Winter in Zürich

Zürich is wonderful, I had an odd bit of homesickness that abated when I talked to Steve for a bit. It is really nice to be with family and to comprehend everything around me (finally! Speaking, however is always harder). I am getting a lot of language practice and it is feeling even more natural to speak German now. Swiss-German, though...

Oh God. I watched Paranoid Park last night and had pangs of longing for Portland. Beautifully shot film, good music selection, and even a fitting main character. The acting skills of the girl, Macy, left a great large 'something to be desired'. The non-actor thing did not work so well with her except for the part where she was on the bicycle (read it, send it, burn it... etc).

So, winter break is enjoyable. I have no internet at my Oma's, which leads to a mixture of productivity and boredom. We have been really active with the Bauers the past couples days. Eva looks great, not fully pregnant yet (4 months), and her house is gorgeous. Viola is always really smart and perceptive in social groups, that was interesting to observe her observing me, hah. It is strange because they are all my family but I was left feeling a bit isolated. Everyone talks all at once here and interrupts lovingly. I am used to the American 'everyone has a chance in the spotlight' mentality and almost extreme polite manner. I see so much of my Mom in them, and in myself, but this is my first time back in Swizterland where I am humbled and comforted by my American identity.

Class difficulty

Today was enjoyable; I got up earlier, printed out my reading for Thinking and Problem-solving at the university, then went to Deli Star, where I read for hours while slowly drinking a cappuccino. I had lunch and then class at the Institute, then came home, relaxed and read the rest of my psychology material before going to class.

Our theme today delt with machines and any potential cognitive ability they may have. We talked a lot about the tower of Hanoi, Kasparov and Deep Blue, and the Hobbits/Orcs (or Missionary/Cannibal) problem. I spoke up a little bit, but not too much... I do not really participate in that class very much, despite an overeager start, and all earlier assumptions I had about the other students were proved wrong. Yet I do listen very actively and I feel like I am learning from the material and lectures. This begs the question, however, of whether it is psychology or German that I am learning.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by it.

Thinking and Problem-solving is also not my particular area of interest within psychology, although I do find it intriguing. This combined with my inability to speak rapidly and fluently, my difficulty with immediately formulating questions about the text, the language barrier and the extent to which I have to concentrate to understand what others naturally understand, how quickly some students talk and lastly, the fact that they are all native speakers and in that way it is different from my other classes, not specially tailored to people who may not understand a word here and there, make this class challenging.

I still light up whenever there is an English term or quote, which is fairly often. When we were talking about Vygotsky, I had an advantage because of my passion for developmental psychology. Now, however, this is not the case.

Mal sehen.

Fleet Foxes

FLEET FOXES!

...is the name of the band I just saw tonight. I have really enjoyed listening to them ever since a Mr. Bob Boilen (NPR's All Songs Considered) introduced a couple songs and later a live concert.

This is a weird mental image, but their music makes me think of drinking hot chocolate and eating tofujerky while it snows out. It is something about the bizarre but beautiful collection of sensory stimulation. Some of their music is almost folky religious in the Cat Stevens or the 'Spirit in the Sky' sort of way.


The concert was so good! There were a number of Americans and also a running joke about JZ and Coldplay doing a collaboration. At one point the main singer called out to some loud Americans, "Are we... countrymen?" and it was quite hilarious. I was in the first row... well, human row. I could have either swatted or hugged the main singer. This was also my first concert where I could legally drink a beer! That allowance made waiting for the opening act much more enjoyable.

In the middle of the set, the main singer started strumming 'What Child Is This?' and the drummer laughed and said, "wow, poignant." I really love snarky English words, clever countrymen, and Seattle.

My last thought for the night: the fact that Germans adore indie music pleases me to no end.

Brief Note: Children, Creativity

I really miss playing with children while nannying or working in schools and camps. It just always feels so natural. With a child, you can be a dinosaur, and that is totally acceptable. Would you like to be a knight? An astronaut? How about a cat?

Why, of course that can be arranged! Here is your sword/space suit/tail.


