30.11.07
a little post while in valencia
valencia is beautiful. even at the beginning of december. pictures of my little holiday to come hopefully next week. but, next weekend i will go to hamburg. so not a lot of time to do so. and i usually need a lot of time to do anything.
24.11.07
never ever again
so, i thought i should explain the situation that apparently made me so angry last saturday.
on the friday before, my german teacher, an elderly woman of 60 or so, invited me to a classical music concert in a nearby village for saturday afternoon. i said i was interested. she said she would call me later in the evening to discuss details. i thought that it would be a fairly low commitment. 1 or 2 hours in the afternoon and on to something more exciting, right? wrong.
my german teacher, i know her as Frau Schmidt-Siaw, is a retired teacher and what i would describe as a very sweet, typical old lady (early to bed, early to rise; that sort of thing). but she also loves to preach the wonders of healthy eating. telling me i'm not eating right and should be eating more raw fruits and vegetables seems to be one of the things that brings her great joy. in fact, i'd say that telling me that i'm not getting enough vitamins appears to be a german pastime. i've had too many people tell me that the reason i'm tired and have no energy is because i'm not getting enough vitamins for it to be just a coincidence. and all along i have thought it was the living in a different culture, working 40 hours a week in a manual labour type setting, and learning a language all at once. silly me.
anyways, Frau Schmidt-Siaw calls me in the evening around 7pm to go over the details for the concert tomorrow. these details were as follows: first of all we are to go to a worship service in the morning (i forgot to mention that she and her husband are Seventh Day Adventists, which i found that out rather interestingly), we will then have lunch at the church, the concert starts at 5pm, someone will be at my apartment at 8:30am to pick me up. then she asks me if this works for me.
...what? are you serious? i want to remind her i'm 24 and not retired. and i want to tell her i don't wake up before 10am on saturdays on principle. also, it has turned into a whole day affair. not the 2 hours, i had originally thought. but, did i really have the option of saying no to such a sweet old lady?
"sure that will be fine," i say, while thinking, "shit, Scheiße, merde." the phone call ends, and i'm begin to stomp around, cursing and saying: i don't wanna wake up at 8:30! just like a little child would.
the morning comes as expected. i am picked up, brought to the church service. greeted by many very friendly people. it's okay. lunch is okay. the food is provided by my teacher and her husband. melon, pineapple, rice and potatoes, cooked parsnips, fresh vegetables. nice but neither filling nor exciting in any way. only now, people can shut up because i have vitamins.
the only two young guys in the congregation offer to show me some sites in the area. which is good. we drove around in a fancy car. Volkswagon Phaeton (10 cylinder diesel, unlimited horse power).
finally, it's 5pm and the concert starts, and ends the same. by this time i'm ready to go home.
after standing around for an hour after the concert we finally leave. now here's where i learned some good lessons. one woman who is riding with us tells me how she found that the Adventists made sense for her. she asks me if Mennonites worship on saturday or sunday. i say sunday. oh, she says in a way similar to what i would expect if i told her i spent time in prison for murder. she tells me what she thinks about the whole "saturday sunday" issue and asks what i think. okay, here is where i learn to keep my mouth shut. trying to word it as diplomatically as possible, i say: God doesn't care. i don't think there is a worse thing to say in a car full of Adventist. but the Bible says...,she says. and then i make the second mistake. the Bible is a metaphor, i say. now i've done it. i am told i am a misguided youth and that i should ask the Holy Spirit to open me up to the Bible or something like that. we get to my teacher's house, where i am supposed to catch a ride with the woman who got me into this mess, only we must wait for one more person coming in another vehicle to go back to gießen. so I must sit and wait, being told to eat figs and nuts because there healthy and handed a bit of literature from my teachers husband.
