5.8.11

Shmammered Freitag

Hey y'all.  I am writing to you - for the first time - totally hammered.  You may be asking yourselves, "Why was that fact necessary?"  Well, my friends, it was.  And whether or not it becomes obvious to you why this was an important part of this narrative depends entirely on how astute you are.  Did I use that word correctly?  I don't know, how about you tell me?

Anyway, let's get on to some updates.

The last time I wrote you I'm pretty sure it was Sunday, which is a shame because that means that I now have to cover like five days of material while I'm clearly incapacitated.  I'm not going to lie - I can't really remember a damn thing that happened between Monday and Thursday, so I suppose it wasn't anything important.  I would guess it's mostly boring stuff like "I worked" and "work makes me feel super fulfilled" and "my family discouraged an impractical purchase (the purse)".  This is really the only stuff worth knowing, because everything else is not memorable enough for even me to recall.

You may be wondering to yourselves, "why is she writing on her blog while drunk? Isn't that the worst idea ever?"  And for the most part, I would agree with you.  The trouble is that when I was in my second year at University a special thing happened.  I forgot about an essay, went out with friends, proceeded to get inordinately "influenced", returned home and then remembered that "oh hey, I have an essay due tomorrow!"  It was only at this point that I began my Primary Source Analysis.  After having written it while practically incoherent, I then handed it in, and several weeks later it was returned to me along with my Professor's remark that "This was so original!  It was such a departure from the other students' lines of thought!"  Wow!  Maybe that's because none of the other students got drunk and wrote their papers.  Just saying.  Anyway, the point of that sort-of-long and probably pointless narrative was that apparently some of my best writing happens when I've had a few drinks too many.

So on to the story.  While I'm sure Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were fascinating I can't really remember anything about them right now.  Only that they were rainy and humid, like the majority of Hamburg's weather.  As for Thursday.... eugh, it's like a test I haven't studied for.  This will take some thought.  Ummm.... Okay, this week the guy who was on holiday in Romania came back, so they have relocated me to a different desk (I was using his computer) and now have me on a trial version of Adobe CS5.5.  This is in some ways an improvement and in some ways not: for starters, finally everything is in ENGLISH THANK GOD.  But, unfortunately, the screen is pretty much the size of an 8.5x11, which when you are trying to accomplish some graphic design seriously impedes your ability to judge the look of something.

No, I still haven't bought the purse, mostly thanks to the obscene degree of parade-raining that my family has engaged in.  However, I make no promises that it will not be mine by the end of the weekend: technically this afternoon I had planned to go to the grocery store, but I blew that off for drinks with my coworkers.  I don't remember the conclusion I was trying to arrive at, but it had something to do with unspent money and irresponsibility... I think.  Whatever, clearly it didn't matter.

That reminds me though: it would seem my coworkers are finally comfortable around me.  I have deduced this from the fact that Canadian jokes are now the primary source of entertainment in the office.  Whether it's looking up clips of Robin Scherbatsky (Germans LOVE How I Met Your Mother) and "Canadians afraid of the dark" or "Canadian Idiot", my coworkers derive a particular kind of joy from poking fun at Canada.  They especially love Mounties.  Not anything in particular about them, just the idea of them.  I guess Due South was a big thing here or something.  But you get the idea.  For the most part I just find it funny, because honestly what else can you do in this situation?

I don't remember much about yesterday, but I have a vague feeling it was frustrating.  I think this had something to do with rain (surprise!) and generally not knowing what-the-fuck was going on with work.  We are working on commercials at the moment, which I have ZERO experience in and am clearly not good at creating.  The silver lining is that Thursday is now over, and it is Friday!

Today was a pretty good day.  It started out pissing rain (of course), but once I got to work I go to do vector illustrations and sketches, both of which are within my acquired skills.  This meant that I didn't have to ask a lot of questions and for a while I got to feel like not-an-idiot: this is rare.  At lunchtime my coworkers (The Boys) invited me to join them, which I consider a total rite of passage and an exciting phenomenon.  The one girl who works in our office had a wicked hangover today, so she just chilled inside to recover.  The point is I feel like little-by-little I am fitting in in this bizarre land of different people.  Lunch was good, and The Boys even invited me to join them for after-work drinks at the pub this evening, which I of course accepted.  I managed to spend the entire afternoon being productive, and when the day finally ended (late, of course) we had several beers and played darts together.  A particular highlight was TWICE this afternoon members of different departments came by to have me check their English writing.  I loved it!  At last, something I've studied and am good at!  It was a refreshing change to feel sure of myself.  I wish I could find the words to describe how totally awesome this set-up is right now, but words are failing me so you'll just have to use your imagination.

A group of us headed up to the pub, and two post-work beers were quickly followed by 1 long Island Iced-Tea, 2-3 (I lost count) shots of "Mexicana", 1 shot Tequila, 1 shot Sambucca, and God knows what else.  I had been told not to try and keep up with the Germans before getting here but it's a lot more difficult than it sounds.  What ensued was a rather hilarious evening of getting to know my coworkers better.  I won't hesitate to say that I like them all very much, though the "friendship" process here is much different than it is at home.  Mostly it just takes longer.  Plenty of jokes were made about the learning process and the culture differences, and hopefully on Monday things will be better and more awesome rather than slightly awkward.

In other good news I managed to book a ticket to visit my friend in Düsseldorf today, so next weekend I'll be off to the airport to have more adventures.  I am super excited about this since the prospect of seeing someone from home conjures up the kind of excitement usually reserved for chocolate.  Hopefully I'll also get some sight-seeing done, as Düsseldorf is apparently quite lovely.  Mostly I'm just happy I'll be seeing someone from home, who understands my personality and who I don't have to "tread lightly" around.

The remainder of this weekend will hold the following for me:
- Find an English-German textbook
- Grocery shop
- Look for some shoes that AREN'T flats
- Sort out trip to France
- Respond to emails
- Return fire-alarm clock
- Do some sight-seeing

Super exciting, I know.  Anyway, I am super tired and ready to pass out, so hopefully this is an adequate update for now and you'll be sated until my next post.  Good luck understanding any of this. 

Now, the German word for "cheers": Prost!

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