I'm Not Materialistic But...

...new things have arrived to enhance my life :-) First there was my birthday. A day of relaxation, followed by a night of fun fun fun. Yep, it was lovely to wake up and have lots of cards to open (thanks to everyone) and some presents too (thanks again!) It was a normal day really, spent doing very little, but me and Ragil did grace Cafe Ideal (my favourite Fulda haunt) with our presence in the afternoon. Then it was time to don our gladrags before heading out for one of the nicest meals I think I've ever had. Thanks Mama for covering the bill and Ragil for your delightful company :D After we had drunk a few glasses of rather good wine and stuffed ourselves silly we headed to a bar (the name of which I still don't know for sure) and met friends for a somewhat less sophisticated (but very fun) time. At first the bar was full, but our hoard soon scared most people off and before we knew it, we had the bar to ourselves. Pressies from friends, gemütliches Zusammensein, a ridiculous mixing of drinks (Prosecco and wine at meal, martini, beer, whisky and cocktails at the bar) and a jolly good time. The night ended with a visit to Zum Löwen and us strutting our stuff on the makeshift dancefloor (small area ohne tables and chairs). The next day my birthday was a distant memory and my head was sore...

So that was exciting. I am now 23 - older and definitely wiser. Ha, or maybe not.

Birthdays are definitely cause for excitement, but my excitement was by no means over. Just 4 days after mon anniversaire (see New Year's Resolution!) more joy occured. It was a day of new stuff. Firstly a German tradition needs to be explained, namely Sperrmüll day. On this day, Germans put all stuff that they no longer want on the street outside their houses. Fellow Germans are then invited to shift through the unwanted items and grab anything that takes their fancy (before the next person does). The remaining stuff is then taken away two days later. Anyway, since moving into my new place I have noticed a 'coffee table space' distinctly lacking a coffee table. Sperrmüll day seemed the perfect opportunity to get me one of those. Unfortunately I was either too slow, or no-one wanted rid of one decent enough for my room. No matter, I was determined to acquire a coffee table and so I thought I'd create my own. A few pieces of wood, a drill, some screws and a handy boyfriend later and I had the coffee table of my dreams. (see attached photos if you don't believe me!) As if gaining a brand new, original coffee table is not enough excitement for one day, shortly afterwards iBee's successor arrived. pBee is here and she is beautifully metallic and, perhaps more importantly, fully functional. Wohey! All is well in the world :-)

In Mourning

It is a sad sad day. iBee has died. She has been my constant companion since August 2003. She has been with me through my time in Bamberg, including accompanying me on trips to the States, Spain and Sardinia. I am indebted to her for help during my final year at Edinburgh and she has been my connection to Britain, my TV, my stereo, my dictionary, my notebook and my lifeline since being in Fulda. I will truly miss you iBee.
Here is a picture of iBee as I would like her to be remembered - chilling with two iBook friends (and Bec) in Fulda. (iBee is the one in the middle) R.I.P. iBee.


Don't worry too much about me though folks. The period of mourning has been short and sweet. Sadness has now been replaced by excitement and anticipation of iBee's successor (yet to be christened. Name and photo to follow).

Watching the English

Has my life taken a melancholy turn? Admittedly, my recent blog updates may be interpreted as evidence in favour of this supposition. I am, however, feeling fine and dandy and put the perhaps slightly more melancholy tone of my recent updates down to the fact that it is the holidays. Although being on holiday usually has a positive, uplifting affect on people, I instead see it as a lot of time in which to do very little. As I spend most of my days drifting in and out of thought, even when I am engaged in some other activity, it comes as little surprise that for me having large amounts of time and very little to do means that I spend lots of time philosophising about life, the universe and everything. My melancholy tone should in fact be interpreted as a philosophical one. I remain as happy and upbeat as ever, I am definitely in a transitionary phase, but I am rather enjoying my current 'soul searching' and 'life redefining'. So, as the aussies say, no worries. There's no need for Prozac just yet.

Anyway, here's some book talk...

