To whom it may concern:

dear microsoft word,

i would really appreciate it if you could just go ahead and figure out on your own when i am writing in german and when i am writing in english. it is annoying beyond belief to have to highlight sections of text and change the language multiple times a page just to keep you from "auto-correcting" words in a different language. seriously. you can do so much. and you are in posession of both an english and german dictionary. it shouldn't be so hard to just work with me on a german paper with english language sources and quotes. figure it out and stop driving me crazy. yours sincerely....

dear neighbor upstairs,

please stop practicing that same song on your guitar for hours on end. i would love to go somewhere else, but unfortuantely i have too many books to make me mobile. so, if we could just keep the practice sessions to an hour, tops, that would be great. thanks. yours sincerely...

dear germans,

please start being more flexible. i would appreciate, for example, office hours/business hours more than once a week. i would also apprecaite a little less paperwork. seriously. yours sincerely....

dear papers,

please write yourselves. thanks.

dear books,

if you could come pre-hilighted with notes, that would really help me a lot.

dear clock,

could you help me out a little bit with this whole time crunch thing? i would be so grateful! yours sincerely...

Bekah

Unexpected

Sometimes the most unexpected things happen in the most hum-drum places. In the past week, I have had two eventful grocery store visits. I may or may not be over-representing the excitement of these times as I do tend to live in the library/at my desk (when I need too many books to bother carrying them all to the library) these days.

Incident #1.

I ran into the grocery store "real quick" to buy a couple of items, and much to my dismay, the three open registers were simply not sufficient to handle the volume of late-afternoon customers. Annoyed, I chose a line and prepared to spend the next 10 minutes being annoyed at the line length. Not 2 minutes later, I heard strains of a rather heated conversation behind me. Basically, 2 registers right next to each other were open, and for some reason a few people decided that it would be best to form one line and [ski lift line style] "merge" as they came to the registers. Well, obviously someone came who did not get the memo and accidentally cut in front of the "one line-rs". One of which, naturally (in a heated tone) informed him of this. Well, that was just too much. He was quite affronted by the accusation that he had violated some sort of unknown agreement and defended himself vehemently ("Hello Mädel! If there are two registers open! Then we can certainly from two lines! ! !) Of course that is when the boyfriend stepped in. With a look like he was trying to eject his eyes out of his head, he got right up in the line-cutter's face. (insert a string of not so nice slangy German words here). It almost came to blows. Way intense. Suddenly, I realized how incredibly rediculous it was that everyone was so worried about saving 2 minutes of waiting in line! Honestly! The rediculous argument made me stop and check my own attitude and realize that my two (or ten, whatever) extra minutes in line could be better used than by being frustrated. There are so many nice things to think about and observe, not to mention thoughts concerning my papers / oral exam topics / lesson plans to sort out. So, new attitude - hooray!

Incident #2

You know those times when you "bop" into the store just to pick up a few items. You don't need a cart! You're only buying 2 things, 3 tops! And by the time you make it to the register, you look like you are auditioning to become a circus clown balancing act. This was me yesterday. [Oh, I forgot, I totally need tomatoes ... and cheese ... do I have any rice cakes left? better buy some to be sure ...] I knew I could get all the stuff home, I just had to make it to the black band at the register to relieve my precarious load. Then it happened. I dropped a bag of lettuce ("oh thank goodness, it wasn't the cream - that would be such a mess!") A nice girl behind me (seeing my plight) quckly bent to retrieve it. Then I took a step forward. I lost the rice cakes ... And then the cream ... bent to pick that up - still intact! thank goodness! - and dropped the pasta. Finally, the girl behind me offered to hold a few items until I made it to the register. We all need help sometimes. And although I felt pathetic and slightly inept, I was thankful for the kindness of strangers, who held my things and resisted laughing out loud.

I wish you some unexpected happenings in the most mundane of places! ~love~

Not alone

I had one of those moments today in which I remembered that I am not alone. In all of life's awkwardness and idiosyncracy, I am not an island of clumsy accidents. For this reminder, I would like to thank the stranger on her bicycle at the stoplight in the rain today.

