On second thought...

Well, just make a liar out of me! After that whole introvertist manifesto last night, I go around being totally chatty and sociable all day today. Hm, well, I guess, being the complicated organisms we are, you can never just pidgeon-hole people -- including yourself. (Either that, or that Myers-Briggs test was pretty accurate when it pegged me as an E/INFP, which means equally balanced between extroversion and introversion.)

Okay, how about this: a lot of the time I like to chat and hang out. But if I'm just sitting there listening rather than talking, please do forgive me, and don't take it as a sign that anything's wrong. I'm just letting my inner introvert out for some exercise. :)

INFP

Wow! This post is even longer than the last one. Should ye decide to embarke upon its rambling depths, be ye forewarn'd! ;o)

Here it be...

******

Amy found this article on introverts.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

Huh. And I thought I was just getting antisocial in my old age. (Same thing? ;o) )

I always thought I was an extrovert, because I really like people. I'm generally happy, friendly, and, I think, pretty open -- I mean, hey, I'm bearing my brain practically every day on these here internets! But when I think about it, I derive lots of things from socializing: pleasure, heart, learning. However, I don't derive energy from it. In fact, after a day of lots of interaction with lots of different people, I really need time to recharge my batteries. I'm not at all shy; in fact, I have no trouble at all talking to strangers. I just don't always "need" to. Sometimes after a day full of people, I just need to not talk for a while! Mom says that, during her breaks at work, she'd often just rather read a book or eat lunch with her own thoughts than sit around and chat. I certainly identify. However, unlike what the author of the article suggests, I don't (and I don't think Mom does, either) find extroverts boring or irritating -- quite the contrary! I even admire their ability to turn on a constant stream of effortless communication. But it can be frustrating how, in our society, you're expected to keep this up all the time.

I wonder if there's an assumption that being introverted means being misanthropic or unhappy? Maybe that's why people often mistake my general good nature with gregariousness -- if I'm happy or friendly, I must also be an extrovert. I wonder if this is why I sometimes feel like I disappoint my friends, because I give off the impression of needing more social interaction than I really do? Don't get me wrong, I'm no loner. Everyone needs friends. And I have some pretty cool friends. But I also don't have any problem being by myself either, and even need a pretty good measure of it in order to recharge. I've often scratched my head at the apparent need for most everyone I know to be socializing what seems like all the time. But maybe it's not them at all: I'm the weird one! According to this article, the majority of the population are extroverts: socializing is how they relax and re-energize. So what seems like "all the time" to me is pretty reasonable to everyone else.

It certainly is more practical to be wired that way. To be successful in school, your job, and relationships requires constant social interaction. It's a sign of leadership. This is what makes a person likeable and what makes them appear proactive. And because I can do this pretty well when I need to (I mean, I'm a teacher, for goodness' sake), I haven't let being introverted inhibit my success. It's just that it seems to take so much more effort for me than for others, and I really need my downtime in order to keep it up.

What gets me thinking about this is that it seems my predecessor at the school where I work was naturally very extroverted. From the sound of it, Elodie made her colleagues her life. And she had a marvellous time, and her German became perfect, and they all loved her and still miss her. I met her myself, and liked her enormously: she's funny, smart, friendly, and sincere.

But I'm slowly realizing that the other teachers expect me to be just like her. I mean, if one more person reminds me one more time about how she spent like 20 hours a day in the teachers' lounge, while giving me one more "meaningful look"...! What actually baffles me is that I do socialize with the other teachers. They're great. I lucked out in how fun and nice and interesting my coworkers are. I hang out and chat while at the school, and have gone out with them several times in the evenings and on weekends. But for one thing, they're not the only people I know here; and even if they were, do I have to spend all of my free time socializing in order to show that I like them and want to be a part of the group? I suppose so; it's part of living in an extroverted society. But compounding this is the fact that I'm also getting to know lots of other (German, I might add) people who have nothing to do with the school, and so it spreads me even thinner.