"read it and ask the Holy Spirit!" i begin to think then that this whole day has all been an elaborate plan to convert me to Adventisms. i've been gone for 12 hours now. i wanna go home!
finally we leave. finally i get home. i light up a cigarette almost immediately, as if to spite them. but i don't think it's spite if they don't know about it.
then i write the angry post on my blog.
that was my saturday last weekend. and never ever again.
on the friday before, my german teacher, an elderly woman of 60 or so, invited me to a classical music concert in a nearby village for saturday afternoon. i said i was interested. she said she would call me later in the evening to discuss details. i thought that it would be a fairly low commitment. 1 or 2 hours in the afternoon and on to something more exciting, right? wrong.
my german teacher, i know her as Frau Schmidt-Siaw, is a retired teacher and what i would describe as a very sweet, typical old lady (early to bed, early to rise; that sort of thing). but she also loves to preach the wonders of healthy eating. telling me i'm not eating right and should be eating more raw fruits and vegetables seems to be one of the things that brings her great joy. in fact, i'd say that telling me that i'm not getting enough vitamins appears to be a german pastime. i've had too many people tell me that the reason i'm tired and have no energy is because i'm not getting enough vitamins for it to be just a coincidence. and all along i have thought it was the living in a different culture, working 40 hours a week in a manual labour type setting, and learning a language all at once. silly me.
anyways, Frau Schmidt-Siaw calls me in the evening around 7pm to go over the details for the concert tomorrow. these details were as follows: first of all we are to go to a worship service in the morning (i forgot to mention that she and her husband are Seventh Day Adventists, which i found that out rather interestingly), we will then have lunch at the church, the concert starts at 5pm, someone will be at my apartment at 8:30am to pick me up. then she asks me if this works for me.
...what? are you serious? i want to remind her i'm 24 and not retired. and i want to tell her i don't wake up before 10am on saturdays on principle. also, it has turned into a whole day affair. not the 2 hours, i had originally thought. but, did i really have the option of saying no to such a sweet old lady?
"sure that will be fine," i say, while thinking, "shit, Scheiße, merde." the phone call ends, and i'm begin to stomp around, cursing and saying: i don't wanna wake up at 8:30! just like a little child would.
the morning comes as expected. i am picked up, brought to the church service. greeted by many very friendly people. it's okay. lunch is okay. the food is provided by my teacher and her husband. melon, pineapple, rice and potatoes, cooked parsnips, fresh vegetables. nice but neither filling nor exciting in any way. only now, people can shut up because i have vitamins.
the only two young guys in the congregation offer to show me some sites in the area. which is good. we drove around in a fancy car. Volkswagon Phaeton (10 cylinder diesel, unlimited horse power).
finally, it's 5pm and the concert starts, and ends the same. by this time i'm ready to go home.
after standing around for an hour after the concert we finally leave. now here's where i learned some good lessons. one woman who is riding with us tells me how she found that the Adventists made sense for her. she asks me if Mennonites worship on saturday or sunday. i say sunday. oh, she says in a way similar to what i would expect if i told her i spent time in prison for murder. she tells me what she thinks about the whole "saturday sunday" issue and asks what i think. okay, here is where i learn to keep my mouth shut. trying to word it as diplomatically as possible, i say: God doesn't care. i don't think there is a worse thing to say in a car full of Adventist. but the Bible says...,she says. and then i make the second mistake. the Bible is a metaphor, i say. now i've done it. i am told i am a misguided youth and that i should ask the Holy Spirit to open me up to the Bible or something like that. we get to my teacher's house, where i am supposed to catch a ride with the woman who got me into this mess, only we must wait for one more person coming in another vehicle to go back to gießen. so I must sit and wait, being told to eat figs and nuts because there healthy and handed a bit of literature from my teachers husband.
"read it and ask the Holy Spirit!" i begin to think then that this whole day has all been an elaborate plan to convert me to Adventisms. i've been gone for 12 hours now. i wanna go home!
finally we leave. finally i get home. i light up a cigarette almost immediately, as if to spite them. but i don't think it's spite if they don't know about it.
then i write the angry post on my blog.
that was my saturday last weekend. and never ever again.
17.11.07
irritation is not a phase
okay. i'm not going through irritation phase. i'm going through irritation with certain individuals and inabilities to leave me to think something different (that God doesn't care if you worship on Saturday or Sunday). i don't want to go into it now. i'm too angry. i'll write something slanderous...maybe. i've always been too nice to go that far, or maybe i can just see the consequences of irrationality. or maybe i'm full of shit. either way, i homesick. i want to go to cousin's and drink a pitcher of Fort Garry Dark with friends. it's saturday night and i'm blogging. bollocks. i don't care if you think saying "bollocks" is stupid when you don't come from Britain.