Kids are so intelligent and they never really get the credit they deserve. They are so imaginative and real. When do we lose those abilities? When does creativity stop being innate and start being something to list under the skills section of your resumé?

Class [once again]

I am in a really great mood tonight; I am over-eager, ecstatic and experiencing the pure joy that comes only from academia and class participation. I spoke up so much in class today and every time the professor grinned widely - it was a reassuring grin that at once acknowledged how difficult it is for me to communicate what I really mean articulately in German and thanked me for participating - and I really grasped the theme of tonight's class (cognition in animals, specifically corvids and apes). Although I am sure the professor thinks I perked up because one of the articles was in English, - and that is in fact partly true - it was also that the subject matter was interesting. I was frustrated though, because parts of the powerpoint were still in English, and when we explained theories, we had to use the English terms.... I wanted to know the exact translation to use for the paper later.

At the end of the class, I finally worked up the courage to talk to the guy who had mentioned in the second class that he had worked with autistic children. I asked him about opportunities in Munich and he gave me the name of a large program that I can find out more about online and can find lots of work or internship opportunities.

Coffee and Reading

I absolutely believe that the feel and quality of a city is dependent on the people that inhabit it. Yet all of the cafes, shops, restaurants, festivals, landmarks and the public transportation place such an important role as well. Would Portland be the Portland we know without Powell's or the Hawthorne Bridge? It would still be incredible, true, but not in the same sense because of that difference. Everything and everyone works together in Portland - the city that, ahem... works.

I don't think I will ever find a cool Portland-esque cafe here, no matter how hard I try. Now I am starting to realize that that's ok. The chique European cafes with warm paint tones, Indian art mingled with Rothko prints and pricy drinks that come with amaretti will have to suffice.

There is still that lofty and ultimately insignificant goal of finding that cafe, and I think the coming months will provide a good time to quietly and unassumingly explore and perhaps actualize it. For now, however, I have fallen peacefully into a Monday routine. I wake up around 9 or 10am and putz for a while, eating müsli, showering, checking email and preparing lunch. Then I bike over to Deli Star, a cut corner cafe on the same street as the LC Institute. I order a capuccino - though I plan to branch out, naturally - and set to work reading the intense psychology reading. Ideally, I would have already finished the article and not have to, as is often the case, print it out hurriedly at the university copy shop that morning.

At 1:20 I bike the half a block from the cafe to the Institute, which is housed in a beautiful old apartment building covered in ivy. By that time my mood is glorious and I am oh-so-thrilled to speak to people rather than read small text and examine graphs in German. This routine is a lot like my Ugly Mug [cafe] days in Sellwood during the year, and right now it is a welcome pattern. I just hope Munich does not become too routine for me and I adjust so much that I forget to explore. I doubt this will happen, though, as there are always interesting events and conversations to be experienced.

Photo Credit: wikipedia.org, manolotalks (Flickr)

Jubilance!!

So happy.

It was interesting to watch from overseas and in German. From midnight to 7:30 am I did nothing but watch, talk, hope, chew my nails, watch more, hope more and scream with glee periodically.


It certainly was an historic night.

I am proud right of the US right now and I feel comradery with my fellow citizens. This is a new and welcome feeling.

Election Day

My mind, body and soul are on the edge right now, racing, racing, racing. I think constantly of next Tuesday, when we will find out how the future of our country will be shaped. I am simultaneously filled with extreme sadness, anxiety and panic, and jubilation over the potentional outcome. By way of this harrowing example, I can now clearly see and understand how intermingled life and politics are.





This is not the first election that I have been physically and emotionally struck by. The depression that followed Bush's reelection was minimized by my uninvolvement in the political process due to age and being involved in only my immediate (at the time, high school) surroundings. Life for me then consisted of International Baccalaureatte courses, art, dance, theatre and friends.

