant?"

"I don't have it with me..." Derek said, looking at me, suggesting me to complete the second part of this sentence...

            "We just got the call during the shift; and the judge on-call told us to go ahead and raid, for the search warrant will be printed out first thing tomorrow morning." I wished to remember the paragraphs of the law, but I didn't. Theory was never my thing, ugh! But seriously, I never had anyone who took the rhetorical question as if it weren't until now. "Can I see your ID, sir?"

            "Sure, it is in my jacket, in the car." Man in suit said calmly.

            "OK." I said, hand gesturing that I would be accompanying him to his car outside to get his ID. Can this freaking night shift be any worse?!

            "There you go." he gave me his ID.

            "What do you do?"

            "Paralegal."

            "What are you doing in this place at this hour?"

            "Drinking. As you can see. I couldn't sleep."

            "And I am guessing that you are not driving home tonight, right?"

            "Sure I am. I am not drinking booze."

            "OK, fine. You can go now." After I padded him down and handed him back his ID.

            "Thanks, officer. I just need to go and get my suitcase."

            I didn't care. It was one of these shifts where you wished it to be the end before it even started. Why it took so long for the Sun to come up?! Through the almost opaque window panes, I could see the shadow of my colleges padding down the people inside. A dozen of half-sober guys stood in line and had their hands on the wall; one of them was even taken to the kitchen and stripped. I turned around and saw a book lying on the backseat of the car belonged to man in suit -- it was a novel that I read years ago, a novel that almost stopped me from applying for this job. "If on a winter's night a traveler."

            Man in suit rolled his suitcase from the bar to the sidewalk --- "The novel begins in a railway station, a locomotive huffs, steam from a piston covers the opening of the chapter, a cloud of smoke hides part of the first paragraph."

            There was something peculiar about this picture, but what?

            He stopped in front of his car, looked for keys in his pockets --- "I am the man who comes and goes between the bar and the telephone booth. Or, rather: that man is called "I" and you know nothing else about him, just as this station is called only "station" and beyond it there exists nothing except the unanswered signal of a telephone ringing in a dark room of a distant city."

            He put the key in the lock, turned it to the left, the trunk flung open, and he threw the suitcase inside before driving away --- "And my arm might not hold a briefcase, swollen and a bit worn, but might be pushing a square suitcase of plastic material supplied with little wheels, guided by a chrome stick that can be folded up."

            We found nothing from the raid. It was almost 3:30 when we were done there. Derek and I had to cruise the quarter until the shift was over.

            "Want some coffee from Dunkin' Dounuts"?

"Sure, why not." I wondered if the man in suit liked Calvino as I did.

"What was in the suitcase?" Derek asked.

"I have no idea. I thought you would know for you were inside with the other, where the suitcase was."

"Yeah, somehow we thought you were the one who took a glance in it outside, before he drove away."

"Well..."

"It is probably just documents."

"I am sure of it."

A couple of months after that night shift, I decided to quit the job and got a position in the public library instead. On a very ordinary afternoon, I saw the man in suit at the newspaper desk, with his suitcase leaning against the chair, open. I collected a few books, pretending to be putting them back to the shelves; as I walked passed the suitcase, I nervously took down --- there was a small bottle of sparkling water and ..... lots of documents, black and white. Man in suit turned around, he might have sensed me sniffing his personal belongings; but he looked a bit puzzled when he met my eyes -- it only lasted a second, then he figured that I must have been just looking for the right places for the books in my arms. He didn't recognize me, why would he anyway? Mystery solved.

An inevitable war with only casualties

2012-07-11T18:48:00.002+02:00

How to win a fight with someone who doesn’t understand my reasoning? I guess I can’t win.

It rarely happens anymore. I can read her like a book, roughly written sometimes, unwillingly written maybe, with almost no room for an open end.

Stuck on the linguistic level on the phone, I opened an online dictionary in a hurry and tried to translate German or English into a language she understood. How do you say “privilege”, how do you say “scientifically”, how do you say “psychologically” or “doctrines”? How do you piece the words together to make a sentence? Why didn’t she respond to the sentences I made? “Why don’t you speak my language?!”

“You just don’t understand!” she complained.

“Yes, I do. I understand perfectly why you are at where you are right now and all your so called good habits. But I can’t accept it, and I don’t want, and I shouldn’t have to!”

So, it comes down to fundamental personal choices, well, my personal choices. Maybe I am not ready to take you in as you are. I can’t un-learn what I have learned; and I am sick of lying to myself. I can’t pretend not to know what I know now, I was fully aware of the consequences.

Do I want to be an unhappy Socrates or a happy pig? Have I become a victim of modern humanity studies?

There was a strip from Calvin and Hobbes where they were about to roll off a cliff:

Calvin: Knowing means suffering. The less you know, the more happiness you will have.

Hobbes: …

As they rolled off the cliff and landed on their heads in a pond.

Hobbes: I don’t know how much of this happiness I can bear.

I had to paraphrase it, couldn’t find the strip online just now.

It did surprise me somehow, that we fight about tiny issues; but I knew right from the beginning, such conflicts would come, and maybe at a velocity exceeds my mental capacity. I am not from the 70’s, and I will never be, and I worked hard to develop the ability to question what I do, or what I had been doing all through my teenage years, what I had learned under given odd social circumstances, now I have the right and ability to question it all and think critically – translated into her worst nightmare and kept both of us awake all night long. It is an inevitable war without winner but casualties.

