Today I felt, for the first time since I got here 11 and a half months ago, that I'd had enough of being a foreigner. I'm tired of every conversation being either an effort of one kind or another (a choice between the pain of speaking error-ridden and inelegant German and the pain of listening to a similar form of English) or being prey to the fickle whims of the Skype gods, who seem to control the bandwidth I'm allowed to enjoy with the jealous meanness of someone handing out tiny slivers of expensive cheese at the market. Enough to get the taste buds going but not so much that you take advantage and really start enjoying yourself.
Yes, it's true. I'm feeling in need of a break. The small slivers of hugely enjoyable English-speaker-based fun I've had over the past six months or so have only served to sharpen the need to sit and talk with a group of pals in a medium in which I'm not totally lost the minute I stop concentrating, or anyone dares to express themselves in a novel or, heaven forfend, regionally-specific way. My inability to understand anything outlandish, local or lyrical leaves me with only the workhorse parts of language which get the message across. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful to be able to say "Having forgotten, once again, to take the bins out, our landlady is now threatening to kick us out" or "did anyone remember to buy toothpaste, or shall I pick some up while I'm here?" without having to grope around for the basics, and to be able to laugh along with the jokes of the humourously-challenged folk at work (unexpressive and slow-witted people make the best of friends for a language learner!) But to be able really to let loose and just talk about something and listen with pleasure and without a constant worry that it's about to get too complicated or interesting to understand, would be a wonderful thing.
This is why it's such good timing that I'm planning a proper trip back to the UK in September. Not just a quick nip over to enjoy the Cheddar and be appalled by the Ryanair, but a proper few weeks of drinking chalky water and playing Scrabble with those who mean the most to me.
You know who you are.
Rob
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Germany disappoints
One coffee too many, and one bird-shit-free pair of trousers too few is making me do that thing I sometimes do where I grit my teeth unconsciously in an uncomfortable and unnerving fashion. A day of highs and lows unfolded as follows:
A physio appointment which I'd for some time been anticipating would get, once and for all, to the root of my wobbly ankles and ungainly gait, turned to hours of total tedium in a waiting room full of magazines in a language I couldn't be bothered to understand. It was ten past nine and I was sitting uncomfortably, and hung over, in a suit and tie, trying to find pictures of hot camping chicks in Das Outdoor Magazin, a German magazine for people who hate attractive women but love to read about the specs of an 800 quid sleeping bag. After an hour in this waiting room limbo, goggling in amazement at the enormous and groteque forms of people twice my age and thrice in need of physio than me, I was finally admitted to a kind of anti-room with a cheap-looking physio's couch (bed? bench? You know what I mean). Following another 45 minutes, thirsty and alone, watching the Windows XP screensaver ping around the screen turning from cube to sphere to a kind of siamese conjoined-testicles arrangement, I decided I'd had enough. I left the room, went back to reception and gave the receptionist a piece of my mind. My heart wasn't really in it though because she (belatedly) told me that one of the doctors was ill and the other had had to foreshorten her holiday to come and reinvigorate the fat lumps still in the waiting room. I left with a new appointment for 7:40 in the morning next friday. Apparently I'm "only the second patient" that day. I had no idea German doctors offered a night-service.
I wobbled into work at around noon and was almost immediately invited for lunch. Quizzed Chinese colleague about what Chinese communism is really all about (disguised capitalism, but without the unions or the voting) and how it feels to know that the feeble Europeans around him will soon be slaves to his people (apparently we won't).
I was then told, confusingly for those who like their tales to be either all bad news or all good news, the emotional thread here becomes a bit tangled. My boss took me to one side (over one of the aforementioned one-too-many coffees) and told me that following a discussion with his boss, he'd not only managed to agree the extra money I'd insisted on having for my labours, but he'd managed to more than double what I'd asked for. No idea if this is some kind of German custom whereby I'm supposed to politely refuse and, in exchange, offer a basket of beef sausages for his wife. Anyway, if it is, I missed the politeness boat and went instead for the quids. Nice.
Having missed this opportunity to feel triumphant and wonderful (opting instead to not quite believe what I'd heard) my bike started acting up on the way home from the office. This is something I really can't bear, and it always fills me with thoughts of how all beautiful things must, eventually, fall to bits. (Incidentally, I always say that one of the nice things about going bald early is that you get all the aging-phobia and existentialism out of the way earlier, and can from then on go merrily into decrepitude without any further shocks to the ego.) I flipped the bike upside down to indulge in an in-depth bit of scrutinising exactly which link in the chain was not correctly settling into the gear, an exercise as pointless as my insistance on always trying to look at a spot on the back of my neck, or peer into my mouth to look at a bleeding gum. As if seeing the thing will somehow allow me to do something about it.
Anyway, this particular pointless exercise led me to have grease on my hands, bird-shit on my finest (only) tailor-adjusted work trousers, and the afore-mentioned clenched teeth that my dentist and I so despise.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that, even in the face of a massive pay rise, life has a way of making you kneel in bird shit that no amount of unexpected cash can protect you from.
Having said that, I'll see how I feel about it when I hand my trousers, guilt- and overdraft-free to the dry cleaners for them to sort out the mess.
Until next time loved ones,
Rob
A physio appointment which I'd for some time been anticipating would get, once and for all, to the root of my wobbly ankles and ungainly gait, turned to hours of total tedium in a waiting room full of magazines in a language I couldn't be bothered to understand. It was ten past nine and I was sitting uncomfortably, and hung over, in a suit and tie, trying to find pictures of hot camping chicks in Das Outdoor Magazin, a German magazine for people who hate attractive women but love to read about the specs of an 800 quid sleeping bag. After an hour in this waiting room limbo, goggling in amazement at the enormous and groteque forms of people twice my age and thrice in need of physio than me, I was finally admitted to a kind of anti-room with a cheap-looking physio's couch (bed? bench? You know what I mean). Following another 45 minutes, thirsty and alone, watching the Windows XP screensaver ping around the screen turning from cube to sphere to a kind of siamese conjoined-testicles arrangement, I decided I'd had enough. I left the room, went back to reception and gave the receptionist a piece of my mind. My heart wasn't really in it though because she (belatedly) told me that one of the doctors was ill and the other had had to foreshorten her holiday to come and reinvigorate the fat lumps still in the waiting room. I left with a new appointment for 7:40 in the morning next friday. Apparently I'm "only the second patient" that day. I had no idea German doctors offered a night-service.