Because of this, I get the feeling that Frau Griesemer is worried about me. I've mentioned being able to talk to my family on the webcam at home, and now she seems to think that's what I do all the time, to the exclusion of getting to know my coworkers. Don't get me wrong, Frau Griesemer is fantastic. She bends over backward to make sure I'm happy and comfy and have opportunities to make the most of my time here. She even clips out newspaper articles about the region which she thinks I might find interesting, and leaves them in my box at work! But maybe this is just part of what is misunderstood about introverts? Sometimes, when I get home in the evening, I don't need to talk to anybody. I'm not sitting around bored and lonely and homesick, or holing up in my apartment and avoiding integrating into the city and the culture. In fact, a lot of my "alone time" includes exploring the city or going for long walks to check out other towns nearby. I just don't always need to be surrounded by a bunch of other people to do it.

But I can't complain. I mean, people like me and want to hang out and make sure I am enjoying myself here? How terrible! I guess it's just hard when you realize that in order to show your appreciation, you have to constantly be fighting your own nature. Sigh. Did I pick the wrong career path? Maybe I should be an arctic fisherman or something, so that in my free time I'm foaming at the mouth to have someone to talk to.

Okay, I've now spent over an hour posting on my blog. Maybe I am holing up in my apartment! ;o)

Alles nur geklaut

Well, that cinches it. November, I'm sorry, I know you're my birth-month and all, but you haven't been so very kind to me this year. I'm afraid we have to end it. Don't try to talk me out of it; I already have a date with December this Friday.

See, in order to balance the karma a little, the Powers That Be saw fit to whittle down my fabulous wealth last Sunday night. I just happened to be carrying around some extra cash; which never I do, except that Anna had paid me back for something and I just hadn't gotten around to getting to the bank to deposit it. Besides, it's surprising how often places only take cash around here: the doctor's office, most restaurants, the cell phone store where I recharge my minutes; often even train tickets can only be paid for with cash. So I really wasn't in an urgent hurry to get these 135 Euros into the bank, since having them around was turning out just to be so darned practical. Plus I liked logging into online banking, to see that my balance hadn't moved. I thought, maybe this is how I'll budget myself: take a little bit out, and see how long it can last me before I have to dip into my checking account again.

On the other hand, every time I opened my wallet, I winced a bit to see that much liquid cash. Just has never sat right. Back in Tucson, when I'd accumulate more than 50 bucks at a time, it was away to an ATM to get it somewhere safe!

Well... nothing like being proved right. I guess. At the Frankfurt airport last Sunday night, I also had another first, which was to leave my purse on a bench as I leapt for an S-Bahn. Seriously, I've never done that before! Although, to be fair, I've also never lived in a truly cold climate since I've started carrying a purse, and so what with gathering up sweater and leather jacket, you don't immediately detect that that something's missing. Until five minutes later, when you get off the S-Bahn. I ran back to every place I had been in the last half an hour, including that bench and the bathroom, but no dice. Purse gone. I started having daymares about having to replace my passport before flying home in December; about not having my housekey; having no ID, no money, no anything; about identity theives posing as an American on a visa. I mean, German beaurocracy is bad enough -- but trying to sort out an identity theft on top of it all, while trying to re-instate yourself as a legal resident?? AAAAAAA!!!

So while I was hyperventilating, the police found the purse and called me in. Amazingly, everything was still there: passport, keys, phone, chapstick, credit cards, cappuccino receipts, even the check Dad and Sarah had sent me for my birthday. Everything except the 135 Euro. The shock of having lost my purse, and then having found it again almost intact less than an hour later, only to then re-discover that I had been relieved of the small fortune I knew I shouldn't have been carrying around, was too much. I should have been thanking my lucky stars that everything else was still there, unstolen and (most likely) unphotocopied. At least, now I appreciate that. But there was this saddening feeling of realizing that some people are capable of rifling through your very personal belongings, seeing what kind of gum you chew and which scent you wear, even your name and where you're from and what you look like -- essentially be able to look you right in the printed eye, and still have no qualms about stealing your money from you. Maybe they thought I was a rich American tourist, instead of a poor foreign teaching assistant whose mom and sister paid her credit card bills last month. They probably weren't thinking that far at all. They just saw cash, took it, and didn't want to get caught with the rest. It was actually found by a maintenance guy on the same bench I left it. I suspected him, but the police pointed out that it would be pretty stupid to be the one to both steal it and turn it in, where it is then immediately noticed that money is missing. There was nothing they could do except file a police report for my "insurance company." (I guess most Germans have insurance for everything, even personal theft.) Well, I have emergency medical insurance, and that's pretty much it.

