More Stuff That's in My Apartment, Why I Spend Most of My Time in a Closet

So, the teachers at my school have turned out to be quite a musical bunch. They have a band, but sadly, already have a bass player who seems to have taken a liking to me. We bonded over the 4, yes 4, trips I had to take to the Auslaenderbehoerde (foreign persons office...?), which is where I needed to get my visa. Good one German civil servants. In any event, I mentioned to him that I was thinking of buying a cheap, used guitar just to mess around with while I'm here. Don't do that, he told me, we have extra guitars at the school. Tonight I met him there, and he has outfitted me with not only an acoustic guitar, but also a bass and an amp. None are exceptionally nice instruments, but more than adequate for my purposes. The bass is a Squire Jazz Bass, essentially a cheap rip off of my own bass...which is a more expensive, but still cheaper version of the Fender Jazz Bass. So, though its not quite as nice, it plays similarly, and I haven't played in a while, so it doesn't matter a whole lot. My apartment includes a walk in closet, but its next to the kitchen, on the opposite end of the apartment from my bedroom. I find this odd, and frankly a bit inconvenient. But its fairly big, and my internet signal is strongest there, so I've decided to put my instruments here with my computer. Its small, but cozy, all I need is a more comfortable chair. I've spent the last several hours rocking out, and now my hands hurt.
Last night I went to the indoor tennis facility with a bunch of dudes from the team here. It was a good time, and there was some solid tennis played. The surface there is carpet...which is very odd. On the one hand, it plays to my advantage because the ball doesn't bounce much, and since you're indoors you can absolutely smoke the ball (more like, bowl). But, its very difficult to run quickly on and change direction suddenly. I found myself stumbling and feeling even slower than I usually do. Oh well, it was fun, and I still beat up on a couple of the guys. Afterwards they all got naked and went for a steam/shower...I had "forgotten" a towel and flip flops, so didn't participate. I suppose next time they will expect me to join them. I'm not being homophobic...I actually don't particularly like saunas...or showering with 6 dudes. So we'll see.
I am now on my fall break for the next two weeks. This is nice...except that I don't really work enough to warrant having such a long vacation...oh wait...this is Europe, what am I thinking? Don't work a lot? Who cares? You deserve a vacation. I can't argue with that. I don't have any money...which could be a problem. Fulbright is taking their sweet old time kicking down that heady stipend, so I will have to wait a few days before I begin traveling. But now I have instruments to occupy me, so I feel substantially less bored. Between the tennis and the bass playing and the not getting laid, I'm feeling like I'm back in high school. It's almost refreshing. Almost.
Katy comes in a few weeks, so I am practicing good hygiene and house-keeping skills. This is very difficult for me, and frankly I don't see it keeping up. I am becoming quite the avid chef, however. Tonight, I made burgers. And fuck, were they delicious. Tomorrow, I am thinking about doing laundry. Something is happening, and I don't know if I like it. I do find myself listening to Wilco's "When You Wake Up Feeling Old" several times a day, and I don't think its just because its an awesome song. I want to go back to BC...and I want the Sox to come back and beat Tampa Bay so that they can lose to the Phillies and I can, for once, tell everyone to suck it (in a sports related situation).
That's all for now, I suppose I've rambled a bit. But, given that I'm not working next week and probably won't be embarking on any adventures for a few days, I'd bet my bottom dollar on another blog entry reeeeaaaall soon.

