Well, I could start this post by saying that I have been really busy these past six weeks, unable to find time to write something because I have been on holiday, or too occupied with work, or something along those lines.
But that wouldn't be truthful; I am not working currently, and the vacation destinations (at least in Bryan terms, where vacation typically means family visit) are a little bit out of reach for obvious reasons.
On the other hand, the lack of posts is not due to lack of material, either. My father remarked the other week that he was starting to get tired of hosting the weekly virtual happy hour with his friends, on account that there was nothing new to talk about. I understood his point, but also was threw out conversation topics to him, suggesting that there is a TON of stuff to talk about right now.
Then I realized what the issue was: motivation was missing. He simply didn't feel like hosting the gathering. For the quick language lesson, er hat keinen Bock, er hat keine Lust, el no tiene ganas de charlar...
It's been kind of the same for me. This is not the first time (and I know it won't be the last) that I have struggled with getting the motivation flowing in sync with the subject material. For me, I tend to want to have something a little humorous to discuss in the piece. This is usually pretty easy for me, as there is something always happening that strikes me as funny. Here, I can use funny as "ha ha funny" or funny, as in "weird as shit." Both instances provide suitable material, and it can be a little bonus when the incident involves both.
So, the last six weeks have been filled with little ups and downs, moments of flat out bust a gut laughter, along with a few times of melancholic reflection.
Fortunately, I do keep a Tagebuch, so am always ready once the urge to write a blogpost resurfaces.
And this morning, the urge returned, and if anything, it serves as a nice alternative to searching for a job.
July has always been sort of a so-so month for me. There is usually no football going on (except for those years when the Euros or World Cup are held), and things are just generally pretty slow. Despite that, we have a lot of family birthdays in the month. This year, my brother-in-law celebrated his birthday, then received his gift of my sister returning to Spain a couple of days later. A week after her return, my nephew turned 18.
As happy as I am that my sister and her family are finally back together in Spain, I recognize the emotions that are attached to this event. After five years of living stateside, my sister and family have once again left their Texas home. The five years passed quickly, and so many things happened during that time. I was particularly attentive to my father, who, depending on how you count, is going through another empty-nest experience. Meanwhile, my sister will have a lot of memories and experiences from the past five years that she will be reflecting on. I find this significant because of my own experience of moving abroad 15 years ago: I wanted so desperately to go, to get there, but when it came time for the goodbyes, that was tricky. And, while I know I made the right decision for me to leave the states and relocate, there is not a single day that passes where I don't take a moment to think of all the fantastic friends, family and experiences I have from my home town. (queue the song by JJ)
In the middle of July, I had to adjust my daily routine. I still talk to my father almost daily, usually during my early afternoon (his early morning). However, my sister is suddenly back in the same time zone, and like myself, is unemployed. Thus, she tends to call me during her morning coffee session (just like my father), which is around 10am. Suddenly, my days were filling up with conversations lasting several hours.
I am a big family guy, so this extra chat time is a good thing. I am very grateful for it, especially since I know that someday I will be working again and less able to have a skype conversation in the middle of the day.
During the month, I had several friends who were able to visit their families, and even though I was a little envious that they had the opportunity to safely spend time with family, I was more happy that they were actually using that opportunity. I actually thought deeply about this while I was watering Nadja's plants, which is probably why I almost drowned one of them. I was thinking how cool it was that she was getting some time to hang out with her own sister.
As part of my standard routine right now, I do spend several hours a day looking at new job opportunities, applying for positions, and constantly assessing myself on the direction I want to take. This, too, is proving tricky, especially since summer is not particularly the most active time for the job market. Throw in a worldwide situation and things can appear a little bleak.
That being said, I am really pleased that I am sticking to my guns (excuse the expression) and remain on my plan: to find what is best for ME. Some days can be busier than others on the job activity front, and I have the good sense to recognize this. When it's just not "working" on a particular day (ie. no tengo ganas de buscar trabajo, or Ich habe keine Lust auf Arbeitsuchen), I find other ways to keep busy.
