went to international stammtisch last night, and at the first one of the semester, everyone looks for someone to do a tandem language exchange with. i mean, i didn't necessarily want do that, but somehow i ended up doing it. :::shooting self::: i'm going to meet with felicita about once a week-- she's working on her Abi and has her oral exams soon.. her english really isn't all that great from what i heard. i think it'll help me when it comes to my whole maybe teaching english in the future thing.

after that, i went out with miriam and jan hein for a drink. we'd just met the guy last night-- he's from the netherlands. very nice. he and miriam went out to a hip hop dealie in prenzlauer berg after i left, or that was the original plan. i was so tired. i slept about 9 1/2 hours last night and it was great!

i had a wacky dream before i woke up. first, a friend of mine (not exactly sure who) was having sex with this guy (i think it was because she was doing business with him in the professional world, and then it was kinda included in the deal that she would sleep with him) and then all of a sudden, he wouldn't respond. he was like passed out. i was around, and i went to call 911. but 911 didn't work. well, it did- i called the number and there were like all of these commercials before i was able to talk to someone.. and then when it was finally time to talk to someone, it wouldn't work. i don't know what happened next. i think i turned around, and that wasn't the situation anymore...

my family was all in my parent's house (only it wasn't my house back in waterloo.. it's just some random house, but that's where i'd been living).. well, my step dad's family was there plus my mom's side of the family. and when i went back to the bedroom to check on the guy who'd stopped functioning during sex, i found my cousin melissa in there lying in bed with hives with a lot of other people just hanging out and talking to her.

shortly thereafter, my parents presented their present to my grandpa (who was apparently celebrating his 80th birthday).. my mom'd written a book/poem of nostalgic things. my brother read through it, and as he did, we walked through the house because different memories were set up throughout. weird. at the very end, this woman who'd been dressed up as an old lady showed that she was really this woman (friend? no clue..) my grandpa'd known a while back. anyway, i think i was having problems getting my mouth closed because i had some sort of problem with my teeth (tooth infection or something), and right around the time my mom asked me if i wanted to go upstairs to lie down, i woke up.

i don't know what that all meant, but it was pretty weird. i think the whole sex with the businessman characterized my opinion of the business world; metaphorically-speaking people are always whoring themselves out to get what they want. and everything is all commercialized these days, hence the fucked up 911. from there on out, no clue.

9:39 a.m.

17:03

well, had a nice visit back home. really enjoyed myself. saw just about everyone i wanted to and did about everything i wanted to. zigzaged like a maniac around the us. (visited waterloo, madison, cleveland, ames and some of those more than once). it is most definitely nice to be back here now, though. been partying like a rock star. or not, but i've been out 3 nights in a row now. wasn't drunk until last night. slept until 3pm today. oops.

anyway, so about the not being back for long thing. i've kinda been thinking about quitting writing here. don't like to censor, which i do and well... i'm sick of my design here. i've had the same webpage now for like 3 years and haven't really changed anything. and i'm sick of it. i think i'm going to move to diaryland.com and just have a weblog. i haven't added any pictures to my site in forever, and yeah. i want something bigger and better. or not, but i want to be able to write everything i want to. who knows. maybe i will post here every once in awhile, but not really sure.

so, bye for now! we'll see when/if i post here next....

17:23

monday night, i went out with friends for a girl's birthday. we had mexican and it was surprisingly good. doesn't compare to Laredo's in Madison and the margarita i had was very poor, but not bad for a german attempt at mexican. it was also fun to hang out with 6 girls. i miss girl talk.

yesterday, i went to this awesome exhibit at the modern art museum involving sound. it was great. i hope to go back before going home.

oh yeah! i'm going home a week from today! i'm excited. not about flying home but about being home. are they overplaying the new alanis morisette (sp?) song in the states, too? i can't turn on the radio without having to listen to it.

and now for your reading pleasure:
Your revolution will not happen between these thighs, courtesy of curt.
a great picture, also courtesy of curt. there's also an article there about gay men that's kinda funny. but the picture's great. it's currently my desktop's wallpaper.

