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. ;)