My first voting experience was in my freshman year of college and it proved to be a complete disappointment. I was awkwardly registered at my brother's house in California and still had my California driver's license, although I had not lived in my former home state for a year and a half, spending a year in Arizona and then moving to Oregon for school. My ballot arrived later than it should have, as I tried to vote absentee, and even then the issues were not an immediate concern for me. Of course, I was all for funding schools and ensuring civil liberties (although that particular was fairly routine and did not have any striking issues), but California was no longer my state to lay claim to. I hadn't had a official (read: not under-the-table) job by that point and so I was not even paying taxes. I am fairly positive that my ballot arrived too late, and I was left disillusioned, wondering what good my voice could do and why I saw myself as involved in the process.

After settling in at my college, exploring Portland and getting a feel for the place, it started to feel like home. Home. That was a geo-emotional relationship I had not formed with a place since childhood. I became an Oregonian, I started to get informed about Portland politics and like, a many liberal arts college student, about domestic and international affairs. I was old enough to vote, had developed the interest and the passion for it, and now all I needed was an election to excercise my new-found citizenship and treasured status as an Oregon resident. I strongly believe that I needed to establish this sense of home in a regional sense before I could begin to consider myself or act in the interest of other Americans. I had a job and witnessed the way that taxes swallowed up a portion that appeared significantly large to me, a low-earning college student. But then I saw the measures and the individuals, schools and small businesses behind those measures, and my tax contribution, as well as my opportunity to have a voice in how those taxes were spread out, made it all matter.

When Sam Adams and Sho Dozono went head-to-head earlier this year, I was watching eagerly from the sidelines. I was a Portlander, through and through, and this was my election just as much as it was any other Multnomah County resident's. I developed what was to be called a "political cry" which I will readily admit to be the epitome of cheesiness. Think JFK kissing babies as onlookers sob... Only not that bad. I watched Sam Adams' campaign videos constantly and kept tabs on his website. I growled under my breath at "Sho Gets It. Sho Gets It Done." lawn signs. "What did that even mean?," I thought. What is that weird get 'er done mentality? I would much rather "Move Portland Forward," thank you very much. I looked at polls, read [alternative] weeklies keeping tabs on the campaign, and then... I voted.

I voted in the fantasic Oregon way using a ballot by mail. This system appeals to me on so many levels, as a voter can actively research and contemplate his/her outlook and the politician or measure involved. There is no standing in a little booth circling options nervously but rather a crucial thought process and frequent democratic debate. That is what voting looks like for me. That is how I believe it should function.

Seeing Sam Adams' victory made my heart swell with pride. "Look!," I though, "Look! He was successfull and I helped! I played a role in electing who I, and many others, felt was most fit for the job." Since then I have been convinced time and time again that I, and that we, the people of Portland, made the right choice. I frequently went to art openings and events at the city hall, where I saw Sam Adams (and subsequently got star-struck... each and every time) as well as in a quirky North Portland parade. Yes, he is absolutely right for the job.

The election that is now at hand, and in which I have already cast my absentee vote, is one that can implement change on a much, much, much grander scale. As liberals, we have faced numerous disappointments and realized some of our worst fears over the past eight years. Eight years. Think about that. I was twelve when George W. Bush came into office. My teenage years and begining of early adulthood have been claimed by that government. I do not want to be a disillusioned American, although I do find the gallows humor that many other liberals use to ease the pain of the situation rather hilarious in a soviet fashion.

So now, my thoughts are consumed with this mantra: "Please Obama. Yes, Obama. This nation needs Obama." I have voted, I have debated with others, and I have researched my views. Aside from offering time or money, what more is there to do?

Please Obama. Yes, Obama. This Nation needs Obama.

Reluctance to Speak

I had a really good day and participated in my Psychology course at the university by speaking up in discussion and talking to the professor after class. I got the impression that he really supports my taking the course as an international student and is eager to have me in the class to provide a slighlty different perspective. My current experience with intercultural communication and the reaction of the Germans I talk to is that no one expects me to be perfect - except for myself, due to unrealistic expectations - and that they are more interested in the content within my sentences. This, of course, is a relief, although I do wish I could articulte myself more clearly and professionally.

