A Week of Growing and a Visit to Berlin

Dear Constant Readers,

As the title suggests, I'm going to be writing about a trip I took to Berlin last week. However, that's not how I want to start with in this entry.

As those who've read this up to this point know, learning German has been a major goal of mine here, and with only two months left, I can hear the clock ticking.

But I've discovered something about my mentality that I kept missing earlier on, and it's making all the difference in the world for me now.

I am member of an internet forum for language afficiendoes called how-to-learn-any-language.com. This website, incidentally, although for mostly non-academic linguists and students of language, is the single most important language website I've ever come across. So that's my plug for the evening. Anyway, I saw a fellow member's profile, a German, and it said that she could speak English at a native level, so I sent her a message to ask her how she did it, and to express some of my feelings and frustrations about learning her language. She wrote me back, and seemed quite friendly to help if I needed it. She then put some texts on a thread in the forum open for people to translate into whichever language they are studying. I translated them into German, and then got a response from another native speaker pointing out some of the minor errors that I made but added that I did a great job, nevertheless. I think it was both a mixture of correction and encouraging feed back that struck me. And then the member whom I wrote told me, in another response to questions I sent her, after having seen a sample of what I could write, I really didn't need to beat myself up, on the contrary I'm doing quite well. The way she said it really was what I needed to hear at the time. She also told me to not worry about the mistakes I make, and keep perfection as my goal, but not get get so fixated on it I lose focus on everything else. And this was the key that I needed to hear, that I've been missing all this time:

All these years I've been looking at my goal rather invertedly, if that's a word. With my goals so high, every time I fall short I get discouraged. This is the wrong attitude to have. She told me that I can keep my goals in focus, and still not fixate on them so much it ends up hamstringing me. In other words, instead of seeing most of my victories for what they were (victories) I was viewing them as failures because they were short of what I wanted (after all, thought I, how could falling short be a victory?).

Fellow goal setters, follow not this erred footsteps! I blazed the trail for you. It's a dead end full of pit vipers and quicksand and plants that shoot poisonous darts.

For me this is a liberating feeling, one that I still need to remind myself to keep in mind from time to time. They were steps in the right direction, one step at a time. That's all they are. And that's not a bad thing. I was just being too hard on myself. Granted, when one sets a goal, there will come a time when they want to eventually flip it the double bird. That's not defeat; that's normal. Defeat only comes when you give in to that.

Most people meet me with disbelief, and frankly, almost discouragement when I tell them of my goal for German. I can't learn a language perfectly, the grammar's too hard, your accent will never be spot on, you need to live here twelve years, this and that and so forth.

Gee, I can too. It's not like I'm teaching myself to walk through cliff walls. I'm teaching myself something that can gradually be learned.

Now, there is one more thing that I want to add to all this, and this is also equally important, and once again, I have Iona to thank for it.

The other night I mentioned just this, the disbelief thing, and she said that when I complain, I sound like a broken record. That put things into a bit of a stark reality for me...and Constant Readers, that probably isn't a surprise to some of you, believe I am VERY aware that I've written about this topic A LOT. I justify it because, as I've said, it's my blog and I can vent here. But I don't mean to sound redundant, even though that maybe be occasionally precisely the case.

But what Iona said hit me deep, deep enough to bring some tears to my eyes, because I really felt like I had been very selfish, and I knew it, and yet I kept going. She's one of the best friends I have, and I've leaned on her so much she ought to be walking with a crooked back...Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is, she was right that I had to pull myself to get together. This is advice that I've given others, but the thing about advice is, it's far far far easier given than taken and used.

It was one of those eye opening moments for me, and since then I've felt a lot better about myself. There's been more to it, as well, more conversations with more people, but this last two are the most recent and perhaps the most significant ones for me. Because of my goals in German, I'm not satisfied with it strictly speaking, but I feel much more better about it, and feel that I can really say I "do" speak it, even if that doesn't mean with the eloquence I'm still shooting for.

This all is a long and round about way of saying I have more self-confidence in myself, and more self-pride. It's a work in progress, but I think I'm on the write road.

Now, and this is gonna be a long entry, onto my trip to Berlin, that I took last week.