“We will find a solution,” I said to her, “it won’t be a Hollywood happy ending, but it will be the best we can make off. I am willing to compromise, if you are meeting me half way.”

“I have been doing it all my life, your grandma has been doing it all her life too!”

“And the cycle ends here.”

“We all think that you have studied too much!”

“I have heard that before. You’d rather me to lead a life that resembles yours, but it won’t happen. I worked hard to prevent it from happening to me.”

“It’s the generation gap that causes the trouble! And your over loaded studies and theories!”

“Do you realize that I can just turn the sentence around and accuse you of being ‘under loaded’ of studies and theories? Just like you used to compare me with other people’s children constantly, without knowing that it’d break your heart if I were to tell you that I’d wish for other people’s mother?”

“Hey, you are dealing with human beings here!”

“I know, I am one of them.”

Sorry love, this is the only way I can protect myself, even it means I might compel you to question your entire belief system and make you realize that what you have been doing in the past 30 years is … actually … in vain. It saddens me to know that you are thus hurt, it saddens me to know that I still have to protect myself from you; but at least this time around, I won’t allow any insincerity, even it means to give up a fairy tale ending.

Homework

2012-07-09T19:52:00.001+02:00

Don't recall the last time I sat down and wrote,

didn't stay for the last bus dressed in cloak,

between the morning traffic and suppressed crave,

a woman next to me smells like an ashtray.

And I am thinking about the asymptotes,

crossing over that tangent line,

stepping into an unite circle,

only place where I can see that angle.

Hypothesis over the hypotenuse,

I refuse to watch the news,

and there are odd goals,

and there are even instincts.

High school episode of a brawl,

hydrogen peroxide in a college dorm,

light years away,

and I am going to pick up that unfinished business,

and I am going to crack up Pandora’s happiness,

it shall be more than everything at ease,

it's about time I poke the base.

Spider dudette?

2012-06-01T14:48:00.000+02:00

OK, I won’t do this ever ever again. (Hopefully not!) This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever done in Germany.

I locked myself out in our winter garden. This had never happened before, for no one would think that it could ever happen. We have a double-door between our living room and winter garden. One of them you can open it from both sides; the other one, you could open it from inside (the living room). There are about 10cm gap between two glass doors. (See visual aids below… alright, pictures)

As usual, I just wanted to water the plants and check on my birds in the winter garden; then since it is terribly windy today, both doors slammed SHUT and I was trapped completely in that 1 Square-meter: without telephone; there was no one to be seen in the court yard, even if there were, they could not help me because I put our keys INSIDE the keyhole in our front door; since there was only 10cm gap between them two, I couldn’t get my hand through the gap to break the glass of the second door. Then I tried to cut out pieces of plastic (from ice cream box, which I used to contain sand, and I found an old scissor in the garden) to poke the crack between the second door and the door frame, but I couldn’t get it through because there was practically no space in between: well, I could break the glass of both doors (not sure I could manage to break both layers and not being injured, it was 1M² tiny place).

OR, I could do it like a mad man -- without any security, just rip out the mosquito nets from a window in living room, which is 90° to a window in winter garden, and CLIMB. We live on the third floor.

The wind was strong and both window sills are made out of sheer metal. Luckily they weren’t wet. I could either wait 10 hours without food or bathroom, or I could take a leap (of faith). I looked out the window: 11 Meters to the ground, gray, concrete ground! And I don’t fucking like heights. (Maybe I should finally check out the film Vertigo tonight.)

I reached out and tore away part of the mosquito nets in front of the window in the living room; took off my sweat pants (so I was on my under wear), emptied the jacket pocket (just in case anything in the pocket might surprise me, and I wouldn’t want surprises hanging at 11-Meter height), got on a chair; got my right foot on the window sill, then my left food; I reminded myself NOT to look down (but I did!) ; I told myself not to panic because I would soon have time for panicking, so don’t let any “premature” panic ruin the rest of your life…

I am in.

Now, if you don’t mind, I am gonna get some food and freak out.

Pic 1: The stupid iron bar that kept me because of the bitchy gravity.

Pic 2: The ripped mosquito net and the windows through which I re-entered.

Pic 3: This is what you see when you look down.

Dog ate my homework

2012-05-29T17:19:00.002+02:00

Almost got thrown out of a class for the first time in my life. It didn't come as a shock, I saw it coming all along but I couldn't help it. I knew how strict this professor was and she made an exception to let me sit in the class. Then in the past two weeks, I didn't show up; partially because I was sick, but mainly because I am a bit confused in general. I don't know exactly what is happening to me but I am constantly caught in the nets constructed from vicious circles. Maybe even premeditated mistakes.

"Why are you here?" the professor asked, "you can't just promised me to join the class and yet only showed up twice in the past month! It is difficult for other students and the whole seminar if you just show up from time to time. If you can't make a commitment, I will have to stop this."

"I totally see that and it has been very irresponsible of me to just skip classes without giving any explanations. This is the first time for me to be a non-student and I just got a job... I am aware of the fact that I only showed up twice so far. If it bothers you and other students, I will stop coming."

"You are not a student?" --- this is the first question they asked once they found out about my situation. It happened in another class I am "attending" (I guess I can't really say that I am "attending", but rather, I am just kind of ... "being there") Apparently it happens rarely that someone would just come to a class and do that extra work without taking credit or get a certificate. Maybe it is good to know that most of us after graduation got directly into "real" life, start a career and live a fulfilled life.

