hatin' on stuff

So today I was talking with my colleague, Conny, about our beloved eighth graders from the bowels of hell.  And she mentioned this book called "Generation Doof"  (laugh if you must, but the title of the book appropriately translates into "Generation Stupid") and how it has helped her comprehend the reasons for the twisted psychology behind these fourteen-year-old freaks.  Generation Stupid seems to revolve around the why kids generally seem to be getting dumber.  I explained that I was convinced that I had just missed being part of Generation Stupid.  Yeah, it might be a biased thing to say, since I would hate to admit that I was like these kids when I was in eighth grade, but I thought of some relevant points that indicate to me that I was indeed lucky enough to miss out on this blessed generation:

I didn't have a computer until I was almost 12, and didn't have the Internet until just before I turned 15.    This was pretty normal amongst my friends, too.  And I am convinced that it had huge consequences on how we grew up.  I was absolutely obsessed with reading for a solid 90 percent of my pre-adult life.  We were forced to use our imaginations for entertainment, forced to use phones to call each other and have conversations, forced to rely on primarily expressing ourselves in person instead of through a Myspace or Facebook page (AIM profiles eventually became our first mode of virtually representing ourselves, but again, that wasn't until junior high school at the earliest).  When computers did become more common in the household, they weren't like the archaic Apples from the elementary school computer lab (NUMBER MUNCHERS!), but they definitely weren't as pimped out as computers today.  We had some shitty games that were essentially computerized arcade games like Centipede and Asteroids (with the non-shitty exceptions of Oregon Trail and Dr. Brain) and when my parents finally caved in and got us the internet, social networking websites had barely emerged and most people had crappy little tripod sites and didn't tend to do as much, say, shopping online as today.  It was fascinating and yet strangely boring at the same time.  Fascinating that such a thing existed, boring because it still kind of sucked.

In any case, we still tended to be a little creative when it came to hanging out.  You could put little quotes and stuff in your AIM profile and hope that people you wanted to think you were cool would read it and confirm that they did indeed think you were cool.  I mean, most of my friends and I didn't even have cell phones until well into high school.  So no texting, no sir, actual verbal conversation was required.  What I'm trying to say is that I think that I missed being part of Generation Stupid by only a few crucial years.  These kids have had stuff like the Internet crammed down their throats since they were drinking from sippy cups and have had cell phones since they were, like, eight.  That's a lot of media exposure.  And when you think about the media currently and how it is painfully obvious that one can become famous and wealthy either by physically doing stupid things, actually being a complete idiot (reality TV, anyone?), or just being deemed spectacularly good-looking, it's no wonder that these kids are not in any way inclined to think deep thoughts.  They also seem to have crippling self-confidence issues, beyond those I've ever seen in younger people before.  I think it has something to do with the fact that they put so much effort into expressing themselves two ways:  the first, through crap like fashion and makeup and sneakers and the like, and the second, through stuff like Myspace and the German version of Facebook for high school kids.  They spend so much time constructing their virtual personalities that they completely forget to develop their actual personalities.  It's been months and I still feel like the eight grade are basically shells of people.  They are literally all monumentally mind-numbing.

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I am incredibly biased and, with my friends, just barely managed to escape from the insipid onslaught of Generation Stupid.  But I am not convinced that being so thoroughly dependent on technology from birth is at all a good thing.  

More on this later, I need to mull it over some more and write some sentences that are slightly more coherent.  I'm cracked out from lack of sleep, so sue me if I barely represent the degree in English that hangs askew in my parents' basement.