A New Apartment, Internet, a Hotplate

So apparently when my first landlady told me I could stay until November, she really meant that I could stay until...October. Last Wednesday she informed me that I was expected to be moved out on Saturday. Moving in this short a period of time is not a huge problem; I happen to like moving, and I find I do it frequently. Usually, however, I like to have, you know, some place to move into, before packing up and leaving. This not being the case of course, here in Zwonitz, where there are no apartments, and even if there were, they would not be furnished (and here, unfurnished means no sinks, no toilets, no kitchen). Luckily, the secretary at my school who had initially withdrawn her offer to take me as a tenant in the apartment above her house, invited me to move in after all. The apartment is nice, with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen/dining room area. There's a small TV with cable so in addition to Home Improvement, I can now watch CNN international, which is in English. I never thought I'd be so happy to see Wolf Blitzer's face. The apartment also has a hotplate. It's not quite like a middle school science lab hot plate (at least as I remember them), but rather an electric stove that you plug into the wall. So now I can cook elaborate feasts for myself. Tomorrow, I'm going to buy a big sack of potatoes. It's going to be awesome. But yeah, the best part is, there is internet here, at least kind of. I have to sit right by the window, and it comes in and out, so things like gchat don't work too well, but it's better than nothing.
The Phillies are incredible.
I am putting Moby Dick on hold because it's extremely boring. Today I read, and will probably soon finish reading, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It's pretty damn awesome. It makes use of all the stylistic things I liked about All The Pretty Horses without all the western horse jargon that I could really care less about. Also, post-apocalyptic shit really gets me doing. Marauding hordes, starvation, vast expanses of darkness and ash. Hell yeah.
That's all for now, go Phils.

Tennis/Home Improvement

It seems like things here go in cycles for me. I get pretty depressed sometimes...ok, all the time, because I'm so very alone. But I find it's the little things in life that can really make a difference. Profound, huh? This week, good fortune has found me. First, I discovered that Home Improvement is on every night at 7, back to back episodes no less. Cha-ching. It's in German, but this only makes it about 700% funnier. The title, in German, is "Hor Mal Wer Da Hammert." This translates to something along the lines of "Listen up, for he who is hammering there." I'm not sure who exaclty is hammering, but my guess is that any number of the show's characters could be "hammering" at any given time in various metaphorical or literal senses. As some of you know, this is one of my all time favorite shows. Watching it every day over dinner, its almost like I get to relive the glory of the "Al Borland Won the Lottery Party" which was, in my opinion, the crowning achievement of Mod 27. BUY YOUR MOTHER SOMETHING NICE AL!!! So there's one more hour out of the day where I don't have to sit on the floor feeling bitter.
The second piece of good fortune was that today I had the opportunity to play tennis. Apparently there is an adult league in this area, and Zwonitz's team had a solidly mediocre season last year, so they are looking for fresh talent; namely, lanky American ringers with monstrous serves and sick headband collections. So today I hit with the youngest guy on the team, who is also 22, and a pretty cool dude. The courts are all clay, which is somewhat problematic for me. It is not a surface well suited to my game, but it is an awful lot of fun to play on, what with the sliding all over the place and such. Of course, my relatively new and SICK Babolat tennis shoes are now looking pretty shoddy, caked in red clay (they really are sick shoes). But anyway, tennis is fun, and so now it looks like I'll be able to play on the team in the spring, and of course practice with them through the winter at a nearby indoor tennis facility. The 22 year old, Nico, also informs me that Zwonitz's nightlife is not so dead as one might assume. As boring as this town appears, all of the other towns in the area are ten times more boring, so that anyone of "going out" age comes here to party. Now, its not exactly Bourbon St. here, but there may just be an opportunity to pound some brews.
So, with these new developments, I feel marginally better about things. God damn do I love Home Improvement. Hoh huh huh hoh (this is my typed version of a Tim Allen grunt).
Now that's a MAN's blog entry.

General Updates

And so ends another weekend in Zwonitz. Its been a while since I posted a proper entry, and, really this is just a result of my general lack of activity. Last weekend I went to Dresden and met up with a couple of Fulbrighters who are stationed there (my jealousy is unbounded). It was a lot of fun, Dresden is a sweet city. You have the historic, touristy downtown area with the standard old buildings and churches that provides many a photo opportunity. There is also, as in most European cities, a sick river with sick bridges running through the city center. Along it are cafes, beer gardens, and walking paths with many fine areas to sit and read, which of course I took advantage of.