It is interesting to observe how the university system and class structure here work. I am so used to speaking up in class all the time and would do so more often here if the language barrier didn't exist. This reluctance to speak is something only around native German speakers, because at my LC courses, I always say things in class, which is maybe because I feel comfortable speaking in a familiar group that is composed of people who are also at the intermediate level in German.

I had a hard time realizing that although I am younger than all of the students in my class, I have had more semesters of college than many of them. What's more, I found it very weird and shocking how the students sometimes just stared dumbly at the professor when he asks a question. Yet there are a few really interesting people who always have commentary, and after the initial lag in discussion, people contribute insightful thoughts. I was surprised however, when the professor mentioned an experiment or theory with which the students were unfamiliar, and it made me realize what a good education I am getting in the US and how I take a lot of the things learned in my classes there for granted.


On another note, I had vegan sushi today, it was remarkably good. I think it was also raw... hah, different meaning when there is no fish involved. Two friends and I had a late lunch at Saf, a delicious vegan restaurant near Marienplatz. We all moaned with delight at the quality of food, sampled one another's dishes frequently and switched rapidly back and forth between English and German. I also rode my bike again for the first time in far too long. I often miss the freedom and quirkiness of the Portland bike and cafe culture.

Learning

We talked about autism today in my Thinking and Problem-Solving course, in terms of how autistic individuals, varying depending on where on the spectrum they may be, go about reasoning and solving problems. I was especially eager to see how autism is perceived by German university students, and really perked up when another student mentioned that he had worked with autistic children in the past. It was difficult to suppress an overzealous "Me too! Me too!" We also discussed how the thought process of an autistic individual is in fact deviant (with taxation, ability to find correlations), and then again, how we can't really know for sure, except through experiments that in the end are still flawed, because you can't access a person's inner thoughts.

Good news: I spoke up in class, and understood the highly complex text, and could really follow the conversation! My presentation is not until January 19th, and that gives me so much hope. The professor is really kind and is good at provoking the students, as we need much prodding to begin the discussion, but everyone is very humorous, intelligent and detail-oriented once they open up. The language barrier is definitely tangible, but it is not as much as a hinderance for me as I had feared. Many psychological terms are very similar in English and German and the methods are practically identical.

In my Contemporary Literature course we are reading Der Vorleser, and I am ridiculously enthused about it. The relationship between the two main characters is especially interesting, scandalous and racy, and the way the story is told - with small clues throughout that are so gratifying to notice - is very intellectual and also thrilling.

I am learning plenty outside of class too and having a lot of fun. It is so strange that I felt very "grown-up" before coming here and only just now am learning to truly let go and enjoy myself and the people around me more than ever before. I want to capture my happiness today and keep it forever, but I think it was just me feeling like myself again, and I think that is a pattern that will continue.

It is strange to make these important self-discoveries simultaneously and on a different continent. There is so much questioning, rejoicing in learning, and sometimes painful trial and error.

Maybe this is just what being 20 is?

If you will humor a little self-indulgence, I think a major reason behind why I am suddenly ridiculously happy is that I am feeling very intelligent for the first time since... probably high school. I always felt somewhat intelligent at Lewis & Clark, but now I have this opportunity to exercise my intellect (sounds lovely, hmm?) in a foreign language, and I am just surprised by how quickly the brain can interpret these new words and make sense of everything.

Zürich, Berlin

I just returned today from Zürich, Switzerland, where I was visiting my relatives during a short break before classes start. Last week, the entire group was in Berlin, and this was incredible. It feels like many other big cities, but all over you can feel the presence of history. For example, in front of many of the houses, there are golden bricks in the ground with the names of Jews who lived there and were sent to concentration camps during WWII. There is also a huge gap between two apartment buildings where a building that was destroyed in the war existed. On the side of the two remaining buildings, the names of the people are listed in the place where their homes once were.

It was also incredible to see remaining bits of the Wall, especially since I wrote my Internal Assessment senior year on art in East and West Berlin and the symbolic importance of the Berlin Wall in determining the divergent artistic styles. Aside from the historical significance, Berlin is also amazing for art, music, second hand shops, international and cheap cuisine, museums and public transportation. I kept saying, "ich könnte hier gerne wohnen" - I could happily live here.

