Liljumper’s Adventures

I have gotten into a pattern where I do more housework than I ever did before. Whether it be folding and doing the laundry, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, washing the pots, wiping down the table.

I get particularly upset when I have many things to do or want to sleep, but have to (or feel I have to) tidy first. I don’t like going to sleep with a dirty kitchen. I like starting my day fresh. I also am one of those people who feels their surroundings reflect their state of mind. I can’t properly concentrate when there’s mess.

And what this experience has taught me to do is to appreciate what my mother did for me. She did all the housework alone (with some small additions sometimes, really rarely sometimes). And I feel that now. I emphasize with feeling that you can’t do what you want to do, need to do, until it’s clean. I get the feeling of being overwhelmed, like there’s so many things to do and it’s like a smothering burden. As if I can’t continue my day until it’s done. There isn’t always a thank you for everything. It’s a tireless relentless duty and job that doesn’t result in a tangible pay or thanks.

So, thank you mom. Thank you for all the days you did the dishes, did my laundry, folded my clothes, vacuumed the house (that’s my least favorite chore). Thank you for shouldering that burden, for not murdering me that I did nothing. Thank you for being there, for doing all those things, and still being the best mother I could ever have. For doing those things and still remaining supportive and loving, kind, and tender.

Clearly I can thank my dad as well for giving me the opportunities I have now, for supporting me through everything, for giving me the chance to follow my dreams and make mistakes Both of them.

Thank you for laughing at my silly faces, for letting me make me own dumb choices, for making me feel you support me no matter what, for establishing such a solid foundation of love in my life, and giving me the confidence and groundwork that has been essential to all my thoughts and actions. And for obviously coming to get me from China.

My parents have been the best I could ever imagine or dream of. This started off as my mini rant, but I want it to end with just a general note of thankfulness.

 

Yesterday I finished the first week of Uni here for my Masters. It was a bit of a cheat, since I didn’t have my class today and the one last night, but that wasn’t my fault! And I am going to abide by my technically done with my first week.

I can breathe a mini sigh of relief.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the courses and professors. My passion for school and learning has been sufficiently reinvigorated.

My work load has also increased hundredfold, but still. It’s good to have assignment again. Maybe I’m strange like that, but I almost feel like it’s just natural for me. Maybe I was born to be a student, a learner.

I have about two books to read every week, as well as three-four critical texts per week, and maybe half a play each week as well. Not counting the papers and assignments and projects as well. Oh and two more novels to read over the course of the semester. As well as my desire to be involved in at least one bookclub (the current potential is two).

Work, having work, feels good though.

I feel like looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Hello, it’s been a long time hasn’t it? Nice to see you again’.

I was thinking about something recently. Moving here has been such a shock and totally overwhelming. I felt really guilty about not diving into German and what not when I got here. I’ve felt really defensive about not starting yet.

I’ve been waiting until it felt right, till I got a rhythm, some sense of peace and normalcy. And that is it.

I didn’t dive into German, because I dived headfirst into Germany. It was a crazy process and it has taken me a lot of time to try to adapt. I’m not fully there, maybe I won’t ever be, but it’s given me a sense of alrightness. There’s only so much one can do. I try to focus on the future and more forward. But there’s only so much to adapt to at once. And it’s a process that you can’t really rush.

I went to a club on Thursday night, since Friday was a holiday so it was a time that many people had time. It was a really fun experience we danced for over two hours and just in our group of friends. It was nice to do that and it didn’t matter if we looked silly. We got there early enough that no one else was there and we could establish a spot on the dance floor for the whole time we were there.

But on the way home we had to wait about fifteen minutes for the train home, due to the fact it was late at night. There were two men who plopped themselves down next to us on the bench waiting and they began to talk to me.

They started off by just saying hello to me in Chinese, over and over again. I chose not to respond to them, to which my partner had to step in and speak for me. Long story short there was just a bunch of exchanges about how I don’t speak Chinese, yes I do speak English, etc. I was really glad he was there because when I’m alone I never know how to deal with this.

I am always concerned that if I don’t respond in some way, even noncommitally, that the people, usually men, will get more aggressive. Especially when they are drunk, which they were last night. I don’t really have any great tactics, but I am really apprehensive of someone doing that. I don’t want to seem like I do want to talk, so I usually just say something noncommitally or just nod my head.

I feel as if I just walked onto a train and landed here sometimes. It was a rough journey with stops and bumps, but now I’m dumped here. That’s how I feel sometimes with life. As if I can see clearly the steps I’ve taken to get here, but have this sense of being deposited here with no idea where to step next. It was always the next step, like the next stop. It was finishing my thesis, graduating college, moving to Germany, getting into school, and now that I’m here, at this stop, I don’t know where the train is going. Where am I going now? I feel as if I am just waiting on the platform now, wondering where. Do I stay here? Do I try to get a job here? Is this where it ends? It’s so disconcerting.

I start to ponder where will I go once this masters is done. What are my job prospects? And that hits like a five ton brick. It’s weighty and heavy and like an elephant sitting on my chest. Because for the first moment in my life, I don’t think I know where it goes from now. I’ve planned in my life, a lot of things, as far as life plans. And yes, they’ve changed a lot in my life, but there was also a vague sense of the plan. I always knew where the next stop was, felt a crumbling path beneath my feet till I found the one. But maybe this is, was, my first step onto grass.

I thought I would start doing these. It’s too much I think to bombard people with a daily account, but a weekly one would be good.