14.11.07
so tired, but one small thing
sorry. i didn't blog about my work on sunday. i've been really tired. there is one thing that i would like to put down, though.
today i was driving on the A3, a main highway (autobahn), back to Gießen from picking up some donations. i saw the most beautiful thing i have seen since coming here. the north sea was nice and all, but this was unbelievable. i came to the crest of a hill, the sun was shining on the forest. what else was on the forest, but a layer of snow. i knew it had snowed, i had driven through it on the way to my destination. but, i had not seen anything quite like this. the greens and browns from the trees, and the thin layer of snow that had clung to the trees. the forest in the valley, the forest on the hills. i cursed myself for not having my camera, so i could pull over and take a picture. and also for driving, for it is not advantageous to take your eyes of the road for very long while driving on the autobahn. actually, pulling over just anywhere on the side of the highway is a stupid idea as well.
tschüss!
today i was driving on the A3, a main highway (autobahn), back to Gießen from picking up some donations. i saw the most beautiful thing i have seen since coming here. the north sea was nice and all, but this was unbelievable. i came to the crest of a hill, the sun was shining on the forest. what else was on the forest, but a layer of snow. i knew it had snowed, i had driven through it on the way to my destination. but, i had not seen anything quite like this. the greens and browns from the trees, and the thin layer of snow that had clung to the trees. the forest in the valley, the forest on the hills. i cursed myself for not having my camera, so i could pull over and take a picture. and also for driving, for it is not advantageous to take your eyes of the road for very long while driving on the autobahn. actually, pulling over just anywhere on the side of the highway is a stupid idea as well.
tschüss!
10.11.07
sitting in a coffeeshop and it's raining...again.
so it rains a lot in the good ol' deutschland come november. in the last two weeks, i believe, i've seen blue sky for a total of 8 hours and the actual sun even less. which causes me to wonder when i will begin to see signs of a declining mental state. growing up in the sunny prairies, i think my mental health is directly related to the amount of sun i get. which is why-even though the my funds are running a little low-i'm planning a trip to Valencia, Spain with some people that work for Campus Crusade for Christ. or rather, i'm tagging along. either way, it will hopefully be twenty degrees with lots and lots of sun. i want to come back with a sunburn. i want to be dried up like a raisin. well, that's actually kind of gross, but you get the idea.
until then, i will just have to pretend that coffee has lots of vitamin A and sit here in this coffeeshop and blog my heart out-which i have resolved to do more often, in case you missed the last post that i just posted seconds before starting this one. and this coffeeshop is pretty nice. pretty servers and good overpriced coffee to pay for the wireless internet. but the fact that it has free wi-fi makes it my favourite coffeeshop...hmm, i would have thought that the quality of the coffee would been the deciding factor. especially since i have been a coffee snob since, well, at least, since i worked in a coffee shop. but no, wi-fi.
anyways, perhaps a little update of my life since my last post, which was too long ago, i admit. i went to the Netherlands, saw Amsterdam, and the North Sea. and come to think of it, that was the last weekend i remember of having sun all weekend long. Amsterdam is beautiful, lots of canals and stuff. and the North Sea. absolutely wonderful. sandy beaches for miles. for i guy seeing the ocean for the first time, it was pretty spectacular.
that was the last trip i took. it was the forth weekend trip i had made in a row and i was a little tired after this last one. so i've been whiling my time here in wonderful Giessen. i haven't done much of excitement.
except i went to a dance club one night with Niguel, the other trainee, and three Hungarian ladies. drinking in the line, tequila shots in the club, dancing to suprisingly decent music till 3:30 in the morning. pretty fun. and then the following night, same ladies and a latino night in the basement of a Catholic community centre. Europeans really like latino music, and i can't dance latino, even if it was required in order to save a small animals life.
work has been intense and frutrating at times. i don't understand why my bosses do things the way they do. it seems that they always take the long way around and then complain about all the work that has to be done. i'm sure it can't be this simple, but they sure don't take the time to explain why they do things the way they do. which would make working so hard all the time so much easier. they also don't like to tell me what they want me to do more than 10 minutes in advance. which i have realized is the number one thing in a workplace that pisses me off. they have a plan for the week, but they don't like to tell it to me all at once. only a day at a time, five minutes at a time. i'm the type of guy, i've found, that likes to have my to do list for the day or week and then do the jobs at my pace as long as i get all of them done. GAiN does not operate like that, which drives me absolutely bonkers.
