Took another day off school, although I shouldn't have. Haven't been very wise lately, haven't been very wise for a long time. One of these weeks where you check the calender twice, thrice a day, begging for it to be over. I am not yet accustomed to get up at 7:30 because my class starts at 9. However, considering I was out cold at an early hour last night, I should have been able to drag myself to school somehow.
The highest court in Berlin is on strike. And I thought going on a strike was France's national sport. But what are they striking about? They have reasonable working hours, relatively well paid, heated office, no paper worries, free coffee in the office and the building itself is in a park, on top of which, their cafeteria is on the first floor, and they can vote.
I want to start marking the days where neither the court nor INS strikes, and I will send the data to the mayor.
One of the side affects from being foreign is not getting bothered by leafletters. There are tons of them in Hermanplatz right at the exit of the metro, sticking fliers into your hands, or putting a pen under your nose to sign ... something. Whenever I step out of the metro and am about to pass them by, they usually turn around so they "wouldn't" see me --- you look foreign, so you can't read our language and you can't sign your name. The only strangers talk to me are those middle-aged women with borrowed or rented children and ask for small changes. Women, always women. As if we were culturally stamped to be more heart-touching and tear-bringing, in other words, pathetic looking. I've never seen men with some random kids and beg, but a lot of them are passing out under the sun on a wooden bench next to a trashcan with bottles lying around their feet.
Mom called and told me that she was going on a 3-day trip, in which she would take the train for 22 hours, then climb up a big mountain, share a hotel with 10 other people, then 22 hours back. I told her it sounded like Jews being shipped over for some one-day workshop during the WWII. Speaking of war, I find it "hypocritical" of me to care about the world peace in general and yet in the seek of finding peace with myself. But my new flatmate cheers me up: he is disco-singing cowboy, operated on batteries.
1 comment:
Emma, if only they'd known they could have opted for the workshop instead. I guess the operative word in that last sentence is "opted", huh.
With regard to peace: as within, so without. Each is responsible for his own.
Loved the part about women as elicitors of sympathy. Wonder if you can pursue that one to its roots & perhaps see how it's been turned inside out.
So heartening that, just like Alanis Morissette, you "really do think".
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