Women living in airports

The newspaper said that there had been another woman living in the airport. She refuses any kind of help, she doesn’t really talk to anyone. A couple of years ago a woman from Finland lived in the airports in Berlin for months. 

So, you need to get out of the place you just came from, and not yet sure where to go. You are in a transitioning position, armed to the teeth, battling with the concept of “free will”. 

Not as well as the women who live in airports, I do sense being in a transitional position quite often. Maybe what I experience doesn’t even count as transitional, because it’d imply changes, whilst I am uncertain about the odds of that happening (not anytime soon at least).

I have been a student all my life (although I have never been a model student). There hasn’t been ANY day where I don’t hold a student ID. Life outside of being a student puzzles me and yet not necessarily fascinates me. As a student, one of our most important focus would be grades. After high school, my grades have been slightly above average, and yet not good enough to get a good-sized grand. Almost graduated with M.A. without a consecutive B.A. Too old to get 30% on my train ticket and yet not old enough to have any work experience. Speak officially 5 languages and yet without a real mother tongue, which has been a real pain in the ass here. (It is not like I speak terrible German, I don’t speak it perfectly, but that’s why you have EDITORS!) I am over qualified to sit at a cashier, under qualified for a real job. But who knows, after March I am no longer a student. For the first time in my life, I will officially be a non-student. Without a concrete further plan to go back to school, this last remaining month makes me feel like living in an airport --- one day I will get there, but not today. And I am not sure if I am ready to take that flight yet. I am not even sure if any of these offered flights is on my list. Maybe none of these places would be my desired destination. Thus before I get kicked out of the airport or pushed into one of the airplanes, I have a month to be in the main hall with my luggage. Just really need to sort my tangled brain out. 

One of my therapists in Idaho used to ask me this question every time I tell her an event:”How does that make you feel?”

Being 17 and first time in therapy, I was confused about the question: Are you serious or is this a vocabulary test to see how many adjectives I know?

After months of working with one therapist, I would imagine that she knew me a bit already. I spoke broken English with a strong accent, but I was fairly sure that I made myself clear. I already asked myself the same question a thousand times, the problem was not that I didn’t know how I felt or couldn’t find a fitting adjective; the problem was: I didn’t know how to live peacefully with these feelings. The therapist was nice, but kept giving me formulas:

Angry -- take a walk

Sad -- listen to music

Vulnerable --- be with friends

Happy --- great

Confused --- wait it out

Depressed --- hug a pillow

That’s why her question felt like a language test to me after a while. When the talking method was not working, she opened the top drawer and gave me a month’s worth of Prozac. 

I like to play with my hair. No, I am addicted to the sensation of fingers twisting locks of hair in ways no other human being does. I have more than 20 years of experience in twisting hair involving all ten fingers, with various length and colors of hair. I do it when I am doing homework, during exams, in the cinema, on the couch, awake in bed, at the dining table, under a tree, as a passenger in a car, waiting in line to get into a zoo or just bored. I do it so frequently that it had long lost all psychological significance. I don’t even do it consciously. And yet, some people are convinced that it made THEM nervous because such gesture implied the discomfort within myself. That’s right, any unusual ticks you don’t exercise means a negativity in other’s life. If it’d bothered ME, I’d stop. But if bothers you, I’d stop when you are around although I never understand why -- it’s a harmless habit, not like smoking or being obnoxious in public; it causes no damage to anyone, not even to my hair, and it is not vulgar. But whatever, I’d stop because I couldn’t be bothered to argue about it. After being asked a question, sometimes I need a very long time to come up with an answer, and I get nervous when the other person thought I was ignoring the question:”Talk to me!” They’d say. But I can’t talk to you right now, I haven’t fully understand the (sense of the) question and give me time! Thus I abuse the following sentences:”Yes, I am thinking about your question and I haven’t gotten an answer yet.” or  “I am content and having no particular trouble. If I happen to forget to smile, it just means I am lost in my tangled mind that my facial muscles become sedated.” 

I wonder if that therapist would never approve such method: just justify yourself in the most Platonic way.

Yes ultimate master, teach me!

Mom can’t tell the differences between a habit and a hobby.

“You can’t accept the things I want to do,” she said, with such disdain, “keep in mind that YOU are the one who’s changed. You are so westernized now. We don’t share the same values anymore.”