"No, not for the moment. I am not. But I arranged better work hours and our molding kitchen is getting repaired, it will all be done before the end of this week." I didn't tell her that I had been sick, or had been terribly confused about ... stuff and I had been spending way too much time staring in blank, chewing on my cuticles until it bleeds; neither have I promised her that I would be a model student from now on, nor asked her to accept me and my circumstance; for it would sound like:"Hey, my dog ate my homework." (Although it truly happened to me once, and my history teacher didn't buy it.) I just stood there in silence, knowing that from her point of view, it was not personal; and she was right.

"Why didn't you come and talk to me? So that I could have a better understanding of your situation."

"I am sorry. It was my fault that I hadn't explained myself." I would explain myself when I absolutely have to. I like to keep it low profile, keep it anonymous, especially for the ones who are officially registered the class (well, basically everyone else) because it might complicate things. If I ever say anything in the class, I want the others to think that I was one of them in a B.A. program, not someone who is done with M.A. already. I don't want to be exotic one in the group. I am not the desperate attention seeking breed.

"Fine. See you next week." The professor said.

"Thank you." I left the room quickly, looking for caffeine (I usually don't drink coffee after noon, especially after my 6-espresso in the morning. But today, I feel particularly stupid and I thought caffeine might help). I found a small coffee shop in a basement, self service. I put 50 cents in a can and poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down near the door and the only coffee table book was on aquarium. Oh great, it reminds me of all the fish, snails, shrimps, frogs and plants died in my aquarium. It wasn't that long ago when I considered dropping in a few piranhas to balance out the over numbered baby fish. Now I have only one fish left, black and old, circling around the only survived water plant in a fish bowl, all day long.

Math. Oh boy. Math. One of my classmates last year had stuck out her tongue in our class, expressing the disgust towards math. She was doing her thesis in surrealism; I guess there was nothing surreal about math.

No one says that you would have to finish one "-ism" before starting the next. A lot of courses in the humanity faculty seem to be theme oriented, even if you ever took, say, structuralism, there is no season for you not to understand naturalism; there is no colloquium at the end demands what you would have to know at the end of the senior year. However in Nature science, you couldn't sit in Calculus unless you passed college Algebra. Maybe that's why at times I feel to have accomplished nothing at all after a whole day's class in humanities; sometimes we just sat around and chatted. If you miss a day of school, it doesn't feel like you'd missed much (or at all); but I remember how lost I felt after missing a day of math. My grades are alright even though I missed at least a third of program. Funny isn't it. I have more questions now than when I just started.

Phy_losophie?

2012-03-06T03:49:00.001+01:00

3am. I turned on the lights in the kitchen and opened a random page of the book next to me:”New ton’s first law of motion: The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.” So ideally an object would continue with a constant speed forever, in an environment where neither friction nor other force exist. It hardly ever happens in the real world, even if you take away the “other force”, where in a natural world to experience the absolute lack of friction? Thus this (moving) object always risks a full stop before arriving at the destination -- no wonder after starting a project, I usually feel the need to pump more and more motivation into the project. Unless my original force was strong enough to push my object all the way through breaking all the barriers and survive all the side blows (which hardly ever happens in my life), I am more restless and mood swingy after signing up for a project. It can be a beeping job at a supermarket, or an academic program that requires the proper usage of brain. According to Newton’s second motion law: The acceleration a of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the net force F and inversely proportional to the mass m, i.e., F = ma. Given the mass “m” being constant (unless you are splitting a hair), how fast I you go would totally depend on the angle and the force you apply to the object. This would be the moment where I visualize me stepping on a banana peel and slip into my goal -- wouldn’t it be nicer if we count the accidents, surprises or a polster between your feet and the floor to ease the friction? Would it be nicer if I get a bad grade, I could have something else to say besides:hey, I probably didn’t push hard enough?

3am. This is the best I can do. I turned to another page:”The mathematical equation for Boyle's law is:p denotes the pressure of the system. V denotes the volume of the gas. k is a constant value representative of the pressure and volume of the system.” I remember using this formula in the high school to calculate the water pressure and understand buoyancy, substituting the gas environment to a water environment. Slightly different from the linear motion of Newton’s above laws, when an object in the water, there is force coming from all possible dimensions. We usually used a block of wood or plastic in the lab, because we assumed the object wouldn’t be something spongy that would soak up water and sink in no time. We weren’t far enough to consider the variety of materials -- which has big influence, if you try to figure out how fast it’d sink. So sometimes how fast you get soaked through in your current surroundings determine how fast you’d “sink” or being in a state of floating? It depends on your material (density), so let’s say your personality and character? I am not saying being in and out soaked is a bad thing though -- someone takes a leap of faith and lands in a completely different culture, it’s probably a good thing to know how to get around as soon as possible.

See? Here is my problem -- it doesn’t have a correct answer. I suppose I am a bit sick of arguing for both sides, afterwards end up with lots of words and little to say. I miss having a correct answer sometimes. Like in completely fictive math or other science problems -- there are many different ways to solve it, but there is a correct answer. Something tangible.

4am. I am going to close the book and crawl back to bed.

(Tut mir Leid, dass ich diesen Blog doch nicht in Deutsch geschrieben habe. Ich traue mich noch nicht zu.)

Women living in airports

2012-02-23T21:35:00.003+01:00

The newspaper said that there had been another woman living in the airport. She refuses any kind of help, she doesn’t really talk to anyone. A couple of years ago a woman from Finland lived in the airports in Berlin for months.

So, you need to get out of the place you just came from, and not yet sure where to go. You are in a transitioning position, armed to the teeth, battling with the concept of “free will”.

