Light Rain by a Canal and the Women's World Cup

This afternoon T. and I went to a picnic for a former colleague.

I was quite delighted not only to get to meet their family, at a peaceful location underneath old trees beside a canal that was frequented by birds as well as kayakers, people on floats, and a quiet, massive tour boat. — A grey, single-arch bridge that probably predated the First World War, passed nearby. And although I suspected the existence of a lot of 'Baulücken' (building gaps) caused perhaps by damage during the Second World War, the isolated pre-war apartment building blocks that poked up through the green tree canopy looked thriving. Beside us, an old tree had been dissected with a chainsaw and the raw orange surfaces were glowing against the rain-fed green grass, perhaps a casualty of the recent high winds. But it didn't make the scene too depressing. A playground full of children nearby added to the nice ambiance, even if I barely noticed them consciously.—

I was also delighted that almost the entire team of the former colleague showed up, bit by bit. Also, a former colleague from the design team appeared, whom I had not seen in person since perhaps 2020. 

The host had brought a loaf of bread, cheese, cider, and mineral water, along with a knife and a cutting board, and seemed happy and relaxed. Two friends had brought along chocolate cupcakes, berry-flavored and ginger-flavoured. There were bananas, and one of my former teammates brought her excellent caponata. One of the host's former teammates brought along lots of cutlery and plates, as well as more food. And a former colleague who was recently on a grand adventure in one of Europe's big mountain ranges showed up, brisk and good-humoured, with marinated tofu, a macaroni salad, and sticky rice.

I'd wanted to bring along homemade scones with different flavourings... but just as I was about to roll out the scones and bake them, I saw that an insect had housed itself in a cocoon inside the folded top of the flour packaging. (I had also shockingly miscalculated how much time I needed, having forgotten that the dough resting times needed to be added to the total.) Rather than risk bug contamination by bringing the scones to the party, I just brought along nothing and then felt guilty.

We were rained on a little, but not too badly, sheltered in the end by the generous shade of a linden tree.

And it turned out that two of the people who hadn't met before had both lived in the same South American city in the past, and both now live in the same district of Berlin.

T. and I had to leave early, as we had another commitment in the west. We had a dinner with two uncles and our aunt who is visiting from England, to belatedly celebrate my mother's birthday. Gi. also graced us with his presence, having made the long trip from Brandenburg.

***

Altogether I'm in far better spirits than I was this morning, when I fumed a bit about the outcome of the Colombia vs. Germany game in the Women's World Cup. (Given how badly the German attempts at goal scoring went wrong even when we had a few pretty convenient free kicks, I had to eventually accept that Colombia deserved the 2:1.)

The game also had a weird ending as it ended (more or less) in a worrying medical intervention. Which put my previous grumblings into perspective.

The Aquatic Archaeology Tour That Wasn't

I think the idea of volunteering for two days per week so that I stop obsessing about 'not doing anything' and 'not being good enough to be hired[/admitted to a university'] has turned out to be good.

It's always been an impediment in small parts of my life that I'm not especially street-smart but am incredibly sheltered. But people in the charity where I've now volunteered for about ten hours seem pretty forgiving of that.

It feels like I can't escape clothing: I've been folding, sorting, draping, and tidying it, as well as refilling shoes into a cupboard. But I am also sweeping the floor and picking up bits and pieces that fall on it (tape, torn cardboard, blanket filling feathers, dust bunnies, ...), checking that the bathrooms have enough hand-drying towels and enough room in the wastepaper baskets, .... Which is unlike my previous job and volunteer experience. And bringing oversized tote bags; and answering questions of people who have come for the clothing, bed and table linens, shoes, and household utensils. I learn a lot, and it gives me blessed peace from my thoughts.

But I will admit that I had a pretty stout confidence in my knowledge of languages ... before I started volunteering this week. English, German, French; enough Spanish and Portuguese reading comprehension to read entire books; and modern Greek; and a little ancient Greek and Latin, seem like enough for anyone. Plus the smattering of languages I'm picking up in Duolingo.