I wobbled into work at around noon and was almost immediately invited for lunch. Quizzed Chinese colleague about what Chinese communism is really all about (disguised capitalism, but without the unions or the voting) and how it feels to know that the feeble Europeans around him will soon be slaves to his people (apparently we won't).
I was then told, confusingly for those who like their tales to be either all bad news or all good news, the emotional thread here becomes a bit tangled. My boss took me to one side (over one of the aforementioned one-too-many coffees) and told me that following a discussion with his boss, he'd not only managed to agree the extra money I'd insisted on having for my labours, but he'd managed to more than double what I'd asked for. No idea if this is some kind of German custom whereby I'm supposed to politely refuse and, in exchange, offer a basket of beef sausages for his wife. Anyway, if it is, I missed the politeness boat and went instead for the quids. Nice.
Having missed this opportunity to feel triumphant and wonderful (opting instead to not quite believe what I'd heard) my bike started acting up on the way home from the office. This is something I really can't bear, and it always fills me with thoughts of how all beautiful things must, eventually, fall to bits. (Incidentally, I always say that one of the nice things about going bald early is that you get all the aging-phobia and existentialism out of the way earlier, and can from then on go merrily into decrepitude without any further shocks to the ego.) I flipped the bike upside down to indulge in an in-depth bit of scrutinising exactly which link in the chain was not correctly settling into the gear, an exercise as pointless as my insistance on always trying to look at a spot on the back of my neck, or peer into my mouth to look at a bleeding gum. As if seeing the thing will somehow allow me to do something about it.
Anyway, this particular pointless exercise led me to have grease on my hands, bird-shit on my finest (only) tailor-adjusted work trousers, and the afore-mentioned clenched teeth that my dentist and I so despise.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that, even in the face of a massive pay rise, life has a way of making you kneel in bird shit that no amount of unexpected cash can protect you from.
Having said that, I'll see how I feel about it when I hand my trousers, guilt- and overdraft-free to the dry cleaners for them to sort out the mess.
Until next time loved ones,
Rob
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Back behind the keyboard
 |
| This is what all desserts are like in Germany |
When something interesting, wonderful or touching happens (or, equally, something boring, painful or downright disgusting) and it's not converted into he-said-she-said form, then it just doesn't stick as a memory or contribute to my opinion of myself and my existence as an experience. So here goes...
My last post saw me awaiting a trip to the Middle East, wild with the impossible expanses of free time afforded by a Semesterferien; an improbable 6 weeks without lectures (and, hence, with essentially nothing).
Since that time I've taken a job copy-editing a European finance magazine (the fact that the mag is called "Finance Europe" gives you an idea of the tendency for german descriptions towards the prosaic: I was incredulous to learn that the German for 'protein' is 'Eiweiß' lit:eggwhite) and quit it, having found that having two jobs was seriously damaging my ability to learn anything about Economics. While I was in the business of quitting things, I also quit my teaching job, something that, although the students were great, I just wasn't really enjoying as much as I would have expected to.
Actually, as an aside, the fact that I got carried away with playing the earning game, to the point of being distracted from my studies, is a neat little microcosm for something that's been bothering me recently, it having had an impact of late on the lives of some of my favourite people: The need to constantly have money coming in is a serious source of distraction if you're trying to get anything done. The reason I'm here in the first place (as oopposed to being in London having a job) is that I wanted to get a masters and give myself a chance to get out of IT and into something more socially acceptable. This time in Germany is imbued with a very clear and specific purpose, and is funded by an extraordinary windfall of free cash from my redundancy from Accenture. And if even now, when I've got one clear goal to achieve, and (theoretically) enough money to achieve it with, I'm still distracted from that goal by the need to see the old bank balance going up instead of constantly down, what chance have I got in my 'normal' life of getting anything meaningful done? The problem with having savings is that you either keep them (in which case, in the long run, they're no use to you) or you spend them, in which case you have to learn, at some point, to deal with the feelings of dread, guilt and denial which lead you scurrying for the value brands and upping your hours at the grindstone. Or is this just me? Emotional reactions towards mechanical processes do seem rather to be my thing (cf. my feelings of resentment towards a just-spilled glass of water, or dispair that my newly-repaired bike can, as of now, only get worse with riding and the passage of time. I never enjoy things when they're new. There's just too much shininess to lose. Much better to be amazing that something old and knackered is still functioning).
I think if there's any point to having more money than you're currently planning to spend, it's that you can stop worrying about money for a while and get on with doing whatever it is that you want to be doing with your time. In my case that's almost exclusively playing the piano, sleeping and eating fried egg sandwiches, but I'm assuming that some people out there are foregoing genuinely worthy and worthwhile things because of a fear of their next bank statement being lower than their previous.
People of the world: Let it not be an issue! I say: work out how much you've got and how much you are going to need-If the sums work out, turn down that extra shift! If the budgets balance, say no to that next promotion!
I pledge allegiance to the idea that I'm not going to let the sensible goal of ensuring there's quids in the bank enough for eggs and ketchup, mutate into a constant need to see the money piling up at an ever-increasing rate, to the detriment of my ability to do what I want with my time.
Good lord. What a stream of consciousness this blog entry has become. How appallingly un-Twitter. I had plans to tell all about my failed attempt to get a traineeship at the European Union and my hilarious tales of threatening my current employers with moving to London lest they up the stakes compensation-wise.
I think for the sanity of those who are just trying to get to the end of this meandering piece of nonsense before their laptop battery gives up exhausted, these tales are best left for another time.
Liebe Grüße
Rob
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Can't decide? Let fate take over
It's been a fun couple of weeks. Visits from foreign lands and a couple of musical treats worth recounting here.
The first a taste of luxury, the second a taste of Frankfurt's oft-overlooked alternative underbelly. Both tales, weirdly, take place in the entirely uninteresting little brother of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, a city known here for being utterly, and justifiably, unknown.