I continue to work on my German skills, finding new sources for various drills, comprehension practice, etc. This includes a youtube channel where the hosts interview people on the streets of Berlin, asking them various questions about life, society, you name it. It's quite interesting, and I am really enjoying it. Sometimes they have guest learners on the channel, non-Germans visiting Berlin, and they get involved in practicing the interviewing of people on the street. This means that I get a chance to listen to other non-native speakers, and I am recognizing that my accent is not nearly as bad as I thought it was. And my German is still coming along nicely. (Pause while some of you are thinking, "Hasn't he been there for 14 years now, and he's still talking about the slow progress on language learning?")
The answer is very simple: Yes, it is that fucking difficult to learn German.
Take this example. The other day I heard the expression "auf Wolke sieben," which is pretty close to the English expression "on cloud nine." However, why is it only cloud seven in German?
No clue.
Funny (both ha ha and strange) is that I caught the expression in both languages, during some film viewing. I tend to watch most everything with German subtitles, regardless of the broadcast language. Right in the middle of a dark, violent Scandanavian film, someone uttered the comment (they were trying to find a happy place), and the very next day I was watching, erm, "The Kissing Booth 2" and one of the characters (who obviously was already in their happy place) said the same thing.
Before we jump on the fact that Bryan keeps watching silly teen coming of age movies, where the characters have vintage cars, hefty allowances, live in houses where they can jump off their bedroom balcony into the swimming pool to play with their friends, get into ivy league colleges without blinking, and basically seem to have a pretty easy life, I would like to point out that I enjoy these films for their realistic portrayals of fantasy. It is so realistic.
The mom in said movie happens to be played by Molly Ringwald, and she is a favorite of mine from several well-known and well-loved films from our own teenage years. And if you want to make the six degrees of separation comparison (or something like it), watching that movie prompted me to spend the rest of the weekend listening to the Go-Go's. I had forgotten just how good that band was, and it was even more than just the fact that I was 12 years old when I first heard them, and when I started my crush on the lead singer. Go figure.
While we are on the topic of sharing dirty laundry, this is probably a good time to talk about the water flosser I purchased last week. My father, who is the least fortunate in our family when speaking of dental issues, purchased a flosser earlier in the year, and had been talking about how much it was helping him. I was at the dentist recently, and had an excellent check-up, but they suggested that I consider something similar to my routine.
Like most of the rest of the planet over the past six months, I, too, have had the urge to go on on-line shopping sprees to buy "stuff."
Thankfully, I have resisted most of the urges, partly because I am on a budget, and partly because I know I just don't need a lot of the stuff that seems cool. I was talking to a friend of mine in Köln a few weeks ago, and she mentioned that she was really pleased with her Roomba-type vacuum cleaner. This prompted me to at least look at the available selections, but in the end, I reminded myself that it would be best to wait until a full salary is coming in to my bank account again, and even then, it might beHOOVE me to really justify the expense, especially since my current hoover works just fine.
But, last Friday, I received my water flosser (marketed as a "spa experience in the mouth,") which was a treat for myself after the interview I had had the previous day, which went rather well. I charged it up the required amount of time, then filled the little tank, switched it on, and almost immediately shot myself in the eye with a burst of water.
My father had already mentioned that "it can be a bit messy," when using the product, but at the time I dismissed that as a generational thing. I almost selectively "forgot" the experiences I had had back as a teenager when I was using a similar product that I had received one Christmas. At that time, it was still pretty fun to play around, hosing water in whichever directive suited.
It took me a few minutes before I found the right way to use this new product, and each day I have been able to reduce the amount of water that gets all over the place (ie...not in mouth), and I believe it to be money well spent.
Besides looking for work and improving dental hygiene, I continue my routine of getting to know myself better, through music, meditation, study, ready, goofy movies, thought provoking cinema, and constant reflection.
For social activity, things are still a little limited, for obvious reasons. I miss getting to play with people with frequency, and it is a bit challenging when there are no colleagues to chat with, for equally obvious reasons.
Thankfully, things remain mostly under control in Germany, and people (for the most part) are following the rules. I might question how people are measuring their social distancing, but at least no one is really squawking about wearing a mask.
I am frequently standing outside the pub, visiting with friends, neighbors, and enjoying the time outdoors. That is one of the nice things about summer; everyone is happy to gather outside. For me personally, I have a limit to how many people I want to be around, but I am encouraged to see people out and about.