I saw one opera [Bertolt Brecht, The Three Penny Opera], one play [in Spanish with German translation projected on the wall], and one musical [Linie 1 about the subway and East/West Berlin in the 1980s]/ Really good, cheap food exists all over in Berlin, as well as fancy cafes. I ate so many Döners (like gyros) from a stand near our hostel in Kreuzberg (formerly the American sector during the Cold War), as well as raspberries, carrots, almonds and couscous from a cute market on the corner.

So Berlin is amazing and I really want to return. It is nice to be in Munich, though, and it was wonderful to be in Zürich just recently, as it felt more like home than ever before because I can actually speak the language. It is so incredible to speak with my relatives in German. I feel like I get so much more out of the conversation and can really appreciate their company.

Also, in Munich I have really started to make a life for myself. There are so many people to connect with and I feel like I am waking up and discovering life like I never have before. It is weird, to think that you have a firm grip on who you are and what you want in life, and to then realize that you are nowhere near finished deciding. I see now that I do not have to plan everything in this hyper-linear fashion and that no one is making me do anything. When a person is so internally driven and does not question why s/he does something but instead feels that it is both necessary and the next obvious step (e.g. college), it goes somewhat unquestioned. It feels odd to be in the questioning space again.

Haus der Kunst

Yesterday I spent over two and a half hours one of Munich's modern art museums, Haus der Kunst. The atmosphere of the building is strange in that it was used by Hitler to display "proper" art. The classical style and notions of architectural purity can be seen in the massive doorways, Roman columns and marble floors. I find it to be simultaneously victorious and something staggering that on the very same walls that once held the art that Hitler held dear now display an enormous abstract painting Wassily Kandinsky, the artist whose style he considered degenerate, or a large screen projection of Indonesian Opera, a culture that Hitler would have found evolutionarily inferior.

I found most appealing exhibit to be the main collection, which had works dating from the late 1800s to 2007 and was called “Spuren des Geistigen.” This title can be translated in countless ways, although one possibility is “Vestiges of Spirit.” If this version does not suit you, “traces” or “tracks” are also applicable, and “geistig” can also refer to something that is mental or intellectual. But the title was taken from Kandinsky writing on the essence of art and the spiritual. The aforementioned Kandinsky painting was, of course, glorious, and the section with artwork that examined and celebrated the profanation of religious icons was also very interesting. The three artists I had not yet discovered yet whose work I connected with the most were:

Mary Wigman, dancer and choreographer

André Masson, painter

Isaac Abrams, painter

The information about the artwork and exhibition themes was very insightful and well written. I was so grateful to understand the German and found it amusing that was able to decode the title quickly when the placard was originally in French and translated underneath in German, as the French was similar to Spanish and often English, and the German I could typically decipher.

One of the installations in the main exhibit was very well done in that it looked quite simple but was in fact completely geometrically sound. There were hundreds, or perhaps one or two thousand small blue, black yellow or red wooden die spread about the floor in a circle. The most impressive and immediate point of observation was that the circle was a perfect sphere, except for a small section that flirted with the side of the wall. A longer appreciation then informed me that there were several clusters of die, all spreading out from one center point or the edge of the circle.

Robert Filliou, Eins. Un. One…

Upstairs in the Haus der Kunst held an exhibit called “Brilliantfeuerwerk” (Brilliant Fireworks) that has been advertised all over Munich. I found it partially innovative and partially unsettling, as pop art and serious 19th century oil paintings stood next to one another, silently yet aggressively mocking one another and pointing out artistic flaws. I feel that the way art is presented and arranged in a museum is crucial to the message that one can receive and any thoughts or conclusions that can be drawn. That said, “Brilliantfeuerwerk,” while trying to appreciate and rejoice in the fact that several disparate styles can be thrust together to enhance that stylistic gap, resulted in making me intrigued but nauseous. It was humorous, though, to see two shockingly huge Warhol prints illustrating his impression of Munich and of a German magazine. These were large even by Warhol standards, which I found absurd and impressive. Of course, the Munich one had the standard iconic images, with the Frauenkirche and beer mugs.

