Passing the German Gauntlet

In more recent news, the latest Swiftian acrobatics to secure a spot as a full-time university student have been fulfilled: Last night I really tried to go to sleep by midnight, but ended up tossing and turning past 1:30 a.m. Waking up later than intended, after 7:30 a.m., was a less painful process than feared. But because of the prescribed 1 hour fast after taking my iron supplement, I went to the spoken German exam unfed.

Stirrings in the U-Bahn of teenage and twenty-something passengers proved that a few students have already begun the university semester one way or the other. But the vast halls of the Rost-/Silber-/Holzlaube building were largely empty.

Much more easily than when I was a fledgling student in 2011, I found the correct rooms (for the exam).

Half an hour early, it took a while for signs and chairs appear at the rooms. But the examiners were as friendly as I remembered them being during the written exam; the applicant who was taking the exam in the time slot after me was outright charming.

After being given a topic and 20 minutes to prepare, I was ushered into a second room, clutching my sheet of notes. Then I gave a presentation to two ladies from the German language centre – a presentation that I vaguely suspect extended beyond the 5 requested minutes.

Their eyes glazed over now and then, because really how many new and striking things could one say about the topic? But they perked up other times, and even laughed once or twice. I didn't stumble over my words as I do at other times where accurate German is asked for. The sense that the examiners wanted us to feel at ease and show our skills, rather than feel terrified and hide our knowledge, was reassuring.

And at the end the examiners both looked highly relieved at being able to pass an applicant with flying colours. They told me that I have a DSH level 3: the highest one.

(My journalistic experiments of the past year admittedly have made me feel like I've been cheating when I write exams. Formulating clearly formatted texts or speeches about random topics, after a brief period of preparation, is basically all I've been trying to do since early 2023. Even if it has rarely if ever been a success.)

Let's see if the registration works and I can really, genuinely study in 1 week!

*

After that excellent news, the question was whether to eat lunch on campus, or to go straight home; I went straight home.

Around 5 p.m., the sleep deprivation sank in and I felt my eyes begin to hollow out. But I'd promised to appear at choir practice at 7:15 p.m.

The air felt warm and muggy. But of course rain was falling by the time I walked home from practice!

That said, I have been relieved when returning from the travels in Canada to find that the tree leaves haven't all withered away in our absence. Last time I think there was a nihilistic before and after, which appeared to justify my previous Fear of Missing Out on interesting occurrences in Berlin. It also just felt morbid.

Bouldering and Canada

It's been my birthday today. It began at a local bouldering gym, where my siblings go every Saturday or Sunday. The past weeks I haven't gone because it's important to get enough sleep, and waking up before 9 a.m. didn't fit into my sleep schedule.

But, albeit an hour late, this morning I ambled in with the climbing shoes that T. kindly bought for me.

It was sunny, but cool breezes wafted through the air (~19°C or warmer) and at that hour of the morning, the shadows were deep. It was entertaining to watch what was going on in the streets on the way to the gym. A girl was crouching with a piece of chalk, writing 'Hofflohmarkt' (courtyard flea market) on the pavement under the direction of her mother. A marijuana plant in a street side planting was apparently long gone, but sunflowers and a flowering corn plant throve there. The hawthorn berries and rose hips are very red, another sign of autumn. And the black pen scrawls on a local political office were still there, after appearing in the Berlin evening news: they were apparently graffiti'd by a very drunk woman who was arrested after the deed.

My siblings were all taking a break, either to drink water or to replenish the chalk on their hands.

And after I switched out my shoes, we walked onto the springy mat area underneath the bouldering walls, and they began to tackle the courses one by one. Of the 8 levels of difficulty, my siblings have worked their way into levels 3 and 4. They can even hang like monkeys, on rough, pumice-like grips that are parallel to the floor, which is a level of arm strength far mightier than mine.

Then, at their urging, I climbed, at least partway, a few level 1 and 2 courses. The thin finger and hand calluses I once had have all peeled away because of not going to the gym regularly; so at times holding the grips felt like trying to open a stubborn jam jar long after the skin begins to hurt from the friction.

