So, this week's post has a bit of a Richard Scarry flavor, though Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm will unfortunately not be a part of the tales. However, two friends of mine, Bear and Zebra, despite their recent mishap in my washing machine, might make an appearance or two, at least in spirit.
Well, it has been a pretty action packed few weeks, albeit in a quiet sort of way. Without further ado, here comes the recap...
Bryan ist erkältet
Right at the end of April, I was sitting in the Düsseldorf office, and suddenly sneezed three times. "Shit, I am getting sick," I thought to myself. I haven't had a cold since early December, and have been best pleased at the long run of healthy times over the past few months.
I took the train home that evening, realizing that my throat was getting more and more scratchy, and I had a bad feeling I would be down and out for the weekend. Upon ariving home, I went straight to bed, and was a bit surprised early the next morning that I felt somewhat better. Perhaps I was going to be able to head this headcold off at the pass.
Wrong.
Back in the office for Friday took a bit out of me. By midafternoon, I was starting to feel more and more draggy. I certainly didn't look forward to the commute home, and my nose started to drip midway between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt.
Again, I went right to bed Friday evening, hoping to sleep the sickness away. Saturday was spent in bed, with only a quick trip to the market for kleenex and juice the only form of entertainment.
I was fortunate to have a fair amount of books at my disposal. Thus, I read and slept and blew my nose for two solid days.
By the following Monday, I did feel able to go back to the office. As the week wore on, I felt better and better, for which I was quite thankful; I had feared a relapse. At the end of the week, I wished my colleagues well and that I would see them in a few weeks.
Bryan nimmt Urlaub
To celebrate three months working for the new company, I elected to take a week's vacation. No, I certainly did not need to take days off, but it stands to be a pretty hectic summer workwise, and, assuming that I get through the probationary period of six months, there will not be as much time to take all of the holidays that come as part of my contract.
My plan was to get a few domestic things done around the house, take care of a little personal business, do my taxes, and basically relax.
The weather was fantastic, so I spent the majority of my time sitting reading on my balcony. Time very well spent, in my opinion.
Besuch beim Zahnarzt
I am one of those guys who sort of enjoys going to the dentist. Sure, it certainly helps that I have rarely had any problems with my teeth, even with the 12 year break I took during my 20s and early 30s, and the somewhat shorter break between a quick stateside dental visit a few years back until last May. My dentist in Frankfurt is quite nice, and last year's visit went very well.
Though I had had a lttle difficulty getting the appointment arranged (amazing what happens when you suddenly forget how to speak German to a receptionist at a medical office), I ultimately got it sorted for Tuesday afternoon during my vacation.
I was slightly anxious when I arrived a few minutes early for my appointment. Would my luck with my teeth ever run out?
The hygienist (die Hygienikerin, auf Deutsch) plopped me in the chair, took some x-rays, then started the cleaning process. As I sat there with my mouth wide open, filled with the little suction hose, allowing the woman to do her job, I started thinking about that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer went to the dentist and almost got attacked by the suction hose. Well, I was trying not to laugh out loud at the thought, so my legs started convulsing a bit, I ended up smiling a little (not so easy to do with all the gear in my mouth), and I almost started hyperventilating.
This must have happened once or twice to the hygienist before, because she really didn't blink an eye, thank goodness. I do think she thought I was a bit strange, but who doesn't?
At the end of the cleaning, the woman filled a little dual mouth-guard with some jellylike substance, shoved it in my mouth, told me to clamp down and hold it for three minutes, set a little kitchen timer on the cart in front of me, then left the room. Normally, I would hope that I would sit calmly and quietly for the duration.
Unfortunately, that was not the case.
I suddenly started thinking, "what if my cold suddenly comes back and I get totally congested and unable to breath from my nose?" I started breathing more rapidly through my nose to compensate (as if that would help), my legs started getting really wiggly, and I somewhoe managed to get a case of the giggles, all in this three minute time span.
With a tremendous amount of will power, I managed to get things under control just as the timer bell went off. The woman came back in, removed the mouth-guard, and told me to rinse out in the basin.
Well, I rinsed a bit, then spat the gunk out, which would have been ok except I missed the basin by a good 2 inches. "Oh that is fucking gross," I said to myself as I tried to scrape the yuck off my jeans, hoping it would not burn a hole in the dark denim.
"No food or drink for an hour. Have a nice day," said the dentist, who had come in to say goodbye. "See you next year!"
With very clean feeling teeth, I went off to a local bookstore and browsed for the better part of an hour, selecting a few German books to add to my library.
It is no secret that I enjoy reading, and I am thrilled to have a bit more time to open up a book. Though I tend to read mostly in English, with the occasional stab at a Spanish novel, I have realized that I need to improve my German, especially since my job currently requires more English than German. I cannot afford to let my language level slip, particularly since I am far from fluent anyway.
So, during the latter part of my holiday week, I opened up a little German crime novel, one that was designed for the language learner. I kind of laughed initially, as my pace of reading in English is alarmingly fast; with a German book, it is as if the world has stopped, as if I were losing a footrace with a snail.
I almost gave up after two pages, but took a break, then opened up the book again, using a bit more patience. I soon found that I was understanding everything, and was feeling pretty good about things. The story, while somewhat simple, had enough to keep me interested. Late one night while reading in bed, though, I started the final chapter, and was totally let down! The story itself was a bit of a murder mystery, and I was thinking, "OK, it is not a bad story," but it ended so abruptly that I was really irritated. It was as if the author spent the better part of a year writing everything but the conclusion, only to discover that in order to meet the publishing deadline he had only 5 minutes or so to bring the story to a close.