GAiN recently had their global conference here in Giessen, where i had the opportunity to get a good look at the work that they do, which is a lot. humanitarian aid, orphanages, well drilling, providing health personnel and supplies. they run the gambit and do so usually without trying to evangelize the people that they help. i say usually, because there are exceptions.
but i want to cover this subject tomorrow a long with my living in the office of an organization whose soul purpose is evangelisation. this has been overwhelming to say the least. and to say the most, it can be really fucking annoying. i am usually somewhere in the middle. but i am trying to understand and at the same time be understood. and like i said, i'll think about this and have something to write tomorrow. so...
bis morgen
until then, i will just have to pretend that coffee has lots of vitamin A and sit here in this coffeeshop and blog my heart out-which i have resolved to do more often, in case you missed the last post that i just posted seconds before starting this one. and this coffeeshop is pretty nice. pretty servers and good overpriced coffee to pay for the wireless internet. but the fact that it has free wi-fi makes it my favourite coffeeshop...hmm, i would have thought that the quality of the coffee would been the deciding factor. especially since i have been a coffee snob since, well, at least, since i worked in a coffee shop. but no, wi-fi.
anyways, perhaps a little update of my life since my last post, which was too long ago, i admit. i went to the Netherlands, saw Amsterdam, and the North Sea. and come to think of it, that was the last weekend i remember of having sun all weekend long. Amsterdam is beautiful, lots of canals and stuff. and the North Sea. absolutely wonderful. sandy beaches for miles. for i guy seeing the ocean for the first time, it was pretty spectacular.
that was the last trip i took. it was the forth weekend trip i had made in a row and i was a little tired after this last one. so i've been whiling my time here in wonderful Giessen. i haven't done much of excitement.
except i went to a dance club one night with Niguel, the other trainee, and three Hungarian ladies. drinking in the line, tequila shots in the club, dancing to suprisingly decent music till 3:30 in the morning. pretty fun. and then the following night, same ladies and a latino night in the basement of a Catholic community centre. Europeans really like latino music, and i can't dance latino, even if it was required in order to save a small animals life.
work has been intense and frutrating at times. i don't understand why my bosses do things the way they do. it seems that they always take the long way around and then complain about all the work that has to be done. i'm sure it can't be this simple, but they sure don't take the time to explain why they do things the way they do. which would make working so hard all the time so much easier. they also don't like to tell me what they want me to do more than 10 minutes in advance. which i have realized is the number one thing in a workplace that pisses me off. they have a plan for the week, but they don't like to tell it to me all at once. only a day at a time, five minutes at a time. i'm the type of guy, i've found, that likes to have my to do list for the day or week and then do the jobs at my pace as long as i get all of them done. GAiN does not operate like that, which drives me absolutely bonkers.
GAiN recently had their global conference here in Giessen, where i had the opportunity to get a good look at the work that they do, which is a lot. humanitarian aid, orphanages, well drilling, providing health personnel and supplies. they run the gambit and do so usually without trying to evangelize the people that they help. i say usually, because there are exceptions.
but i want to cover this subject tomorrow a long with my living in the office of an organization whose soul purpose is evangelisation. this has been overwhelming to say the least. and to say the most, it can be really fucking annoying. i am usually somewhere in the middle. but i am trying to understand and at the same time be understood. and like i said, i'll think about this and have something to write tomorrow. so...
bis morgen
sorry i haven't posted in a while
okay, my bad. i realize now, after seeing people posting comments, that people are reading this little piece of the great web universe. i'll make it a mid-november resolution to blog more, send less emails.
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