Now that I am volunteering: one parade of linguistic failures after another. Mówisz po polsku? a lady asked me (I think). 'Nein.' ... Ukrainian? Russian? Despite my having learned a few basic phrases, I haven't got a clue. This morning I said 'ша́пка' ('hat') when I meant to say 'су́мка' (bag). .. Turkish? Not enough to talk with Turkish-speaking fellow volunteers. ... Arabic or Farsi? I can understand Alemanya, arba'a, Türkiye, and wallah. ... It's easier to communicate with gestures, or bits and pieces of German or English if the people speaking to me know them. But I've also started asking fellow volunteers what this or that person wanted to say, because they are great at filling in the blanks, and teaching me what to understand and do the next time.

It's not just linguistic mistakes. I also brought a bundle of the smallest size of baby diapers to a woman and child who was well into toddling age — the mother laughed kindly, and let me know which size was actually needed.

***

Anyway, today I was also supposed to be receiving the tour around an archaeological site in Berlin, so I did half a volunteer shift and then cycled off during lunch.

It rained fiercely by the time I began cycling, however. It was slightly horrible commuting weather. Car tires throwing water from the asphalt on Spandauer Straße onto the bicycle path, and a vast muddy brown 'river' at the corner facing Brandenburger Tor. And my pale cotton trousers were so soaked that they clung to my legs and knees, and were coloured pink by my skin visible through the fabric.

I arrived at the meeting place. The archaeologist (?) who'd be giving the tour came up through the construction driveway to me and a waiting mother plus two children ... and told us that the tour was cancelled. The site wasn't secure enough for us to walk in, due to the weather. Deep puddles, mud, etc. made it too unstable.

So I ended up going home early, feeling a little guiltier for cutting short the volunteer work.

A Market and a Tea House and an 'Angry Walk'

For once I had a lively social calendar this weekend, at least by my measure: walking around a market in eastern Berlin yesterday, and going to a tea house today, both with a relative and a friend.

It was cloudy when I arrived at the tea house, and the hosts half-anxiously piled together the seat cushions at the wooden tables outdoors, underneath a rainproof shelter. Then a wind arose, violently swaying the umbrellas, and all the other guests who'd wanted to sit outside fled indoors. But in the end, aside from two or three drops of rain, the weather was still so agreeable that the group I was in stayed outdoors. We drank tea, in my case honey and ginger and cinnamon (freshly crushed bark, I think, rather than powder) and sunflower seed, out of glazed pottery cups with pleasantly belly-shaped lids. And we chatted in French, which had also been the point of the meeting — in my case lapsing into English every now and then. For dessert I ordered a rice cake that had dates, chestnuts, pumpkin seeds and other things in it; there was no red bean popsicle in stock at the moment. And I really enjoyed the whole outing.

The market the day before also reminded me of my peregrinations to markets in my own neighbourhood. Eventually I want to return because of the woven baskets that were being sold there; I was wondering whether to buy one or two of them so that I could make gift baskets for friends or family in future, but had to concede to myself that my room is so crowded with things that it would be irresponsible to turn it into a gift basket storeroom as well. What was also a specialty I couldn't find in other markets was the puff puff that T. donated to me off her plate: a nice gooey sphere, maybe made of tapioca or manioc starch, that had been deep-fried.

Because of my recent research into early 20th century history, I photographed some of the older architectural elements in and around the park where the market is. I also managed to accidentally catch a bird (pigeon?) in mid-flight that was 'frozen' in a pose like a plastic facsimile.

And that outing, too, I enjoyed, and felt less wilted and sad afterward. (It's also healthy sometimes to hear one's self talk and realize that one may be a little more self-pitying than necessary.)

***

In general I'm thinking that I need to get more involved in journalism again, because it keeps me cheerful and engaged.

The job search has had to be relaunched.

Right after I'd finished voluntarily writing my Greek final exam on Wednesday, and was still feeling bowled over by the effort of studying for it and the experience of writing it — my telephone rang. My would-have-been hiring manager said with deep regret that (because more positions opened up in the same team) the application cycle that I was in has had to be scrapped. I can re-apply in September or October.