On Wednesday night me and thirty-some other students, all but four of them international students, met for a trip put on by the university to spend a few days in the capital of Berlin. The trip there was somewhat of an odyssey. By bus its a twelve-hour drive, and we were do it in one sitting (breaks aside). But due to a problem in communication, we got stuck with a bus that had no toilet, so the plan was to drive two hours to another town and switch to a bus that did. And thus we did: we were all asleep or half dead (we left at midnight to be there early-ish the next day) and switched to another bus. But we very soon discovered that the toilet on this bus didn't work, so every two hours or so we had to make stops anyway.

What I've said about not getting to sleep on planes or trains also applies to buses, by the way. I cannot rest on them, although if I'm exhausted, I can get a very light subconscious pissy excuse for sleep...and I say this because I cannot remember the whole trek, so either I was sucked by aliens for two hours at a time, or I nodded off.

This was my first time to Berlin. And it made me reflect, too: I've been to Paris, Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Berlin, and I'm not sure where else, but I've never been to the capital of my home country, or even to Mexico City, when I was living in Mexico. But that's all beside the point.

Of the city itself I have this to say: I think Berlin is a good city. If you are a history buff, when you die, if you've led a good life, you go to Berlin. If you are into nightlife, I suspect Berlin won't disappoint, I really don't know nor do I care about that aspect.

But...if you are looking for a beautiful city, don't go to Berlin. This is something that kind of surprised me. Germany is a BEAUTIFUL country. Astounding. And it's in EUROPE! Europe is filled with beautiful cities! So I was sort of expecting that when I got to the very important capital city of such an important European country, they city's aesthetics would reflect that.

But it's not. It's a very industrial-looking city, or to use another friend's word, commercial. One needs to remember, too, that the city had been gutted back sixty years earlier, and maybe this played a role, too.

But lest I sound too harsh, let me add this: Berlin is not without it's beauty. It has the Tiergarten, which I actually didn't see much of, and some of the building there are indeed beautiful. The Reichstag is a mixture of historical and ultra-modern architecture. The city, for the most part is clean, although where sections of the Wall still are, one still sees graffiti (but that's history) and it's a city, after all, it's bound not to be spic and span, but it struck me as well maintained. If someone wanted to go to Berlin, I would quite wholeheartedly encourage them, truth be told.

There was for me though the odd feeling that I wasn't really in Germany while I was in Berlin. It just didn't feel German. It felt like it was on it's own, a mixture of culture, but ultimately not German. But I should add I had never previously been to a big German city, only quaint little German towns for the most part, and those can't really be compared to Berlin. I'm sure it is indeed quite German, but it was a side of Germany that was very new for me.

I don't want to bore you with the details of our itinerary, so I'll touch on on the highlights: We saw the Brandenburg Tor, we saw Checkpoint Charlie, and we went up to the Fernsehenturm, the second tallest building in Europe (the first is in Russia). From the bar and viewing room in it, one can watch jets land and take off at the airport...from above. The tower we visited on our first day, and it was quite an introduction to the city. One thing I noticed: Berlin is quite laid out....it doesn't really have any skyscrapers to speak of, unlike New York or Chicago (I guess, I've never been to them).

This next section, though, is kind of the meat of what I want to say tonight, and this is for Anna in Berlin(...und deswegen werde ich dir das schicken, weil es mir sehr gefallen wuerde, wenn du das lesen wuerdest).

The last night we all were in Berlin was the most important for me. I have a friend, Anna, in the city, a German, whom I hadn't seen in four years, almost exactly. I met her very briefly in Mexico when she was visiting her brother, and after I got home we got in touch again when she saw me writing German on her brother's MSN and offered to help me with it. We've stayed in touch ever since, even though we've never become super close.

I let her know I was coming to Berlin, and maybe we could get together one of the days while I was there. She agreed to that idea, but the whole time I was there it never worked out, until the last full day I was there she sent me a text saying she had to work at a club, but maybe I'd like to come by beforehand and we could talk. I thought she meant earlier in the day, so when the afternoon came and went and turned into evening, I figured it was a no-go. Finally, at 10.50 PM, while sitting in a bar with some people, drinking my Italian white hot chocolate, I got a text from Anna saying she had fallen asleep, but now had to work because it was a disco-club, part of Berlin's nightlife. She wanted to know if I still wanted to come by.