In the middle of the exhibit, between two rooms of art that had absolutely no stylistic or chronological connection (though I suppose that was the point, of course), was a video that pieced together clips of phone conversations from American films ranging from the 1940s to the 1990s. This was very entertaining and clever; two characteristics that were probably enhanced by the fact that this work made complete sense alone and had a sense of coherency.

The last exhibit I saw was “Opera Jawa,” which displayed artifacts and photos from Java, Indonesia, as well as a film of an elaborate and beautiful opera created by performers in Java. The end product was fascinating, because the closest musical and theatrical comparison I could make was with some of the more tasteful Bollywood films. But this was so different and so much its own thing. The singing was lovely and the addition of German subtitles gave the opera the feeling of an intense bicultural immersion. The dancing, which I saw as somewhat similar to Cambodian dance as far as wrist and hand movements, was both aggressive and delicate and the themes were, while not universally applicable, still very easy to understand and relate to.

So, Haus der Kunst is definitely recommended if you ever find yourself in Munich and are looking for a remarkable, thought-provoking and exhausting experience.

Acclimaton

Tuesday is my first day of class here, but presently I am enjoying my vast amount of free time. The start of classes was always a ridiculous time. Jenifer was saying a week ago how it was really overwhelming to have to see so many people all at once, and I definitely agree. I became used to seeing one person at a time and talking to a lot of different people on the phone during the second half of the summer, and now it is a bit crazy to make conversation with eight people at a time.

Today Emily came over in the morning (she slept through the night when we kept ringing her bell!) and we talked for a long time. Then we went outdoors and picnicked on the grass, where we met up with almost everyone from the program including another LC student who just got in today. It's funny how the lawn is our meeting place. People kept passing by and the conversation was always lively. We all headed off to get bicycles at the assistant program coordinatorLenka's left by last year's students. It stayed very polite, even though we were silently preparing to fight one another for a bike. I got a great blue one with a light and cargo rack. I am quite smitten already. It just needs some air in the tires, but it is great to ride. It even came with a lock!

There are so many bikes here, it is absurd and glorious. I feel like a child thrilled by how new the world is and how full of beauty. I am constantly and continuously impressed by the amount and the ease in which everyone rides. All the sidewalks have a Fußgängerzone for pedestrians and a bike path separate from the street. I will have to photograph one of the bike shelters; it looks a bit like from what I have seen of Amsterdam. Also, crime is really not an issue here, and I was shocked to see how many people don't even lock up their bikes. When they do, it's with a cable lock and only around the frame or wheel. People really trust one another, it appears. This is an assumption, true, but it's accuracy is evident in how everything is based on the honor system, from marking when you use the laundry machine to putting change in a slot for a newspaper that is not locked up at all.

After getting my bike, Emily and I walked all around and made a large tour of the Englischer Garten, which is rapidly becoming my favorite place. Imagine a combination of Forest Park and the Park blocks but entirely flat and fifteen times larger. It's remarkable, and there are so many dogs, bikes and friendly people strolling along. There is a very fast moving large creek that I believe connects with the Isar river, and Emily and I sat here for a while, talking about life. We spoke entirely in German, and this was simultaneously helpful, enjoyable and exhausting. It is great to know that you are far better at communicating in a foreign language than you think. We met up with everyone again after returning to Stusta (Studentenstadt, the living area) and continued speaking in German. I am eager to speak only German but also realize that I have to sacrifice many jokes and words that I cannot translate.

München

I always write emails to people and realize that what I said is the same as what I would post:

Munich is amazing, amazing, amazing. Pardon my redunancy, but there is no proper way to describe it. It feels a lot like Portland, actually, only much flatter. It's as if all the hilliness was saved for the mountains. Bärbel (my conversation leader from German 101 and 102 freshman year) picked us up from the airport, and she is working for the Munich Program! It's great to see a familiar face.


