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
Thursday, March 25, 2010
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
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
The hot-water-cold-water trick
As a youngster, I had a book which basically consisted of cheap thrills for the inquisitively minded, finding interesting stuff to do with bits and bobs found around the house.
I devoured this book via the eyeballs, but, typically, turned little of it into tangeable experience. The one exception to this rule was a trick so easy to perform, and so full of promise that only the dullest of minds could have failed to want to repeat it.
The book instructed one to fill one bowl with hot water, one with cold, and a third with a tepid mixture of the two, dip each hand into one of the "extreme" bowls, then plunge both hands into the middle bowl. The different contexts of the different hands causes the middle bowl to feel cold and hot at the same time.
The final result is indeed satisfyingly odd and, thinking about it now, the same experiment is being repeated again and again throughout life.
The 'middle bowl' of my life is my decision to jack it all in and move to Frankfurt.
My feeling of itchy feet, of the bigness of the world versus the smallness of my experience of it and my general dissatisfaction with the known set against my wild imagination of the unknown, is the cold bowl.
The feeling of knowing that, living within a fairly small radius of every location, was everyone who I think is great and love the idea of sitting at a proper wooden table with drinking red wine in a dimly lit living room. The comfort of knowing that one text was all it would take to organise the next hanging-out session. These things are my hot bowl.
Set against these contexts, my new life here feels warm and cold at the same time.
The cold doesn't need much explaining, and I've written plenty on the subject here before. Not having close friends is tough. Making close friends is also tough. Or rather, it takes a long time.
More interesting is the warm. This, I will describe via the medium of the three short anecdotes about what happens if you live in a small place (ie. not London!).
1) The piano teacher
Hand-written messages were springing up all over campus. 'Klavierlehrer gesucht' they said. Insisting on the British musical-note nomenclature (in Germany they have a note called 'H'!) and asking those who could decypher the broken German to contact an English man.
One woman responded to this call, and I went to see her a couple of weeks ago. She turned out to be about 17, and more used to teaching first-time kiddlies than your always-humble but fantastically-talented narrator. She was, however, certainly interesting. It turned out that she's a semi-professional jazz singer and musician and had been desperately seeking a piano player who could reliably bash through a jazzy chord sequence to accompany her when she does her gigs. Needless to say, I'm now on her list. She also knows many, many piano teachers and has promised to hook me up with someone.
2) The abrupt interrupter
Where do you go when campus is all locked up (as it more-or-less is at the weekends) and you want to study Econometrics with your nerdy maths-pals? A question oft-posed around these parts.
Me and a course-mates ended up upstairs in Starbucks (did I ever mention that Germany is exactly the same as England?) looking through some equations over a large tea (€3.40 for a tea. Can't we do something about the fucking pound already?). We were rudely interrupted by a woman sitting at the end of our table, who'd been being annoying on her mobile phone for some time.
"Entschuldigung," quoth she. "Ich habe bemerkt, dass Sie Englisch sprechen." She went on to ask if we knew anyone who could do a short translation for her and how much it would cost. We said that we could probably do it and we invented a price of €30 per page. She agreed and we exchanged email addresses. It turns out, after the 25 minutes it took us to translate what she had (my maths friend speaks great English, and I polished up the final copy), that the text was for the inlay for a CD she's about to release. She's a professional composer and concert pianist and has since promised us a free copy of the CD. I've also been in touch with her asking if she knows any decent piano teachers (which she surely will).
3) The live-in landlord
Upon receiving a response I'd sent about a flat in a cool part of town (the person whose room I'm occupying comes back in March), I noticed that the landlord had MySpace links at the bottom of his email signature. It turns out that he left East Germany some 25 years ago, and lived in the US for twenty years (changing his name from Bernt Gerhard Müller by deed poll to Bernard G. Muller) and while there worked as a professional musician and is now trying to revive that career in Frankfurt. He's invited me to his CD launch party on Thursday and, whether or not I decide to take the room, I think we're going to try and make some music together. Amazing.
The common thread to these three tales is that, if you live in a small enough place, then you meet all the cool, interesting people eventually. It's just a question of being out the house and out of the library often enough to allow luck to take its course.
Now, about that shower I was thinking of taking. Maybe it's time to get out of the dressing gown.
Auf Wiedersehen pets,
Rob
I devoured this book via the eyeballs, but, typically, turned little of it into tangeable experience. The one exception to this rule was a trick so easy to perform, and so full of promise that only the dullest of minds could have failed to want to repeat it.