On the other side of the river is “Neustadt” which means “new city.” This is relatively bohemian and has a lot of clubs and bars and young hipsters out making the scene. My hostel was in this part of town, which is pretty awesome. There are hordes of punk rockers blocking the sidewalks for blocks at a time, drinking and carrying on. I like to pride myself on rarely feeling unsafe in “bad” neighborhoods, but these dudes were pretty intense, and made me not a little concerned for my well being. But I got my drink on and my—well, that’s about it actually.

The following week was pretty normal, I am actually teaching lessons now, which has been somewhat challenging but also pretty enjoyable. One teacher seems obsessed with my explaining the American system of measurement in comparison with the metric system, so I’ve done that a few times. I’ve also done a few lessons discussing the differences between British and American English, which is cool, but I worry might not be all that relevant for students who hardly know English to begin with. With my tenth grade class, I did a lesson about school violence and the idea of installing hidden cameras in schools. This class can actually read and speak, so we were able to have something of a discussion, which was cool. I think this is the first time I’ve had a job where I actually look forward to increased responsibility and work. Mostly because I’m bored, but also because I’m finding that I actually enjoy teaching.

I am still waiting on my first payment, so funds are a bit tight at the moment, and I didn’t have an opportunity to get out of town this weekend, which sucked. Friday was a holiday here, celebrating the reunification of Germany. So on Friday night there was a big bonfire on top of a mountain with a bar and a cover band playing American classic rock songs. I decided to check it out, and as I’m rocking out to a rollicking cover of “Sweet Home Alabama” (?), a group of my students approached me. I had had a few drinks, but was far from drunk—unlike my students. These were 9^th graders, and they were each toting backpacks full of beer. I was amused, of course, and it reminded me of my youth to some extent. I was concerned that perhaps I was in a bad situation, as surely an American school teacher cannot be drinking beers with a bunch of 14 year olds who are also drinking beers; but there were plenty of responsible-looking adults at the function who didn’t seem to notice that they were drinking, so I assume it was fine. One of them invited me to a party at his house on Saturday night, an invitation I of course declined. After a couple of beers, more kids started showing up, and some of them were actually pretty hammered, so I decided at that point that I should probably go. Hopefully I don’t get called to the principal’s office tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything wrong.

Other than that I’ve spent the weekend doing a whole lot of nothing. I’m reading Moby Dick, which is pretty good so far, and it’s a book I’ve always felt I should read, so that's cool. I finished Dostoevsky’s The Idiot last week, and was frankly disappointed. The first two hundred pages were great, but I was dismayed when there was no brutal murder, abject poverty, and drunken insanity. The one consumptive in the book is pretty weak, by Dostoevsky standards, all he does is bitch about his “death sentence” and he doesn’t seem to get any closer to dying. Ultimately, for its length, not a whole lot happens. It deals mainly with wealthy families and their beautiful daughters trying to find suitable husbands. The protagonist, the “idiot” from the title is pretty weak. His simplicity is supposed to make him a Christ-figure, but from my perspective, he didn’t do anything all that great. The back of the novel claims that his simplicity will lead to disaster for everyone involved—but there is little disaster. There are overly dramatic women and plenty of gasping, but nothing really catastrophic happens. Where is a scene parallel to the beating of the mare? Or to Marmeldov the drunk getting run over by a horse cart? These graphic and horrifying images are what make Dostoevsky awesome, and The Idiot seemed lacking greatly in that department.

So another week begins, which I’m thankful for. I will make a concerted effort to go somewhere next weekend, but where I do not know. I see the Phillies are doing well, which is very pleasing to me. I also see that BC beat NC State, which is nice, though we don’t even seem to be living up to our usual mediocrity and unfulfilled expectations this season. Alright friends, thanks for reading, send me emails, as you can see, I’m extremely bored and alone.