As a lone English person in a small German town (there is one other Brit in Fulda, but as she is a middle-aged wife and mother we don't cross each others paths much), studying intercultural communication with a group of 20-somethings from every corner of the globe, Kate Fox's book Watching the English couldn't be more perfect for me. It is essentially an attempted analysis of the hidden rules of English behaviour; a description of how the English act and a quest to formulate a set of rules defining the behaviour of the English. The book appealed to me for multiple reasons ranging from the fact that it felt good to read something that can be described as 'vaguely relating to my studies', to Fox's enjoyable writing style and sense of humour (both of which are not too dissimilar to my own) , to the fact that as the only English person in my current setup is me, it is rather fascinating to read how my fellow people act and to analyse whether I am the same, especially when alienated from my natural habitat and surrounded by people from different cultures. I can confirm that in fact, Fox's claims about English behaviour ring very true with my own experiences back in England and that I also sub-consciously follow a large number of these rules. Until reading this book I thought it was just me that finds that socialising with people I don't know very well can often be a trial, that introductions and goodbyes are often somewhat embarrassingly stilted (and the communication that goes on inbetween is often no different), and who frequently invokes 'weather chat' to open conversations, or to fill awkward silences. According to Fox these are all phenomenons that affect English people, all examples that demonstrate what she calls our 'social dis-ease'. She also talks about English humour, claiming that it underlies everything we do and say: we rarely make an utterance without using irony or sarcasm and very little that we say can be taken literally at face value. I know full well that most things I say are said with an undercurrent of humour. I've never really considered before how people from other cultures react to this, to my lack of telling things straight without using any form of understatement, irony, sarcasm etc. It is unlikely that I am going to start speaking in a non-English manner, and stop invoking subtle humour at every opportunity, but I will certainly now be more aware when I do and will assess my counterpart's reactions accordingly. There is only one place where I found Fox's writing a bit off the mark; where she talks about class. According to Fox, class permeates everything within English society. I do not wish to argue this point, what I have issue with is more the fact that she takes certain aspects of peoples' lives and uses them to put them under a class heading (either working class, lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle class, or upper class). For example, according to Fox you can tell what class a person comes from by whether or not their car is dirty or by the contents of their gardens (to name but two examples). For some reason this class-giving reminded me somewhat of a very much more negative version of the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, which may be a good way of splitting people up into houses at Hogwarts, but which seems wholly unnecessary to do to the English population, especially in a book aiming to explain why the English behave in the manner they do. Apart from my slight quibble with the Fox's dealings with the class issue though, I found the book extremely enlightening, highly entertaining and, in a funny kind of way, inspiring (PhD in Anthropology here I come...)

This time it's personal

A new photo, a new layout, a new start? Well I am nearly 23, maybe it's time for me to start being me. To have a blog that I designed (rather than a standard template) and to have a photo that doesn't show me hiding behind the 'student beer thing'. My attitude to a lot of things has definitely been changing. I feel like I am maturing, although it is admittedly a slow process. Going out and getting wasted doesn't really appeal to me that much anymore. Although a quiet drink with a few mates, or a bit of a boogie once in a while is a lot of fun. I haven't renounced beer altogether. To be perfectly honest, I have a bottle of Beck's sat next to iBee as I'm writing this so I'm not claiming to be above drinking or anything. I just don't really want to get hungover anymore.