The book instructed one to fill one bowl with hot water, one with cold, and a third with a tepid mixture of the two, dip each hand into one of the "extreme" bowls, then plunge both hands into the middle bowl. The different contexts of the different hands causes the middle bowl to feel cold and hot at the same time.
The final result is indeed satisfyingly odd and, thinking about it now, the same experiment is being repeated again and again throughout life.
The 'middle bowl' of my life is my decision to jack it all in and move to Frankfurt.
My feeling of itchy feet, of the bigness of the world versus the smallness of my experience of it and my general dissatisfaction with the known set against my wild imagination of the unknown, is the cold bowl.
The feeling of knowing that, living within a fairly small radius of every location, was everyone who I think is great and love the idea of sitting at a proper wooden table with drinking red wine in a dimly lit living room. The comfort of knowing that one text was all it would take to organise the next hanging-out session. These things are my hot bowl.
Set against these contexts, my new life here feels warm and cold at the same time.
The cold doesn't need much explaining, and I've written plenty on the subject here before. Not having close friends is tough. Making close friends is also tough. Or rather, it takes a long time.
More interesting is the warm. This, I will describe via the medium of the three short anecdotes about what happens if you live in a small place (ie. not London!).
1) The piano teacher
Hand-written messages were springing up all over campus. 'Klavierlehrer gesucht' they said. Insisting on the British musical-note nomenclature (in Germany they have a note called 'H'!) and asking those who could decypher the broken German to contact an English man.
One woman responded to this call, and I went to see her a couple of weeks ago. She turned out to be about 17, and more used to teaching first-time kiddlies than your always-humble but fantastically-talented narrator. She was, however, certainly interesting. It turned out that she's a semi-professional jazz singer and musician and had been desperately seeking a piano player who could reliably bash through a jazzy chord sequence to accompany her when she does her gigs. Needless to say, I'm now on her list. She also knows many, many piano teachers and has promised to hook me up with someone.
2) The abrupt interrupter
Where do you go when campus is all locked up (as it more-or-less is at the weekends) and you want to study Econometrics with your nerdy maths-pals? A question oft-posed around these parts.
Me and a course-mates ended up upstairs in Starbucks (did I ever mention that Germany is exactly the same as England?) looking through some equations over a large tea (€3.40 for a tea. Can't we do something about the fucking pound already?). We were rudely interrupted by a woman sitting at the end of our table, who'd been being annoying on her mobile phone for some time.
"Entschuldigung," quoth she. "Ich habe bemerkt, dass Sie Englisch sprechen." She went on to ask if we knew anyone who could do a short translation for her and how much it would cost. We said that we could probably do it and we invented a price of €30 per page. She agreed and we exchanged email addresses. It turns out, after the 25 minutes it took us to translate what she had (my maths friend speaks great English, and I polished up the final copy), that the text was for the inlay for a CD she's about to release. She's a professional composer and concert pianist and has since promised us a free copy of the CD. I've also been in touch with her asking if she knows any decent piano teachers (which she surely will).
3) The live-in landlord
Upon receiving a response I'd sent about a flat in a cool part of town (the person whose room I'm occupying comes back in March), I noticed that the landlord had MySpace links at the bottom of his email signature. It turns out that he left East Germany some 25 years ago, and lived in the US for twenty years (changing his name from Bernt Gerhard Müller by deed poll to Bernard G. Muller) and while there worked as a professional musician and is now trying to revive that career in Frankfurt. He's invited me to his CD launch party on Thursday and, whether or not I decide to take the room, I think we're going to try and make some music together. Amazing.
The common thread to these three tales is that, if you live in a small enough place, then you meet all the cool, interesting people eventually. It's just a question of being out the house and out of the library often enough to allow luck to take its course.
Now, about that shower I was thinking of taking. Maybe it's time to get out of the dressing gown.
Auf Wiedersehen pets,
Rob
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Now they tell me...
A lot of talk is going around the various cafés and seminar rooms of my new academic existence. Much of it is related to how mind-bustingly hard the course is. It's really designed for undergraduate mathematics students. They're having a whale of a time. Piece of piss for them. Triple indefinite integrals over a Lebesgue-measurable Borel set defining the joint distribution of a vector of random variables? Did one before breakfast, they did. Borel sets coming out of their arses and glasses cases.
