The feeling of overwhelming tiredness. It is a feeling of pressure. Pressure on my chest, eyelids. Like I am swimming deep under water. My body is about to get the bends. It bends in its seat. When I close my eyes, REM tries to pull my brain deep underneath the surface. I fight free, I open my encrusted eyelids. There are people around me. I am sitting in a train. Seats lined up against the walls. Across from me there is a bicycle--the back-light still glowing from the pedal generator. It must not have been there very long. A teenage boy wearing jeans, legs spread, slouched, with earphones, staring passively in my direction. A middle-aged woman holding a mirror, dabbing her eyes with smooth, waxy black eye-liner.
A subdued automated voice calls, "Nächster Halt. Großenhain Cottbuser Bahnhof. Ausstieg in Fahrtrichtung Rechts." I rise. I walk towards the door. I stand towards the direction indicated. The train screeches to a halt. A button on the door blinks green. I press it, the doors slide open with a hiss. The sky is greyish blue, the sun has not fully risen. It is 6:55 am. I woke up this morning at 4:53 in Dresden, and left the house at 5:40 to walk 10 minutes to the Neustadt train station. My train left at 6:07. It was still dark. Night. Pitch black.
On my way out of the train I notice hoards of teenagers filing into the mist. They are heading to the Gymnasium for Social Work, where most of them are working on completing a specialized Abitur in Social Work--Abitur is the exam that German students have to take if they want to go to college. I head beyond this Gymnasium to my own, Werner-von-Siemens. As I determinedly, yet absent-mindedly walk over the cobble-stoned side-walk, the church bells are ringing like they ring for Cinderella on her wedding day. Busses motor past down the one-way street, and eject hoards of school children out onto the sidewalks. Some go to the elementary school, some to the high schools. They all push past each other, mingle, the younger ones waddling with their over-sized, square backpacks full of book--like mini-sherpas on a flat Mount Everest.
The schools stands majestic. Three stories tall. An ancient-looking building with doors big enough for the giant in Jack and the Beanstock. I heave one door open. Inside students scramble up and down stairs, caught in their own worlds of popularity, puberty, presentation. I recognize a few and smile, "hello!" From speakers in the hallway, modern rock and pop songs bounce off the walls. This morning "one, twenty-one guns" is playing as I head to the teachers' room on the second floor. It opens with a key--a 10 thousand Euro key that I keep around my neck on a chain, not daring to take it off unless I am at home in Dresden.Somehow Germany has become my everyday life.
Foreignness and otherness has transformed into comfort and logic. At the Fulbright Welcome meeting last weekend in Frankfurt, there was a talk on "Reverse Culture Shock"--I took part. The phenomenon of culture shock is different for everyone. For me, it is a very gradual process of accustoming myself to a new system of acting and interacting. In Germany, it is not necessarily a system that I like more or less, it is just different. It is certainly different, but in a thousand tiny ways that sometimes catch you off your guard. No, there is no canned pumpkin or isopropol alcohol in the supermarket. Yes, there is a prominent group called the FKK (Freier Körper Kultur -- free body culture) that lobby to be able to walk around naked in (relatively) public places. No, the customer is not always first--companies do not even pretend to think that. Yes, people will directly tell you if you are doing something stupid.
How will "reverse culture shock" work in my personal case? By the end of the year, will I get a form of Stockholm syndrome, not wanting to re-enter the USA, defending my kidnapper, wanting to always stay by its side? Ok, Germany is not a kidnapper. I got a fellowship, for goodness sake. At the moment, I am feeling the first spurs of "Heimweh" (home-sickness), but they are accompanied by the desire for the opposite. Maybe I do want to stay here? Maybe I should study my masters for free at a German University? I have a while to decide whether I want to teach one more year--until February. I just handed in an internship application to Fulbright yesterday--it is for a three month internship starting in August. More to come! Thanks for reading...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
October 25th--Fall break report
Harvesting vegetables encapsulates some of the same wonder associated with birth. It is like magic (Zauberei)--a seed in the ground, a perfect mixture of chemicals, nutrients and genetic information which in the end lead to a magical, complicated life-form.
This morning I was on my haunches in a muddied field. A patched gray sky, strings of sun breaking through here and there, lighting up a single apple on a single tree, or making the metal on a passing train glisten for a couple seconds. It had rained before I arrived, and it was threatening to again. Diligently, I worked to wrestle the orange root vegetables free of their placenta of earth. First with a pitch-fork, loosening the gripping umbilical cords. Fork sliding in the ground, foot pressuring down, hands levering the handle, the heads emerged slowly. Crouched down, knees pressing against the earth, I could feel the damp coolness through my jeans.