I was, to be honest, a bit frustrated and angry — not at the hiring manager, though, whose reluctance at having a god-awful hiring circus again so soon was compounded by reluctance at having to backtrack with me.

So I went for a walk in the Domäne Dahlem, hoping that the sky-blue chicory flowers and the fields and the berry bushes, and the historically interesting elements, would soothe my feelings.

But I felt too stingy to shell out for museum entry, although I plan to go there again for research purposes. The sun was also beating down, and the signs recommended pushing one's bicycle instead of cycling on the grounds, so I felt like I had to take this slower mode of transport.

To be fair, I did chuck the rules out the window at the end: the rear entrance that was officially open according to the sign on it, turned out to be closed. While I was going back the full length of the field in the heat in order to escape from the front entrance, I decided there was no way I wanted to do all of that on foot again.

Keeping to the rule of thumb that I learned as a teenage car driver in Canada i.e. steering straight ahead will lead you safely through most slippery and slidey situations, I managed not to fall off the bike on the loosely sandy paths.

At least the mulberry trees had berries in them, trumpet-shaped yellow flowers and globular fruit glowed like beacons underneath the leaves of a vast squash field as a row of corn stood sentry behind them, the chickens were pecking manically, and a horse that disdained human company pranced around in an earthen field far away from the fences.

Back at home, as well as eating a popsicle to soothe my spirits further, I decided that feeling like I'm not doing anything is by far the worst part of still being unemployed. So I wrote an email asking to join a weekly archaeological site tour soon. And I wrote to a charity I've known about for years, asking if I can volunteer for them 2 days per week. (Result of the 1st email: I have a date! Result of the 2nd email: I have an interview on Tuesday.)

As for the renewed job search, I was kicked out of the job agency's website through a series of minor miscommunications. But by Wednesday it should be fine again.

And I haven't received an answer about the apparent bug I reported on the university application website on Wednesday(?). It also wasn't fixed when I checked on Friday. So I'll need to follow up again there.

All of this is, I'd say, not exactly good for my spirits at least in the short term.

But the original sense of security from someone genuinely wanting to hire me is still lingering a bit.

An Adventure at the Job Agency and Further Afield

This morning I had an appointment at the job agency, and had become very anxious about it. In the end, everything was 'alles halb so wild.'

My supervisor at the agency actually began by apologizing: I'd already had an immediate appointment when I'd submitted my unemployment status applications and this actually covered much of what we'd talk about today.

It also turns out that it hopefully wasn't bad that I hadn't cancelled the appointment from my side. — Last Thursday people who interviewed me months ago called me back and asked if I'd still be interested in working for them in autumn. So if they manage to sort out the higher-level permissions on their side, it looks like I have a genuine job waiting for me. — But my supervisor seemed not to think I'd been wasting his time if I already had a job; he noted that opportunity down, also that I'm planning to study.

(I'm still nervous about my university application. The Freie Uni has outsourced their processing of foreign students' applications to a third party provider whose service is absolutely driving me up the wall, e.g.if you click on the 'help' button, nothing happens 😡. And I think I will need to apply for a different combination of courses from the one I'd actually wanted. The smooth process I'd experienced in 2011 has led me to totally miscalculate how much effort and time needs to be invested this time, and I'm about ready to seize a pitchfork.

And I believe that the student counseling centre on the Freie Uni campus is now on a summer break until August... a few other deadlines and circumstances have also contributed to my anxiety lately. That said, my instinct is that my situation is still comparatively fortunate and I shouldn't ignore the high level of privilege I have, financially and socially.)

I'd also mentioned my ethical concerns about keeping an unemployed status and receiving unemployment money (once I finish the paperwork) considering the prospect of my autumn job. The supervisor said that this unemployment money was insurance that I'd painstakingly paid into for the past 7 years, not welfare money, and that I need have absolutely no qualms about taking it. Which comforted me a lot.

***

On the way home, I stopped by the side of the road to look at a yellow painted one-family home that had likely been built in the inter-war period.

