If it's not Raven, it's crap...

Christine is a former “student” of mine – that is, during that 4 month span or so when I taught German to 8th graders at my former high school. I inspired her so much (at least that’s what I tell myself) that she decided to participate in the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) program after graduating from high school this year. You may recall CBYX as the program that sponsored my year in hell (Dresden). I’m of two minds about the program. On the one hand, it’s probably the most inexpensive way to study in Germany for a year, since it covers the bulk of your expenses (travel stipend + either room & board from a host family or food stipend & rent if you live on your own). On the other hand, the organizations that oversee the program are (by and large) completely unorganized. This sucks because the exchange program could be so much more, but there are so many incompetent asshats that hinder the program from being anything but mediocre. Still, if you’re kind of financially

There are a lot of things that I’ve wanted to write about since my last post, but things got in the way. When I say “things”, mean overwhelmingly “work” – because that’s what takes up my most of my time. Still, I’ll try to recap as best I can. The Office Party: Officially, I was part of the party planning committee for our office shindig. However, after our first (and only) meeting, wherein the majority of all of my suggestions were immediately shot down, I ceased giving a shit and let the other two committee members do whatever they wanted. Among other things, O.C. * (she of diarrhea- informing fame ) dismissed my idea for making the party holiday neutral (to accommodate the 80% of our non-German, non-Christian employees) by saying “If they don’t celebrate Christmas, then they shouldn’t come.” Then as a party activity, she wanted to sing German Christmas carols. Then she declared that the ONLY valid Christmas colors are red and gold. And on and on with her petty OCD shit. The only con

The worst part about being a "grown up" is when you spend over 1/3 of your day around people that you mostly can't stand. It really fucks up that 1/3 of the day that you want to spend around people that you like and it's quite annoying when that last third (the sleeping part) incorporates horrible dreams about work/your workplace. Because of the public nature of the internet, I won't go into my exact train of thought regarding a number of my colleagues. Suffice it to say, there are some for whom I wish a pox upon their houses (preferably, a pox of something awful...like really painful genital herpes). There's probably nothing grammatically correct in the previous sentence, but I don't care. Eff it. Today, I received the plaster-cast, goldeny-spray painted yoga frog pictured above. It was a gift from our company's travel agency and, as our company's designated travel manager, it was given to me by default. Look at that shiny bastard. He's so con

It's taken a couple of days to get my Tübingen pictures up. Sorry. I uploaded a bunch of them on Monday, but then I forgot to save the slideshow and -- whatever, not important really, because they're here now. Granted, the photos aren't particular thrilling. Tübingen is neither a particularly glamorous, nor exotic locale. It basically looks like the way I imagined Germany would look like before I'd ever been here: cute, half-timbered houses set against a sort of quaint, mountainy-type backdrop. I think I ended up taking more pictures of random graffiti and stickers, but unfortunately many of them winded up being unusable. Some of my favorite slogans? Quite a number of them were seemingly random and revolved around foods: " Currywurst will save you" ( Currywurst wird dich erlösen - written on either side of a door displaying a flag with the words "Jesus Freaks") "Falafel never changes" ( Falafel ändert sich nie ) "Pinguin, eat Cu