I've always seen my life as a process of me gaining knowledge and increasing what I know has always been a day to day motivation for me. I used to direct this towards mastering German. That was my driving force, from the age of 16 it gave me a focus at school and then through university. Now I am studying for a Masters in Germany and I am left feeling like this motivation doesn't really exist for me anymore. I have certainly not mastered the language. I still have a long way to go, I would be the first to admit that, but I have an A* in German at GCSE, an A at A-Level and a 2:1 degree in the subject from Edinburgh Uni. I am a DAAD scholarship holder and I am doing a post-graduate degree in Germany. Mastering the language can no longer be a force to drive me onwards. Where would I go? I need to find something else. At university my interest in German was coupled with philosophy. I have always thought a lot (often too much). Studying philosophy allowed me to indulge in this character trait. Since graduating from the subject I have stopped reading the heavy stuff. I will probably go back to it one day, but for now I am happy to apply what I learnt to everyday life, to my own thoughts, to things that I read and to experiences I encounter in the day to day. In Bamberg I emersed myself in politics, in hating the terrorist American government and the oppressive Israelis. I remain interested in world affairs, although my political focus has since been directed more towards Brussels than Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. I fell into my current degree. I wanted to return to Germany, studying seemed like a good option, European politics interested me, it seemed to make some kind of sense. Ironically it is the intercultural communication part of the ICEUS course that is stimulating my mind at the moment. I think it will be this that will dictate where my life next takes me. I still have vague hopes of one day being Dr Robinson (just in case there aren't already enough Doctors in the family...), maybe a PhD in anthropology or intercultural communication could be an option. The major decisions in my life always seem to be taken with an attitude of 'well, why not?'. I like to think of myself as a fatalist, a follower of the 'let fate decide' philosophy. If I end up doing a PhD in social sciences, it is likely to be the result of a decision made following this line of thinking. Life's too short to ponder over one's future. We've just got to live it right?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog. I'm not sure where I started. Like I said at the beginning; I think it is time to start just being me. All my blog entries up to this point have read like a diary for the masses. I suppose in a way that is what a blog is. But when I write, I find myself describing events rather than my feelings. I feel myself censoring the words that flow from my inner consciousness and I know that I am not writing half of what I should be writing. I have redesigned my blog according to what I like. I can now be proud of it because it is something of my own making. Now I need to tackle my entries. I want them to be a reflection of me, not a description of experiences that anyone could be having. This is my life. I find it insatiably interesting. I can sit and ponder it for hours on end and smile the whole time. I am going to try and do it justice in this blog. Maybe in the process I can make someone else smile too.

Ancient German Fire Engines and the Pilgrimage.

A new dawn, a new day here in Fulda. The seventh since my return. I will be the first to admit that not much as been achieved. I am still in the process of moving house and have stuff waiting to be sorted in both flats. My visions of not only reading all about EU law (and gaining a whole new understanding of it in the process) but also reading many novels, have been somewhat put on the slow-burner. I have managed to read one book since returning to Fulda - Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage. Definitely an interesting book and a nice accompaniment to my 'lets take it easy and do very little' attitude to my first week back in Fulda. I must admit though, despite enjoying the read, I remain somewhat sceptical of the contents. Some of the mind exercises seem intriguing and I think it would be interesting to give them a go, but some of the things he describes - the incident with the dog being a key example - remain a little beyond my perceived scope of reality. It could easily be a fictional novel he has written and in some ways, I think I read it as more of a novel than an autobiographical book. Anyway, next on my list is Watching the English - a book that will fit very nicely into my studies (intercultural communication) and that should prove pretty interesting for an English person living in a foreign culture, totally alienated from all other English folk. Hmm, we shall see if I agree with the author's observations about the English...

Other things of note before I prepare myself for another day of very little. Over the past few days me, Ragil and Firdavs have discovered that there is more to Fulda than we first thought, but ironically, part of this newly discovered bit of town feels so completely villagey that I feel really at home - birds, fields, no noise. It's really peaceful and not far away at all. There is absolutely nothing to do in this villagey part of town. The only thing we found was a peaceful (naturally) cemetary, but it is nice just to wander around. Whilst heading en-route to 'the village' and then continuing our walk we discovered further things of interest - most notably, the German Fire Engine Museum. I know! Pretty cool. Who'd have thought such an institution would be hidden in sleepy little Fulda?! It looked like they had shut up shop for the day (must have heard we were coming) but they had kindly left a tankesque German fire engine of old outside for Ragil and Firdavs to climb on and for me to admire from the ground level. There was also a fire ship standing in the middle of the car park. Hmm, yes. Suitably random... We also, eventually, found the 'lake' although it was totally frozen over. But nearby there's a reasonably large sports complex where we whiled away an hour or so watching football training and then borrowing a ball and showing them how it's done (ahem!). We got back and all felt utterly exhausted. Far too much physical exertion for one day...

Yes, today I plan to do some more packing/unpacking (depending on my location at the time) and then me and Ragil are going to head back to the village. I might make it to the library to get the book on EU law, but I might not. And lets face it, even if I do, I probably won't start reading it for another few days. Still, any day now I am going to wake up determined to achieve lots. I will let you know when it happens. But don't hold your breath...