Fasching

On Friday we had a party for Fasching (aka Karneval/Carnival)!!  Here are some particularly fun pictures of the craziness (the police only had to come once):

Marcel and Lydia, the king and queen of chess

Anne and Timo

Me (genie) and Rix (tranny pirate)

The finest WG in Hamburg

3 things (well actually just two)

Today's agenda:

I.  How to speak

II. Movement

III. The powers of bigass headphones

I.  I've noticed something weird.  There are some students at school who quite literally have no language.  The situation is this:  they come from immigrant families and speak, for example, Russian at home.  But the rest of the time they speak German with their friends and in school.  The weird part?  They start forgetting Russian, because as teenagers they barely talk to their parents, and at the dinner table or in the house they don't tend to have lengthy discussions.  How was your day, when are you babysitting your sister, all topics that more or less get repeated rather often.  Then, they only know German through speaking it with friends and just through living in Germany, so often their German grammar is terrible and they don't know how to write, say, a formal academic essay about a book (and a lot of them don't have many books at home, either).  Needless to say, some of these kids have horrible, horrible English skills, because they can barely handle school in German as it is.  One girl barely speaks at all.  This concept blows my mind: literally having no language.  How do you express yourself at all?  How do you even form a complete identity?  What is happening inside the heads of these kids?  I'm dying to know.  Like I said, this completely throws my brain for a loop.

II.  I was talking to Beate and Sandra, two of my colleagues.  Beate asked me what I planned to do after I finish my work at the school and asked if I would go back to America.  I replied that I don't really want to go back just yet, that I have so much I want to see and do while I'm young and mobile and unsettled.  We started talking about why many Americans don't do that, why Americans seem to prefer not to travel extensively and often would rather stay put in one place, unlike Europeans, who seem to move around constantly (or at least travel regularly).  I started thinking and came up with these reasons:

1.  The US is massive and takes up half a continent, unlike Europe (imagine if every US state was an independent country?  How weird would that be?).  We've got Canada above us, where most of the people speak English, so if we need to move for a job within North America, we don't necessarily need any language other than English.  And since people don't usually go or move to Mexico for work reasons, we're essentially pretty isolated in Anglophone-land.  So the logic of many Americans is thus:  Why learn French when I live in the middle of Nebraska?  Europeans, on the other hand, often move to other countries for various periods of time, which makes being multi-lingual much more useful.

2.  This is my homestead theory.  I explained that, in the case of my family, nearly everyone lives in a thirty mile radius.  My mom lived down the street as a kid, and the land around her parents' house is essentially divided amongst her and her siblings.  So my parents built our house on a piece of land with a lot of family history attached to it.  Over the years, my parents have invested money and energy into our home, gradually adding things like gardens, a porch, shed, greenhouse, patio, et cetera.  When you've put so much into your home, you would, understandably, be less inclined to leave it.  In contrast, many Europeans live in urban areas with apartments and seem to be generally more mobile, since space and costs don't usually allow for big homes you envision yourself.  

So here's the homestead part:  I think part of the whole existence of America depended on this vision that your family settles a piece of land and that becomes yours.  You build your house and create your life there, and then your children inherit the land, and their children, and so on.  Your whole family's identity rests on this piece of land that you've cultivated, and you're essentially rooted there.  And so, in the history of America that's how our country grew, through people moving west and settling their little pie pieces and building their lives on that.  And I think that became part of the American psyche, the desire for rootedness and the way your identity becomes tied to your homestead.  Thus, less impulse to uproot and move and leave behind everything your family has created.  Yes, there might be whole other worlds out there, but when you live in the proverbial land of milk and honey, you could very likely think:  where could possibly have more to offer?

And of course you answer yourself with "nothing."  At least that's the thought process I imagine has shaped the general reluctance of many Americans to move to places far from home.  And if you can't bring yourself to move from Pennsylvania to, say, California, how would you ever handle moving to somewhere like Austria?

3.  The obvious emotions of fear and anxiety.  Throwing yourself into a foreign country when all you've ever known is rural America is perceived as not for the faint of heart.  In reality, it's easier than that, but many people seem to have a real fear of leaving behind everything they know for an unknown world.  But that's exactly why people need to travel:  you go to said unknown world and you realize that it isn't so different.  Different languages and cultures, yeah, but you gain a distinctly new understanding of humanity.  And the result is that you appreciate it more.  I would like to believe that this appreciation could help people learn how to do one apparently not-so-simple thing:  chill the hell out, man.