But aside from watching siblings, it is also fun to watch climbers who attempt the level 5 and 6 courses: madly leaping from one slippery hold to another, teetering in a precarious balance as they try to reach a hold that is just out of reach, etc.

By the end, the gym was crowded and — to be brutally frank, I am not fond of this practice — a host of people who didn't seem to be interested in climbing, rather in looking on, seemed to be sitting all along the benches with cubby holes ... blocking access to the spots where we had stored our belongings and wanted to change our shoes. A well-behaved dog, the size of a fox and very slender of limb, was lying on the ground beside the cubby holes. I wonder what it is like for the sensitive noses of dogs to be exposed to all the chalk, sweat, people smell, and above all foot odour of a climbing gym. The music, I guess, wouldn't bother them.

And a toddler, around two years old, and perhaps no longer knee-high to a grasshopper but certainly not much higher than my knees, was exploring the general area with small steps but staying well away from the climbing walls.

During a past visit to the gym, another mother had illustrated its bohemian vibe by sitting down cross-legged on the presumably dirty mat, near people tumbling off of walls, to breastfeed her baby. But although I was too Prussian to find it a great idea, I concluded 'to each their own' and forbore from staring.

Generally there's a mixture of languages spoken: German and English are common. But I've also heard French, Russian or Ukrainian, and possibly Chinese (if it was Cantonese, I'm not educated enough to know the difference), for example.

It's possible at this gym that former colleagues — especially data scientists — may pop by, and then we often hang out together for a while. A few of them watched the Olympics bouldering and lead climbing events, live, together. But today they weren't there.

What's also fascinating to me is the Crossfit gym beside the bouldering gym. Kettlebells, two huge black truck tires, bars hung high in the air, people lugging around medicine balls or other heavy items back and forth on the asphalt in the sunshine while appearing to be slowly dying on the inside, etc. ... It's not quite my sports philosophy, but there's satisfaction in seeing others (semi-voluntarily) perform feats that I would never intend to perform myself.

And, as an effete academic by inclination, in both gyms I very much enjoy watching the mixture of self-confident competence and preening in the true sports aficionados. And the siblings' 'Fachsimpeln' as they throw around bouldering terminology like 'flash' (to successfully climb a course from bottom to top at the first try), 'volume,' and 'dynamic' versus 'static' hold, is engrossing.

***

After that, my siblings stopped by a German-Turkish bakery for croissants, pumpkin seed buns, a pretzel stick, pain au chocolat, and Schrippen (regular bread buns). Unbeknownst to me, my brothers also bought a piece of regular brownie and a piece of walnut brownie in honour of my birthday. And we ate a late breakfast, and then our mother came back from babysitting.

Then we hung out for a few hours at home, two of my brothers playing the piano and cello: Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, ...

In the late afternoon, Uncle Pu dropped by. Intensely busy the last few days, he had also contracted a cold. But he seemed in reasonably good spirits. After eating slender slices of the four-layer chocolate birthday cake – orange and apricot jam in the centre and a chocolate ganache at the top – that my two youngest brothers had baked together, we set off to a Chinese restaurant.

There we ate a generous meal with chopsticks, rotating a Lazy Susan full of dishes, and we drank mineral water and jasmine tea, and we chatted. The tables on the sidewalk were full of people. Inside it was less crowded, but so warm due to the 32°C weather that we were perspiring as we ate, and had to wipe our foreheads repeatedly. (Conditions in the kitchen itself may well have been worse!) But the waitstaff were friendly and seemed patient with the bustle and the heat.

Finally we went back home, too satiated and overheated to even think of eating more of the birthday cake – except for T., of whom we were in awe. We chatted about the upcoming holiday in Canada – in two days' time we are set to fly, then do a road trip along the interior of British Columbia, winding up staying in a hotel on Vancouver Island – and then T., Gi., and Uncle Pu took their leave.

After that, we started packing for the travel, in earnest.