I actually wasn't very happy about this development at all. And I'll explain why like this: I really wanted to see her again, if only just to talk briefly. But I hate cities. They are big and scary. I hate cities at night when I have to walk into them alone. To get to this club, I'd have to take at least two trains, and I really don't like making connections because I get paranoid of missing my train and getting stranded, or taking the wrong train altogether and getting lost. And in the event any of this would happen, my cellphone was almost dead, with only a couple more hours of power left in it at most. I just am not a city person at all. I was born and raised, mostly, on the Nebraskan prairies.

So I felt very cornered. I wanted to see Anna again, but I was very scared to go into the city with all this going on. The easy thing for me to do would probably have just let the equation work itself out and say it wasn't worth it, but at least I saw the city. But I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with that, and I knew that if I gave up on this chance to see her again, I wouldn't be happy with my decision. I can't say why I wanted to see her that much: after all we aren't all that close as friends, but it was still important to me, especially since she seemed looking forward to meeting me again.

I also knew that if I did this, knowing how uncomfortable I felt with it all, I could be proud of that, and no one could take that from me. So I got a map from a friend with some notes she had written on it regarding what trains I should take, and set off. When you make a decision like that, there is still fear of going into the unknown, but there is another feeling as well, one of resolve or something, a satisfaction that you are meeting your fear head-on, but also to meet it head-on that means the scary thing is still out there.

I had to make a slight detour on the trains, but it ultimately proved not to be a problem; I just had to make one more stop that I hadn't been expecting. Finding the last train, the U-Bahn, to get to the final street I needed, was a bit of a pain, because I couldn't find the right corridor in this (to me) massive, many-leveled, and at this hour, very empty train station. After finally asking for directions I found and caught the train three minutes before departure and arrived to the point where I was on foot from there on out. I went up to the street and pulled out my map, to which a young German woman asked me if she could help me. As soon as she gathered I was American, she very kindly explained to me in flawless English where the street was I needed to find. I thanked her and made my way to the corner...when I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to ask her if she knew if I should go left or right to find the club. A group of passing Germans proved to be unhelpful, so I set off on my left, only to find it looking dark, so I turned and retraced my steps and ran into some youths. I asked them if they knew where the club was; Club Bangaluu you say? Indeed they did know where it was, they were on their way there, and would I like to join them? Yes.

Turns out left was correct after all; had I gone a few feet further I would have seen the sign advertising Bangaluu's existence around the corner. I found the club, and saw that it was the club's birthday. Well, I was here, so I got in line and waited to get through the door.

The line moved along at a steady clip and really with 10 minutes or less I was standing in front of the door man. Was my name on the list? No, did it need to be? It didn't but [something unintelligible in German]. I see, I say. A friend of mine works here, and I wanted to say hi to her before I go home tomorrow. [Something unintelligible in German, but the gist was "No"]. Look, she works here, and I'm going home early tomorrow to Trier. Well, that's a private matter, you need to call her to see if she'll come out, and please move out of the way so other people can get into the club. Here, here's the text on my phone she sent me. Ah, it says she's working promotion. So, she's not actually "here" then? No, she is, but you can't come in.

By this time it was getting onto 2.00 AM, and I had to be on the bus by 8.00 AM. I had already tried to call Anna, but I always kept getting her voicemail. So I called her again, saying I was here, but I couldn't get in, so if she didn't get this soon, I'd see her around. She didn't get it soon, so I headed back to the U-Bahn trying to feel good that I'd at least found the club, and proven that to myself. Seemed like a shit deal, though, to come so far, only to be screwed over by a bouncer.

I was sitting on the bench waiting for the next train, when two minutes before it arrived, Anna sent me a text asking me if I was still on my way, because she'd likely be done with work soon. This was encouraging enough to put some bounce into my step.