But you know what? I woke up yesterday morning and was overcome with gratitude that everything else was still there. I am out one-fifth of a month's pay, but other than that, this will have no truly lasting effects. As Mom once said: it's not that I'm lucky because nothing bad ever happens to me. Part of it is simply, on those few occasions when something bad does happen, it's never so bad as it could -- maybe even should! -- have been. So I'll just restock the rice and beans in the cupboard, cut out the morning cappuccino, and enjoy this beautiful almost-December air. It's foggy outside, and looks whiter and winterier than it has in weeks. School is going fabulously (I love my job!), and there are lots of fun things coming up in the next few days: Nigel coming to visit this weekend, a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) with some teacher friends on Friday, a party on Saturday, and maybe frying up some fajitas with the Hamanns on Sunday.

If you're family or friends reading this, I'm not writing this so that anyone will worry! There's nothing to worry about! I'm not carrying around any cash any more, my purse is all but stapled to my side, and I can still pay my rent next week. And that's really the only kind of crime around here anyway, this petty "opportunity theft". Furthermore, even that was in Frankfurt, not quaint little Neustadt. So, again, no worries! I'm fine! I'll just have to teach my purse some Taekwondo.

However, let this be a lesson to anyone who could use it! DO NOT CARRY MUCH CASH! Especially those of you in the States, for whom it's not even very necessary to do so. Heh, the cop even scratched his head when I told him how much had been in there. "Really?" he said, "Odd. Americans don't usually carry cash around." I told him he would be right... usually. Sigh. Oh well.

Oh, but speaking of German conceptions of American habits, I just realized I haven't written yet about Anna's and my funny little experience at the doctor's office! Gotta go for now, but more on that later. Coming to a blog near you!

Happy almost-December, everybody. :o) Hugs from almost-Christmas-Season Land!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!!

She and Shauna are heading down Tucson way to celebrate theirs and Michael's birthdays -- and also some obscure American holiday where they eat a weird-looking bird and a pie made out of a Halloween decoration. Crazy Amis!

Wish I could be there to celebrate with you, Aimster. You'll just have to eat my portion of the turkey and 'taters and birthday cake. :) Alles Gute und alles Liebe zum Geburtstag!

Runner's high

Wanna hear something? Lean in close. Ready? Here it is:

I HAVE FOUND THE SECRET.

Shh. Don't let it out or everyone will get in my way on the sidewalk. But after much drinking and eating and companionship and other such experiments, I have found the key to happiness. The best way to combat the cold and grey is with this:

Endorphins.

That's right, natural drugs. You put in your earbuds, turn the volume up on your catalyst of choice (currently it's noisy, clamorous, get-the-blood-rushing German metal, though just the other day it was happy bouncy techno) and you take off down the street at a dead run. By the time I round the corner and head down hill forty-five minutes later, pouring sweat and pigtails bouncing against the back of my neck to the same rhythm as my feet, "Erdbeermund" is pounding in my ears and I can see over the entire valley below Hambach. I can see for miles. As far even as the slender cooling towers of Mannheim in the distance, edged right up against the Rhein river. And I take off down the hill like I'm about to fly over the valley, and grab a handful of bright red autumn leaves as I run by and let them scatter out behind me, like some kind of crazy sprinting Hansel who needs to be sure to mark her path so that, when she comes back to occupy her body, she can find her way home.