I am looking forward to the cleaner air, the Douglas fir forests, the hills and the ocean, the exchange rate (I think 1 Euro = ~70 Canadian cents), the arbutus trees and the pumpkin patches, the Thanksgiving food and at least the sight of the Halloween candy on grocery store shelves... and hopefully seeing old friends, acquaintances, and family again.

But I was so exhausted in 2018, the last time we travelled to Canada, that this time I'm trying not to over schedule meetings, but to relax and try to make the most of the encounters we do have. Next time we can see anyone we miss this time.

In general I'm telling myself to relax and take it easy and go with the flow, instead of trying to control things. It will help me feel better ... but, above all, it will make me less of a nightmare to be around for my siblings.

A Summer Fairy Tale Writing Project

After yesterday's 5-hour German examination, another attempt to prove to the satisfaction of the University to which I have already been accepted that I can in fact write, speak, and read German at a student level, today has been less active.

It was 34°C hot yesterday, and today perhaps only 1 degree cooler, and I decided not to go out of doors at all.

*

For over a week I have been working on an old story, which I wrote out at great length on an old desktop computer that we don't use any more, in my twenties. It was a fairy tale vaguely set in a version of Italy. But I haven't seen it for ages, and I doubt I'd find it good if I did.

So I am writing it again, with new characters, character names, kingdoms, scenery, and plotlines.

Ideally I'd finish it, rather than getting lost in another meandering writing journey that ends up nowhere. These failures tend to diminish my confidence that I'd someday be able to complete a writing project that is important.

Either way, once or twice hours passed before I looked at the clock and saw that it is, say, 5 a.m.. It's also a luxury I can more or less afford before the university semester begins. Or, if the university admissions go to pot, before I commit myself to full-time work. That said, I still need to be careful to get enough sleep because of the lurking risk of anaemia.

*

One problem with the story is that I become too caught up in the details, or perhaps the wrong details. So it begins to read like a paragraph of a Wikipedia article has slipped into the text.

It's as if I were to write a pirate story like this:

As the sky grew mottled in bruised reds, greens, yellows and blues in the evening sun, and in the foreground of his galleon's deck the small craft that were at anchor in the remote Caribbean harbour began to turn into mere shadowy sketches of skinny masts and spindly jibs, Pirate Jack felt foreboding about the journey ahead. He looked up from the pipe that he was filling with twisted black tobacco, to yell at his cook.

"Are you certain that we have enough lard for this journey?" he asked skeptically.

"Aye, aye, captain!" the cook shouted back, optimistically. "Twenty-five barrels we have! It'll last us until we ship into Madeira."

"I seem to remember that when we were last on a journey of that length, we bought five pounds of inferior butter off a peasant in Portugal because our lard stock was insufficient. Shall we not buy another barrel?"

"Nay, it will be fine! That said, I have been looking at the flour and I've spotted many a weevil. We needn't toss all of this, but I'd say we get another 25 pounds."

"25 pounds of flour? Here? I think that will cost us 12 shillings and fivepence! What will the purser think?"

"Would ye rather be gnawing at mouldy carrots?"

"Speaking of mouldy carrots," Jack returned, conceding the argument, "are we carrying carrots or parsnips on this journey?" 

"Carrots! I don't never want to see another parsnip again." 

But at that point, an enraged navy officer ran pounding up the pier toward the ship, in riding boots and flying coattails, his wig bouncing behind him in the breeze. "I know you are that blackguard, Pirate Jack!" he bellowed, waving a musket frantically. "You shall never leave this island alive!"

Pirate Jack turned to his first mate. 'How many bullets do we have? If it's more than 157, which I hope it is, I will trouble you for two ounces of gunpowder, so that I can be rid of this fellow.'

And, recalling that the wind was gusting from the landward in a 53° south-southeasterly direction, he began to calculate the angle at which to hold his gun barrel so that he could best hit the minion of the law.

He laid his tobacco aside with a sigh, reaching for his notebook and pencil to do the math. 

Then he thanked his first mate as the latter brought him a pewter tin full of ammunition and a bag of gunpowder. A moment later, however, he realized that before loading his gun, he still needed to clean the barrel. 