4.  Another smallish but obvious reason:  lack of opportunity (travel=money).  

All that said, I think I'm going to ponder this subject in more detail and maybe write a more coherent explanation.  But I wanted to get this down so I can at least have a reference point.

Anyway, Beate bets that I'll travel for six years or so and then go back to America for good.  We'll see if she's right.  I had to explain that the neatest thing about being in Hamburg is that every single day I learn something new or see something I haven't seen before.  It makes me thirsty to know what else I can stuff into my head.  And I think that means that I won't be satisfied being in tiny little Bath, PA forever.  Sorry, family.

Beate looked at me curiously when I said that I don't think of Hamburg as home.  No matter how much I travel, I still need a reference point that I can always go back to.  And, despite its sooty houses and gas stations and lack of public transportation, I'm gonna have to vote for Bath on that one.

Well, that was quite a load, so I'll save my music part for another day :)

Person B "enjoys" Person A

The funniest part of my otherwise long day:

The scene:  GK12, 6th lesson.  The kids are supposed have partners and write and perform dialogues.  The instructions:  Person A and Person B are two people who once went to language school together and are meeting each other again for the first time in ten years.  Write a dialogue for their encounter.

The students:  Dominic and Viktor

Their dialogue (performed enthusiastically):

Viktor: DAY-AMM, is that you, Person B?

Dominic:  Oh.  Hello, Person A.  It has been a long time since we enjoyed each other.

Viktor:  Wow, Person B, you look like the President!

Dominic:  Yes, I am quite well-dressed. 

Viktor:  You must make one thousand million dollars!

Dominic:  Not exactly... I am a lawyer.  What do you do?

Viktor:  I'm a professional PC gamer.

Dominic:  That's... nice.

Viktor:  Your wife must look like a PORN STAR!

Dominic:  No, she is intelligent and well-behaved.

Viktor:  Oh.

the philosophies of small children

Setting:  Hamburg-Othmarschen, tutoring Paul the Korean kid, age 9

Paul (looking up from his math problem):  What do you want to be?

Me:  You mean when I grow up?

Paul: Yeah.

Me (thinking):  I don't know.  I mean, I still don't know.

Paul:  You still don't know?

Me:  I want to be everything.

Paul:  You have to choose!

Me:  I don't want to...I want to be happy.

Paul:  Then you will be an artist?

Me:  Are artists happy?

Paul (pausing):  No.  They are unhappy.

Me:  Maybe I won't be one, then.  An artist.

Paul:  All people are unhappy.  I think.

Me:  Hm.  You might be right.

He reminds me of a postmodern Thomas Hobbes.

Familieneck Discussion

Time: Sunday, 25. February, about 10 pm

Place:  Familieneck, Hamburg-Ottensen

Julien:  I mean, skirts are incredibly impractical.  If all women would wear practical clothing, then they would stop worrying so much about being physically attractive and men would be forced to take their intelligence and personalities into consideration.

Thorsten:  But, didn't you just say that it's through choosing to be with women of one particular look that you yourself have gotten to know many different personalities?  You hit on these women...it doesn't usually work, but you consciously try...

Julien (pondering briefly):  Yes, but that doesn't mean I think skirts are practical.  For example, pants are much more logical to wear when climbing trees.

Me:  Yes, because I climb at least one tree every day in Hamburg.

(Thorsten bursts into snickers.  Julien, being French, completely misses the deadpan sarcasm)

Julien (completely serious):  Yes, so even though you argue that you like skirts and they provide pleasant air flow, you admit that you can't climb trees in them.  Thus impractical.

Me:  So Julien, what if you're walking down a nice little road and you see a cute girl in a poofy skirt crying because her kitten is stuck in a tree, like in those old cartoons.  What would you do, refuse to help her (which would afterwards make you her love you) because her choice of clothes isn't practical for climbing trees?

Julien (resolutely):  I might.

Me:  That's dumb!  What would you really do, say "NO, you moron, stop wearing these stupid skirts and DO IT YOURSELF," and then throw a stone or something at the kitten to knock it out of the tree and emphasize your point?