Not as well as the women who live in airports, I do sense being in a transitional position quite often. Maybe what I experience doesn’t even count as transitional, because it’d imply changes, whilst I am uncertain about the odds of that happening (not anytime soon at least).

I have been a student all my life (although I have never been a model student). There hasn’t been ANY day where I don’t hold a student ID. Life outside of being a student puzzles me and yet not necessarily fascinates me. As a student, one of our most important focus would be grades. After high school, my grades have been slightly above average, and yet not good enough to get a good-sized grand. Almost graduated with M.A. without a consecutive B.A. Too old to get 30% on my train ticket and yet not old enough to have any work experience. Speak officially 5 languages and yet without a real mother tongue, which has been a real pain in the ass here. (It is not like I speak terrible German, I don’t speak it perfectly, but that’s why you have EDITORS!) I am over qualified to sit at a cashier, under qualified for a real job. But who knows, after March I am no longer a student. For the first time in my life, I will officially be a non-student. Without a concrete further plan to go back to school, this last remaining month makes me feel like living in an airport --- one day I will get there, but not today. And I am not sure if I am ready to take that flight yet. I am not even sure if any of these offered flights is on my list. Maybe none of these places would be my desired destination. Thus before I get kicked out of the airport or pushed into one of the airplanes, I have a month to be in the main hall with my luggage. Just really need to sort my tangled brain out.

One of my therapists in Idaho used to ask me this question every time I tell her an event:”How does that make you feel?”

Being 17 and first time in therapy, I was confused about the question: Are you serious or is this a vocabulary test to see how many adjectives I know?

After months of working with one therapist, I would imagine that she knew me a bit already. I spoke broken English with a strong accent, but I was fairly sure that I made myself clear. I already asked myself the same question a thousand times, the problem was not that I didn’t know how I felt or couldn’t find a fitting adjective; the problem was: I didn’t know how to live peacefully with these feelings. The therapist was nice, but kept giving me formulas:

Angry -- take a walk

Sad -- listen to music

Vulnerable --- be with friends

Happy --- great

Confused --- wait it out

Depressed --- hug a pillow

That’s why her question felt like a language test to me after a while. When the talking method was not working, she opened the top drawer and gave me a month’s worth of Prozac.

I like to play with my hair. No, I am addicted to the sensation of fingers twisting locks of hair in ways no other human being does. I have more than 20 years of experience in twisting hair involving all ten fingers, with various length and colors of hair. I do it when I am doing homework, during exams, in the cinema, on the couch, awake in bed, at the dining table, under a tree, as a passenger in a car, waiting in line to get into a zoo or just bored. I do it so frequently that it had long lost all psychological significance. I don’t even do it consciously. And yet, some people are convinced that it made THEM nervous because such gesture implied the discomfort within myself. That’s right, any unusual ticks you don’t exercise means a negativity in other’s life. If it’d bothered ME, I’d stop. But if bothers you, I’d stop when you are around although I never understand why -- it’s a harmless habit, not like smoking or being obnoxious in public; it causes no damage to anyone, not even to my hair, and it is not vulgar. But whatever, I’d stop because I couldn’t be bothered to argue about it. After being asked a question, sometimes I need a very long time to come up with an answer, and I get nervous when the other person thought I was ignoring the question:”Talk to me!” They’d say. But I can’t talk to you right now, I haven’t fully understand the (sense of the) question and give me time! Thus I abuse the following sentences:”Yes, I am thinking about your question and I haven’t gotten an answer yet.” or “I am content and having no particular trouble. If I happen to forget to smile, it just means I am lost in my tangled mind that my facial muscles become sedated.”

I wonder if that therapist would never approve such method: just justify yourself in the most Platonic way.

Yes ultimate master, teach me!

2012-02-20T19:50:00.001+01:00

Mom can’t tell the differences between a habit and a hobby.

“You can’t accept the things I want to do,” she said, with such disdain, “keep in mind that YOU are the one who’s changed. You are so westernized now. We don’t share the same values anymore.”

“Now? How’s now? If I had shared the same values as you more than a decade ago, maybe I wouldn’t have left. And washing part of your laundry by hand after a shower is a habit, not a hobby. Do you enjoy washing clothes by hand?”

“No...”

“It is a habit. I never against the sports you like doing or whatever other hobbies you have. But THIS, is a sheer habit; a habit from the past; a habit reminds me of days living with you and dad; it reminds me of him pointing and laughing at you; it reminds me of HIM, it reminds me of your senseless and constant fighting. And I don’t need it right now.”

“Let it go. Don’t be so stubborned and just forget about the past.”

“That’s right -- such words coming from someone who never throws away anything, even the broken plastic disposable bottles.”

“Your father’s things are not him. What was so terrible about our home? We were a family living together.”

“What was so terrible about EVERYTHING? Here is: YOU never had to live with(under) a mother like you or a father like mine. I think all three of us had wished for someone else to be family. If I had a choice, I would have never chosen to live with someone who hits woman, who exhibits shameless macho-ism and who smokes in children’ bedroom and yells at me for no good reason. I am a person, I am neither your toy nor your pension fund.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur to me. I remember hanging up the phone as I lost my second round of poker. The bloody river that had saved my last “all-in” has now turned its favor to kick me out and doubled the access of my opponent. This sucks.