The carrots were covered with layers of mud. I slid the soft, clay off of the fest, ringed flesh—searching for imperfections—a knick, a crack, a bite. Like a battled-field, the fields lay full with rejected fruits of the earth. The best, of all shapes and sizes, were broken from their roots and green leaves, placed in a large, green, plastic carton. Ultimately too heavy for my back and arms, I dragged the carton through the battlefield with a thousand hops and pulls, then loaded it onto the trailer of a bike, and headed back to the barn where Ina and I laid them out on a long metal table and sprayed them, brightening the color from rich brown clay, to bright orange.
Herleshausen is the closest thing I have to home in Germany. Instead of feeling as a guest, I feel completely integrated into the family structure, welcome and appreciated. I know where I belong and where I am needed--instead of feeling like a drain or a sponge, I feel like a gear in a machine. I do as much work as a farm worker and family member when visiting, and I am expected to do so much. I like this expectation.
Last summer I could not stand Ina and Manfred`s children, but they are now growing on me. They get older and become a little more respectful and understanding, and I grow older and become more tolerant and nostalgic. Further and further distance from childhood allows appreciation and understanding of the processes that children have to go through. Even last summer I always had the urge to “tell on” the children. “Malte did this, Melena did that!” my annoyance and anger was supposed to be pushed onto those with the responsibility.
Today I noticed that I was able to regulate behavior myself. For the most part, the kids do not really annoy me anymore. As Malte insisted on stealing a freshly-baked cookie out of the oven, not listening to my pleas for him to wait, I realized that all he wanted was attention. He took the cookie and said “ich bin ein böser Junge, oder?” (I am just a misbehaving boy, right?”) and then proceeded attempting to taunt me with his misbehavior: “Lee Ellen loooooook loook looooooook I am going to eat the cookie looooook.” Instead of looking at Malte, I just let him take the cookie, and then praised his brother, Linus, for helping me put the rest of the cookies on the cooling rack without taking one to eat for himself. Malte stopped his misbehavior.
The vacation is over, school starts again tomorrow. This vacation was amazing. It left me not only relaxed, but in glee and with unbelievable, lingering feelings of satisfaction with my life and the people in my life. I was met with so much hospitality, good conversation, wonderful views, increased understanding of people and Germany in general. More than one German has let me know with astonishment that I have seen more of Germany than they have, and most-likely most Germans. The more I travel, the more I see, the more I am interested in this country. Every mountain, every village, every corner whispers another story, another piece of a puzzle that I am attempting to arrange on big wooden tablet in my brain.
In Albaching, near Munich, my friend Barbara (a 48 year-old, psychology-major, and former Munich taxi-driver) said something like, “Lee Ellen, you live in East Germany. You are going to live there for an entire year. I have never done that and I will never do that. I am interested in the other side of the country, and in the people there, but I have already established a life here. You have experienced something of my own country which I will never experience, and which most west Germans will never experience.”
Onto other matters, I continue to wrap my emotions up the potential for “real” romance and love, while at the same time being overly rational and logical and not believing that it exists. This is a very strange push and pull. A friend recently commented on this behavior or state of thought—he thinks it is related to the fact that I am simply an adventurous person? I can philosophize further that I am seeking adventure and magic and attempting to create stories and live out things that I imagine or that I have been carrying with me from childhood (e.g. going to Europe). My post high-school life has already lead me down this path. So many opportunities have opened up, and continue to present themselves. Is it that I am overly lucky, or simply that I am willing to take risks and work hard for the non-standard things that I find important, and perhaps others are too afraid to take? At the moment, I could not imagine doing anything different. In terms of potential love in the future, my doubts stem from the very drive that keeps me on my life path—I am (as of yet) always thinking about how I can make my life better and longer and (almost) always willing to take risks and change and move if it means having a better life. Will this carry over into a relationship? Will I ever be satisfied with a single partner when I could dream about finding a better one? Do these perfect love stories only work for people who have concrete, non-flexible identities? Or people who change slowly, and change always with their partner? At the moment, the pull is between living in the present, and living for the future. It is always a delicate balance.
On November 1st, I will be moving into an apartment in Dresden-Neustadt. I will have two roommates, a German guy (25) and a non-German (I forget what nationality) girl (22?). The apartment is cozy, the roommates are nice, the location is great. The only issue are the hearing problems of my roommate (the guy)--certain small noises really hurt his ears. I am sure, however, that I will get used to this, and work around it over the next eight months. The other girl will be moving in at the same time as me. I find this good—I do not have to try to fit into an already existing system. Instead, we can work together to figure something out.
This morning I was on my haunches in a muddied field. A patched gray sky, strings of sun breaking through here and there, lighting up a single apple on a single tree, or making the metal on a passing train glisten for a couple seconds. It had rained before I arrived, and it was threatening to again. Diligently, I worked to wrestle the orange root vegetables free of their placenta of earth. First with a pitch-fork, loosening the gripping umbilical cords. Fork sliding in the ground, foot pressuring down, hands levering the handle, the heads emerged slowly. Crouched down, knees pressing against the earth, I could feel the damp coolness through my jeans.