I have been spending a lot of time with Nico, Carin, Rebecca and Bryce walking around the Englische Garten, some shops and this beautiful old cemetary. It was very nice to have a picnic in the sun and talk about everything we are looking forward to and nervous about. We allowed ourselves to speak English for now so that we can catch up on all that happened during the summer. There is a great little bar and restaurant right nearby that we checked out last night. I am working on my Swiss accent and enjoying the sense of comradery that comes with a program like this.

Thoughts on Leaving

I spent the evening and then night at Lewis & Clark yesterday, in Jenifer and Azucena's apartment, and it was good to see Dante, Heather, Jenifer, Rose, Calli, Mara, Andrew Yip, Azucena and even Chiaki (a student from Waseda University in Japan, who I haven't seen for a year and a half) again. We talked for hours and watched Sweeney Todd, a most peculiar film. Chiaki and I talked for a long time into the night while drinking tea and eating homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. She has one more semester of school in Japan and in April she will start working for a company there. This her last vacation as a student, she had said.

Biking back to Sellwood through the cemetary was a bit emotionally-charged with self-reflection and pondering my departure. I really will miss these people, this school, this city. I wrote down all my favorite places (mostly in SE) for Jenifer to explore, but it kills me knowing that I will not visit them for a year. But a city is wonderful because of the people that inhabit it, and what is worse than missing those places is missing the friends and strangers that make Portland home. I will not talk with fellow patrons of Half & Half or the PSU Farmers' Market. I will not laugh and converse in my native language with other bus-riders or bikers at a bizarre happening that we jointly witness.

I feel like I should add some sort of statement implying closure here, but the truth is that I am still so deeply entrenched in the process of developing my plans, my identity and exploring all options. I can say though, that it often feels as if all of my life has led up to this point and I am building on who I already am, adjusting myself in ways that will ensure greater happiness (this of course is the American dream - being happy) and help me grow in love, academics, travels and other adventures.

[Image credit: Amber Case, 2006]

Leaving a great job

I wrote this on Friday, the end of work for the summer:

Today was the last day of ACAP, and I can't help but feel a bit sad. These children were the focus of all my energy and effort for the past several weeks. I shared all their small triumphs and empathized with each tantrum or minor tragedy, whether it was the loss of a toy soldier or a bloody knee. What am I to do with myself now? What do I devote myself to? Munich will provide an outlet and exhaust me again in the best possible way, but for the moment, I am terribly impatient. I did not know I would become so attached this time. Perhaps as I let go of A., I relied more on the affection of the children in my classroom. They were all so eager to be paid attention to, regardless of whether they were being instructed, redirected or adored. Now I am somewhat hollow; lacking in this respet. This year, maybe I needed ACAP almost as much as the kids needed me.

For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, I worked at a summer program for autistic children called ACAP in Portland, Oregon. There were two sites each with four classrooms: Older, Younger, Older High-Functioning and Younger High-Functioning. Our staff to student ratio was always 1:1, or on a crowded day, 1:2 with the more mellow kids. ACAP is a non-profit organization and only runs two months a year, but we provided a great deal of relief to parents who work year-round.

The way the classrooms worked was by including several teaching assistants and one main teacher per room. Every day we went on field trips in the community (swimming, Children’s Museum, the zoo) and had classroom time with both play and learning activities. I also work with neurotypical children outside of this program, and I find it hard enough to be outnumbered by children, and so the key part of ACAP is that the kids do get the complete attention of an adult and are encouraged to socialize with other children (both autistic children within the program and neurotypical ones in the community).

Swiss Bureaucracy

For the past several weeks, I have been going through the process of renewing my Swiss passport. This has proved more tedious and demanded that I jump through more loops than I had ever imagined practical. To the left is my rendition of the renewal application.

Happy August 1st!

Today is Swiss National Day!



(photo of Zürich)

Now if only renewing my Swiss passport was as easy as celebrating this day...