(Julien snickers)

Thorsten:  Or, he would say "Of course, you idiot girl," and plant a tree next to the kitten-tree and then they'd have to wait for it to grow so he could then rescue the kitten and show the girl the error of her ways.

Julien:  You people are sick.  Of course I would save the kitten.  And then get the girl.  The girl is still a priority, especially if she is hot.  Even if she's wearing the skirt.

Me:  So you see?  Skirts are pretty.

(Thorsten nods emphatically.  Julien grumbles and eats some peanuts from the little bowl at the table)

(fifteen minutes later, as we're leaving the pub)

Julien:  You're kind of smart for a girl.

(I pause, grin, and simulate a punch to his face)

Me: UPPERCUT TO THE CHIN!

Julien:  You know, you also have a pretty good sense of humor.  For a girl.

Me:  ...Yeah.  (pause) When I'm not stoning kittens.

(Julien bursts into laughter)

Julien:  That was beautiful.  Well done.

(gives me a hug)

Quick elaboration:

Julien=  Friend from Reunion Island, strong French accent, shock of curly hair poofing out, psychotic,  always has theories on everything that are simultaneously brilliant and preposterous

Thorsten= German friend who looks like Weird Al, guitar instructor, loves the English term "OCD", only drinks red wine and never drinks beer

There was also Thomas, but he generally sits and listens and giggles quietly, so he didn't really say much.

I dunno if this is humorous at all to you (it's probably not at all), but it was pretty great for an otherwise boring Sunday, so I wanted to write it down.  Becoming friends with Julien was actually a pretty big accomplishment, because when I first met him I thought he was out of his mind and he thought I was boring and probably stupid.  But now we're all friends and I get lots of satisfaction from making Thorsten laugh hysterically, because it's a big, booming laugh and anyone would feel glad to be the cause of it.  I like hanging out with them because I always need to use my brain a little in our conversations, something which I unfortunately feel I haven't been using to its capacity lately.  More and more often, I miss having to think.

continued!

Back to the mystery!

Before I moved into our little slice of heaven at the end of November, my flatmates had a birthday party for Ricky.  Attempting to be good neighbors, Anna and Ricky went up to one of our neighbors who live above us to let them know that because of the birthday party, things might get louder than usual.  Our lovely neighbors responded by yelling at them to get out and that if they ever came up to their apartment again they would get punched in the face or something stupid like that.  Then, during the party, the police came and gave the WG an "Anzeige," which is sort of like a police notice that might result in a fine or just being put on some records or something.  They didn't even give us a warning first, which is the usual protocol for loud parties.  

So, we've been having problems with our mail- namely, someone has been stealing it.  Ricky's cell phone bills were stolen, which resulted in late fees he had to pay, some of Lydi's and Anna's mail was missing, and when we were supposed to get our Anzeige so we could speak with the police and hopefully not get fined, the Anzeige suddenly appeared in our mailbox the morning after the deadline for us to call the authorities, and Lydia had to call the police and explain that we got the letter too late and therefore couldn't meet the deadline.

Since all this has been explained to me in German I might not have caught every last detail, but the general suspicion is that our jerky neighbors are doing it.  The motive is that on the other side of us is more of their extended family or something, and they want us to move out so more of their family can move in and essentially commandeer a huge chunk of our building.  These people are pretty foul.  They're essentially the ghetto immigrant stereotype personified:  there's way too many kids, the men are gross and beat up their wives, and they presumably hate Germans even though they could've picked somewhere else to migrate to (Europe doesn't exactly have a shortage of available countries).  So--we suspect--they have been stealing our mail in efforts to make us so exasperated that we move out.

Not happening.  Of course, our hypothesis might be wrong and it could be just some loser who has nothing better to do, but we don't feel like moving out and we would really prefer to receive all of our mail.  So we contacted the management of our apartment complex and they installed a wonderful little device in our mailbox.  When you put your hand in to try to take the mail out without unlocking the box, a very sharp piece of metal cuts up your hand and makes it difficult to remove.

Pretty cool.