I hardly ever get letters. The only two letters I got last week were the refusals of my job applications. I applied for three jobs at the Uni., to different departments although I was aiming at the similar position -- as a prof. Assistant for various projects. I got one interview out of my job hunting and Prof. M. had clearly promised the job to someone else, but compelled to put the job offer online because it is the law.

“Tell me why you want to work for this project.” Prof. M leaned back on his armchair, there were three women at the jury-table too.

I gave a relatively good answer. All three red-hair green-eyed women stared at me motionlessly. The interview lasted merely 5 minutes. The last question was: “Do you speak English? If so, can you prove it?”

I managed to control my rage, it wouldn’t have helped if I told them my honest opinion (then afterwards I thought it might have helped): You never read my cover letter or my CV! It says on the first paragraph that I graduated from an English speaking country. And you are surprised that I can speak French too? Wow. It takes courage to do what you do: you don’t even pretend that you gave a shit, you don’t even pretend that this job hadn’t been slipped into someone else’s hand by arrangements through your back door. YOU, Sir, are SUPPOSED to be an educator, you are not supposed to make other students get into habits of living in corruption and formality and wasting others’ time! Fuck you! Fuck you all!

Then I got two letters stating that my applications had not been granted -- but the things is: I never applied for these two jobs! I applied for a position as a Wissen.Mitarbeiter and they wrote me back saying that my application for a Student.Hilfk. had been denied!

So it is a hot thing to do now: the Prof. didn’t even have to pretend that they weren’t lying.

But this is all wrong. It is not your duty to mislead people on purpose. It is ironically the opposite of that! Aren’t you supposed to be on the other side? Aren’t you suppose to educate the next generation instead of turning them into bad politicians? Isn’t it against your moral to be so hypocritical whilst holding the role of being a role-model?

Maybe I will write them back: “sehr geerhte Damen und Herren, ich habe mich um diese Position NIE beworben. MFG. (And I don’t need to sign my name because you wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.)”

Maybe I will check out the position first before applying the next time, by simply dropping a note to the Prof. : Is it a REAL job or you just put it out there because it’d be ILLEGAL not to do so? You know, the same principle almost applies to the fact that some people are alive right now simply because it is illegal to kill them. If I want my time to be wasted I’d do it downstairs in the court yard and not in your office.

If I were a tiny seahorse

2012-02-11T16:55:00.003+01:00

If I were a tiny seahorse,
dived in grass pour faire les courses,
chanted chores ‘though I’m hoarse,
papier-mâché is not a hoax.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
cut up ferns to paint the cress,
dyed my lips to roll the dice,
jaded as I tossed my lights.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
guided by the blind mice,
sneaked up to a triton twice,
bent a wire to a fence.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
dare me to a wicked face,
fold me into a double-ace,
cast me for a purple lace.

Cranky-berries

2012-02-01T18:39:00.001+01:00

The computer crushed and after the data was finally partially recovered, I am compelled to go through some of my old files. It occurred to me that I hadn’t had any blog entries for months. I blame the weather: the barely para-summer ; the skipped Fall; over mild Winter and now the sudden cold, which made me believe that we got the Spring and Winter backwards this year.

It is scientifically proven that weather has various psychological effects on people: the absence of the Sun and the heat in a summer makes me lazy; the missing of a long period of fall-foliage makes me cranky (which results in the over growth of cranky-berries on my back. Speaking of which, a special Thanks to P, for picking these cranky-berries whenever needed); I tend to sleep (unreasonably) longer when it is cold outside; and the reserve of seasons just confuses me big time. On here is random something just popped into my mind: KRANKENHAUS ---> CRANKY HOUSE ---> Knatchi-Haus (a place where people get "ent-knatchiert"?) Love this language.

Right in the middle of my Thesis I booked a flight to Southern Asia for 2 weeks – probably the only place in the world where I could feel the sensation of being in a 30°C environment in October and all-you-can-eat seafood bar for 12 Euros. Great food comes with great responsibility: these fancy water-front restaurants are responsible to keep different kind of fish, shellfish, lobsters, clams, sea cucumbers, crabs, shrimps alive; when the guests decide on which fish or turtle, or any other animals in their aquarium to consume the next, the cooks are to take off a small part of the living animal (like half of an antenna from a lobster for example), put it on the table and when the dish is served, the cooks (or the waiters) return with a red lobster, whose left antenna is shorter, but matching the other half raw antenna – dear Guests, as you can see, we haven’t tried to con you by switch to another lobster. The responsibility of the waiter also includes chasing flies (“Oh boy, there is a fly in our privately booked room! WAITER!!!! I PAID FOR THIS! AND I PAID YOUR SALARIES!” one of the guests at our table freaked out when he failed to catch the fly with one hand – a battle between a fly and his ego: no one wins, the Waiter loses.) and wear presentable hairdo: it is in the company’s policy, on every “not good enough hairdo” caught means a 5% cut on the next salary. Seafood restaurants are the only ones at the water front, there are also ones who serve volatiles, rabbits or other small animals which you can easily keep 5 of them in a 30cm X 30cm X 40cm wire cage, with their beaks burned off. There was one shop who sold dogs, two black and white huskies with blue eyes in a cage which barely gave them place to inhale at the same time.

A friend of mine told me: “Oh, don’t read into it too much. It is just their culture. In the West we think that because we protect animals, give them rights, and try to kill them in a more humane way, we are thus better people. But really?” I asked myself that question again and again (especially because I am not from the “West”): well, for me, it sort of does. No doubt there is always violence in consuming food, even for a vegan. (PS: I am a meat eater.) Latest in your mouth, the moment molars work the food into swallowable little pieces: latest in your tummy, the gastric acid and the intestine decide that your body will take what it needs and get rid of the rest. I never fantasized the total absence of violence in eating. Yet, I am convinced that the shop owner could have at least bought a second cage for the second husky; and maybe try not to amputate the livestock. I believe practicing a more humane way to treat animals does make someone a better person. If we had lost faith in improvement and education, there would be no point in doing … whatever we are doing.