Still, not a little of this talk is on a closely related subject: that of what to do with those of us who are almost certain to fail the mid-terms. The language of this Masters is not English after all, but the language of post-grad level maths. And for those who don't speak it, there's a nightmare of inner translation to perform before you have any idea what the lecturers are on about.
The general consensus seems to have been reached that at least some of us are going to have to change course.
This being Germany, of course, this should be a feasible prospect. People seem to spend anything up to about seven years here on their university studies, changing course as often as a river over flat ground.
Now I should point out here that I'm not actually among those who are panicking. I kind of think I'm alright. The course is definitely tough, no doubt about it, but I more or less speak Maths and my English is pretty good too (just as an aside: imagine if you will the position of a non-English-native who did business administration at undergrad. Not much maths, not much English. There are several examples in my class. Lord knows how they're coping...).
But in the course of my research into possible alternative courses which a particular friend might like to look at, I found one happening in the building next to ours (the infamous House of Finance, see previous posts) entitled "International Economics and Policy".
Now this seems scarily like the goal I claimed to have when I quit my job and decided to study. I said I wanted to work in policy, doing something a bit mathematical (i.e. economics) and that I wanted to use my languages. Now whether or not I'm actually cut out for such work (or whether I'd actually find it stimulating) is another matter. It just sounded good so I went for it (for those who've known me a long time, refer to my decision aged 15 to become an Engineer. Knew nothing about the subject but it led me to choose nerdy A-Levels and do an engineering degree. This degree is currently gathering dust in the back of some long-forgotten corner of my CV).
So, in short, I'm going to start a bit of research into this supposed dream course. What does it involve? Is it still early enough to change onto it? How is it viewed by the outside world? Are there any nice girls doing it?
All vital questions. And all to be answered in the coming days.
Rob
Still, not a little of this talk is on a closely related subject: that of what to do with those of us who are almost certain to fail the mid-terms. The language of this Masters is not English after all, but the language of post-grad level maths. And for those who don't speak it, there's a nightmare of inner translation to perform before you have any idea what the lecturers are on about.
The general consensus seems to have been reached that at least some of us are going to have to change course.
This being Germany, of course, this should be a feasible prospect. People seem to spend anything up to about seven years here on their university studies, changing course as often as a river over flat ground.
Now I should point out here that I'm not actually among those who are panicking. I kind of think I'm alright. The course is definitely tough, no doubt about it, but I more or less speak Maths and my English is pretty good too (just as an aside: imagine if you will the position of a non-English-native who did business administration at undergrad. Not much maths, not much English. There are several examples in my class. Lord knows how they're coping...).
But in the course of my research into possible alternative courses which a particular friend might like to look at, I found one happening in the building next to ours (the infamous House of Finance, see previous posts) entitled "International Economics and Policy".
Now this seems scarily like the goal I claimed to have when I quit my job and decided to study. I said I wanted to work in policy, doing something a bit mathematical (i.e. economics) and that I wanted to use my languages. Now whether or not I'm actually cut out for such work (or whether I'd actually find it stimulating) is another matter. It just sounded good so I went for it (for those who've known me a long time, refer to my decision aged 15 to become an Engineer. Knew nothing about the subject but it led me to choose nerdy A-Levels and do an engineering degree. This degree is currently gathering dust in the back of some long-forgotten corner of my CV).
So, in short, I'm going to start a bit of research into this supposed dream course. What does it involve? Is it still early enough to change onto it? How is it viewed by the outside world? Are there any nice girls doing it?
All vital questions. And all to be answered in the coming days.
Rob
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Decisions, decisions
Eeurgh! It's finally happened. Just like for the child - who thinks she'll never grow up then suddenly, unexpectedly, stops thinking The Radio 1 Chart Show is worth tuning in for - there's no going back. The moment I thought would never come has arrived. I thought I was different. That the aging process was going to be different for me than for others. But I'm just the same as everyone else.
Last week I stayed in on Friday night and, on Saturday morning, felt so amazing that I decided that going out and getting drunk is no longer worth it.
On Friday morning I had woken up feeling like I was never going to be able to get out of bed ever again. I felt like I could see clearly that everything in life was hard and pointless and that I was going to just lie in the dark until summer came, feeding off my own reserves of body fat and the occasional fried cheese sandwich. As I'm sure you can guess, I was horribly hung over.
Compare and contrast this feeling with my joyous, sober weekend, wherein I woke up, showered, breakfasted, did some reading, went swimming, went for a beautiful walk in the hills, did more work, watched Extras on th'internet.