The pirate shouted for his cabin boy. "Bring me a rag and gun-oil, lad! I must clean this pistol."

...And so on and so forth.

Errands in the Urban Desert, and the Democratic National Convention

It reached 33°C today, and opening the apartment building door to step onto street asphalt was rather like turning one's face into the air stream of a warm hair dryer.

While trees and shrubbery have been pleasingly green late into August this year, thanks to the abundant rainfall, the grass on the median was looking suddenly golden and scorched again.

I went shopping for vegetables and fruit (apples, a yellow squash, mini-cucumbers, and onions, all grown in Germany, as well as red tomatoes on the vine that are probably from France), chocolate and milk and quark, lemon sorbet and salted caramel ice cream, this evening.

Although the shop sells organic produce and is presumably ecologically conscientious, that doesn't prevent it from cranking up its air conditioning: to the point that as you pass through the sliding doors, you practically enter a Swedish ice hotel.

Along the way I admired the dust on the huge windows of two long-abandoned businesses. Torn-up posters haven't been cleared away in months and have been joined by more posters for blockbuster music events: at the Berlin Philharmonic halls and elsewhere.

It feels like a failing of Berlin's or Germany's government that many shops lie empty as rents rise and e-commerce thrives, while affordable housing and dignified accommodations for vulnerable groups (including women's shelters) dwindle. There's an empty shop in our building, and the manager is concerned about losing the income: replacing the small 'to let' sign with a larger one, then replacing that large sign with an even larger one....

On the other hand, J. tells me – with the benefit of professional knowledge – that the official standards and requirements for residences are different and much higher than for office spaces.

Besides I cooked late lunch or early dinner: a "Huevos Hyacinth" recipe of cold cuts, tomatoes, egg, and cheese from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

***

For reasons even I can't fully explain, I put myself through 15 hours or more of the Democratic National Convention, this past week. It started with wanting to know more about the mechanics of US politics, which I haven't closely followed in a while. It ended with a sleep deficit.

That said, many things felt worthwhile:

Hearing the Chicks sing the national anthem.

I enjoyed Democrats being less defensive about the 45th president, for example in the speeches of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama's no-nonsense demeanour made her speech stand out. I'd read the days before that Barack Obama had more or less pitched a fit in private to employees at the idea of Kamala Harris becoming the next president, but both she and her husband presented convincing endorsements.

I thought it was also interesting that other Democrats who spoke the following day made reference to the Obama's speeches. It left the impression that the pair are still considered as philosophical or strategic mentors in the Democratic Party.

I think an investigation and proper prosecution of Clinton's own misdeeds is overdue. (In a different speech, it was also a bit concerning in this – hopefully – less macho, misogynistic, and mafia-happy day and age to hear the grandson of JFK say that JFK was 'his hero.') But I did think it was interesting to hear Bill Clinton's perspective on Trump. ('He creates chaos, and then he sort of curates it, as if it were precious art,' was one quotation that I noted down.).

The perspectives of Republicans who want to vote for the Democratic Party in 2024 were interesting, too. ('John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.’)

Kenan Thompson's bit, where the actor from Saturday Night Live said of the Heritage Foundation's capacious political programme Project 2025: 'Ever seen a document that can kill democracy and a small animal at the same time?'

The children of Tim Walz, and some of the speakers, did give the impression of having their feet on the ground and being genuinely decent, not just intimidatingly polished and elite.

J.B. Pritzker: The governor of Illinois made a few necessary points. (e.g. After working in an American company in recent years, I was relieved when Pritzker used his speech to say that African Americans and Latino Americans should not be derided as 'Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hires' for having the supposed 'audacity' of being successful while not being White.)

Pritzker's withering words about Trump stuck with me because they had the ring of truth:

'Everything he's achieved in his own life was by hurting someone else.'

Jadedly, I felt there was a lot of truth-fudging, hagiography and 'baloney' in the Convention. But there was also a bedrock of genuine, undeniable conviction: It is not possible for any properly informed citizen to re-elect the 45th President, if they care for the US.