“Now? How’s now? If I had shared the same values as you more than a decade ago, maybe I wouldn’t have left. And washing part of your laundry by hand after a shower is a habit, not a hobby. Do you enjoy washing clothes by hand?”

“No...”

“It is a habit. I never against the sports you like doing or whatever other hobbies you have. But THIS, is a sheer habit; a habit from the past; a habit reminds me of days living with you and dad; it reminds me of him pointing and laughing at you; it reminds me of HIM, it reminds me of your senseless and constant fighting. And I don’t need it right now.”

“Let it go. Don’t be so stubborned and just forget about the past.”

“That’s right -- such words coming from someone who never throws away anything, even the broken plastic disposable bottles.”

“Your father’s things are not him. What was so terrible about our home? We were a family living together.”

“What was so terrible about EVERYTHING? Here is: YOU never had to live with(under) a mother like you or a father like mine. I think all three of us had wished for someone else to be family. If I had a choice, I would have never chosen to live with someone who hits woman, who exhibits shameless macho-ism and who smokes in children’ bedroom and yells at me for no good reason. I am a person, I am neither your toy nor your pension fund.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur to me. I remember hanging up the phone as I lost my second round of poker. The bloody river that had saved my last “all-in” has now turned its favor to kick me out and doubled the access of my opponent. This sucks.

I hardly ever get letters. The only two letters I got last week were the refusals of my job applications. I applied for three jobs at the Uni., to different departments although I was aiming at the similar position -- as a prof. Assistant for various projects. I got one interview out of my job hunting and Prof. M. had clearly promised the job to someone else, but compelled to put the job offer online because it is the law.

“Tell me why you want to work for this project.” Prof. M leaned back on his armchair, there were three women at the jury-table too.

I gave a relatively good answer. All three red-hair green-eyed women stared at me motionlessly. The interview lasted merely 5 minutes. The last question was: “Do you speak English? If so, can you prove it?”

I managed to control my rage, it wouldn’t have helped if I told them my honest opinion (then afterwards I thought it might have helped): You never read my cover letter or my CV! It says on the first paragraph that I graduated from an English speaking country. And you are surprised that I can speak French too? Wow. It takes courage to do what you do: you don’t even pretend that you gave a shit, you don’t even pretend that this job hadn’t been slipped into someone else’s hand by arrangements through your back door. YOU, Sir, are SUPPOSED to be an educator, you are not supposed to make other students get into habits of living in corruption and formality and wasting others’ time! Fuck you! Fuck you all!

Then I got two letters stating that my applications had not been granted -- but the things is: I never applied for these two jobs! I applied for a position as a Wissen.Mitarbeiter and they wrote me back saying that my application for a Student.Hilfk. had been denied!

So it is a hot thing to do now: the Prof. didn’t even have to pretend that they weren’t lying.

But this is all wrong. It is not your duty to mislead people on purpose. It is ironically the opposite of that! Aren’t you supposed to be on the other side? Aren’t you suppose to educate the next generation instead of turning them into bad politicians? Isn’t it against your moral to be so hypocritical whilst holding the role of being a role-model?

Maybe I will write them back: “sehr geerhte Damen und Herren, ich habe mich  um diese Position NIE beworben. MFG. (And I don’t need to sign my name because you wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.)”

Maybe I will check out the position first before applying the next time, by simply dropping a note to the Prof. : Is it a REAL job or you just put it out there because it’d be ILLEGAL not to do so? You know, the same principle almost applies to the fact that some people are alive right now simply because it is illegal to kill them. If I want my time to be wasted I’d do it downstairs in the court yard and not in your office.

If I were a tiny seahorse

If I were a tiny seahorse,
dived in grass pour faire les courses,
chanted chores ‘though I’m hoarse,
papier-mâché is not a hoax.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
cut up ferns to paint the cress,
dyed my lips to roll the dice,
jaded as I tossed my lights.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
guided by the blind mice,
sneaked up to a triton twice,
bent a wire to a fence.

If I were a tiny seahorse,
dare me to a wicked face,
fold me into a double-ace,
cast me for a purple lace.

Cranky-berries

The computer crushed and after the data was finally partially recovered, I am compelled to go through some of my old files. It occurred to me that I hadn’t had any blog entries for months. I blame the weather: the barely para-summer ; the skipped Fall; over mild Winter and now the sudden cold, which made me believe that we got the Spring and Winter backwards this year.