Monday: Ugh, this will be very difficult. My memory is pretty bad, but maybe this will be a unique memory exercise. It’s gone, I’ll update if I remember. Oh! Monday we made delicious steak. It was a bit expensive, 24 euros for the both of us, but it was much cheaper than a restaurant and it was delicious. Like cutting through butter and fantastic.

Sunday I went to Oktoberfest.

Tuesday: A friend of ours came over and brought lunch. We played for a bit and then he left. We also went grocery shopping. I like this.

Wednesday: I went to pick up some required reading, we ate some delicious lunch at the same place we went Sunday and came home. I had to have the Goat Cheese burger again and I did! It is around the corner from my university as well. I found a natural ingredient supply store.

Thursday: Today is a work day, and I am trying to organize a set of schedules. I as well want to set up a list of 30 things I want to do in my life, from totally simple (to brushing my teeth twice a day) to reading more books. It’ll be wild.

My memory is pretty bad, so it might be a semi-weekly thing. Let me know if it’s too much!

I was walking around the mall downstairs and encountered someone wearing the same shirt. What was my first instinct you ask? Hide! I didn’t want to confront them and didn’t want to see them. I felt a stab of panic, like I didn’t want to be found out.

But I guess that’s the brutal reality of us here, if we don’t make all our clothes ourselves, the chances someone has bought the same exact thing is high. There will be someone walking around wearing the same thing as me, and it threatened me on first instinct. I felt like I was not original, an imposter walking around, a reproducable clone.

Upon coming home, I thought about it a lot more. No one really likes the idea that they aren’t original, that their clothes and look (which for me is supposed to reflect who I am and identify as) is something that others use as well. But that’s also reality. It threatened who I was, my individuality, because I felt reproducable and not original.

And I guess that resonated with me on some level, because I felt somehow like that revelation meant something to me. I couldn’t, and still don’t, know how, but it stuck a pang within me.

But having experienced that, now it’s just something that will rattle along in my head. Has something like this happened to you?

I just wanted to write this post to say that I ended up getting the seminars and exercises I wanted! I count this extremely lucky and it makes me feel a lot better about the whole system. Maybe this will happen each semester. I have no idea yet how many people are in my program and who might want seats. It makes me happy to know things are more solid. To reading those books before Monday!

I was talking to my mom the other day and she wisely suggested that when you have those dreams as I have had, the one about the bee, I should assume that everything in my dream represents me. Everything from the table, to the bee, to me. She said that maybe the bee is about being afraid of getting hurt. She also clarified that I’m probably afraid of wasps, since bees usually don’t attack unless motivated.

I think she’s right. I feel so vulnerable here sometimes and I am really afraid of being hurt. Aren’t we all? But how do I protect myself?

In the case of literal wasps, how?

There are so many differences in the education attitude and atmosphere and it could be for a large range of reasons.

1) You pay a ton less here. I pay about one hundred euros for a semester, comparing to upwards of 20/30thousand

2) Because of this, there are tons more students here and there aren’t, usually, stiff hard entrance qualifications (this depends on the university and field of study)

3) There may just be a general cultural different attitudes towards education

For these and many, I am having trouble adapting here. I’ve heard stories where classes aren’t mandatory, some of them (mainly large lectures), and where your grade largely depends on one exam at the end, with not that many assignments during the semester. This may create an atmosphere where there is less incentive for continual learning or less accountability.

The course process for selection of courses is very different than I am used to. You rank the classes that could fit into a certain requirement and you do this for all classes, even if there’s only one option. Then after the course deadline for registering passes, a computer raffles those who selectred priority one. There is no first come first serve, and it’s more or less all to chance.

I’ll state first my reactions. I think it’s frustrating to say the least. I like to have a schedule and order, and by keeping me on my toes until 4 days before the semester starts to tell me which courses I will be taking is like telling someone they have just received a job (for which they chose by selecting a priority) and they start after the weekend (with required reading of course). It seems unfair to me. I don’t know if it’s a perpetuating cycle between the attitudes of the students, or the system, but it’s frustrating to me. I feel in flux, all the way to the end, where then I get thrown into a pit of sharks where all I have to protect me is a life raft and a bag of supplies, for which I have only had a couple days to make and prepare.

And this brings me to my next reaction. I feel uncomfortable with it and it frustrates me. But for a larger reason. I feel I have lived my life with the assumption that when I work hard enough, stay up to register, study the whole year, I get results, whether that be in grades, priority, whatever. I have operated under the mindset that when I truly work so hard that all I do is work, I will get what I have worked for. It seems like a fair mentality to me. When someone works hard enough, they can get what they have worked towards. I realize that there’s flaws, there are factors you can’t get around, where you can work your hardest and you will never get what you want. It’s a mentality that supports when you are diligent, know when the course registration opens, stay up till midnight, and are ready to input the course numbers, you get the ones you have signed up for. There isn’t a lot of chance. You can assess which courses you will get by a running current count of how many spots are left over, you can make a schedule for yourself. There is a certainty to it. There’s an element of punishment as well, if you miss it, if you aren’t prepared, then you don’t get exactly what you want. I know this is too black and white.

And this all ignores the reality that life isn’t fair. There are things I can work my whole life towards and never achieve. But maybe I can’t accept a life where things are up to a raffle, up to chance, and where I can’t influence my life. Maybe I am a control freak, maybe I am too wound up. But I want to have the agency to control an aspect of my life, one that makes a huge deal to me, that affects the rest of my life. I know life isn’t fair, but, to me, this should be. And if not completely fair, but more so. I can’t change it, I can’t change that life isn’t fair, but I can notice the things around me, and work to make it more fair for others.