Netflix Streaming, and Surfboards

It's been a while since I wrote the Spanish test for my university application: I wasn't entirely sure if I'd fail badly or thrillingly pass as I gracelessly stumbled on my way out of the examination room. In the listening comprehension section, for example, I could barely understand the speaker at the first pass. Then, in the writing section, I forgot to look at the last 2 questions. But the instructors who invigilated the exam were so friendly that I really hoped I'd have the chance to be taught by them.

Within three days, the result: I passed at the B1 level and could study Spanish as my major at the first year level instead of taking preparation classes.

It took a few days to file my registration paperwork (i.e. personal ID, the proofs of acceptance, a proof of past student registration, an overview of my student data, and proof that I'd completed a bank transfer of the €304.40 annual student fee). It was more stressful because the university application and registration platform is buggy. I suspect a lack of quality assurance testing beforehand.

So now I've relaxed my Spanish autodidact's programme.

*

But on Netflix I'm still watching LaLiga: Más Allá Del Gol, a documentary series about Spanish association soccer clubs.

Despite the Netflix production's approving lens, an obvious quid pro quo for the 'All Access' nature of the series, I suspect there are far more problems in association soccer than just the rabid soccer fans who write and shout mean things about players and coaches. I'm surprised there aren't daily Luis Rubiales scandals in the men's leagues as well.

Hopefully I'm reading too much into it. But the amount of times managers, staff, and random people who might not even know the athletes, just pat, embrace, and randomly touch the athletes – without asking or giving them time to decline – throughout the series, implies to me a massive disrespect of athletes' personal space, safety, and individual autonomy. It would be considered inappropriate in most workplaces.

I also feel less annoyed that a security officer and a press officer have treated me (as I thought) like a potential rabid groupie in the past for being in the wrong place at the wrong time/making an innocent request... With so many people of all genders projecting their own (thwarted) ambitions and dreams onto athletes, some kind of security is necessary. Even if this particular kind of security feels sexist to me.

Returning to internal industry problems, though: in the highly monetized, highly pressurized, highly competitive milieu that's shown in the documentary series, it doesn't look like there'd be accountability for misdeeds that do exist.

*

My favourite offering on Netflix that was originally shot in Spanish is still El Pepe, the documentary about Uruguay's former president.

It's a fabulous film not just for its interesting subject, although he certainly helps. It's also fabulous because of archival and newly filmed vignettes of Uruguay nowadays vs. during the dictatorship, the "local colour" of the fields around Pepe Mujica's home and his favourite music, and the rather hair-raising opinions of his former comrades. Like him, they are not terribly repentant about their militant past.

*

La Vocera was frustrating. I think it's not a Netflix production, just hosted there.

Filmed in celebration of an Indigenous woman who is elected to run for the presidency, by an organization representing the many different communities in Mexico. But it suffers very much from the director's not being remotely critical-minded, and apparently being hellbent on ingratiating herself with the people whom she was meeting.

It's true that it's important to hear Mayan and other Indigenous languages being spoken. It's important to hear of a political organization that weaves in Indigenous perspectives and approaches, and also takes an ecologically conscious perspective. It's the kind of subject where I'm probably being socially irresponsible by being pedantic.

But the election platform, as it is presented in the film, could hardly be more vague, with the barest handful of policy proposals.

Guerrilla fighters in balaclavas, at times hugging guns, appear in crowd scenes, organizational meetings, and at road checkpoints. The fighters are presented without comment, or any explanation of why this veiled and armed presence is appropriate in a democratic process. Women are amongst the fighters as well.... but I don't believe that women and non-binary people adopting the absurd extremes of hypermasculinity is progressive.

(But I found a relatively even-handed Wikipedia article: It does seem that this particular guerrilla group is in a state of truce with Mexico's government now, and is not particularly bloody.)

The absence of glossy Netflix-production photography, evident in the 1990s VHS colour palette, is understandable given the likely modest budget. Opulence would be a weird aesthetic choice for a portrait of grassroots activism and hard-working communities.