This time I didn't bother getting line again, so I just watched it dwindle down. I looked at my watch and saw 2.30 AM approach. Maybe Anna got done on the half-hour. The line slowly disappeared and 2.30 AM shifted into 2.40. I wasn't going to wait around til 3.00 AM. Finally the line disappeared and in front of Bangaluu's doors was just me and my new friends. I tried to make myself look normal and inconspicuous, but after three days of traveling, my clothes were rumpled, my hair wasn't in the best shape, I wasn't shaven, (actually though, I've been able to go to other parties looking similar, so I didn't think it would be a major problem) and when you look like that when you're the only person denied access to a disco-club, and you are still standing in front of the door at 3.00 AM waiting for someone, looking normal is hard to do. One of the bouncers apparently noticed this, because he looked at him, and then turned around but said something into his little ear-microphone. "Fuck," I thought with a bit of dread.

The door opened, and a big dude came out. And walked past me, barely noticing me. Good. People had been leaving the club all night, none of them looked familiar. The door opened again and some woman stuck her head out. I glanced up but it didn't really register. I glanced up again and saw she was still looking at me, and then after four years, Anna and I recognized each other at the exact same instant. She shouted my name out and came down the stairs, and after almost hesitating a second, gave me a big hug. "Schoen, dich wieder zu sehen! Ach, ich bin muede!" (It's so good to see you again! Ah, I'm tired!) I told her while she hugged me.

I think it was more important to see each other again than to have a flow of conversation. Even so, I think she wanted me to stay out longer, and I despite being so tired, I probably would have, if I didn't have to catch the bus. I don't know if that's a good reason or not, but I wanted to make sure I'd get back with some time on my side. I don't think either of us really knew what to say, but I hope she wasn't disappointed in that. I told her about my trip in Berlin, and how I had been right about to leave before I got her message. She invited me back to Berlin to stay with her when time would be more on our side, and maybe someday I'll take her up on that, but I don't know how much more traveling I'm gonna be doing before I go home. It was hard to think of something to say, it wasn't like in the movies, it wasn't slick. She didn't seemed to mind I looked a bit travel-worn at all though, indeed she told me how she was planning on doing some more traveling herself, and seemed particularly keen on getting to Israel. She seemed quite happy to see me, and the feeling was mutual, even if we haven't spoken much over the past few years.

Finally, the door man said "What's your name?" I thought I was still in trouble, but he was talking to Anna. "They need you back inside," he said when she gave him her name. So, Anna gave me another hug, and we said our good-byes. I caught the trains, with a little help from some Americans I randomly ran into at the train stations, and went home feeling pretty damn good about myself. I did what scared the hell out of me, and even though we were only together for five minutes, all that was worth it, and I mean that. Also, Anna, das ist meine Geschichte fuer dich. :-)

I went home and got 5 or so hours of sleep. Sunday morning we all drove home.

And this week has been going pretty well so far. But I think that's enough for tonight.

Ah yes, one more thing, for you poets. Last thing tonight, I promise. On Monday in a class we were discussing the Berlin Wall, and read/listened to a song composed by a man who had lived in East Berlin most of his life. Afterwards, we were asked to come a poem ourself about the Berlin Wall, or something from that era. It's been one year almost exactly since I wrote a poem, so I thought I'd include what I wrote. I think the teacher was a little surprised by it, telling me that indeed I am a poet, something I'm not referred to as very often, so I was happy to hear that. :-)

Die Menschenmenge zusammenstehen
Geist und Blut gegen Beton
Schreien des Volkes
Rattern der Maschinen
Buntheit gegen grau
Eine einzige Stimme getrennt
Aber aus demselben Herzen.

(Translation)

The mass of people stand together
Spirit and blood versus cement
Screams of people
Clatter of machines
Varieties of color versus grey
A single voice divided
But out of the same heart.

So that's my poem. Maybe I'll write more of them, but I prefer prose. :-)

Hope all is well!

Sincerely,
Tristan

Catching Up

Dear Constant Readers,

This week I feel I've been swamped. Last weekend I told myself that before Saturday (yesterday) got here I'd finish a number of things I've been needing to do. I made myself a to-do list, and am happy to say that I did get through the majority of it. Not as much as I was hoping, but enough to feel that I really accomplished something.

Even in my blog I've been behind; in fact I started this on Wednesday, and clacked away at it for a few paragraphs for the past three days or so, only to decided it wasn't want I wanted, so I'm starting anew.