Life after Thesis (I thought I wouldn’t make it on time) is full time slacking. I am sort of kind of standing between vanilla and chocolate – and I want them both. It is so tempting to start something completely different, while continue the studies I’ve been doing for the past decade. My advisors said NO, people at the Prüfungsbüro and the student consulting center said NO. Most of them looked at me and had “WTF?!” on their face. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound very rational – but seriously people, what’s the worst can happen? That I would need more time than other students to complete a course? Maybe I would be screaming and kicking – lying on my back-full of cranky-berries if I failed some exams? How would that be different if I were to get a job while studying? (Besides I wouldn’t be making a dime.) There are loads of people double major their studies, and for a very short period of time, I was one of them.

Mom said that Grandma had weaved two identical red scarves for both of us: “And by the way, don’t be disappointed if your Grandma isn’t going to visit you this year.”

“How do I get not-disappointed?”

“I don’t know. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

“Nah. I think I’d rather keep my hope, even if that means what you said at the end might turn out to be true.”

“I am telling you, Grandma isn’t going to visit you. She said ‘maybe’ only because she was afraid that she may hurt your feelings. She was lying to you.”

“And YOU have a great history of telling me the truth.”

“You were a kid. There was no reason for you to be fumbling about in the adults’ world.”

“But I have grown up. And I suggest you to do the same.”

Shadow Cutter

2011-07-24T19:18:00.001+02:00

In the park next to the lake there is a Shadow Cutter. When you face the artist in a 90-degree angle, he would cut out the shape of your profile on a piece of white paper. With one small pair of silver scissor the Shadow Cutter pokes a hole in the middle of the white sheet and from there, the magic reveals itself, your profile gradually appears along the sharpe edge of the scissor, and when is done, he throws away the center piece, for the real product is the contour of your profile, which he pastes on a piece of black paper. So there you have it: the contour of yourself with black background, this is your shadow.

In the first few weeks the Shadow Cutter's stand is constantly full. There are portrait painters next to him, who secretly envy his success: after all, he is new here, what makes him think that he could pull all their potential clients away. The portrait painters try to win back the clients by adding glitterings, more vivid colors, discounts, free coffee ... but nothing helps. The world of black and white seem to have become public's new favorite and the latest tourist attraction. Soon people have their shadows on the walls in their homes, framed and displayed on their nightstands, carefully stored in their wallets, or saved as the background picture on their iPhones. Shadows are everywhere, people are obsessed with them, maybe driven by the sensation of holding own their dark-side in hand:"Finally, I have it tangible and constated; trapped behind glass."

With the increasing shadow-demand, the hungry painters decide to ask politely the Shadow Cutter to teach them how to capture a profile with silver lining; which he gladly accepts -- there is no reason not to, this is great that more and more people, even the "colleges" start to like my art!

Few months later, once the painters manage to shape the contour, they put the Shadow Cutting in the foreground and whoever comes and buys a shadow, gets a small portrait as present. If you look closely, the subtle difference of the Master and the crush-course-students is to see, but who has to look so closely? It is a piece of white paper on the black background after all! More than gradually the original Shadow Cutter loses the public's attention, but he doesn't want to do anything else for the art of contouring a shadow is ferventness, every millimeter of the cut-out profile is love, he is too old to learn anything else he could devote his heart to, it doesn't make sense to him selling the things that he doesn't believe, he wants to scream, protest, but he is born mute! Holding the silver scissor between his ten bony fingers like a bleeding soul, he throws the scissor in the lake and disappears from the city.

No one has ever seen him since. If you look into the lake closely, you could see a shadow reflecting back at you.

High Note

2011-06-11T19:21:00.001+02:00

high note

hight note is to let yourself go, good espresso and tabacco;
take my hand and clear your throat;
release the bunny and squeeze the doe;
turn off the light, pack up and go.

high note is the sketch on the wall,
bounce on the dance floor,
straw in a banana-boat
and the long thin line of smoke.

high note is to open a book,
when everyone else is sitting in front of a tube;
shoot the fool's errand drop for you can make the tune.
high note is love, yourself and you;
high note is you.

Squeeze Squeeze

2011-04-12T15:27:00.002+02:00

Monday. It is going to take me at least another week to get used to leaving the bed before noon.

My first lecture was about lies. Nope, I am not kidding. I am auditing a lecture on the morality and the concept of lies. The teacher told us that he was going to talk about the techniques of lying as well; you know, the quality of lies, how do they best function etc. "But my colleagues suggested me to leave out this part, so I suppose it's a good idea. Maybe we will talk about it just a little."

What do you mean that you weren't going to teach us how to lie properly? That would be the best part.

Since it was an open lecture, various genres of people squeezed in. An elderly man sitting next to me asked:"Are you Korean?"
"No..."
"Well, I ask because my daughter-in-law is Korean, but she and my son study together right now at Boston, you know Boston? They are in Harvard, majoring Biology."
"That is impressive."
"You know, about cells, stem cells and all that."