Let me explain: Often in Germany, bikers ride up to stoplights slowly and grab onto the pole in order to stay upright on their bikes. As this woman approached the stoplight, she leaned .... annnd.... fell off her bike. Basically in slow motion. In the rain. She did not hurt herself (it was very very slow) but did not exactly pull off what you would call a graceful save. With flailing arms, she stuck the landing with the front tire facing the wrong way and a sheepish grin on her face. I grinned conspiratorily at her as we crossed the street going opposite directions. I have done this. We are not alone. ~love~

The corner table

I have a spot. A routine. Usually, I like to mix things up a bit to keep the creative juices flowing. Change libraries, coffee shops, times, music. But I have this place I keep going back to. A long table in the corner of the first floor of a library. Next to floor to ceiling windows. Under a very large lamp.

Here is the thing. I think I am allergic to the library in the old city. Like, cool - our library is one of the oldest in Germany and a tourist attraction, but - maybe its not so healthy to breathe the same dust as Mark Twain, Helmut Kohl, Philipp Melanchthon, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, etc for long periods of time. Just a thought.

So here I am. In another library. In the corner, under the lamp, where I can almost feel the spring breeze passing me by as I write. and write. and write. ~love~

Florence Henderson's twin

I saw her. On the tram. She had all of the shape and glow of the real Florence Henderson, without the expensive clothes and tight skin. She made me smile and think about silly things, like how the Florence Henderson would never ride on a streetcar in Heidelberg with a bag of groceries and a run in her hose. And that really, riding in streetcars reminds me that we are a bigger group of people moving - sometimes in the same direction, sometimes not. In the privacy of my own car, I tend to think it is just that, private. I sing as loud as I want to, I chew gum, talk loudly, and pay attention to me and my car and my life. Public transportation changes the game. It takes the people from all of the cars on I-25 and puts them in the same vehicle. Maybe Florence Henderson has another twin - we'll just never know. Journey on. ~love~

Looking to cure those winter blues?

Me too.

May I suggest the following:

1. Flowers. You can never go wrong with flowers. Buy them for yourself. Convince someone else to buy them for you. Potted plants, fresh cut, secretly snipped from a neighborhood garden, however you get them, just do it. They are a perfectly good antidote to the winter doldrums. I bought myself a blue hyacinth and now my room smells like the botanical gardens. Unfortunately, I think this winter grey is getting to Penelope (the hyacinth) as well. I woke up this morning and noticed that one half was completely drooped floor-wards. I had to intervene with some string. I stand by my thought, though, that flowers help.

2. Chocolate. Milka chocolate is on sale this week. I bought 2 bars. Delicious. The danger here is of course eating too much chocolate and gaining a little bit too much padding for the winter cold. I'm willing to risk it though.

3. Good, peppy music. I'm enjoying Regina Spektor's "on the radio" for dancing-around-getting-ready times, and a great mix of instrumental music from movie soundtracks for oh-my-goodness-my-presentation/exam/class/meeting/work-is-in-20-minutes times.

4. Cleaning. Every day I am a bit more my mother's daughter. I am ready to embrace it. A clean room is a happy room. Organization kicks back against the chaos that robs joy (and is so often onset by that freezing cold grey just outside the window) This also ties directly to the whole music thing...dancing with a mop = anti-winter blues

5. Candles. Thats all I have to say about that.

6. Coffee. The sustinance of life. Goes well with chocolate.

Alright, back to work. ~love~

2011

a new year, a new resolve to rekindle my blogging (hi mom, i don't think anyone checks in anymore!)

there are many big things that i could talk about/update right now - coldest december in probably forever, flooding, exams, stress, learning spanish (ahem...kind of) - but i just don't think i'm up to that task tonight.

these big things shape my life, but honestly its the little things, the daily waking up, making coffee, grocery shopping things that define the tone and feel - the topography of my life.

as things started back up last week, i was incredibly thankful to go back to teaching. i love the challenge and diversity of my job! working with preschoolers, giving them their very first encounter with english through books, songs and games - to working with high school students, reading short stories, working on grammar, improving test scores. i love it all!

in my preschool class, we always start by singing a "hello song" and then i ask them how they are. i have been with most of these kids since may or june, and one little girl answers (without fail) "bad" every.single.week. its the same over and over again.

me: "how are you?"

little girl: (thumbs down) "bad. ich habe schnupfen und husten." (she has a stuffy nose and a cough)

a broken record. until last week. for the first time, she just smiled and said "good". i couldn't believe my ears! "really? no stuffy nose? no cough?" "no. i'm good."

it was a good day. ~love~