Working Stiff

If you can't beat'em, join'em. New motto that I adopted last night with the WG (wohnengemeinschaft) crowd next door. Usually loud and rambunctious, sleeping while the bears next door jump around to a wild bass beat is nearly impossible. And since I haven't been sleeping much anyway, why not? The Romanian exchange student living there (the one who has been a constant source of jovial entertainment) was celebrating his Geburtstag with a few buddies, which was the Grund for the effusive noise levels this time. I didn't much participate in the boys' koma saufen but things did get a bit wobbly. Afterwards, I walked the 20 meters back to my room and read a bit of a young adult novel called SPEAK until about 2:30am. My brother once told me, in all his eloquence, "Sleep is for fags." You know, a bundle of sticks.

But why has my work ethic gone to pot? This morning, bright and early 7:25 bloody bonny morning, my favorite teacher from the school next door called, asking if I'd take over one of her classes because of testing in another grade. "Bist du munter" she asked me. HAH. After the phone ringing in my ear, I am now, I wanted to say. Spontaneity frightens me in the class room because I suffer from stage fright. All those open faces and sometimes glassy eyes, they stupefy me. So for a few moments all I could think was, shit shit, in all MY eloquence. But then I gathered my Gedanken and decided, what the heck, we're gonna play charades today and a few vocabulary games!

The sun is shining with gusto this morning, first time it has done so in nearly a month, so I took a walk to rid myself of the wobblies, die von gestern übrig geblieben sind. I had a sudden, strong desire to see moving water before starting work. I geared up and walked the 8 minutes to a nearby bubbling brook. Today I felt like watching up stream. It's a whole different feel than watching down stream. The Up Stream mood is one filled with confidence and adventure. The water is rushing towards you, ambivalent yet compelling and it's sorta like Rose standing on the bow of the Titanic. Minus Will. Minus the boat. And minus freezing Atlantic Ocean. Alright, minus a lot of things. But the FEELING is similar. Standing on a bridge over water looking up stream - on top of the world, which seems to be going in the right direction and doing alright (please, don't disturb my illusion).

The Down Stream mood is an easy metaphor that maybe we can later besprechen.

Feeling much much more munter, I walked back home and completely fell in love with an old lady's back yard. The grass was a hesitant green and well tended, spring batting her flirtatious eyes, but the yard was inundated, nigh infested with snowdrops and small clusters of button-sized yellow flowers. They were überall. Gorgeous little flowers with hanging heads and graceful stems. Very humble but nevertheless stunning. How did I know that it was an old Oma living there? I didn't - pure assumption on my part. But I did see a walker beside the house and I thought, if I ever get old, I want my back yard to be full of Snowdrops too. It's comforting to think of aging like that.

When I got back to the room, the teacher who had called earlier met me to return a CD and tell me that another teacher wanted her class to join mine, the one I'm to take over. Spontaneity, bad! Suddenly, the count of open faces, glazed eyes doubled and I panicked. Shock must have been plastered all over my Gesicht because the teacher started shooting off suggestions on how to handle the class. I had to rethink my lesson plan that was geared towards a smaller group. It took a few minutes but I got facts straight in my mind. No worries, my initial reactions are always a bit übertreibt. It will work out. What's more, when I reported for normal work, they didn't need me. More testing. So I am free until this double class in a half hour. I need to prepare some more so this is tootles.

*What's with the German? Well, I want to prove to you all that you can understand a foreign language. German is not that difficult and, with a little context, I'm sure you can understand! If not, throw rocks at me and I'll post translations. ;)

What makes you sing

I know (and I'm glad) I'm alive when...

People I meet for the first time show me unexpected kindness.
Strangers say hello.
Laughter makes me laugh.
Smiles make me smile.
Oranges taste deeper than their color.
Something turns out good regardless of mistakes.
Friends are friends in unexpected ways.
Birds sing.
Known constellations shine and the unknown twinkle.
The heart weeps and the mind sings. Or vice versa.
The path ahead is a tunnel.
I don't have the energy to sleep.
I crave human company and I find it.
My lips and toes tingle.
Anything seems possible.
I do the unexpected - even of myself.
There is mail in my inbox.

I feel alive. And I'm happy about it. ^.^ Particularly thrilled.

Little Austria

On Friday I received a spontaneous call from a friend offering me to tickets to see the Vienna Boys' Choir, who were performing in our town. That sounded like the epitome of the Austrian experience; I gladly accepted. The Italian neighbor next door wasn't as inspired, unfortunately, so she didn't want the extra ticket. Melanie Von Trapp, who is in town for a few months, DID. That's how I met and became friends with one of the grandchildren of the famous Von Trapp family singers.