Fair enough, the book is intended for language learning (in one chapter I had to go through and identify all the adverbs, in another, all of the irregular verbs), so I comforted myself with the thought that so long as I keep this up, I will soon be able to venture into the adult section of the library.
The Most Expensive Vacation...Ever!
My relaxing week at home ended abruptly Thursday evening when I discovered a virus on my laptop. I called a friend of mine who had helped me with a similar problem previously, but shortly before he arrived, I went online using my work laptop to check my bank account, where I found two unusual transactions transferring money OUT of my account.
The previous Saturday, I had gone online to the same banking website, where something strange happened: a little window had popped up asking me to update my account, and, to make a long story short, I typed in the requested information, though in the back of my mind it seemed a bit dubious. However, after I updated the info, things continued as normal.
I checked my account each day, looking for any thing that seemed wrong, and Thursday evening (a couple of hours after I discovered the virus), I discovered the false transactions.
I consulted my friend, who had arrived to help clean up my PC. I phoned the bank, but unfortunately they were already closed for the day. As panic set in, I smoked a handful of cigarettes in a matter of minutes, then checked my banking paperwork for an afterhours telephone service number. I did find a number, which I called, and was told how to deactivate my online account, which I did immediately. I then gave him my telephone number with the understanding that someone from my bank would contact me on Friday with the next steps that would need to be taken.
As you can imagine, it was a bit hard to relax after that. However, knowing that nothing more could be done that evening, I concentrated on getting my laptop cleaned and operational again, with more or less a positive result.
Friday morning, I woke up (did I even sleep that night?) a bit of a nervous wreck. I sort of flopped about trying to calm myself down. Knowing that my little error from the previous Saturday had created this mess did not help my mood; I tend to know better than to be so foolish, or so I thought.
I waited the morning and afternoon anxiously for the phonecall, which never came. Finally, a little past 4pm, I phoned up the bank, cursing myself for waiting so long, and sure enough, got through to the answering service, who informed me that the bank were closed, and would reopen Monday morning. Fuck.
Expecting a lot from myself is something I have always suffered with. It is easy to find motiviation to psych one's self up, but in a blink of an eye, all of that can go away. I tried not to beat myself up too much, telling myself (with tremendous bitter sarcasm) that I had just single handedly spent the last week on the most expensive holiday I have ever taken. It was probably poor judgement on my part to watch the biopic "Control" dvd. While a great movie, it is not particularly the film to watch when you are going through a complete absence of self-confidence and esteem. Fucking good soundtrack, though...
At any rate, Monday morning I phoned my bank first thing, eventually found the right person to speak to, and explained the course of events. Upon the bank employee's suggestion, I then phoned the police and spent 15 minutes or so trying to explain what "phishing" is, but eventually got through to the right department. The policeman told me to go to my local station and file a statement, and yes, it would be ok to do that upon my return from Scotland. I thanked him, hung up the phone, then went to the airport.
This past week I met with my colleagues in Scotland, greatly enjoying the opportunitiy to work side by side with the team, which includes a fair amount of comical banter in the office. Though I certainly joke about in Germany, also, it can be particularly humorous with the Scots, and it really helped me put my little banking fiasco a bit behind me. As usual, though, I was very glad to get home on Friday evening.
Besuch bei der Polizei
Instead of jumping up early Saturday morning and heading to the local precinct, I lounged arond my flat, doing a fair amount of fuck all. Part of me was feeling a bit intimidated about having to go off and explain things to the Police, but I knew if I was to have any chance of recovering any of the funds taken from my account, I would have to get them involved.
The last time I was in a police station, I was an overnight guest, and that memory still regularly haunts me, even over 10 years later. But, after a long shower and several coffees, I walked the few minutes to the station, where I introduced myself and explained my plight.
The guy buzzed me into the quiet office and we sat down so he could type up my statement. This was kind of a new experience for me, since I have not concentrated my language learning time figuring out how to explain ocmplicated things like internet crime, etc. Fortunately, the guy was very patient, and I wonder how many times he has had to take a statement from a non-native speaker.
Once or twice I saw his mouth sort of twitch as I struggled to explain the step by step events from the moment I got phished to the moment I walked into his station. In my defense, I did a rather reasonable job explaining. However, I was acutely aware that I had never in my life learned police jargon (or bank jargon for that matter) so needless to say, the process took a couple of hours.
There was a brief interruption when someone came to the station claiming that their car had been stolen. The officer assisting me had to get up and tend to the newcomer, as the other police were out on patrol or whatever. Of course, at that moment the phone started ringing off the hook, presumably as more and more people who had just spent the last few hours enjoying beers in the sunshine were all feeling inclined to phone up the police for one reason or other. (As I indicated above, I am not a frequent visitor to the police, and I was not allowed to use the phone (save for one call) on my previous visit)
My attending officer was starting to get a bit wound up. I patiently sat at the desk as he explained to the person at the front desk that no, the car had not been stolen but instead towed away as it was parked in front of a fire hydrant. This did not sit well with the (possibly slightly drunk) carless man, who started to get a bit frisky himself. Fortunately, things calmed down, and a few minutes later, we were putting the finishing touches on my statement.
Thank goodness I had read a little German book earlier in the week, because he pushed the typewritten report across the desk for me to read and sign. I understood all of it, even though he had helped to correct my German grammar.
At the end of the session, I thanked him profusely for his patience and help, and sheepishly said no I would never do something so foolish again online.
Hopped up on new experiences and new vocab, I feel better prepared for the next exciting chapter. You see, the future is unwritten, as Pablo reminded me early this morning.
keep the faith
bryan