My life is changed. I'm going to officially be boring for the rest of my life.
Apart, of course, from this weekend, when my flatmates, my visitors from Cambridge and I are going to a gold-themed fancy-dress party where I plan to paint myself gold and wear nothing but a pair of gold shorts.
But after this one last blow-out, life is never going to be the same.... Honest.
Last week I stayed in on Friday night and, on Saturday morning, felt so amazing that I decided that going out and getting drunk is no longer worth it.
On Friday morning I had woken up feeling like I was never going to be able to get out of bed ever again. I felt like I could see clearly that everything in life was hard and pointless and that I was going to just lie in the dark until summer came, feeding off my own reserves of body fat and the occasional fried cheese sandwich. As I'm sure you can guess, I was horribly hung over.
Compare and contrast this feeling with my joyous, sober weekend, wherein I woke up, showered, breakfasted, did some reading, went swimming, went for a beautiful walk in the hills, did more work, watched Extras on th'internet.
My life is changed. I'm going to officially be boring for the rest of my life.
Apart, of course, from this weekend, when my flatmates, my visitors from Cambridge and I are going to a gold-themed fancy-dress party where I plan to paint myself gold and wear nothing but a pair of gold shorts.
But after this one last blow-out, life is never going to be the same.... Honest.
Friday, October 09, 2009
A miscellany of tales
Here is a short list of funny/noteworthy things that have happened to me recently:
1) Laughable American
I was in Starbucks in the centre of Frankfurt, enjoying an English Breakfast tea with fresh (not UHT) milk, and reading Charles Dickens. I'd like to point out, before the once-gentle reader throws up his hands in self-righteous outrage, loudly bemoaning the lack of German authnenticity of this situation, that I am like a Jewish man in Israel. A Jewish man in Israel doesn't need to go to synagogue or refrain from pig-pocketing (this is not a suitable euphemism for not eating pork, but I liked it so it remained in this sentence). Just by being in Israel he is already Jewish enough, thank you very much. The trappings that we know as Jewish culture are only sops to remind us diasporites what it's all about. Just by being in Germany I'm German enough. All the Grande Caramel Macchiati in the world can't take that away from me.
Anyway, as I say, I was in Starbucks when I overheard, in a laughably poor German accent, the rarely heard phrase "Wo ist der Hard Rock Cafe?". A large lady clearly considered herself essentially to be in a more ubiquitous (and easier to ask questions of) verion of the American Embassy, the German girl behind the counter expected to act as a consoling consolate to the lost and frightened American abroad. When the confusion as to where the Hard Rock Cafe was reached fever pitch, I stepped in and told that lady that, despite my several weeks of cycling around the streets of Frankfurt, I hadn't seen a Hard Rock Cafe. Did she know of there definitely being one in Frankfurt?
Her reply to this question was made infinitely funnier by the crumpled face, knitted brow, and sorrowful tone of a child who's just been told there is no Barack Obama, just her parents in a suit; she said:
"I just kinda assumed there would be"
Ho ho ho.
2) Accidental Children's Party Attendee
It sounded like such a great idea. A start-of-semester party! On campus! Drinks at "Student Prices"!
When the small group of us Economics Masters people arrived at the allotted hour, 3 things rapidly became clear:
i. This year's intake of first-years had, under some mysterious German government rule, been allowed to start university at age 11.
ii. There were one-hundred-and-forty-thousand of these scamps, and all of them had chosen to come to the party, and arrived simultaneously in some unseen, but later dreamed of, horrifying giant school coach.
iii. We were supposed to have brought invitations. Otherwise, the entry fee was five euro. FIVE EURO! To go to a university party on my own campus. Radical action was required.
Word quickly went around our small band of adventuring over-25s that if we could convince someone to let us be their plus one, we could both skip the queue and the entrance fee. I like to think there is no-one better equipped for this kind of challenge than me. I travelled up and down the front one per cent of the queue, shouting that I needed to become someone's plus one right away. After much embarrassed shuffling of feet (Germans = Brits, ha!), I was taken in by one group of weedy saplings who said I could come in with them if I bought them a drink. Needless to say, I teased them with talk of minimum alcohol consumption age, which they greatly enjoyed.