Melanie and I share similar preferences for music and books. She's an easy conversationalist and it was great fun talking with her. I really hope that we can hang out again; the weather is finally turning and she would be the perfect partner in crime to explore.

The concert was wonderful. The cherubic voices of the boys were something out-of-this-world, lifted up in mass harmony. They're actually an international bunch: Slovakia, Hungary, England, America, Canada, and even Japan. They sang a selection from Antonio Vivaldi that left me spell bound.

Saturday didn't equate to much except to two loads of laundry, which had been starting to ferment in the closet. I later met up with a friend to discuss our travel plans to Cologne this coming weekend. We're going to a concert to see the American metal band Kamelot. Yes, I do like metal but this isn't what you think. Metal, in my opinion, suffers under the misconception that it's all Thrash or Death Metal. What I didn't know, before jumping into the genre, is that there is also Melodic and Orchestrated Metal. Take this song, for example:



The band is American, by majority, but the lead singer is from Norway and the keyboardist is from Germany. Natascha and I are flying out of Munich on Friday. We'll tour Cologne Friday and Saturday before the concert saturday evening. Our flight back is at 10am on Sunday morning.

You think these things never happen

Thursday, I was whisked back to the home of one of my teachers. She lives in a neighboring village called Altheim, which roughly translates as Old Home. Bianca, the teacher, has two lovely daughters about 8 and 12 years old. They call me 'Big Sister', 'Good boy', and 'Little one'. With those two, I kind of get to see what life would have been like with younger siblings - dang, I feel old and big! It's great fun, though. We played Mario Kart on Nintendo DS, wailed out ABBA tunes on Singstar (Karaoke), and played with their two dogs:

The one on the left is a bundle of energy. You can just see the heartshaped "spot" on her back.

Anyway, I think that Singstar game is rigged. The girls don't speak or read English very well but they rock at that game! They shout the lyrics incoherently and wrack up the points!

It's all over the news here and I'm sure you've heard of it in America: the school shooting in southern Germany. I never expected it to happen in Europe, seeing as how they have strict gun control laws here but happen it did. And it isn't the first time. Apparently there was a similar incident in 2001. What isn't different is how people react. Here, as in America, somebody has to take the blame: teachers, parents, friends, neighbors. "Should've, would've, could've..." I guess you could say, "if your kid is undergoing psychiatric treatment, put a lock on the gun cabinet." But that wouldn't do much good for the now - only the then.

Past, present, and future

For a while there, I had wild hopes that March had broken winter's back but it seems that the old man was just lying in wait. The past few days have been windy, wet, and white with barely a moment of sunshine.

The assistant from a few years ago, Amanda from Michigan, was in town this week trying to coordinate her student teaching requirements in Austria (she's a graduate student). I met her very briefly on Tuesday at the BORG (one of my schools) and we immediately connected. How many other Americans have experienced Ried im Innkreis? She knew about everything - from the banshee screaming of the soccer boys upstairs to the radical polarity in the moods of a particular teacher. For the past few months, I seriously thought that I was at times crazy, inhuman and a mostly jumbled collection of depressed emotions. Even though I might have been depressed, I now know that it was NORMAL for the circumstances. Amanda helped me rebuild my notion of my own humanity. I thought that I was sick, weak, and not suited for this job. It seemed that all the other assistants were having a grand time while I was a radioactive sphere of negativity and sadness. Sir M, a friend in Ohio, shared a poem with me and one line really clicked:
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste; my taste was me...
I was trapped within myself. Like a puddle of water in the hot sun, I was turning fetid. Even if I was, Amanda understood inside and out because she has been here before.

Even if there's just ONE person in the world out there who understands and is willing to talk, you're golden. And now I'm golden. I feel so much better.

On Wednesday afternoon I got a call from Hans, the orientation director, that he was going to the nearby hot springs resort in Geinberg with Amanda. We had a great time; Hans is a man with connections. He told us about an endeavor he had a few years ago to unite all the Aschenbergers (his family name) all over the world. Hans was able to uncover the sordid past of an Aschenberger in Brazil. I've never heard such a wild story in my life. It involved Nazis, Auschwitz, polio, suicide, love, America. And somehow Hans was able to bring it all together.