My piano teacher, being a professional concert pianist (!), had a concert a couple of weeks ago and told me that although the concert had been sold out for a couple of weeks she could get me a ticket if I was interested. The programme was a mostly uninteresting collection of super-light 'hits from the films' called, hilariously, "The Magic of Movie III". What could be more tempting? Needless to say, we were treated to the Star Wars theme and Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany's) but the main event was Rhapsody in Blue (justified by its use in Woody Allen's 'Manhattan'). The feeling of sitting in the best seats in the house (middle-middle) in an unpaid-for seat watching my piano teacher playing a fun, inventive and totally wonderful version of one of my favourite pieces of music is not something I'll forget in a hurry. Marvellous. I was sitting next to another of her 'free tickets' who turned out to be an Austrian and also the chattiest person I've ever met. She was warm, crazy and as unlike Arnold Schwarznegger as it's possible to be. After the show she insisted on dragging me backstage for a private congratulation of the star (despite my very English protestations) and we all went out afterwards for a beer. Turns out that my piano teacher's German boyfriend is not the grump I first took him to be, but actually has a super-dry and unassuming humour. The kind of person who's eye-twinkle you can't believe you originally didn't notice, once you have.
My second trip to Darmstadt in as many weeks was the result of a spontaneous "right, I want to see live music right now. What's on right now!". A San Fransisco band were playing here, a crazy old Gothic mansion converted into a student arts centre, covered in hip posters and graffiti and entertaining the local kids. Such a thing could somehow just never be allowed in England. We prefer to leave our crumbling old buildings empty and unloved, out of respect. Spontaneous decision-making is great but it does tend to leave one a little short of time. The buses and trains we'd need to get to get there were all a bit awkwardly timed so we decided to take my car. Sounds like a great alternative right? The only problem with this car is that it had only been driven once in the last 3 months (and had since been covered in snow for a week on several occasions), it was massively falling apart on several fronts, and I was uninsured to drive it. So far so bad.
Things really came to a head though when we got off the Autobahn on the outskirts of Darmstadt. The brakes failed. I managed to stop us at the traffic lights using a combination of the handbrake, the automatic gear box and about 300 metres of happily empty road but things were not good. We were in the middle of nowhere in a car that had gone from old friend to total death trap in seconds. We decided to hobble on, driving slowly and using what brake capacity still functioned (I found that by pressing the brake pedal in a certain way I could, on one occasion out of two, slow the car down). We were lost. All was not well.
To cut a long and sweaty-palmed story short, we made it to the Gothic mansion and immediately checked out the bus/train solution that would get us home. The car was to remain in that old, forgotten car park outside the crumbling Gothic mansion forever. We travelled home in security and the car remains there to this today.
In the meantime, getting the train meant we had to miss the main act, but saw a brilliant support from Frankfurt Kinks/Beatles psychadelic four-piece BEES. They were as tight as Brian Wilson in a John Lennon costume and twice as tuneful. We will be seeing them again (somewhere closer to home!).
In other news, I've arrived in Dubai alive and well. It's hot and deserty here but we've already swum in the sea once, and had a cocktail on a hotel roof terrace. A long way from the icy ostend of Frankfurt...
Next time pictures of camels are guaranteed.
Rob
The first a taste of luxury, the second a taste of Frankfurt's oft-overlooked alternative underbelly. Both tales, weirdly, take place in the entirely uninteresting little brother of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, a city known here for being utterly, and justifiably, unknown.
My piano teacher, being a professional concert pianist (!), had a concert a couple of weeks ago and told me that although the concert had been sold out for a couple of weeks she could get me a ticket if I was interested. The programme was a mostly uninteresting collection of super-light 'hits from the films' called, hilariously, "The Magic of Movie III". What could be more tempting? Needless to say, we were treated to the Star Wars theme and Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany's) but the main event was Rhapsody in Blue (justified by its use in Woody Allen's 'Manhattan'). The feeling of sitting in the best seats in the house (middle-middle) in an unpaid-for seat watching my piano teacher playing a fun, inventive and totally wonderful version of one of my favourite pieces of music is not something I'll forget in a hurry. Marvellous. I was sitting next to another of her 'free tickets' who turned out to be an Austrian and also the chattiest person I've ever met. She was warm, crazy and as unlike Arnold Schwarznegger as it's possible to be. After the show she insisted on dragging me backstage for a private congratulation of the star (despite my very English protestations) and we all went out afterwards for a beer. Turns out that my piano teacher's German boyfriend is not the grump I first took him to be, but actually has a super-dry and unassuming humour. The kind of person who's eye-twinkle you can't believe you originally didn't notice, once you have.
My second trip to Darmstadt in as many weeks was the result of a spontaneous "right, I want to see live music right now. What's on right now!". A San Fransisco band were playing here, a crazy old Gothic mansion converted into a student arts centre, covered in hip posters and graffiti and entertaining the local kids. Such a thing could somehow just never be allowed in England. We prefer to leave our crumbling old buildings empty and unloved, out of respect. Spontaneous decision-making is great but it does tend to leave one a little short of time. The buses and trains we'd need to get to get there were all a bit awkwardly timed so we decided to take my car. Sounds like a great alternative right? The only problem with this car is that it had only been driven once in the last 3 months (and had since been covered in snow for a week on several occasions), it was massively falling apart on several fronts, and I was uninsured to drive it. So far so bad.
Things really came to a head though when we got off the Autobahn on the outskirts of Darmstadt. The brakes failed. I managed to stop us at the traffic lights using a combination of the handbrake, the automatic gear box and about 300 metres of happily empty road but things were not good. We were in the middle of nowhere in a car that had gone from old friend to total death trap in seconds. We decided to hobble on, driving slowly and using what brake capacity still functioned (I found that by pressing the brake pedal in a certain way I could, on one occasion out of two, slow the car down). We were lost. All was not well.
To cut a long and sweaty-palmed story short, we made it to the Gothic mansion and immediately checked out the bus/train solution that would get us home. The car was to remain in that old, forgotten car park outside the crumbling Gothic mansion forever. We travelled home in security and the car remains there to this today.
In the meantime, getting the train meant we had to miss the main act, but saw a brilliant support from Frankfurt Kinks/Beatles psychadelic four-piece BEES. They were as tight as Brian Wilson in a John Lennon costume and twice as tuneful. We will be seeing them again (somewhere closer to home!).
In other news, I've arrived in Dubai alive and well. It's hot and deserty here but we've already swum in the sea once, and had a cocktail on a hotel roof terrace. A long way from the icy ostend of Frankfurt...
Next time pictures of camels are guaranteed.
Rob
Monday, March 01, 2010
Germany's most beautiful Youth Hostel
There can surely be no doubt about it. If there were a more beautifully located Youth Hostel in Germany it would have to be somewhere pretty special.
This weekend was looking pretty empty on Friday. With all 3 flatmates due to be in their relevant hometowns, I was looking at 48 hours without the easily accessible socialising I've come to expect from my home life.