Anyway, to cut what is becoming a very long story short, I lost all of my course-mates via this procedure and spent the whole evening in the company of three 8-year-olds first years, engaged in the following exercise: Male 8-year-old would point out a group of girls he'd like to talk to, if only he was good at talking to girls. I went over to this group of girls and got their attention by saying something funny in English. Winning their favour, I then introduced them to my young, handsome beau. I then withdrew once chat had successfully been established, and knowlingly sipped my Apfelwein waiting for the results to come in. The young lad had two phone numbers by the end of the evening. I consider this a job well done.
3) A willing jump into drudgery
An American coursemate of mine told me that he was applying for a job he'd seen advertised in the House of Finance (see previous post re. Bockenheim and Westend) for a student IT assistant, 10-20 hours a week. He was using this as an example of how poorly Germans used email in comparison to his fellow Americans. He told me tales of waiting a week for a reply to an email. I was shocked and appauled of course. I quizzed him about his credentials in applying for the role and he told me he'd used a piece of Accounting software in his previous job as an accountant. How hard could it be? To be fair on me, I was honest with him at this point. I told him that if so much as one fifteen-year-old with no social skills and reduced literacy applied for the job, then my American friend would stand no chance of getting it, as the fifteen-year-old would trump him for IT experience immediately.
After having a good old laugh to myself about this possible other explanation for the lack of response to his application, I suddenly thought: hey, why don't I apply for the job? It's on campus. It pays well. I could do it with my brain closed, and my CV corroborates it.
So I did.
And the same evening, I had an email asking me to come for interview the following morning.
Now I'm not saying I'll get the job. I'm not even absolutely saying I'll take it if do. But it does demonstrate neatly something I've long suspected about this world of instant communication in which we now live.
If you text/email/call/Facebook/MSN someone and they don't respond, maybe, just maybe, rather than the "too busy/on holiday/out of credit/spam filter malfunction" stuff your loyal friends will have you believe, the person you're trying to get hold of just doesn't want to talk to you.
Auf wiedersehen, pets.
Rob
1) Laughable American
I was in Starbucks in the centre of Frankfurt, enjoying an English Breakfast tea with fresh (not UHT) milk, and reading Charles Dickens. I'd like to point out, before the once-gentle reader throws up his hands in self-righteous outrage, loudly bemoaning the lack of German authnenticity of this situation, that I am like a Jewish man in Israel. A Jewish man in Israel doesn't need to go to synagogue or refrain from pig-pocketing (this is not a suitable euphemism for not eating pork, but I liked it so it remained in this sentence). Just by being in Israel he is already Jewish enough, thank you very much. The trappings that we know as Jewish culture are only sops to remind us diasporites what it's all about. Just by being in Germany I'm German enough. All the Grande Caramel Macchiati in the world can't take that away from me.
Anyway, as I say, I was in Starbucks when I overheard, in a laughably poor German accent, the rarely heard phrase "Wo ist der Hard Rock Cafe?". A large lady clearly considered herself essentially to be in a more ubiquitous (and easier to ask questions of) verion of the American Embassy, the German girl behind the counter expected to act as a consoling consolate to the lost and frightened American abroad. When the confusion as to where the Hard Rock Cafe was reached fever pitch, I stepped in and told that lady that, despite my several weeks of cycling around the streets of Frankfurt, I hadn't seen a Hard Rock Cafe. Did she know of there definitely being one in Frankfurt?
Her reply to this question was made infinitely funnier by the crumpled face, knitted brow, and sorrowful tone of a child who's just been told there is no Barack Obama, just her parents in a suit; she said:
"I just kinda assumed there would be"
Ho ho ho.
2) Accidental Children's Party Attendee
It sounded like such a great idea. A start-of-semester party! On campus! Drinks at "Student Prices"!
When the small group of us Economics Masters people arrived at the allotted hour, 3 things rapidly became clear:
i. This year's intake of first-years had, under some mysterious German government rule, been allowed to start university at age 11.
ii. There were one-hundred-and-forty-thousand of these scamps, and all of them had chosen to come to the party, and arrived simultaneously in some unseen, but later dreamed of, horrifying giant school coach.
iii. We were supposed to have brought invitations. Otherwise, the entry fee was five euro. FIVE EURO! To go to a university party on my own campus. Radical action was required.
Word quickly went around our small band of adventuring over-25s that if we could convince someone to let us be their plus one, we could both skip the queue and the entrance fee. I like to think there is no-one better equipped for this kind of challenge than me. I travelled up and down the front one per cent of the queue, shouting that I needed to become someone's plus one right away. After much embarrassed shuffling of feet (Germans = Brits, ha!), I was taken in by one group of weedy saplings who said I could come in with them if I bought them a drink. Needless to say, I teased them with talk of minimum alcohol consumption age, which they greatly enjoyed.