To everything, there is a season

Dad had a point once, when he said that the "official" start of every season is actually late by twenty-two days. You know how summer does not officially kick off until June 22, autumn on September 22, etc? Why not just bump it all back to the beginning of these respective months? I mean, do we really think that December 18th, for instance, is still autumn? Or that Saint Patrick's Day is in the winter? We proposed the following:

Winter: December 1.
Spring: March 1.
Summer: June 1.
Fall: September 1.

There. Isn't that how we already think of it, anyway?

What puts me thinking about this is that it seems to have suddenly switched seasons. Here in the Pfalz, they call last month "goldener Oktober." And for good reason! It was sunny and pleasantly warm, but the leaves were still bronze and copper and beautiful. There were grapevines and winefests, and the sun rose at, like, six-thirty am.

All of a sudden, it's like a curtain has dropped! Just in the last week, too. One morning, it was eight o'clock and I was walking to school in the sunshine without a jacket. The next morning, it was dark, cold, and foggy, and the sun decided to go down at what seemed like four-thirty in the afternoon. Seriously! It was dark at a quarter after five today! If I get out of school at 3:30 (typical for Mondays and Tuesdays), then I have less than two hours of daylight in which to go jogging or run errands, before it's too dark to do anything by yourself. It's been raining for a week, and the grapevines are a bunch of scraggly sticks. Hmph. Most disagreeable. I think the standard way people add some sparkle to the darkness is with Gluehwein and gingerbread, both seemingly excellent options; but frankly, I've gotten fat enough since I've been here, and so I've *just* decided to cut out the sweets and alcohol for a while. Nice going, Nikki!

On the bright (get it? :) ) side, the Christmas decorations are going up already. Now in Arizona, I would scoff at the idea of ribbons on streetlights before December 1st. There, it feels like forced "Xmas" cheer, rammed down your throat as early as possible in a thinly-veiled attempt to cash in on the pre-season buyfest; holiday-themed car commercials and garish Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoons in shop windows, advertising 99 cent cheeseburgers... all made as shallow and meaningless as possible, because God forbid we actually admit there's some sort of *religious* connection to this holiday, and someone gets offended and decides not to spend their money at our chain store. Which is even more ridiculous, because no one is fooled, for example, into thinking a Christmas concert is not exactly that, just because one vague, generic, non-religious Hanukkah song about a feast of lights and a couple of "ya-ba-bim-bam"s are mixed in among the fifty other songs hailing the Blessede Birthe of Our Lorde and Savioure Jesus Christ, Hallelujah, to His Mother, the Blessed Virgin, Ave.

Here, on the other hand, there's something decidedly un-commercial about the garland-hung streets. It's like everyone just realized that it's time to drive some of this sudden darkness away with tiny points of white light, and maybe offer a bit of Lebkuchen in the bakeries, too. The decorations feel like something that is done for you, rather than to you. And maybe it's just the sixteenth-century architecture, or the fog on the ancient hills, but the way the Advent season is celebrated around here seems to recall the Yule traditions, born of ties to the land and seasons, that gave us holly decorations and lights in the first place. It's comfortable, calming, cozy; something about it speaks to the ancient part of you that remembers your ancestors huddling close together around a fire and telling stories, deriving comfort from the closeness of community against the vast dark forests around them. And yet at the same time, it is also unabashedly religious, which seems a much more honest way to celebrate the season than our American need to cover all our consumer bases. If you celebrate Christmas, then you celebrate Christmas; if you don't, no amount of calling it a "holiday" sale is going to trick you into thinking the rest of the religious majority isn't trying to foist their Xmas buyfest upon you.

All righty, well, this post is long enough. Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn: it's getting dark around here, but there are tiny white lights aplenty. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRO!!!

Today is my brother's birthday! Michael, Shauna, and I have all spent the last week sharing the age of 26. Today, however, he moves on and leaves us behind to join the 27-year-olds at the grown-ups' table. Hope your birthday weekend is terrific, bro... and wish I could be there next week when Shauna and Amy come down to celebrate with you!