The lecture started well and since I was going to check out another course that might interest me, I had to leave slightly early; especially I was hungry. It was close to noon, getting a bite to eat at the Mensa means war; and I had only 8 minutes until the next class started. I cut out a big chunk of lasagna, elbowed through cash register and chowed like Garfield -- I think I will have to drop the second class; there is no way I will survive having 8 minutes lunch time.

I was 4 minutes late for the second class, which was about film scripts. There were twice as many students showed up as the teacher planned. There weren't enough chairs, or furnace place. Some of us stood at the door, sat on the window sill, sat on the floor, even on another's laps. "We will start then" the teacher announced, "don't worry about the tiny place we've got. As the semester goes on, half of you will probably drop this class anyway. First of all, there is definitely lots of money in film scripts, in Germany it costs about 40,000 euros for an average script, and something like Perfume, which is worth 1 million euros..." Oh yeah, and you wonder why I am here?

"But." he continued, "this class is not about how to write film scripts; there are people who spend 4 years at the film school just doing that..." Oh never mind, I am dropping this class.

Tuesday. I am looking forward to the next school break already.

Narratology. Oh the joy of reading theories. I am auditing this class too because of my upcoming thesis. As the bus stopped at the uni. at 9:50 sharp, I decided that I still had time for another cup of coffee. Arriving at the classroom at 10:02, and it was the most crowded class I have ever attended. Officially there were only 40 students allowed, and yet, at least 70 of us showed up. Again, "stealing" chairs from the classroom next door, sitting on the floor, at the window sill, on the furnace and standing at the door. (Too bad that no one dared to sit on the laps of the other, we could have saved room and get more comfort) It was a bachelor's course, and the students were happy, frivolous and un-jaded. Our instructor and his assistant went through the syllabus and asked if anyone could read the text in French, because there are mistakes in the translation. A lot of them laughed -- what? Reading in another language? Pfffff what?

"And for the term paper, please don't forget to talk to me about your thesis first, so that afterwards you wouldn't be crying about a failing grade. The paper is due before the end of the semester..." One of the student raised her hand.

"Yes?"
"My concern is something else... hmm.... is there anyone we could write a complain to, about how small this room is and there are too many of us? Anywhere we could sign a petition? You know last semester, we had the exactly the same situation, and we couldn't really concentrate if half of us don't have a chair to sit on."

The teacher sighed, "I will look into it, anyone has questions about the term paper?"

awww.... the smell of teen spirit. At least I don't feel like falling behind in this class; just imagine, 2 years from now, when one of them decides to write their thesis on something that they did not quiet learn in their Bachelor's courses, she or he would be sitting where I was and grinned silently -- there is stuff you were bound to learn, sooner or later. But I don't think I will ever want to teach.

Is it just me or this librarian really hates her job. I waited 10 minutes for a locker, because coats, bags, and not-transparent bottles are not allowed. I left everything in the locker besides my water, which was in a light brown transparent root-beer bottle.

"Excuse me," I asked, "I would like to know if I could check out this book." (Since I am not familiar with different kind of stickers on the book covers)
"No." The librarian moved her eye balls from computer screen to my book, then moved them right back to the screen.
As I turned around, she suddenly said:"Oh yeah, you can't take that bottle with you."
"Why?"
"Because only transparent bottles are allowed."
"But this one is transparent."
"You can't take it in." she said, hardly moving her lips, eyes on the transparent bottle.

I wanted to tell her that she should really look up in the dictionary what transparent means, maybe she should visit the library from time to time, maybe even pick up a book and read. Adjectives, have you ever heard about them? My bottle is transparent, it is slightly tainted but it is not Vodka, it was water in it. Oh right, how do you prevent people from taking Vodka into the library if they really wish to? People who can't read or write properly should not work in libraries.

Nah... I am in a good mood today, I will let it go.

Unfinished Product

2011-01-27T17:28:00.000+01:00

Woke up late, but that is nothing unusual. I mechanically brushed my teeth and put the espresso machine on the stove. I can’t image how I used to get up at 5am, 6 days a week in order to get to school at 6:30 AM. (That was the rule; anyone who arrived late would have to stay after school for detention time. The detention was not long though, because the night class and study groups started at 7pm. A regular kid at our school spent most of his days at his desk. Imagine the three sessions of the day go like: 6:30am to 12:00 pm; 2pm to 6pm, then 7pm to 10pm. But that was long time ago.) The bus came late too, but I somehow ended up arriving at my class on time. Maybe I should get up late on a regular bases (taking the weekly statistics into serious consideration -- today was the only day I made it to school this week). More than 100 minutes of bus ride led me to a 90-minute class. I did not realize it was my last class for the semester, until our teacher thanked us at the end of the seminar. Wow, I have slept through so many of them since last October. I have become amazingly lazy since high school time; and yet, I am not unhappy having left the extremely strict school behind.

We learnt to point fingers at other nations besides our own, all the way through high school. In contrary in my current school, the seminars feel like a bunch of “finger pointing” too, but at ourselves. If the 90-minute lamentation directing at the “complete failure” of capitalism, or eating meat is mass-murder or the “melting-pot-society” is the highest achievement of human cultural form, I frequently remind myself that, at least there are disputes; imagine a class in which you have to write down everything the teacher says, the book says, and any disagreement could have you kissed good-bye to a higher education, or your parents “dropping by” teacher’s home after dinner with a red envelope containing a stack of cash.