Anyway, to cut what is becoming a very long story short, I lost all of my course-mates via this procedure and spent the whole evening in the company of three 8-year-olds first years, engaged in the following exercise: Male 8-year-old would point out a group of girls he'd like to talk to, if only he was good at talking to girls. I went over to this group of girls and got their attention by saying something funny in English. Winning their favour, I then introduced them to my young, handsome beau. I then withdrew once chat had successfully been established, and knowlingly sipped my Apfelwein waiting for the results to come in. The young lad had two phone numbers by the end of the evening. I consider this a job well done.
3) A willing jump into drudgery
An American coursemate of mine told me that he was applying for a job he'd seen advertised in the House of Finance (see previous post re. Bockenheim and Westend) for a student IT assistant, 10-20 hours a week. He was using this as an example of how poorly Germans used email in comparison to his fellow Americans. He told me tales of waiting a week for a reply to an email. I was shocked and appauled of course. I quizzed him about his credentials in applying for the role and he told me he'd used a piece of Accounting software in his previous job as an accountant. How hard could it be? To be fair on me, I was honest with him at this point. I told him that if so much as one fifteen-year-old with no social skills and reduced literacy applied for the job, then my American friend would stand no chance of getting it, as the fifteen-year-old would trump him for IT experience immediately.
After having a good old laugh to myself about this possible other explanation for the lack of response to his application, I suddenly thought: hey, why don't I apply for the job? It's on campus. It pays well. I could do it with my brain closed, and my CV corroborates it.
So I did.
And the same evening, I had an email asking me to come for interview the following morning.
Now I'm not saying I'll get the job. I'm not even absolutely saying I'll take it if do. But it does demonstrate neatly something I've long suspected about this world of instant communication in which we now live.
If you text/email/call/Facebook/MSN someone and they don't respond, maybe, just maybe, rather than the "too busy/on holiday/out of credit/spam filter malfunction" stuff your loyal friends will have you believe, the person you're trying to get hold of just doesn't want to talk to you.
Auf wiedersehen, pets.
Rob
Sunday, October 04, 2009
A tale of two systems
OR
"A short illustrated history of the progress of the University of Frankfurt as seen through the eyes of a disinterested foreigner."
"Really?", exclaimed my besuited, bebooted course-mate with incredulity. "You are going to ze student bar? On ze uzzer campus?! Haff you no idea how dangerous zis is?". He was genuinely concerned for my safety. The prospect of a drink on "the other campus", a mere ten minute cycle ride away, was enough to send a murmur of apprehension and disapproval through the assembled German students. They knew it not. They had seen it not. But they had heard tell, and what they had heard they had not liked. Oh no.
Thus begins my short illustrated history of the Other-ness of the two campuses of Frankfurt University. To each, the other is anathema. The very essence of either (a) exactly why progress must be halted and capitalism reigned in, or (b) exactly why the old systems must make way for a new, brighter, more outward-looking Frankfurt; depending on whom you talk to.
I'll start, if I may, at the beginning: a short glossary to help the peruser of this history understand the key terms used herein.
Bockenheim n. /'bokənhɑɪm/ The site of the first building of the Frankfurt Unversität in 18-hundred-and-something. Now a crumbling, left-wing relic of the 1980's Germany of mullets and oversized knitwear we know from German language textbooks.
Westend n. /'vƐstƐnt/ A former American army base, now the most spangly whizzbang campus in Europe. A centre for conferences, corporate sponsorship and private enterprise. Where I study.
The most important thing to know about Bockenheim campus, is that it is doomed: by 2011, the university wants to have everyone studying in shiny new buildings on the Westend campus, and is not shy about making this desire known. From the look of the Bockenheim campus, this plan to abandon the place has been agreed upon by those who hold the purse strings for quite some time. The place is falling apart. In some cases literally. The centrepiece of the campus is a semi-derelict tower-block, known only as der Turm (the tower), in which all the left-wing subjects have their home: philosophy, politics, sociology, education etc.
The image shown here is Microsoft's satellite view. The place is literally covered in grafitti, mostly political: a mix of anti-Nazi, pro-Israeli (interestingly, the left-wing view here is not anti-Israel like in England) and anti-snob-culture. Much of what happens there is student-led. There are regular (occasionally tense) protests about student fees, equality of access etc. and at least three student-run cafes and bars, all of which are mind-bogglingly cheap and very laid back
(a notable example of this is a place known only by the generic descriptor "Bar abend" wherein the Apfelwein (a local speciality) is €1 a glass, the staff are paid in booze and the doors are open until gone 6).