So what to do?
I googled "best youth hostels in germany" and found a page called "The Best Youth Hostels in Germany Near Castles" (it's worth noting here that anyone who doesn't rejoice the entering of the internet into all of our lives and complains about the all-pervasive reach of information and the impersonality of modern communication just ain't usin' it right! For me at least, having Google permanently at my fingertips makes me feel like a mixture of Thomas Edison and Thomas Cook. A shining and brilliant mind, with a ready knowledge of all the hottest deals and beaches the world has to offer. Awesome).
One of the above-mentioned best hostels in Germany near castles was in Hessen (my adoptive home-state) and fulfilled its promise of being "near castles" in wonderfully flamboyant style. As we will see...
In a rare revival of Levy luck, the day I chose for my first real trip out of Frankfurt (and my first proper usage of the extremely generous State-wide semester train ticket that comes with being a student here) was easily the finest day weather-wise since October. The sky was bright, the temperature was double-figures and everything seemed well with the world.
After an hour on the train I was greeted by a sight as different from the Ostend of Frankfurt as one could imagine:
and after a very gentle 20-minute cycle ride felt truely in the middle of the German nowhere:
It was at this point that I realised that the magical castle perched on the hill that was just behind me when I took this photo was not merely near the Youth Hostel, as advertised, but actually was the youth hostel. Here's the hostel as viewed from outside the walls:
and here is the entrance to the reception area:
As I said earlier, it's pretty much impossible to imagine a better-located Youth Hostel. To top off the great weather, fun cycle ride, wonderful architecture and splendid view, I was delighted by a massive group of German school kids running amok in a wild, lightly supervised and entirely un-Teutonic fashion. Youngsters screaming and teenagers grumpily agreeing to join in the fun.
Delight, however, turned to horror when I realised that these excitable folk were my ONLY stablemates for the evening. Apart from the six-or-so adults who were there to ensure that wild fun didn't turn to all-out Lord-of-the-Flies action, I was the only adult staying in the Hostel that night. I was on the top of a mountain. The sky was beginning to darken. I was alone.
Always one to make the best of things I decided to have an early evening snooze, shower, and head down to the restaurant to take in some of the local mountain-top night life. It was only after the nap however that I realised that in my concern to pack enough oranges and chocolate to keep me going should I get lost in the forest, I forgot to bring either a towel or any clean underwear. Not entirely atypical, but disappointing nonetheless.
The restaurant did little to lift my spirits. The food was marvellous and incredibly plentiful (the Germans know how to make a schnitzel in a way that, somehow, Tesco has yet to master). But the restaurant was empty bar a group of friendly-seeming folk who kept making seemingly pointed references to the fact that they couldn't drink since they'd be driving down to civilisation after the meal. I read my book (in German!!), enjoyed my Bratkartoffel and indulged myself with two Pilsner.
I looked for signs of post-pubescent life after dinner but found none. Resigned, I decided to retire and read more of my book, followed by an early night.
The kiddies rose early to a breakfast which was a crazed shambles between 8 and 9am and completely done, dusted and tidied away by the time I arrived at 9:15 or so (I consider this early. Hostel owners would clearly consider this practically lunchtime). The friendly kitchen-woman agreeed to make a bespoke breakfast and did a fine job of making the echoing old dining hall look inviting, with a hot coffee and some cheese rolls but somehow it's just not how one imagines spending a weekend in the country:
My mood was lifted by the fabulous view but I was, nevertheless, ready to head back to the towers, trams and tramps of metropolis.
Glad to be back, I had a marvellous afternoon with Marcus and Anne (see previous post re. changing flatmates) involving a Seurat exhibition, coffee and cake and a 2-hour sauna (naked Germans, steam-room insanity that burned the eyes, terrifying plunge pool action of the is-this-invigorating-or-am-I-having-a-heart-attack style), a glass of wine out (out the house! woo!) followed by pizza and bed.
The moral of this particular tale:
better to be somewhere ugly with great people, than to be somewhere beautiful alone. Next time I go on a jouney, I'm going to ensure that at least one of the people there was born when I started Secondary School.
This weekend was looking pretty empty on Friday. With all 3 flatmates due to be in their relevant hometowns, I was looking at 48 hours without the easily accessible socialising I've come to expect from my home life.
So what to do?
I googled "best youth hostels in germany" and found a page called "The Best Youth Hostels in Germany Near Castles" (it's worth noting here that anyone who doesn't rejoice the entering of the internet into all of our lives and complains about the all-pervasive reach of information and the impersonality of modern communication just ain't usin' it right! For me at least, having Google permanently at my fingertips makes me feel like a mixture of Thomas Edison and Thomas Cook. A shining and brilliant mind, with a ready knowledge of all the hottest deals and beaches the world has to offer. Awesome).
One of the above-mentioned best hostels in Germany near castles was in Hessen (my adoptive home-state) and fulfilled its promise of being "near castles" in wonderfully flamboyant style. As we will see...
In a rare revival of Levy luck, the day I chose for my first real trip out of Frankfurt (and my first proper usage of the extremely generous State-wide semester train ticket that comes with being a student here) was easily the finest day weather-wise since October. The sky was bright, the temperature was double-figures and everything seemed well with the world.
Things got a lot more strenuous for a while but I was swiftly rewarded with the following impressively elevated-seeming view:
Delight, however, turned to horror when I realised that these excitable folk were my ONLY stablemates for the evening. Apart from the six-or-so adults who were there to ensure that wild fun didn't turn to all-out Lord-of-the-Flies action, I was the only adult staying in the Hostel that night. I was on the top of a mountain. The sky was beginning to darken. I was alone.
Always one to make the best of things I decided to have an early evening snooze, shower, and head down to the restaurant to take in some of the local mountain-top night life. It was only after the nap however that I realised that in my concern to pack enough oranges and chocolate to keep me going should I get lost in the forest, I forgot to bring either a towel or any clean underwear. Not entirely atypical, but disappointing nonetheless.
The restaurant did little to lift my spirits. The food was marvellous and incredibly plentiful (the Germans know how to make a schnitzel in a way that, somehow, Tesco has yet to master). But the restaurant was empty bar a group of friendly-seeming folk who kept making seemingly pointed references to the fact that they couldn't drink since they'd be driving down to civilisation after the meal. I read my book (in German!!), enjoyed my Bratkartoffel and indulged myself with two Pilsner.