Sometimes I am confused about how I feel about all of these: the goodness of self-critic vs. the “euphorication” of certain continent; the elitism reproaches to the society forgetting the majority of the population does not have graduate-school education; and how many hard-core vegans would pierce through own flesh so that a piece of metal can be hanged on the wound, or mark their own skin with needles and ink in some language that they don’t even speak. (Yes, I have known them in person.) What does refusing meat mean to you? What does your own body mean to you?

I owned a telescope. I saw the creators on the Moon and almost burnt my eyes blind when I forgot to add the filter. (As I bent over to adjust the angle, the Sun light burnt a small hole on my coat, and I was about to my eyes directly behind it. Lucky me.) In a starry night, I would spend hours on the house roof and aim for the silver tiny lights: the world around me felt weightless: does it matter to the universe that we are facing final exams in a few weeks? Does it matter that we eat meat or not? Does it matter how the nationals’ borders are defined? Does it matter if we stuck in the airport as the volcanoes erupt? Or the buses come late? Or the new policies take place? Or some avant garde fashion companies discontinue employing size-zero models?

Someone told me that humans were just nature’s experiment. If so, we are unfinished products.

Midterm crisis?

2011-01-11T16:58:00.001+01:00

Midterm crisis?

Episode 1:

On the phone with Mom, our communication was more diplomatic than profound. She went through the usual questions about my meals and weight, about weather and clothes: my only vocabulary left, well practiced and repetitive like some verses from an absolute beginner. Then, she said:" There was a good TV program last night. A young literary critic wrote something and became national wide famous."

"What did he write?"

"Books. Something new."

"O...K..."

"He reminds me of you. Young and studies literature."

"Yes..." I felt that maybe I should give some positive feedback, but I did not know what to say.

"Anyway, he was on a talk show and it was very educative."

"What did you learn?"

"There are young people who do new researches in books and all."

"It is seldom to find educative programs on TV..." -- give me credit for trying.

I suddenly thought of food.

* Pizza Spinoza ( à la hollandaise? with spinach on the side.)
* Foucault focaccia (The truth about erotic sandwiches?)
* Leibniz Cookies (two sides of the story: chocolate and vanilla. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice versa?)
* Kant in cans (What is Enlightenment? The magic of storing food for ages and ages and ages in a tin.)
* Hegel Bagels (It is human nature to keep bagels in mind?)
* Etc.

I thought about telling her my thoughts but we ended up talking about how much snow we got this year.

Episode 2

Raumkonzept Seminar

Everyone sat in the classroom with think bubbles in a form of a fast-going clock. We had another hour left.

The teacher checked her cellphone and said: "I have been thinking about Wellbery's Sense of Room and Room of Sense this weekend. And I believe that we don't have to understand the text as two different ideas but it would also be OK to think of it as relapses ... the idea to be applied ... well, then, I think, can be, through New York or through a text..." -- she was talking as slowly as she could. The times goes faster this way.

I wondered if she listened to herself when she spoke.

Then someone said that in his course of philosophy studies, there had been incidents where the discussions were so escalated until someone called the police.

"What was it about?" we asked.

"We were talking about Foucault. Then someone felt insulted so the police came. For a periode of time we had guarded classes. Some students were thrown out of the room." -- This is what our teacher dreamt of, maybe, some action is better than half of students on Facebook and the other half picking on their cuticles.

It is hard to imagine calling the police on a Foucault related discussion though. How did you tell the policeman? What would be the first thing to write down on their notes? Foucault is spelled with silent "-lt"?

Then the class continued.

"conceptual definition of a room... emotional coloring of a text ... witness of simulator ... "

We nodded periodically. Felling bad for all the silence in the room, but besides smiling and nodding there was nothing we could do.

Maybe the philosophical food joke would come in handy in this situation. But I did not want her to know that I understand "emotional coloring of a text" as literally taking a highlighter and mark the paper.

"OK." she checked her cellphone again. "This is our mid-term discussion. I hope that it has been helpful to you all."

We nodded.

"And next time, we will REALLY put something VERY concrete on the table."

I haven't heard this sentence since the second session of the semester.

pardon my French?

2010-12-29T14:01:00.001+01:00

Here we are, the coldest day of the year. The forecast said that it’d go down to -22°C this evening.

Before the news broke out last night, I knew something was wrong. He hardly said anything and directly went to the Winter-garden for a smoke. More than half an hour later, I realized that a certain someone had caused the irreparable damage, that before the year’s end, we had to go to bed at 9pm before the ire drags the blood and spirit out of us.

Oh that fucking piece of CUNT!

It is not my war, I know; but why is that good people have to suffer? Why those illegal actions bring her judge’s agreements? I would truly like to check the Judge’s prick for her DNA; there is no logical explanation, and there will never be.

As a woman, I don’t like to use the “c-word”, but other than that, what else is she?

We were at the office moving furniture around and surprisingly, the C*** opened the door, got in the kitchen to pick up some shit and went out again. As if nothing were wrong. THIS is the new horizon of shamelessness.

As she walked passed me, how I imagined her foot stepping on a slippery spot; then she falls and cracks her head right open. How I imagine her being fatally bitten by a poisonous creature and suffers endless before dying. How I imagined a monster would come out of her skin and tear her apart as if she had gone through a shredder. How I imagined her binging on copper (II) sulfate and swimming in sulfuric acid, before got dumped in an icy and snowy dumpster. (Snow is important, considering the vivid reactions with sulfuric acid). How I imagined so many colorful things. I am usually not a violent person.

But nothing happened. She came in and out of the office with hippopotamus skin -- right, what the fuck do you have to lose? You already blushed down all your personal integrity and basic honor down the toilette.