The carrots were covered with layers of mud. I slid the soft, clay off of the fest, ringed flesh—searching for imperfections—a knick, a crack, a bite. Like a battled-field, the fields lay full with rejected fruits of the earth. The best, of all shapes and sizes, were broken from their roots and green leaves, placed in a large, green, plastic carton. Ultimately too heavy for my back and arms, I dragged the carton through the battlefield with a thousand hops and pulls, then loaded it onto the trailer of a bike, and headed back to the barn where Ina and I laid them out on a long metal table and sprayed them, brightening the color from rich brown clay, to bright orange.
Herleshausen is the closest thing I have to home in Germany. Instead of feeling as a guest, I feel completely integrated into the family structure, welcome and appreciated. I know where I belong and where I am needed--instead of feeling like a drain or a sponge, I feel like a gear in a machine. I do as much work as a farm worker and family member when visiting, and I am expected to do so much. I like this expectation.
Last summer I could not stand Ina and Manfred`s children, but they are now growing on me. They get older and become a little more respectful and understanding, and I grow older and become more tolerant and nostalgic. Further and further distance from childhood allows appreciation and understanding of the processes that children have to go through. Even last summer I always had the urge to “tell on” the children. “Malte did this, Melena did that!” my annoyance and anger was supposed to be pushed onto those with the responsibility.
Today I noticed that I was able to regulate behavior myself. For the most part, the kids do not really annoy me anymore. As Malte insisted on stealing a freshly-baked cookie out of the oven, not listening to my pleas for him to wait, I realized that all he wanted was attention. He took the cookie and said “ich bin ein böser Junge, oder?” (I am just a misbehaving boy, right?”) and then proceeded attempting to taunt me with his misbehavior: “Lee Ellen loooooook loook looooooook I am going to eat the cookie looooook.” Instead of looking at Malte, I just let him take the cookie, and then praised his brother, Linus, for helping me put the rest of the cookies on the cooling rack without taking one to eat for himself. Malte stopped his misbehavior.
The vacation is over, school starts again tomorrow. This vacation was amazing. It left me not only relaxed, but in glee and with unbelievable, lingering feelings of satisfaction with my life and the people in my life. I was met with so much hospitality, good conversation, wonderful views, increased understanding of people and Germany in general. More than one German has let me know with astonishment that I have seen more of Germany than they have, and most-likely most Germans. The more I travel, the more I see, the more I am interested in this country. Every mountain, every village, every corner whispers another story, another piece of a puzzle that I am attempting to arrange on big wooden tablet in my brain.
In Albaching, near Munich, my friend Barbara (a 48 year-old, psychology-major, and former Munich taxi-driver) said something like, “Lee Ellen, you live in East Germany. You are going to live there for an entire year. I have never done that and I will never do that. I am interested in the other side of the country, and in the people there, but I have already established a life here. You have experienced something of my own country which I will never experience, and which most west Germans will never experience.”
Onto other matters, I continue to wrap my emotions up the potential for “real” romance and love, while at the same time being overly rational and logical and not believing that it exists. This is a very strange push and pull. A friend recently commented on this behavior or state of thought—he thinks it is related to the fact that I am simply an adventurous person? I can philosophize further that I am seeking adventure and magic and attempting to create stories and live out things that I imagine or that I have been carrying with me from childhood (e.g. going to Europe). My post high-school life has already lead me down this path. So many opportunities have opened up, and continue to present themselves. Is it that I am overly lucky, or simply that I am willing to take risks and work hard for the non-standard things that I find important, and perhaps others are too afraid to take? At the moment, I could not imagine doing anything different. In terms of potential love in the future, my doubts stem from the very drive that keeps me on my life path—I am (as of yet) always thinking about how I can make my life better and longer and (almost) always willing to take risks and change and move if it means having a better life. Will this carry over into a relationship? Will I ever be satisfied with a single partner when I could dream about finding a better one? Do these perfect love stories only work for people who have concrete, non-flexible identities? Or people who change slowly, and change always with their partner? At the moment, the pull is between living in the present, and living for the future. It is always a delicate balance.
On November 1st, I will be moving into an apartment in Dresden-Neustadt. I will have two roommates, a German guy (25) and a non-German (I forget what nationality) girl (22?). The apartment is cozy, the roommates are nice, the location is great. The only issue are the hearing problems of my roommate (the guy)--certain small noises really hurt his ears. I am sure, however, that I will get used to this, and work around it over the next eight months. The other girl will be moving in at the same time as me. I find this good—I do not have to try to fit into an already existing system. Instead, we can work together to figure something out.
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