I looked for signs of post-pubescent life after dinner but found none. Resigned, I decided to retire and read more of my book, followed by an early night.
The kiddies rose early to a breakfast which was a crazed shambles between 8 and 9am and completely done, dusted and tidied away by the time I arrived at 9:15 or so (I consider this early. Hostel owners would clearly consider this practically lunchtime). The friendly kitchen-woman agreeed to make a bespoke breakfast and did a fine job of making the echoing old dining hall look inviting, with a hot coffee and some cheese rolls but somehow it's just not how one imagines spending a weekend in the country:
The moral of this particular tale:
better to be somewhere ugly with great people, than to be somewhere beautiful alone. Next time I go on a jouney, I'm going to ensure that at least one of the people there was born when I started Secondary School.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Everything changes but me...
A new year, and a whole new life here in Frankfurt:
House
First, and most significantly, of all, the WG is transformed. Since I last wrote, Romy has decided to take the plunge into living alone (at the tender age of 22 I consider this a brave, perhaps even foolish, move. I am assured, however, that her moving out has nothing to do with my moving in). Steffi has also flown the nest to do a semester in Portugal. When last seen, she was practising the Portuguese alphabet, and familiarising herself with the numbers sufficiently to count backwards from dez to um. Interesting to see how she'll cope with Research Methods in Developmental Psychology in Português. She's a fighter, however, not a quitter, so I expect to see her back here alive and well in six months with, if not fluent Portuguese, then at least a few funny stories to tell about trying to learn.
The best thing about a change of personnel in the flat is that I'm no longer the newest person here. Without wanting to sound like someone with a short-man-hungry-for-power-complex, it feels great to show someone the ropes of the flat, and to describe how "we" (meaning me and Marcus) like to do things.
It's also given me the chance to introduce a few new practices. One such new practice is that Marcus and I, in the absence of a Steffi-shaped mother figure (she's the only woman I've ever met not to be sexually frustrated, merely reproductively frustrated), hsve begun to take responsibility for our own existence. It's interesting to note that when a person who is trying to reform you into good citizens goes away, you tend to reform yourself. I think there's an instinct to resist being moulded into something even when, left to your own devices, you'd probably be like that anyway. Suffice it to say that we've sprung into dishwasher-emptying, rubbish down-the-stairs-bringing, table-wiping domestic machines. And I like it.
Time
The Winter Semester of 20009/10 (my first) is officially over. The exams, however, dribble on for another few weeks so utter relaxation and immersion in Piano, German and Lying in Bed practice will have to wait just a little longer. The various visitations (people to Frankfurt, Rob to people elsewhere) are very much looked-forward-to events. Those involved can rest easy in the knowledge that I'm counting the days!
Language
I've arrived at a point with my German where I'm able, when drunk, to speak like a native (as far as my naïve ears can distinguish) and wave my arms around at the same time. I've also bought my first German book. It's a little out of my league, but I'm basically ok as long as my massive English-German dictionary is snugly on my lap. All good fun, but also massively frustrating sometimes, when I forget the word for "swap" or swap it with "share" and simply can't go on with what I was saying. I'm also feeling the familiar doom that comes with being at a point with a language where what you really need to do is learn some words. You're then suddenly faced with, in place of the friendly slope of Grammar that comes in the first 6 months, a massive wall of vocabulary in areas as diverse as angling; shapes, skins and stones of fruit; and different parts of the neck one can enjoyably be kissed on. It's an intimidating prospect. And that's not to mention the reams and reams of small print that living in a country inevitably entails. The only difference between English small print and German small print is that the Germans simply don't apologise for it by making it small. It's just called "print" here and it usually starts at the start of the booklet/letter/printer instructions and continues until the signature at the end.
I was recently told by a well-wisher that I make a grammar mistake in, quote, "every sentence" (I realise that writing the word quote and putting quote marks is redundant. Don't blame me. Blame they who pioneered the modern write-like-you-speak blogging style). Despite my best efforts at angling for sympathy with this line, I'm yet to find a German person who seriously disagrees with this statement. But it's kicked me into action. My German, to the Germans sounds something like this:
I'm of a language course taking thinking. I feel I from improving my German really benefit could. The time has to take the plunge and a few quid to pay come.
That is to say that most of the words are more-or-less right but they're consistently in the wrong order. This makes me comprehensible, but open to not being taken seriously. Something I'm ok with generally, but which can get on one's nerves after six continuous months. For reasons which link me neatly to my next topic, I can get cheaper language courses than most.
Teaching
Sometimes just knowing a fear is irrational is not enough to stop it giving you a day-long feeling of sickness and needing a wee. In fact it never is enough in my case. The relaunch of my moribund teaching career (Alan Partridge, you've ruined the word 'moribund' for all of us) is a nice example of this. I knew I was a decent teacher. I knew I could think on my feet and turn a 10-minute activity into a 30-minute one without the class noticing that planned timing had gone awry. But these facts didn't stop me from feeling, the whole day preceding my first 3 lessons, like I'd eaten way too much live jellyfish. It's a feeling very comparable to having to be on stage. The nerves continue right up until the second you start performing and, as soon as you do, you either can't imagine what you were worried about or you're so into it that you don't have time to stop and think about how it's going until you collapse exhausted into your U-Bahn seat the moment it's over. I really really like teaching but, by god, it's bad for my digestive system.
Needless to say, the classes themselves were better than ok. They were fun. The students are lovely (why are English students always so lovely? A decent Sociology Master's Thesis for someone, surely?) and the class flies by in a whirl of games, drawing silly pictures of crocodiles on the board and ranting about never using the present perfect with a time specifier (for those non-English speakers amongst you, ask me when you see me. I'll fill you in...). For a twice-a-week two-hour session I'm very handsomely rewarded. It represents a beer for all those readers who come to Frankfurt to claim one.
The 'In Brief' section
1. I now have a picture of the Frankfurt U-Bahn map (and a sketch of the actual street map) in my head. A wonderful moment of living in a new city.
2. My piano teacher is costly but worth it. I'm now learning to play stuff only a moderately-educated 9-year-old could play. This is quite genuinely a major step forward. See the Wikipedia page on learning to run before you can walk for an in-depth description of my piano-playing career.