It is scientifically proven that weather has various psychological effects on people: the absence of the Sun and the heat in a summer makes me lazy; the missing of a long period of fall-foliage makes me cranky (which results in the over growth of cranky-berries on my back. Speaking of which, a special Thanks to P, for picking these cranky-berries whenever needed); I tend to sleep (unreasonably) longer when it is cold outside; and the reserve of seasons just confuses me big time. On here is random something just popped into my mind: KRANKENHAUS ---> CRANKY HOUSE ---> Knatchi-Haus (a place where people get "ent-knatchiert"?) Love this language.

Right in the middle of my Thesis I booked a flight to Southern Asia for 2 weeks – probably the only place in the world where I could feel the sensation of being in a 30°C environment in October and all-you-can-eat seafood bar for 12 Euros. Great food comes with great responsibility: these fancy water-front restaurants are responsible to keep different kind of fish, shellfish, lobsters, clams, sea cucumbers, crabs, shrimps alive; when the guests decide on which fish or turtle, or any other animals in their aquarium to consume the next, the cooks are to take off a small part of the living animal (like half of an antenna from a lobster for example), put it on the table and when the dish is served, the cooks (or the waiters) return with a red lobster, whose left antenna is shorter, but matching the other half raw antenna – dear Guests, as you can see, we haven’t tried to con you by switch to another lobster. The responsibility of the waiter also includes chasing flies (“Oh boy, there is a fly in our privately booked room! WAITER!!!! I PAID FOR THIS! AND I PAID YOUR SALARIES!” one of the guests at our table freaked out when he failed to catch the fly with one hand – a battle between a fly and his ego: no one wins, the Waiter loses.) and wear presentable hairdo: it is in the company’s policy, on every “not good enough hairdo” caught means a 5% cut on the next salary. Seafood restaurants are the only ones at the water front, there are also ones who serve volatiles, rabbits or other small animals which you can easily keep 5 of them in a 30cm X 30cm X 40cm wire cage, with their beaks burned off. There was one shop who sold dogs, two black and white huskies with blue eyes in a cage which barely gave them place to inhale at the same time.

A friend of mine told me: “Oh, don’t read into it too much. It is just their culture. In the West we think that because we protect animals, give them rights, and try to kill them in a more humane way, we are thus better people. But really?” I asked myself that question again and again (especially because I am not from the “West”): well, for me, it sort of does. No doubt there is always violence in consuming food, even for a vegan. (PS: I am a meat eater.) Latest in your mouth, the moment molars work the food into swallowable little pieces: latest in your tummy, the gastric acid and the intestine decide that your body will take what it needs and get rid of the rest. I never fantasized the total absence of violence in eating. Yet, I am convinced that the shop owner could have at least bought a second cage for the second husky; and maybe try not to amputate the livestock. I believe practicing a more humane way to treat animals does make someone a better person. If we had lost faith in improvement and education, there would be no point in doing … whatever we are doing.

Life after Thesis (I thought I wouldn’t make it on time) is full time slacking. I am sort of kind of standing between vanilla and chocolate – and I want them both. It is so tempting to start something completely different, while continue the studies I’ve been doing for the past decade. My advisors said NO, people at the Prüfungsbüro and the student consulting center said NO. Most of them looked at me and had “WTF?!” on their face. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound very rational – but seriously people, what’s the worst can happen? That I would need more time than other students to complete a course? Maybe I would be screaming and kicking – lying on my back-full of cranky-berries if I failed some exams? How would that be different if I were to get a job while studying? (Besides I wouldn’t be making a dime.) There are loads of people double major their studies, and for a very short period of time, I was one of them.

Mom said that Grandma had weaved two identical red scarves for both of us: “And by the way, don’t be disappointed if your Grandma isn’t going to visit you this year.”

“How do I get not-disappointed?”

“I don’t know. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

“Nah. I think I’d rather keep my hope, even if that means what you said at the end might turn out to be true.”

“I am telling you, Grandma isn’t going to visit you. She said ‘maybe’ only because she was afraid that she may hurt your feelings. She was lying to you.”

“And YOU have a great history of telling me the truth.”

“You were a kid. There was no reason for you to be fumbling about in the adults’ world.”

“But I have grown up. And I suggest you to do the same.”