Contrast this with Campus Westend.
This is my campus, and the location of subjects such as Economics (the tongue-twistingly-entitled Wirtschaftswissenchaften), Law and Finance. The campus opened a mere two years ago, and the novelty of the place is evident everywhere you look. The buildings are beautiful, the lawns are still being grown, and technology reigns supreme. The library is a high-tech wonder, with automatic blinds, individually operated reading lights and student-card-operated lockers. The campus is an available real-estate for private enterprise. Many of the shops and cafes are privately-owned (and 30% more expensive) as is the Alma Mater of my new course, the House of Finance.
In this magisterial building, shown left, the lecture rooms are named after the banks which paid for them (leading to odd-sounding timetables: Macroeconomics, 2pm in Deutschebank) and equipped with cameras so powerful they can read handwritten notes from any seat in the room and beam them onto up to 3 projectors at the front. They have their own private security (never a phrase associated with good things for some reason) and students have to use the back stairs, to ensure the lifts are always available for professors and other visiting dignitaries.
The campus as a whole is designed to be a beacon for international conferences and symposia (The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics was held there last week, with much fanfare and free grub).
Needless to say, the restless lefties on Campus Bockenheim are not best impressed, as is witnessed by this message I came across written on a wall of the infamous Turm.
This point was palpably proved (or disproved, depending on who you talk to) by a recent 'occupation' of the aforementioned House by a gang of spray-can wielding Bockenheimers. Official accounts of what happened vary but, by anyone's measure, the results were messy and not entirely non-contact.
This, in large part, explains why my coursemate was horrified at the prospect of me spending a Thursday night in the company of radical layabouts, and why I have to shuffle my feet a little whenever talk amongst my flatmates and new friends turns to the miserable future of their beloved campus. I am, without question, part of the disease and not of the cure. I'm exactly the kind of yuppie foreigner the new campus was designed to attract. I'm studying exactly the kind of cold-hearted subject my Social Science-studying stablemates love to rail against.
I would answer, were I able to adequately expressly myself in this new mothertongue of mine, that I hope to be somewhat different in my studying of Economics. That I will always be bearing in mind that welfare does not equal money, and that what is best for the community as a whole can very well be disastrous for an individual, and that nice people (like me, I like to think) need to be on the inside of the machine where they can influence things for the better, rather than on the outside, where ability to make things different is limited to writing about injustice on walls.
I'm going to close this potted history with my favourite thing I've read so far in my study of Economics. It comes from John Stuart Mill, and seems to be exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about when I tried, internally, to justify myself to the angry Bockenheimers:
"The same persons who cry down Logic will generally warn you against Political Economy. It is unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognises unpleasant facts. For my part, the most unfeeling thing I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the neck of the best and most amiable person without scruple, if he forgets for a single moment to give heed to it. The winds and waves too are very unfeeling. Would you advise those who go to sea to deny the winds and waves--or to make use of them, and find the means of guarding against their dangers? My advice to you is to study the great writers on Political Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find true; and depend upon it that if you are not selfish or hard-hearted already, Political Economy will not make you so."
Amazing.
Rob
"A short illustrated history of the progress of the University of Frankfurt as seen through the eyes of a disinterested foreigner."
"Really?", exclaimed my besuited, bebooted course-mate with incredulity. "You are going to ze student bar? On ze uzzer campus?! Haff you no idea how dangerous zis is?". He was genuinely concerned for my safety. The prospect of a drink on "the other campus", a mere ten minute cycle ride away, was enough to send a murmur of apprehension and disapproval through the assembled German students. They knew it not. They had seen it not. But they had heard tell, and what they had heard they had not liked. Oh no.
Thus begins my short illustrated history of the Other-ness of the two campuses of Frankfurt University. To each, the other is anathema. The very essence of either (a) exactly why progress must be halted and capitalism reigned in, or (b) exactly why the old systems must make way for a new, brighter, more outward-looking Frankfurt; depending on whom you talk to.
I'll start, if I may, at the beginning: a short glossary to help the peruser of this history understand the key terms used herein.
Bockenheim n. /'bokənhɑɪm/ The site of the first building of the Frankfurt Unversität in 18-hundred-and-something. Now a crumbling, left-wing relic of the 1980's Germany of mullets and oversized knitwear we know from German language textbooks.