Have i ever mentioned that i like the word, "gubernatorial"? no?

18:00

angie and i found the flea market because i've actually started on my "fitness regime". it's not so much of a regime and it's not really that much fitness, but because I'm a lazy ass and can't motivate myself to do anything more strenuous, i've decided to go on long walks. i didn't have anything planned last night, so around 10pm i left to go on walk #1. i was gone for about an hour and found all sorts of restaurants, cafes and bars that i want to go to sometime or another.

as i was on about step #70 of the 80 steps (no exageration) that lead to my apartment door, i got an SMS from Stiof saying that she was in the area and i should join her and some friends at the Junction Bar for a drink if i wanted. i'd *just* been there about 10 minutes beforehand. and i'd just climbed all those steps. but about half an hour later, i headed over there. i ended up staying until about 3 and had a very relaxing evening. it was fun.

angie told me today that she's probably going to leave germany to go home on june 10. she wants to be done with school asap now. so, that means she'll do a summer semester and a fall semester at Iowa State and then she'll be done. and then she'll fly over to the Canary Islands. To live there permanently, i think. i guess she's falled head over heels for horacio. what's up with my friends getting into super serious relationships really fast?

17:03

I've been planning on going there for a couple of weeks with Stiof (and maybe Liosa) and last night was the designated night. The night started out with the traditional visit to Quasimodo. Angie came along and another friend from Ireland met us there (susan). Opening act was pretty good, but they played a bit too long. then the jam session started. This HORRIBLE flute-player got up on the stage (i've seen him there before, unfortunately) and I thought that that was that. the music was going to be aweful for the night. Mr. Flute is as skinny as a flagpole and wore these hideous tight red jeans (which made him even more attractive). anyway, even though he looked horrible, i could've handled it if he were a good flute player. Not the case. he has this attitude as if he's realllllly good and he was almost entirely a half step flat the first song. unfortunately, he stayed on stage for a couple of songs, and if he would have stuck around for much more, i think he would have been booed off the stage. After he was done, they really got down to rocking out and it was cool.

there was a bit of liosa drama in that this guy she likes said he would come but didn't make it there until around 1am (around when we wanted to leave) and then proceeded to basically ignore her. She was pretty pissed about that one. before quasimodo, she wasn't really sure that she wanted to go to Tresor, but then she got into the mood and i'm glad i managed to convince her to go. i'm glad she didn't dwell on the guy (silly boys!) all night.

Anyway, Tresor. Liosa and I met Stiof and Thomas around 2:30am inside the club and my first impression was that it was cool. very cool. We stood around for a bit, then we started dancing. Upstairs is called Globus and they play house there. Downstairs in Tresor, it's the pounding beat of techno and much more hardcore. we spend most of our time upstairs but when we were downstairs, it was also very cool. takes some getting used to, though but once you get into it it's awesome. the building used to be a department store; the basement used to be a safe, and you can still see the money slots down there. added charm. they had some pretty cool strobe light action going on both up and downstairs and the music really was great. i think it's probably the most wellknown techno club in berlin (actually in all of germany, i think) and for good reason.

one of the coolest things is that Liosa enjoyed herself. she doesn't really like that kind of music, and she really liked it/the evening. i ended up sleeping at her place and finally left there around 4pm.

we left tresor this morning around 6:30am. that's my record so far. i'm getting so spoiled by the great music/clubs here in berlin. sigh. madison's not going to be anything close when i go back. good thing i have more closer friends there to make up for things. :)

17:59

so, i'm gonna start getting a bit less superficial here and get into feelings and stuff. Basically, i think that i was just having major personal issues 2 weeks ago. between thinking about my vacation to Croatia in June and the bikini i'll probably buy for it and friends not calling me, i was going through body issues, personality issues, and all sorts of other stuff. it doesn't help too much that the sun very rarely shines here. Berlin weather sucks. but it is better than the coldness of wisconsin...

anyway, i stopped worrying about the bikini thing realizing that if everyone wears a bikini in europe while on vacation, i'm not going to be the chubbiest one out there. i'm really not all that chubby; i'm just not 120 pounds. so, i've stopped thinking about that and started concentrating on other stuff. once the weather warms up a bit, i'm going to go on lots of walks. and that's my bikini plan. besides, i'm not really out to attract lots of people when i'm on vacation. just don't want to be laughed at. i almost always have a decent body image; don't really know why i was having problems then.