Love ya. :)

Nachdenken

Leipzig was... pretty cool. The part that I remember, anyway. It must have been fun, because Anna sent a bunch of pictures of me with my eyes half-closed and everyone looking like they're having a pretty good time; so I must have had a heck of a birthday. Parts I do remember include:

-how great it was to see Matt Johnson again. As we all expected, he's taken Cambridge by storm and now bends his Almighty Eye on the rest of academia and, dare I say it?, the world;

-a cool '70's-themed bar called "Flower Power", with flower-shaped tables, felt-draped ceilings and lamps, and all the best music ever made between 1960 and 1979;

-Anna doing "the Twist" in said bar, and looking like a painting all weekend as she wandered around in her blue scarf. The girl is just a dear. I'm glad I met you, Anna. :)

-Ivan "Here, Nikki, Have Another Peanut" Grubisic being the catalyst he usually is. And Anna and Jason brainstorming the best ways to bring the fresh-faced young Croatian into a life of hedonism and debauchery;

-Jason's lovely description of the joy of using a Q-tip to clean your ears;

-remembering how seeing Conny is always a breath of fresh air, and making plans to come visit her in the Erzgebirge in December;

-Bert's shocked response to Americans profaning beer with Irish Car Bombs (for the uninitiated, you drop a shot of Bailey's into a Guiness and chug it before the cream curdles. The aftertaste is delicious -- after you've gulped for air, of course). I think it was something like, "Ach, nein!" followed by looking at me with knitted eyebrows as I wiped my lips, and scolding, "Aber Frauen machen das nicht!"

-Nigel just being... Nigel. Thanks, Nigel. :)

-And, well, to be frank, a lot of unspoken thoughts on the last time I was in Leipzig. I didn't really think about it when we planned to make this trip in the first place, but the city has a lot of memories associated with it that made it hard to be there without brooding a lot of the time. For anyone to whom I might have appeared rather distant: sorry. That's much of the reason why I spent most of the weekend with either a beer or a Gluehwein in hand. Thank you for coming up, however, and making it a trip to (un)remember.






And to the source of the memories:
It's not the same city without you.

Wandertag

We're off to Leipzig today for the weekend! Oh boy!

I got up at 7 this morning with a plan: clean, pack, shower, and prepare a lesson before leaving for school at 10.45, so that I could teach at 11.30; school over by 2.45; rush to Hauptbahnhof to catch the train at 3.30... all of which would of course necessitate bringing my weekend things to school with me, since the train station sits right between school and home. This I did. Anna had given me one of those awesome hiking-type backpacks, with hip and shoulder straps and everything; it's the size of a small duffel, and donning it with its many pulleys and levers sort of turns you into a backpack-human hybrid. So, thus clad, I lumbered out the door and began the 1.5-mile walk to school.

Maybe a third of the way there, it starts raining. I unpack myself out of the contraption, dig out an umbrella, foist everything back on, and continue on my way, holding the umbrella so low over my head that I must have looked like some strange humpbacked animal with a flat, green canvas head. The rain picks up; the rain starts pouring. I navigate down the million stairs that are the "Treppenweg" down the hill from my house; and by the time I've gotten to the bottom, my pants are soaked up to the knee and the rain is bouncing back up from the pavement so that it feels like it's coming from all directions. The Haupstrasse is a cobblestoned muck. Slosh all the way to school... finally emerge from the storm into the entryway, and shake out my mostly ineffectual umbrella.

Boy, it's quiet here. Well, I suppose it is the middle of a class period. Shoes squeak all the way up the stairs to the teachers' lounge. Open the door. Lights off, quiet. "Hallo...?" Nobody. Go to secretary, where there is actually a light on. "Um... good morning... did I miss something? Where is everybody?"

I should point out that the secretary always seems exasperated with me. To my credit at least, this is the first really dumb thing I've done since I arrived here; but I've still always gotten the sense she rolls her eyes every time after I leave her office, even if the only reason I entered in the first place was to pick up paperwork. But this time it was real: "Today is Wandertag (hiking day). It is CLEARLY MARKED on that tiny bulletin board, underneath the other bulletin board, in the paper-and-bulletin-board-covered corner of the teachers' lounge. (Eyeroll.) Good day, Frau Eggers."