It was being renovated thoroughly: The ground was scooped out all the way to the foundations and the trench shored up with dusty wooden beams. A little blue bulldozer was parked to one side. The new windows had branded stickers on their inner frames as they sat awkwardly within the exposed original, wooden outer frames, hewn into the white plaster underneath the paint. Reddish, dried-out ivy clung like dead spiders' legs to the wall as the stems had been killed off. Black plastic sheeting covered part of the roof. The lamp at a side entrance looked like a traditional gas lamp; the door had been framed in brown tiling. The square, featureless, dark, windows looked 'dead,' like the ivy, however, and I found it quite ghostly even after I spotted a small reassuring sign on the fence that suggested that the building was last in use — and may be in use again — as a kindergarten.

Altogether I found that area intensely creepy. It seemed like a 'wonderland' of proto-Nazi architecture and ideology, especially with streets bearing the names of Hun generals etc., and all the earth tones of tan and brown. And it seemed to cater to the working class without the clarity or generosity or idealism of the Bauhaus school. But I couldn't deny the appeal of the gardens, the old trees, dusky Oregon grapes, Italianate cypresses, and a shaded cobbled path with stairs that ran up a hill into a park I'd never been to before.

I became lost after a while and kept looking at maps in bus stations to reorientate myself.

Then I dove into a huge terrain of allotment gardens, colourful in the purples and yellows and all the other colours of late summer, a Swedish and an American and a German flag, etc. The further into the gardens I roamed, the street noises were increasingly muffled as if under a pillow. I heard the distant sound of an airplane, perhaps the ruffling of the wind, the twittering of birds, one or two insects, and aside from that — a soft silence. Above, a striking blue sky with big, white, fluffy clouds, and strong sunlight.

Then, at last, I was on my home turf. I stopped by a French brasserie, bought a fizzy lemon drink, green tomato jam that I spotted on the shelf (ever since I read about green tomato preserves in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, I've wanted to try them), and a pain au chocolat.

And then I was home again — tired and (as it turns out) a little dehydrated from cycling around so long in the sun and from speeding on the way to the appointment (I got lost at the job agency building, but after asking 3 or 4 people managed to end up in the right waiting room at exactly the minute of my appointment) ... but happy.

Rambling Notes on an Eye-liad (Please Excuse the Pun)

Thursday was a little more exciting than expected.

On Tuesday I'd woken up with a mildly bloodshot eye and it hurt when I put any pressure on it. (The other eye was fine.) As a result, I went to choir practice feeling a little disreputable-looking but not unduly concerned.

Wednesday, also felt a bit self-conscious about it, saw that there was an angry splotch of red underneath the eyelid where blood vessels seemed to have exploded, and was beginning to worry if there was an infection.

Thursday, woke up with the eye still painful, feeling bleary, unable to open my discolored eye all the way, and now quite concerned that it might be a broader issue.

So instead of going to university, I cycled off to hospital, feeling a little stupid as pollen and other tree debris might fly into the eye in question and just make things worse.

The emergency department, fortunately, was entirely empty and serene. I pressed on a bell beside a mysterious closed hallway. A disembodied voice asked why I was there, and when I explained, asked me to sit in the waiting room. It vaguely reminded me of something — now I think, without any satire intended, it's the scene in the 1939 Wizard of Oz film where the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Dorothy have their first audience with the titular figure.

Soon a doctor or nurse in blue robe came along and told me he'd be right with me. Once he'd started up the computer in a small dark office on the other side of the hall, he asked me what was up. He was quite understanding especially when I confessed that I was embarrassed to be going to the emergency room for something non-urgent that I'd have taken to my general practitioner if I had one. He took a brief set of notes, checked with an ear thermometer that I wasn't running a temperature (36.3°C - normal, he told me reassuringly), and accepted my health insurance card.

Despite the recent health insurance paperwork 'adventures' because of my quitting my job and not having the paperwork entirely in order, all seemed well and the coverage continued.

The young lady in the office opposite who took down my emergency contact info on her desktop computer and otherwise made sure my file had the required data was also friendl,y and wished me good luck. She sent me via an elevator to the walk-in eye clinic on the 5th floor.