And the friend thing: i had a couple of issues with that and i think i've talked about a few of them in this log. #1: i felt super intimidated by seth and started to think that he'd gotten that impression and didn't really want to be around me. #2: i wasn't really connecting with emily and she basically stopped calling me. we used to talk every day. #3: i felt like i didn't know very many people and didn't have all that many friends. this kinda led to me having issues with my personality. BUT in the last week, I've started hanging out with Stiof a bit more (btw, Carmina Burana was excellent-- they even had a little boys choir singing along. afterwards i ended up going to a bar and then a club-type place that played lots of brit-pop. got home at 6am yet again.), i met up with Seth and really had a very nice time hanging out with him and vice versa (according to Emily), and Emily came over today and we really connected and had a good time. So, I know that people do indeed like me. And i hung out with the british crew last night (4 british chicks, one irish girl and a guy from wales) and had a nice time. Jen from england told me that we should go out sometime together. i agree. Anyway, so, the friends situation has been solved. well, not entirely, but i'm feeling a lot better about myself and stuff. i think chicks are made to have issues every now and then. it's something related to estrogen, i think. :)

and tonight, angie's getting back. i'm excited to talk to her. lots of stuff has been going on since she left. it's been a whole friggin' month.

Oh yeah! So, Emily is engaged. What? never heard me mention her boyfriend before? well, i heard about him TODAY. This guy Andy came to visit her last week. she didn't really know him all that well, but they had lots of mutual friends back at school (they've both graduated now...). And i guess they got along. Really well. she told me about him today (he left yesterday), and mentioned something about getting married to him. about 2 hours after going home, she called and told me that she'd talked to him. and they're engaged. wow. if i didn't think emily was a pretty stable person, i would really wonder. hell, i do, but oddly enough, i'm happy for her. i just want to meet this guy now. i guess he's coming to berlin to live for 3 months starting in april. craziness.

germany does funny things to people.

16:37

All I did thursday was sleep and sit around until i met liosa for coffee around 9ish. it was a good day, though. :) There was all this added stress last night, though, which I thought was kinda entertaining because I wasn't involved in the stress. basically, hania's liked Phillip (the guy we met last night where Liosa and I crashed on Wed.) for awhile, but she's had a boyfriend back home. they've been together for a really long time (more than 2 or 3 years, i think). The guy was majorly hitting on liosa on wed. and liosa basically fought off his attempts to make out with her but she kinda likes him. and doesn't know what to do because of the hania situation. Last night while we were at the first bar, Hania's boyfriend called her and Hania broke up with him. Hm. So then we decide to go meet Phillip Charlottenburg and it was interesting. boys make girls act all funny and vice versa. the end.

Tonight I'm going with Stiof to see Carmina Burana (composed by Carl Orff) being performed at the Philharmonie. I played it a couple of times in high school with my band and am fairly familiar with it, so I'm excited. :)

16:37

so, i had a really shitty week last week. i don't know if it came out in my posts or not, but i was in a bad mood pretty much all week. i think it had a little to do with pms, a little to do with my life in general, a little to do with the fact that i don't have class anymore. i mean, the class thing isn't bad at all. :) it's just that i now have less to fill my time.

i was having major friends issues. basically, i was going through the "i don't have many friends; nobody likes me; i'm going to go eat worms" phase of life. it had a little to do with Emily and Seth (i haven't hung out with seth for like 2 or 3 weeks now, and contact with emily is kinda dwindling off as well... we used to talk at least once a day and see each other every 2 days, but now she doesn't really call me all that much anymore) and a little to do with the fact that i just haven't lived here all that long and don't have a ton of friends. and it's kinda tough sometimes living in a new city every year for 4-5 years. this city is probably one of the coolest i've lived in (what am i talking about? it definitely is, but madison almost gave it some competition for a second or two.) having jim back in madison is a bit impractical as well. no guaranteed getting any for me...