3. Today I spoke to a German girl who had never heard of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (she said "Salt and pepper who??") and had never heard "Strawberry Fields Forever". Somehow my credulity was unable to deal with this. It's like somebody never having sat cross-legged before. Or never having noticed that you could flip that white thing on the wall and make the lights come on. It just seemed totally beyond the bounds of possibility. Does that make me a gross caricature of old colonial Britain (think "Do you mean to say, my dear Sanjeev, that you've never heard of The Charge of the Light Brigade?")? It's certainly too early to rule it out but in any case, I literally forced her to go out immediately and buy it. Ok, she's going tomorrow but that's good enough.
I love you and leave you, friends 'n' family, with the following thought, easily translatable through Google Translate (other automatic translation websites are available):
Vor sechs Monate könnte ich nichts sagen. Jetzt kann ich nur nichts sagen, dass grammatikalisch korrekt ist!
Till next time,
Rob
House
First, and most significantly, of all, the WG is transformed. Since I last wrote, Romy has decided to take the plunge into living alone (at the tender age of 22 I consider this a brave, perhaps even foolish, move. I am assured, however, that her moving out has nothing to do with my moving in). Steffi has also flown the nest to do a semester in Portugal. When last seen, she was practising the Portuguese alphabet, and familiarising herself with the numbers sufficiently to count backwards from dez to um. Interesting to see how she'll cope with Research Methods in Developmental Psychology in Português. She's a fighter, however, not a quitter, so I expect to see her back here alive and well in six months with, if not fluent Portuguese, then at least a few funny stories to tell about trying to learn.
The best thing about a change of personnel in the flat is that I'm no longer the newest person here. Without wanting to sound like someone with a short-man-hungry-for-power-complex, it feels great to show someone the ropes of the flat, and to describe how "we" (meaning me and Marcus) like to do things.
It's also given me the chance to introduce a few new practices. One such new practice is that Marcus and I, in the absence of a Steffi-shaped mother figure (she's the only woman I've ever met not to be sexually frustrated, merely reproductively frustrated), hsve begun to take responsibility for our own existence. It's interesting to note that when a person who is trying to reform you into good citizens goes away, you tend to reform yourself. I think there's an instinct to resist being moulded into something even when, left to your own devices, you'd probably be like that anyway. Suffice it to say that we've sprung into dishwasher-emptying, rubbish down-the-stairs-bringing, table-wiping domestic machines. And I like it.
Time
The Winter Semester of 20009/10 (my first) is officially over. The exams, however, dribble on for another few weeks so utter relaxation and immersion in Piano, German and Lying in Bed practice will have to wait just a little longer. The various visitations (people to Frankfurt, Rob to people elsewhere) are very much looked-forward-to events. Those involved can rest easy in the knowledge that I'm counting the days!
Language
I've arrived at a point with my German where I'm able, when drunk, to speak like a native (as far as my naïve ears can distinguish) and wave my arms around at the same time. I've also bought my first German book. It's a little out of my league, but I'm basically ok as long as my massive English-German dictionary is snugly on my lap. All good fun, but also massively frustrating sometimes, when I forget the word for "swap" or swap it with "share" and simply can't go on with what I was saying. I'm also feeling the familiar doom that comes with being at a point with a language where what you really need to do is learn some words. You're then suddenly faced with, in place of the friendly slope of Grammar that comes in the first 6 months, a massive wall of vocabulary in areas as diverse as angling; shapes, skins and stones of fruit; and different parts of the neck one can enjoyably be kissed on. It's an intimidating prospect. And that's not to mention the reams and reams of small print that living in a country inevitably entails. The only difference between English small print and German small print is that the Germans simply don't apologise for it by making it small. It's just called "print" here and it usually starts at the start of the booklet/letter/printer instructions and continues until the signature at the end.
I was recently told by a well-wisher that I make a grammar mistake in, quote, "every sentence" (I realise that writing the word quote and putting quote marks is redundant. Don't blame me. Blame they who pioneered the modern write-like-you-speak blogging style). Despite my best efforts at angling for sympathy with this line, I'm yet to find a German person who seriously disagrees with this statement. But it's kicked me into action. My German, to the Germans sounds something like this:
I'm of a language course taking thinking. I feel I from improving my German really benefit could. The time has to take the plunge and a few quid to pay come.
That is to say that most of the words are more-or-less right but they're consistently in the wrong order. This makes me comprehensible, but open to not being taken seriously. Something I'm ok with generally, but which can get on one's nerves after six continuous months. For reasons which link me neatly to my next topic, I can get cheaper language courses than most.
Teaching
Sometimes just knowing a fear is irrational is not enough to stop it giving you a day-long feeling of sickness and needing a wee. In fact it never is enough in my case. The relaunch of my moribund teaching career (Alan Partridge, you've ruined the word 'moribund' for all of us) is a nice example of this. I knew I was a decent teacher. I knew I could think on my feet and turn a 10-minute activity into a 30-minute one without the class noticing that planned timing had gone awry. But these facts didn't stop me from feeling, the whole day preceding my first 3 lessons, like I'd eaten way too much live jellyfish. It's a feeling very comparable to having to be on stage. The nerves continue right up until the second you start performing and, as soon as you do, you either can't imagine what you were worried about or you're so into it that you don't have time to stop and think about how it's going until you collapse exhausted into your U-Bahn seat the moment it's over. I really really like teaching but, by god, it's bad for my digestive system.
Needless to say, the classes themselves were better than ok. They were fun. The students are lovely (why are English students always so lovely? A decent Sociology Master's Thesis for someone, surely?) and the class flies by in a whirl of games, drawing silly pictures of crocodiles on the board and ranting about never using the present perfect with a time specifier (for those non-English speakers amongst you, ask me when you see me. I'll fill you in...). For a twice-a-week two-hour session I'm very handsomely rewarded. It represents a beer for all those readers who come to Frankfurt to claim one.
The 'In Brief' section
1. I now have a picture of the Frankfurt U-Bahn map (and a sketch of the actual street map) in my head. A wonderful moment of living in a new city.
2. My piano teacher is costly but worth it. I'm now learning to play stuff only a moderately-educated 9-year-old could play. This is quite genuinely a major step forward. See the Wikipedia page on learning to run before you can walk for an in-depth description of my piano-playing career.
3. Today I spoke to a German girl who had never heard of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (she said "Salt and pepper who??") and had never heard "Strawberry Fields Forever". Somehow my credulity was unable to deal with this. It's like somebody never having sat cross-legged before. Or never having noticed that you could flip that white thing on the wall and make the lights come on. It just seemed totally beyond the bounds of possibility. Does that make me a gross caricature of old colonial Britain (think "Do you mean to say, my dear Sanjeev, that you've never heard of The Charge of the Light Brigade?")? It's certainly too early to rule it out but in any case, I literally forced her to go out immediately and buy it. Ok, she's going tomorrow but that's good enough.