Westend n. /'vƐstƐnt/ A former American army base, now the most spangly whizzbang campus in Europe. A centre for conferences, corporate sponsorship and private enterprise. Where I study.
The most important thing to know about Bockenheim campus, is that it is doomed: by 2011, the university wants to have everyone studying in shiny new buildings on the Westend campus, and is not shy about making this desire known. From the look of the Bockenheim campus, this plan to abandon the place has been agreed upon by those who hold the purse strings for quite some time. The place is falling apart. In some cases literally. The centrepiece of the campus is a semi-derelict tower-block, known only as der Turm (the tower), in which all the left-wing subjects have their home: philosophy, politics, sociology, education etc.The image shown here is Microsoft's satellite view. The place is literally covered in grafitti, mostly political: a mix of anti-Nazi, pro-Israeli (interestingly, the left-wing view here is not anti-Israel like in England) and anti-snob-culture. Much of what happens there is student-led. There are regular (occasionally tense) protests about student fees, equality of access etc. and at least three student-run cafes and bars, all of which are mind-bogglingly cheap and very laid back
(a notable example of this is a place known only by the generic descriptor "Bar abend" wherein the Apfelwein (a local speciality) is €1 a glass, the staff are paid in booze and the doors are open until gone 6).
Contrast this with Campus Westend.
This is my campus, and the location of subjects such as Economics (the tongue-twistingly-entitled Wirtschaftswissenchaften), Law and Finance. The campus opened a mere two years ago, and the novelty of the place is evident everywhere you look. The buildings are beautiful, the lawns are still being grown, and technology reigns supreme. The library is a high-tech wonder, with automatic blinds, individually operated reading lights and student-card-operated lockers. The campus is an available real-estate for private enterprise. Many of the shops and cafes are privately-owned (and 30% more expensive) as is the Alma Mater of my new course, the House of Finance.
In this magisterial building, shown left, the lecture rooms are named after the banks which paid for them (leading to odd-sounding timetables: Macroeconomics, 2pm in Deutschebank) and equipped with cameras so powerful they can read handwritten notes from any seat in the room and beam them onto up to 3 projectors at the front. They have their own private security (never a phrase associated with good things for some reason) and students have to use the back stairs, to ensure the lifts are always available for professors and other visiting dignitaries.The campus as a whole is designed to be a beacon for international conferences and symposia (The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics was held there last week, with much fanfare and free grub).
Needless to say, the restless lefties on Campus Bockenheim are not best impressed, as is witnessed by this message I came across written on a wall of the infamous Turm.
This point was palpably proved (or disproved, depending on who you talk to) by a recent 'occupation' of the aforementioned House by a gang of spray-can wielding Bockenheimers. Official accounts of what happened vary but, by anyone's measure, the results were messy and not entirely non-contact.
This, in large part, explains why my coursemate was horrified at the prospect of me spending a Thursday night in the company of radical layabouts, and why I have to shuffle my feet a little whenever talk amongst my flatmates and new friends turns to the miserable future of their beloved campus. I am, without question, part of the disease and not of the cure. I'm exactly the kind of yuppie foreigner the new campus was designed to attract. I'm studying exactly the kind of cold-hearted subject my Social Science-studying stablemates love to rail against.
I would answer, were I able to adequately expressly myself in this new mothertongue of mine, that I hope to be somewhat different in my studying of Economics. That I will always be bearing in mind that welfare does not equal money, and that what is best for the community as a whole can very well be disastrous for an individual, and that nice people (like me, I like to think) need to be on the inside of the machine where they can influence things for the better, rather than on the outside, where ability to make things different is limited to writing about injustice on walls.
I'm going to close this potted history with my favourite thing I've read so far in my study of Economics. It comes from John Stuart Mill, and seems to be exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about when I tried, internally, to justify myself to the angry Bockenheimers:
"The same persons who cry down Logic will generally warn you against Political Economy. It is unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognises unpleasant facts. For my part, the most unfeeling thing I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the neck of the best and most amiable person without scruple, if he forgets for a single moment to give heed to it. The winds and waves too are very unfeeling. Would you advise those who go to sea to deny the winds and waves--or to make use of them, and find the means of guarding against their dangers? My advice to you is to study the great writers on Political Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find true; and depend upon it that if you are not selfish or hard-hearted already, Political Economy will not make you so."
Amazing.
Rob
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