The pub scene is a big part of my life, always has been and I was remembering all the places I have considered to be "locals" (local pubs, that is) in various cities, and have wondered how they are coping with the current situation.
My little place here in Frankfurt is doing pretty well, and (again) for the most part, taking the right precautions. Maybe it is a little easier right now because no-one wants to be inside; we will worry about what happens come autumn a little later.
The drawback to spending time outside in the summer is the increase of various insects. It's funny (both ha-ha and strange) how the number of wasps that make pub visits varies from year to year. This year seems to have seen a sharp increase, likely related to the comparison to last summer, where there did not seem to be as many.
Four years ago, Chris and family trekked over for the month, and among all the wonderful experiences from that year, I also got to see how SC handled being harassed by wasps. SC had way of starting to wail, which would gradually turn into an impressive scream as the mental state went from "calm, cool, collected" to "flip right the hell out."
At the time when I first experienced this, I was reminded of a distant siren that got closer and closer as the vehicle neared. Then, when all calmness is nowhere to be found and you are in freak out mode, it's simply an explosion of sound and movement.
I am a huge huge fan of The Far Side, mainly because of my appreciation for absurdity. There was a cartoon (among thousands) that always made me crack up; the one where the guy who cleaned out the reptile room at the zoo (and had done for the past 40 years) one day realized that snakes gave him the heebie-jeebies.
The mere thought just makes me smile, and that's interesting especially as I am always having heebie-jeebies about snakes.
Similarly, Eddie Izzard tells a story of a bee keeper who one day, experiences a very similar feeling, one of freaking out from having all the bees around his head.
All of these things went through my mind as I was standing outside of the pub with my beer, looking cool in my sunglasses, watching some wasps flying around looking for people to bother. I was congratulating myself for staying calm when a wasp landed on my arm and stayed for a few more seconds than I would have liked.
Seconds later, the coolness factor took leave as my eyes opened widely in surprise as a wasp made a crash landing as it tried to go up my nostril. For a second it was stuck fast, and I decided to skip the "distant siren" portion of the wailing and proceed to flip right the fuck out.
I don't think any of the passing traffic stopped to appreciate the little dance I did, but I wasn't really concerned about that at the given moment. I had other things on my mind.
When I was in elementary school, I decided one day during lunch to put a couple of red hots up my nose, for no other reason than I was simply a stupid seven year old. For a brief moment, I could not get the piece of candy out of my nose, neither by blowing nor by trying to get my finger inside to remove the foreign object. (You would have thought that such ridiculous antics would have ceased after the time I stuck my finger in an electrical socket the previous year, but no, that wasn't the case.)
At any rate, before anything dramatic happened, I managed to get the red hot out of my nose, and order in the school cafeteria was restored.
With the wasp, it took slightly longer, mostly due to the mental distress. In all my life I have never had such an incident occur, and in my opinion, the only other place where a wasp could go and trigger the same reaction is right up the leg of my shorts into my boxers.
I felt violated and quite disturbed, until I realized that the wasp was probably just as surprised as I was.
But, like SC did so well four years ago, I minimized my movement (physical movement that is...my brain watched 2000 horror films in 3 seconds) and the wasp moved on to another victim.
A friend standing next to me did ask me about the noise I just made, since he had not ever heard me make it before. I elected not to answer the question, preferring to move on to another topic of conversation.
A couple of days later when the EXACT same thing happened, I did decide to explain the origin of my little (hey a wasp flew up my nose) noise. He knows SC, too, and could relate to the explanation.
In these times, I think it is important to appreciate the experiences, however funny they may seem.
Sure, I would prefer more experiences like "hey, we just won the FA Cup again!" as opposed to "hey, another wasp wants to see what Bryan's boxers look like" but you know, we have to take it as it comes. And there is also something waiting to happen, like burping while your mask is on after having consumed 5 beers. I actually lost consciousness when that happened the other day, if only for a second.
So despite the blazing heat we are having right now in Frankfurt, there are plenty of reasons to continue to enjoy the summer, even with the wasps.
keep the faith and stay safe
bryan
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