Summer Reading List

Since I miss the long-gone primary school days of required summer reading, I decided to make a list up for myself (this time based on my own interests rather than some educational board requirements):

• [X] The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil, Nikolai Gogol
• [X] The Areas of My Expertise, John Hodgman
• [X] A Granta Confessional, (anthology)
  
• [X] Moomin Volume 1, Tove Jansson
• [X] Moomin Volume 2, Tove Jansson
  
• [X] I Was Told There'd be Cake, Sloan Crosley
• [X] Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
• [X] One! Hundred! Demons!, Lynda Barry
• [X] Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen (read 1/2 of this book)
  
• [X] Put the Book Back on the Shelf: A Belle and Sebastian Anthology
• [X] The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan
• [X] Chicken with Plums, Marjane Satrapi
• [X] Embroderies, Marjane Satrapi
• [X] an absurd amount of zines!
  
• [X] Mome
• [X] Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Dan Savage
• [ ] The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, McSweeney's editors
  
• [X] Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category, edited by Dave Eggers, Keven Shay, Lee Epstein, John Warner, Suzanne Kleid
  
• [X] McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. Issue Number 13, edited by C. Ware
• [ ] New Haven, Daniel Clowes
• [ ] Beleiver Book of Writers Talking to Writers, edited by Vendela Vida (interesting name meaning...)
• [ ]The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, Christopher Hitchens
• [ ] The Autism Book, S. Jhoanna Robledo, Dawn Ham-Kucharski
• [X] Ghost World, Daniel Clowes
• [ ] Dicks and Deedees, Jamie Hernandez
• [X] Christina and Charles, Austin English

Earlier Ramblings

I found some musings written on the back of a receipt about a month ago:

There is something incredible about living in the city. I love the pace of life, cars, bikes and pedestrians. Although we may be criticized for misplaced values and unreachable goals, in the city one feels destined for something good, something entertaining and impressive. We try our best to be sophisticated, educated and trendy. We vote as consistently as conservatives, though at the opposite end of the spectrum. We look down on so-called "independent" politicians. Make up your damn mind, already.

We long to quote facts historical, socio-cultural or mathematical and not only sound, but also be profoundly intelligent. Eventually some of us settle for more traditional ways of living, yet others put a spin on this and come up with something entirely their own (although they arrive at it simultaneously with and in an identical way to others).

Life is good here, and we adore our brick buildings and farmers' markets that remind us of an earlier, separate time without cementing us in it.

A Summer Evening

This is an interesting process that I am late in beginning, and it feels as if in starting this blog I am somehow graduating from livejournal. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose.

This past weekend has been a glorious mini-vacation, although not without its complications. On Saturday, I went to the PSU Farmer's Market with my former boyfriend, bought a coffee, loaf of walnut bread, Gouda cheese and fresh organic blueberries. The picnic was nice, and it was good to do emotional reorganization. An unexpected change in plans - the end of a two year relationship that we had naïvely thought would last forever - has allowed me to reconnect with my nomadic, highly artistic self (although this is a pompous and idealistic statement) and this is the positive side.

I moved on to the Portland Art Museum on my own and was really impressed with Klaus Moje's glasswork, which is normally something that seems so seperate from the sculptures and oil paintings that are meant to be viewed in museums rather than sold. There were also several recent acquisitions that were intriguing and very well-done, such as the old etchings that illustrated original copies of Goethe's works and included the old German. In the evening I went to a concert put together by Hush Records with Laura Gibson, Loch Lommond and Nick Jaina. This was really remarkable and there was something about how the lighting and music went together that made it a spectacular performance for all of the musicians. It did help that all of Nick Jaina's band was very attractive and dapperly-dressed.

On Sunday I witnessed the Museum of Contemporary Craft's PDX Block Party, which was very fun and included some great galleries. Later I headed up to 23rd with a friend and enjoyed a latté while writing a letter and chatting about philosophical things. Afterwards we headed to Trader Joes for picnic materials (two picnics in one weekend, oh I am spoiled!) which included: black tea, naan, tomato basil hummus, dried mango and mochi. While eating at Couch Park, we listened to the audiobook version of John Hodgeman's The Areas of My Expertise. Overall, this weekend was really great and I felt insanely productive at work today.

Things can only get better from this point on. Munich is always on my mind.