Hans is also well connected with the Von Trappe family. When I first got here, we sang to Maria, one of the Von Trappe children over the phone. It was her birthday. He's very close with the entire family and one of the grandchildren is coming to his school to learn how to cook traditional Austrian meals. I think her name is Melenie. Hans suggested that I help her with her German and she could help me with my guitar. But I've seen videos of this girl, a musical wonder, who travels the world with her siblings.

We ended up, on Wednesday night, grabbing food from the grocery store and cooking Käse spätzle, cheesey Austrian noodles, with salad and wine. After dinner, Hans whipped out an electric lap guitar that he had bought in New Zealand, handed me a guitar and Amanda a set of bongo drums. Musical mayhem? Pretty soon, I was on a marraca/rain stick and Amanda was doing some Ginger Rogers while Hans played piano. Then we watched Oh Brother where art thou to finish up the evening.

Next day, after work, we went to Salzburg in Hans' car so that Hans could check out a few apartments that he was looking at to buy. He dropped Amanda and me off in town and the two of us walked around in the drizzling rain, went dirndl shopping, and finally ended up in an Irish pub called the Shamrock. We sat at the bar in front of a Philadelphia Eagle's poster and ordered something called a Snakebite, a cider beer with a shot of black currant liquer. We talked and talked, Amanda's program is TESOL oriented (teacher of english to speakers of other languages). After Austria, she really wanted to be home and so she bummed for a year getting things straight in her head and heart before grad school. And this is exactly what I would like to do - this is where I am right now. I want to study again BADLY like it's an itch that I just can't reach but I DON'T WANT TO STUDY when I have no inspiration. I don't want to shoot myself down a path when I really don't know where I want to go, not to mention loading myself down with debts and a career that I don't find interesting. For this reason, I would like to put off grad school for a few months to a year and spend some time thinking. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be a bum or baggage for my parents. I want to find some work and maybe take classes at the local community college at night. I want to talk to people in person and gather more perspective. The eyes that I have now can't see very far and that's the problem. All this occurred to me very suddenly but it seems right. I've been all over the place these past 5 years and maybe what I need is a little time for everything to catch up...

Breaking News

The teachers were in an uproar today because they had received information from the Austrian Ministry of Education dictating that every teacher would have to work an additional two hours the following year WITHOUT compensation. This would lead to the layoff of young teachers all over Austria. This news was blunted by the idea that "the teachers would be making a sacrifice to help the nation through this time of economic crisis." Apparently sending young teachers onto welfare is still cheaper than paying them a salary.

The teachers, however, are not up to taking one for the team. The word "strike" slipped in and out of conversations all about the break room, as uncommon a word in the Austrian vocabulary as "au fait" is in America. They'll start on Thursday with just an hour's strike, which will gradually grow into a day, days, and possibly weeks. Many teachers were skeptical that the strike will last so long. I'm reminded of the days in Berlin when public transportation was at a standstill because of union strikes.

That's the news.

This is Katie, reporting from the front. I'm not exactly dodging bullets or milking a yak but this is news nonetheless.

**EDIT: Apparently it's not in the plan to layoff any teachers. What the ministry is saying is that there is more work to be done and everyone should help. The teachers say that they already fulfill 40 hours a week with 20 in class and 20 in prep time - the just don't have the time. The ministry shot back that they should go for quantity over quality. A teacher argued that 2 additional hours in a class room is not equal to 2 additional hours in an office. I agree. The mood in one class can completely alter from day to day - positive one day and rowdy the next. Two more hours could equate to LOTS MORE STRESS. And I believe it. It's a hard job, teaching and keeping a class in line hour after hour, day after day. I guess I never realized how difficult it could be... I salute all teachers everywhere!

News from the front, side, back...

A new segment entitled, You know you're an American when...

1.) You have a indescribable fondness for sneakers and denim.
2.) The traffic circles look like turntables of death and disaster and you're amazed that there isn't more blood and burnt rubber at the scene.
3.) Thoughts about abortion and the death penalty are a muck in your mind but you feel passionately about both (although you don't know why).
4.) The thought of paying to use a toilet anywhere or for ketchup at McDonald's appalls you.
5.) You feel that trains are a novel and old fashioned form of transportation.
6.) Your mind explodes in a fit of ecstasy when you learn that higher education in Europe is virtually free.
7.) You think of Subway as fast food.
8.) Before crossing the street, you look both ways. Twice.

...and a little special one for Pennsylvanians:
- You are overjoyed to find beer and hard alcohol beside the bread and milk but disappointed that the gun boutique is nowhere to be found.