I was sorely tempted to shake my droplet-covered umbrella at her, but instead I turned around, buckled The Contraption back onto my rain-and-sweat-soaked back, and went back outside. The rain had stopped! In fact, the sun was bright and glittery. Very bright and glittery. Noonday sunlight was reflecting off wet surfaces everywhere, and I ended up stripping off every layer but my undershirt as I huffed and puffed my way back up the billion stairs and the uphill march home.

Wandertag, indeed!

In the cold November rain

Well hey again, Ye Olde Interweb Worlde! Gosh, long time no post... sorry 'bout that... even though there be much a-goin' on here, yarr. Alas, as Amy points out, you get all these ideas when you're nowhere near your computer; but then there appears to be some kind of inverse relationship between how much contact is currently being exerted upon your fingertips by your keyboard, and the quality & quantity of aforementioned thoughts sloshing around between your ears. So how about I just start somewhere, and shake some of these incoherent thoughts out onto the keyboard, and see what comes up.

Lessee... Anna's buddy Mark from the States visited last weekend, and we had a grand old time. He was actually in England for a friend's wedding, and so just hopped across the creek to come see us Teutons on the continent, in exchange for a promise by Anna to pour lots of beer down his throat. And so we did! Thursday night, we sat around at a cozy little Gaststaette somewhere on the Weinstrasse and got thoroughly toasted. Friday, we wandered around Heidelberg, and then concocted some Gluehwein -- hot mulled red wine, with orange juice and sugar and spices, mmm! -- to ward off the cold evening. (Anna, I will never forget The Face!!) Sunday, we had the honor of being the only guests at this funny little medieval-themed pub downtown, where we polished off two liters of honey mead (mmm, mead...), strawberry wine, and blueberry wine. There's been quite a bit of alcohol flowing these last few days! No wonder I'm putting on weight, even though we must walk like ten miles a day!

Speaking of warm beverages, though, it's amazing how fast it turned cold here! I mean, richtig *kalt*. (For us Arizonans, at least... ;) ) Yesterday, I wore some thigh-high socks that Shauna sent from Seattle under my jeans, an undershirt, a sweater, another heavier sweater on top, gloves, a scarf, a wool coat, knee-high leather boots... and was still a weeeee bit chilly. Didn't help that it's kind of a wet cold around here... and they say this is the warmest area of Germany. Yikes! Though Nico and Ivan both rang to report of snow in Muenchen, sigh. Alas, Anna and I were unable to hold up our end of the pact to come down and roll in it. Well, it'll probably be a long winter. :)

Which reminds me! My birthday is this Friday. It's strange to type that: "my" birthday. Weird. Let's try this again: *our* birthday is on Friday. :) And since any occasion is an excuse to travel and meet up with other friends here in Europe, we're all meeting up in Leipzig! Yay! A city close to me heart. :) Even Matt Johnson is flying in. I'm so excited to see him! We will take tons of pictures. But anyway, so I've booked a hostel for 8 for Friday and Saturday nights, and we'll all meet up Friday evening somewhere (maybe Auerbachskeller, though that's kind of an expensive restaurant) and then play, play, play until tottering home Sunday afternoon. I'm so happy that everybody is willing to spend the time, money, and effort to come join us... Anna, Conny, Nigel, Ivan, Nico, Matt, and probably Bert, too. Heck, if I'm going to turn 26, I'm going to do it in a city that I remember fondly as a place of happy irresponsibility. :)

Oh, yeah, and work is going great... I finally put together a specific schedule, and got all the "good" classes to teach for the rest of this semester! Mostly the somewhat older ones, whose English is good enough to hold more meaningful discussions, and with whom it therefore makes more sense to talk about cultural matters with a native speaker (yours truly). And the other teachers continue to be fun and friendly, and constantly invite me to go do stuff with them. We're even all planning on cooking Thanksgiving dinner together! And sometime this week I'm supposed to catch up with a bunch of them for drinks... yeah, more alcohol. Well, I *am* engaged in cultural studies, you know. ;)

Allrighty, jetzt an die Arbeit. Hugs to all!