I'm writing this on Sunday, the weekend, and the weekends are always a time a little awkward for me. So many look forward to the weekend it seems, and I do too, but I'm not always sure why. I don't know why the others look forward to them; for some it means free time to travel, or time away from classes, or something like that. I look forward, I think, to the change of scenery from the week, a time to regroup from the previous week, but by Sunday I am feeling rather lost, too. I get the feeling I don't know where I need to be. Today I just walked out of the kitchen, where a group of people were preparing to have a brunch. I wanted to be in the kitchen, to be among other presences, yet I felt out of place and lost, and vulnerable. It looked like something the small group of them had planned, and I didn't want to intrude (I don't know if all of them had planned it or not). The girl from my last post was in there, and I wanted to be around her, although that's more out of the shadow of something...

I wanted to retreat to the comfort of my room and my computer, but in this little shoe-boxed size room, which I usually am quite comfortable with, it can also be very lonely...and I just don't know what do to in situations like that. I don't like always having to answer questions, either. I did end up going to the kitchen (there were only three people sitting there now, and one of them hadn't been there earlier, so I figured I would not be an intrusion if he were also there) and one of my friends mentioned that certainly I must be upset about something, judging from my face. Well, nothing really, except for everything I just wrote about. Not anything at all like I what I said last week, on the contrary, I've been in very high spirits compared to that.

But sometimes I just feel lost, a bit like right now. Just one of those days, I suppose. When I think about it rationally, I'm really doing fine. I've got great friends, I've got things to keep me busy, and I've got a couple more months before I go home and have one more year to figure out what I am going to do next. But that aside, sometimes I just don't know where I belong. Sometimes I feel like there's something that I've missed out on, a clue that most other people have that I don't. People have told me I think to much, but that's just who I am. I've already done more than enough in my life to be proud of something, and I need to start acting like it. For a long time I've been afraid of arrogance, because it's a quality about people I don't really like. But there have been times when I've confused arrogance that makes you feel better than others, with pride that helps you love yourself and who you are, and be confident in yourself, and the latter is what I've been trying, recently, to evaluate about myself.

I don't know what else to say at this point, but I wanted to put this out there. Surely there are other people out there who feel similarly. Life isn't always happy, but happiness either isn't the opposite of sadness, or happiness is often confused to mean always sunny and smiling and so forth. While that is definitely happy, I think think it's an aspect of it, but a limited one, rather than the full picture.

Or maybe it's this: We shouldn't aim to be happy, we should just try to be at peace. And maybe happiness comes from that, a by-product of a larger and more significant state. Happiness can't really be found anyway, and I think I've written about this. Those who seek happiness for themselves, it's said, don't find it. Maybe the key is, then, just becoming comfortable in who you are.

I think my key is just needing to relax, and be proud of what I've accomplished, and be confident in it, and know that I can do more. With my German, for example, I've worked very hard to get where I am, and I can be proud of that. But I want to go farther, just for myself. To know that I did it, and to know that for once I have gone deeper into something than I ever have before. It takes a lot of determination and endurance, but I know I can do it. But to tie this back into the beginning of the paragraph, work hard and let it happen naturally, rather than work hard and force it, and I have been doing much better at this than when I last wrote about it a few months ago. I don't want to get to sound so repetitive on this topic, but there are days when I am tempted to say, "Let it go, it's too much work." But then I realize that that's not my goal. I think in times like this, people need to give themselves a breather, and not be so overly hard on themselves, and then get back on the horse and ask their "challenger": "Is that the best you can do?!"

I feel like I should say more, but I can't exactly think about what it is I want to say. I've been thinking of more, especially since summer is almost here. I miss my friends. I'm homesick for the times we would be having. But also, I'm gaining experiences here that I wouldn't if I were home, and I have my friends here that I want to spend as much time with as I can. Because when I go home, I'll miss them, as well.

So anyways, I guess that's all I have to say for now. Not as long a note as I'd hoped, but maybe next week I'll have more to say. I hope so, because from Wednesday til Sunday I'm off to Berlin!

I hope all is well, and to those it applies to, like my mom, if she reads this today, Happy Mother's Day!

Sincerely,
Tristan