Yet (perhaps this is also because I can't read Spanish that quickly) I think that the long intertitle texts are a needless filmmaking choice. They make the film drier, and unflatteringly emphasize that the footage that has been gathered doesn't stand on its own legs as well as it should.

*

My other obsession lately has been watching surfing at the Olympics.

For one thing, I still feel a yearning for the ocean from time to time, after 'getting to know it' growing up in Canada.

For another, seeing film footage of Tahiti reminds me of visiting my father's cousin in Hawaii as a teenager, twenty years ago. I admittedly didn't pay much attention when he pointed out the waters off Haleiwa and probably the Pipeline while we were driving along the shore, as I wasn't especially interested in surfing at the time.

Now I even feel philosophical when two surfing competitors sit on their boards in their pink and blue wetsuits for a fairly inactive half hour, letting wave after wave pass by without riding hardly any. It's soothing ... since I'm not one of the surfers: a balm for the pressures of everyday life.

*

As for my anaemia, I still need coddling.

Many forms of exercise briefly seem OK and then tip over into exhaustion, dizziness, feelings of heaviness in the limbs, and tingling.

But doing half an hour of beginner's ballet or yoga per day, provided I eat nutritiously and sleep enough, seems to be OK, and even help me feel better and stronger. My limbs don't ache much afterward!

Last Day of the Summer Semester

This afternoon I had my last class of the university semester, which happened to be online because the professor lives in Greece. Three of us students/guest auditors had shown up, so it was a snug discussion about Greek history since the military dictatorship fell apart in 1974. It touched on the triumph of the Socialist party PASOK in the 1980s, the neoliberalism of Kostas Simitis in the 90s, and the debt crisis of the 2010s.

Normally I'd also have a language seminar on Friday mornings, on campus. But it was cancelled this week as the (retired) professor's grandchildren are in town for a visit.

It feels nice to wrap up the semester. I'm curious to know how my applications for bona fide study in the winter semester will turn out, also looking forward to travelling to Canada in September.

I've scheduled a Spanish language test to write on Tuesday morning at one of Berlin's universities, to see if I reach the B1 level. It makes me quite nervous, because if anyone asked me to self-assess I'd claim the A2 level at best.

It's also become clear to me that the programme of self-guided study that I've been doing to help with the test is too intense to keep up for long.

But a levelling self-test online turned out well: so there's reason to believe I might pass the university's test, too.

After watching the films Adú, El Pepe, and La Vocera on Netflix, I'm now watching the series LaLiga about Spanish association football. It's in some ways as dystopian as any of the scenes in the other films.

**

I've felt well enough to go on two shopping trips for dinner, despite the heat. But the menu was constructed around corn on the cob, and I couldn't find it at the three grocery stores that I visited even though it is grown in the Brandenburg region.

So we've eaten leftovers from yesterday instead, and ice cream.

Yesterday I'd boiled new potatoes that were both organic and grown in Germany, and served it with green onions and yoghurt, and bacon.

**

As for politics, I'm a little less convinced that the 45th president will win back the presidency again.

But as an EU citizen I already felt well insulated from his idiosyncratic practice of leadership the last time.

In any case my vague theory is that the pendulum of stupidity is quite unstoppable; it will swing back to rationality eventually, and I'm looking forward to when it does. Perhaps we'll have another, perhaps more successful President Jimmy Carter in the next 10 years, preferably without the subsequent Ronald Reagan.

As for the vice-presidential candidate: If people genuinely want someone who was in the U.S. Senate for 1 or 2 years, seemingly has little if any other real political experience, and seems to be a homophobe as well as an anti-abortionist, to be 'one heartbeat away from the presidency' as Vice President, that's their problem.

(I'm also enjoying the ridiculous quotation on his Wikipedia, said not years ago but this month, that the UK is the "first truly Islamist country with nuclear weapons." There are more ridiculous quotations on a wide spectrum of issues, but I won't go on...)

**

The swallows are chirping through the warm evening sky, voices are echoing from the restaurant below, and tires are rushing over the asphalt outside. I think I'll wrap up the business part of the day and take it easy soon.