I love you and leave you, friends 'n' family, with the following thought, easily translatable through Google Translate (other automatic translation websites are available):
Vor sechs Monate könnte ich nichts sagen. Jetzt kann ich nur nichts sagen, dass grammatikalisch korrekt ist!
Till next time,
Rob
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Rob wins
Work, eh? It's a funny old game.
When you don't have it, all you have in your mind's eye is the quids you'll earn once you're on that precious payroll. When you DO have it, all you can think about is how to get out of it.
I really think my relationship to money is very odd. When I've got loads of it, I feel like I'd be happier with none. When I've got none of it, I feel like I'd be prepared to do anything to get some (witness my application, entirely non-ironic, for a job at McDonalds in Toulouse).
I'm currently in the latter category and my time has basically been spent pimping myself out at any rate, for any activity, in order to get some cash coming in.
The University job turned out, sadly, to be something of a non-starter. It turned out that the job advert the professor had posted was a veiled apeal for a PhD student to supervise. The first question in the interview was "do you already have a research idea or will you be looking to me to get you started with ideas?". A fair question to one all fired-up to do his doctorate in the subject he loves but one which for me, a mere Masters student with basically no idea about Economics, was tough to answer. My best selling point in the interview was that I represented a clean slate upon which no preconceptions had been written. Needless to say, I left the interview empty handed.
Another of my little plans, however, had been incubating in the office of a language school round the corner from where we live and, last week, finally bore chicks: about four months ago, I applied speculatively to the English department saying, esssentially, I'm here if you need me. Well last week, they finally did.
I start as an English teacher to a class of 15 intermediate students, doing six 45-minute lessons at the handsome rate of 20€ per lesson. (side note: here at last the pathetic pound is working in my favour, at least psychologically. 20 Euro in pre-2008 terms would be merely ok. 20 Euro when it's basically one-to-one is unprecedentedly generous! For the smart-arses or economists among you, I realise that, living in the Euro zone, this difference has no impact on my actual wealth. Still feels good though).
To top off this wonderful news (ask me again in 6 weeks time if I still think it's so wonderful (see above discussion of my attitude to work)) I bought, last week on a total whim, a lottery scratch-card. Those who know me well, know I do this extremely infrequently, and always in the knowledge that I'm paying 2 quid for the excitment of scratching off some alumiium leaf, not in the serious hope of winning anything.
So, imagine my suprise when I scratched off this:
and my further suprise upon revealing the remainder of the card:
Now, I'm not saying that winning 40€ is worth writing home about, nor am I saying that it's convinced me to embark on a life of reckless abandon, but it certainly did feel good to go back into the shop and walk out with a fistful of cash.
The phrase "Rob wins" has never been so appropriately used...
All the best,
Blog Levy
When you don't have it, all you have in your mind's eye is the quids you'll earn once you're on that precious payroll. When you DO have it, all you can think about is how to get out of it.
I really think my relationship to money is very odd. When I've got loads of it, I feel like I'd be happier with none. When I've got none of it, I feel like I'd be prepared to do anything to get some (witness my application, entirely non-ironic, for a job at McDonalds in Toulouse).
I'm currently in the latter category and my time has basically been spent pimping myself out at any rate, for any activity, in order to get some cash coming in.
The University job turned out, sadly, to be something of a non-starter. It turned out that the job advert the professor had posted was a veiled apeal for a PhD student to supervise. The first question in the interview was "do you already have a research idea or will you be looking to me to get you started with ideas?". A fair question to one all fired-up to do his doctorate in the subject he loves but one which for me, a mere Masters student with basically no idea about Economics, was tough to answer. My best selling point in the interview was that I represented a clean slate upon which no preconceptions had been written. Needless to say, I left the interview empty handed.
Another of my little plans, however, had been incubating in the office of a language school round the corner from where we live and, last week, finally bore chicks: about four months ago, I applied speculatively to the English department saying, esssentially, I'm here if you need me. Well last week, they finally did.
I start as an English teacher to a class of 15 intermediate students, doing six 45-minute lessons at the handsome rate of 20€ per lesson. (side note: here at last the pathetic pound is working in my favour, at least psychologically. 20 Euro in pre-2008 terms would be merely ok. 20 Euro when it's basically one-to-one is unprecedentedly generous! For the smart-arses or economists among you, I realise that, living in the Euro zone, this difference has no impact on my actual wealth. Still feels good though).
To top off this wonderful news (ask me again in 6 weeks time if I still think it's so wonderful (see above discussion of my attitude to work)) I bought, last week on a total whim, a lottery scratch-card. Those who know me well, know I do this extremely infrequently, and always in the knowledge that I'm paying 2 quid for the excitment of scratching off some alumiium leaf, not in the serious hope of winning anything.
So, imagine my suprise when I scratched off this:
and my further suprise upon revealing the remainder of the card:
The phrase "Rob wins" has never been so appropriately used...
All the best,
Blog Levy
Monday, January 04, 2010
The healing power of...
It's been a funny old festive period.
With the flatmates all back in their respective hometowns (only Romy is yet to return) I've essentially been in a form of hibernation. The weather here has been unremittingly awful (like what I imagine Scotland to be in winter. Cold enough to essentially force cyclists onto public transport, but not cold enough for lasting snow. Grey skies ubiquitous) so with money precious and life-giving warmth even more so, I made an active decision to stay steadfastly in. No goals, no pretence of self-improvement (my first pretence-of-self-improvement-free period for a very long time), simply staying alive throughout the winter and, hopefully, midly entertained.
So how have I spent my time? Basically in a random, mood-based distribution between the following activities:
1. Reading my Economist double Christmas issue (a subscription was recommended to me by someone whose recommendations are worth something)
2. Making soup and other delicious comestibles
3. Eating the results of 2.
4. Watching illegally downloaded films. In case this sounds like a move in the self-improvement direction, I can reveal that these films have mostly been of the "Dude where's my car?" varietym (I include "Duck Soup" in this same category. Any arguments with that?)