anyway, i was really down on saturday, and then all of a sudden, things started clicking into place. :) i had an awesome evening on saturday and after spending most of my sunday just putzing around and talking on the phone, my friend Stiof (from Ireland) called, wondering if i'd like to get together for a drink later in the evening. so one drink turned into 3, and we really seemed to click. had a great time talking; she actually had to spend the night at my place because we talked so long that she missed her U-Bahn (subway) home. Angie's bed sure has gotten a lot of use since she's been gone. :) I went to an art exhibit today at the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum and it was... interesting. i was glad that it was free. but I'm also glad i went. The exhibit's called "Going Forth By Day" and is by Bill Viosa. it's a "projected image cycle in five parts"... that means that there were 5 videos all being projected in the same room; all were 35 minutes long and each was supposed to kinda symbolize a part of the life cycle. it was weird, but interesting.

Stiof and i now have a tentative "date" to go to Tresor (where i've wanted to go for months) next wednesday... now i'll have to see who i need to persuade they can deal with techno music for an evening (liosa, maybe?).... we really seemed to connect last night, though, so i hope we hang out more in the future. too bad we live so far away from one another. (she's in Prenzlauer Berg, which is about 30-45 mins away from me..)

21:53

first, i met anna and dagmar at the nachbar with plans to go out dancing afterwards. around 11, the two of them wanted to leave and get something to eat. dagmar wasn't feeling well and wouldn't give into anna's pleads to go dancing at 90 Grad (90 degrees), and then when i said that i could be persuaded, anna didn't want to go anymore. hrmph. actually, beforehand, the plan was to go to WMF, which i think i said, but that's techno/house and that's not really anna's style. but Roberto wanted to still go there (he's a friend of hers), so anna gave me his number and i went home to change/call him.

i met him about half an hour later at a bar and then we were going to go to another bar-type place (so they said) before heading over to WMF. die Kongresshalle (the congress hall). we got there and there was a huge line. like 100 people waiting. so, we just kinda pasted ourselves to the side of the line right near the front, and within minutes, there was absolutely no room to move. i was pressed up against the people in front of me and the person behind me was right up against me, too. basically, if someone shoved, everyone got moved. breathing was a bit harder, but actually, it was a fun experience; it was freezing cold out last night, but in the line, it was very cozy.

we finally got in (after paying about $8... they didn't think there was a cover, but oh well), and the crowd there looked really cool. the music was really cool; very groove and limbo-oriented. unfortunately that wasn't the best for dancing. but it got better and i probably danced about a third or half the time i was there. it was house or something afterwards. really cool to dance to later. neat lights on the walls and stuff and i think there were red-ish light all over the place. i had some pizza and really got into things; the group i was with was very cool (though i'd only known roberto beforehand) and seemed to like me.

so, around 5 or 5:30, the group decided to go home, so i decided that wouldn't be that bad an idea; i followed. sidenote: roberto told me that they'd call me if they go out dancing again; everyone thought that i was nice and stuff. yay! got home around 6 and crashed. i woke up this morning (afternoon) around 12 when an old friend from Hamburg called me. it was after noon, so i didn't want to strangle him. good. nice to talk to him.

today, i think i'm going to try to do some research and just chill around home. i need a day where i just sit around and chill. :)

13:05

i just booked my vacation with liosa. so, i'll be in croatia from june 19 - june 26. yay! i'll be staying here.

was at quasimodo last night and it was good. i think i need to take a break from going out, but i don't see any signs that things will be dying down soon. i have plans to go out to the Nachbar and then to WMF this saturday... and friday will be spent going to Simon-Dach-Stra�e in Friedrichshain with emily?, liosa, bea, and jutta?.

anyway, i'm going to get going... until the next time. :)

17:16

where am i? I wanna go home