After losing my way a little, I found the clinic, taken aback when entering to find that in contrast to the very quiet rest of the hospital, the waiting room was full.

As I came from the emergency department, I was allowed to go straight to a registration office instead of drawing a wait room ticket.

The doctor or nurse at the desk reminded me a bit of a strict suffragette but not in a bad way. She fixed her eyes on me and asked a few probing questions as to why I was concerned about my eye. (She didn't see any discoloration, she stated, but she'd trust me to know the colour of my own eyes.)

Then I waited in the hallway, quite pleased to see and hear the patients and medical staff being polite and friendly to each other despite the crowded conditions.

And finally I was called into room 2 (it being an eye clinic, the room numbers were pretty huge and very visible) and given an eye test. The numbers and letters were all so small I could barely (or not) read them, and if I didn't feel pretty confident about my eyesight I'd have panicked. The puffs of air that apparently tested my eye reflexes were less perturbing. I thanked the doctor or nurse and then popped out again as quickly as I could so the other patients could be handled sooner. The notes she handed me about my eye tests had '16/18' written in them, and I reassured myself that this couldn't possibly be a bad score.

After waiting maybe another hour — skim-reading Molière's Le Misanthrope, mentally re-plotting the ending of the play, and helping myself to the mineral water that had been set out for patients — getting more nervous and less able to focus as time went on, but reminding myself how fortunate I was to have such easy access to health care professionals with good-quality equipment ... I was called into room 6 for the actual evaluation.

3 medical students in white coats were sitting on, as far as I recall, rolly chairs in varying heights alongside the doctor, all turning to look at me, half sheepish and half curious, as I entered the door.

The doctor asked questions instead of examining me right away. She also seemed to wonder why I was so concerned about my eye. Had I really not had symptoms like having my eye 'glued shut,' for example? Feeling a little defensive, I mentioned the popped blood vessels, swelling around the eye, etc. I added that I'd had the idea that the vision in my left eye was a little more turbid lately, but I might be hypochondriac — and was quite relieved when she said that my eye test results had been great.

At any rate she agreed to examine me. So I propped my chin up on an apparatus again. She took a look through a magnifying lens at my right eye; no problems there. She then nudged down my lower lid on the left eye and checked it. Also fine. Then she looked at the top of my left eye, and immediately expressed lively interest and got the other students to take a look.

In about 5 seconds flat she said that she agreed with me that I had an eye inflammation. It was episcleritis, it's something that happens periodically, and it isn't a problem except in rare cases where rheumitis(?) is involved. Then she told me she'd prescribe me some eye drops, and that it was also fine to use a tear-drop solution.

So I visited a pharmacy for the eye drops on the way home from the hospital. At home I administered the first round of medication, after chatting with Uncle Pu (who had come by to do a 'victory lap' with his new certification of Austrian citizenship) and Ge.

But I was pretty exhausted from my worry about the eye, cycling to and from hospital, skipping my class, hunger from not eating breakfast, guilt about not feeling up to working on my journalism or job applications, and standing in the waiting areas for over an hour instead of prudently taking a seat in the less crowded areas. So I took a nap afterward.

And since then things have cleared up quite nicely.

I think the cause of the whole kerfuffle was that I've never cycled so regularly before in an area with lots of tree pollen and other bits and pieces falling into my eyes, and something must have gotten lodged. But it was quite unfamiliar to me to have an eye irritation on that scale. And I was probably right about the turbid vision; but it's evidently caused by my eye trying to rinse itself, clouding the cornea; it's not caused by any deterioration of the retina etc.

Anyway, the other reason why this hospital visit was remarkable was that, aside from dentistry and aside from getting two Covid shots, I haven't been to a doctor since I was a child. I've only been to the hospital because others have been sick or injured — I remembered the emergency department at this particular hospital from a visit with J. when he fractured a bone in his arm.

Today I've spent the whole day relaxing, so don't have much news. But, in terms of gossip: yesterday evening I sent off a job application to the Deutsche Bahn. There's a big part of me that wants to throw up at the thought of working in a large company again, but I felt that I can't afford to ignore all the roles that are suggested by the Agentur für Arbeit.