5. Playing piano. I've got an exciting (and expensive) piano teacher. My first ever piano lessons and my first music lessons of any kind since I gave up the clarinet aged about 13. She's Israeli but speaks great English (typically). She's quiet but certain of what she wants. She's marvellously talented. The kind of unassuming talented where you'd think she'd never noticed until you pointed it out. She also has two grand pianos in her flat. Wow. It's a totally new experience having my playing analysed in any way, and I've discovered I'm much more shy than I realised. Shy's not right, but somehow... self-concious? Anyway, I feel like I play about ten times worse when I'm showing her what I can do. Perhaps this is a universal experience.
So, to continue my hibernation analogy, today - first snowdrop roots poking my sleeping form - I stuck my nose out of the burrow to see what was what. And what a good day I've had soothed as I was by the healing power of three of my favourite things:
i. The Healing Power of Art
At long last I decided to make now the moment when I was going to see the big Boticelli exhibition at the grand Städel Museum on the south side of the Main.
I spent a wonderful three hours walking very slowly around some seriously old paintings, listening to my audio guide (English) and generally loving the atmosphere (busy yet hushed) and having a great time. 8 Euro well spent.
ii. The Healing Power of Architecture
Upon exiting the gallery I was confronted by a Frankfurt-at-night from an angle I'd not seen before. I've rarely been south of the Main, and never stood where I was standing at night. The snow was gleaming in the gallery's spotlights and the familiar skyline looked marvellous and brooding from across the river.
Above is my shaky-handed attempt at a panorama and, below, the pretty cool-looking Holbeinsteg (Holbein Footbridge) with attendant Boticelli poster (which is also in every U-Bahn station and generally all over town.
Rather beautiful I think.
iii. The Healing power of cold hard cash
I got a reply today from a professor of mine to an application I sent off in 2009 (imagine!) expressing interest in becoming his research assistant type thingy. It's a very, very popular option here in the German further education system. Every professor has around 3 students assisting them, doing tutorials, boring bits of research and generally putting in a few hours a week in the cause of knowledge. The pay seems to be great, the hours are designed to fit around a student schedule. All in all, it's the dream ticket for anyone with enough of a grasp of what's going on in lectures to have ten hours a week or so to spare.
The application was very late in being submitted (my heart sank when I got his Christmas out-of-office reply in response to it. I thought it was all over) and also slightly non-standard. Rather than the standard blah blah cover letter, I decided to write a kind of FAQ. A set of questions I though anyone who didn't know me and got my application would ask. Things like: why are you so old for a 1st year? What happened to IT? Why economics? etc.
Turns out, he really liked this approach, and I'm going for interview next Monday!
If you're reading this, I assume you're some kind of well-wisher. If indeed you are, please cross your fingers for me. This could be the first major event of my new career in Economics....
Till next time,
Rob
With the flatmates all back in their respective hometowns (only Romy is yet to return) I've essentially been in a form of hibernation. The weather here has been unremittingly awful (like what I imagine Scotland to be in winter. Cold enough to essentially force cyclists onto public transport, but not cold enough for lasting snow. Grey skies ubiquitous) so with money precious and life-giving warmth even more so, I made an active decision to stay steadfastly in. No goals, no pretence of self-improvement (my first pretence-of-self-improvement-free period for a very long time), simply staying alive throughout the winter and, hopefully, midly entertained.
So how have I spent my time? Basically in a random, mood-based distribution between the following activities:
1. Reading my Economist double Christmas issue (a subscription was recommended to me by someone whose recommendations are worth something)
2. Making soup and other delicious comestibles
3. Eating the results of 2.
4. Watching illegally downloaded films. In case this sounds like a move in the self-improvement direction, I can reveal that these films have mostly been of the "Dude where's my car?" varietym (I include "Duck Soup" in this same category. Any arguments with that?)
5. Playing piano. I've got an exciting (and expensive) piano teacher. My first ever piano lessons and my first music lessons of any kind since I gave up the clarinet aged about 13. She's Israeli but speaks great English (typically). She's quiet but certain of what she wants. She's marvellously talented. The kind of unassuming talented where you'd think she'd never noticed until you pointed it out. She also has two grand pianos in her flat. Wow. It's a totally new experience having my playing analysed in any way, and I've discovered I'm much more shy than I realised. Shy's not right, but somehow... self-concious? Anyway, I feel like I play about ten times worse when I'm showing her what I can do. Perhaps this is a universal experience.
So, to continue my hibernation analogy, today - first snowdrop roots poking my sleeping form - I stuck my nose out of the burrow to see what was what. And what a good day I've had soothed as I was by the healing power of three of my favourite things:
i. The Healing Power of Art
At long last I decided to make now the moment when I was going to see the big Boticelli exhibition at the grand Städel Museum on the south side of the Main.
I spent a wonderful three hours walking very slowly around some seriously old paintings, listening to my audio guide (English) and generally loving the atmosphere (busy yet hushed) and having a great time. 8 Euro well spent.
ii. The Healing Power of Architecture
Upon exiting the gallery I was confronted by a Frankfurt-at-night from an angle I'd not seen before. I've rarely been south of the Main, and never stood where I was standing at night. The snow was gleaming in the gallery's spotlights and the familiar skyline looked marvellous and brooding from across the river.
Above is my shaky-handed attempt at a panorama and, below, the pretty cool-looking Holbeinsteg (Holbein Footbridge) with attendant Boticelli poster (which is also in every U-Bahn station and generally all over town.
Rather beautiful I think.
iii. The Healing power of cold hard cash
I got a reply today from a professor of mine to an application I sent off in 2009 (imagine!) expressing interest in becoming his research assistant type thingy. It's a very, very popular option here in the German further education system. Every professor has around 3 students assisting them, doing tutorials, boring bits of research and generally putting in a few hours a week in the cause of knowledge. The pay seems to be great, the hours are designed to fit around a student schedule. All in all, it's the dream ticket for anyone with enough of a grasp of what's going on in lectures to have ten hours a week or so to spare.
The application was very late in being submitted (my heart sank when I got his Christmas out-of-office reply in response to it. I thought it was all over) and also slightly non-standard. Rather than the standard blah blah cover letter, I decided to write a kind of FAQ. A set of questions I though anyone who didn't know me and got my application would ask. Things like: why are you so old for a 1st year? What happened to IT? Why economics? etc.
Turns out, he really liked this approach, and I'm going for interview next Monday!
If you're reading this, I assume you're some kind of well-wisher. If indeed you are, please cross your fingers for me. This could be the first major event of my new career in Economics....
Till next time,
Rob
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