deconstructing mark
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Wednesday 30.4.03 | NOT enormous amounts to report today; it is raining, which, after the mugginess and general swelt of the last few days is a very welcome relief. I've also always been a fan of the smell you get just after it's chucked it down - clean, fresh, washed, ready for another battle with the pollution of a metropolis. Or something. Only vaguely interesting thing to shove on here (or hier anzuschleppen as the Germans might say - what a fab language) is that I have joined a choir. My first rehearsal was last night, and they were very welcoming, kind, and sympathetically deaf to all of the wrong notes I came out with. They sing a nice mix of light classical stuff (I knew I was in the right place when they told me they were singing the eternally beautiful Polovetsian Dances, possibly my favourite piece of classical music ever) and things from musicals, so I was happy. :-) Slight problem is that this concert is at the end of August, and I had't seriously reckoned on staying here that long, although it is a possibility. Hmm. Thursday 1.5.03 PERHAPS I should have gone into slightly more detail about yesterday's choir rehearsal. I was, naturally, terrified at the beginning. Meeting new people is one thing. Singing in front of them with a very rusty voice is quite another. Anyway, before we even got round to opening our mouths, I found myself turning 90 degrees along with everyone else so I was facing the back of my neighbour, and the person on my left was facing me, etc etc (apologies if this isn't the best of descriptions, but English is really quite beyond me at the moment) and trumming on their back with my fingers. All inhibitions and worries about choir suddenly seemed quite irrelevant as we proceeded to do all manner of silly-sounding-and-looking things to each other (so to speak, nothing dodgy, promise) before starting to actually sing, which meant that, by the end of the first bar, I couldn't really give a shit about how badly I was singing. Admittedly, the not-giving-a-shite-ness faded away rather quickly when I realised just how awful I sounded, but it was good in any case. Today has been another fantastically unproductive day, the only thing of merit perhaps being a Polish lesson this afternoon (yes I have taken it up...) and a very nice brunch this morning/afternoon, sort of. God I'm a waster sometimes. Friday 2.5.03 For some reason am incredibly giggly mood today. Things keep falling apart or going wrong and I just wet myself. Most odd. Wonder if there was something in my coffee this morning. Perhaps, though, it was actually something to do with the fact that I attempted to programme my answerphone this morning. I was given this by Andreas, my hunky flatmate, and have been putting off trying to record a message onto and generally work out how the arse I configure the thing for about a week now, but sheer boredom with an essay this morning ('“Concern for the Environment knows no boundaries.?How to you interpret this statement? Discuss.') made me finally dig out the operating instructions -helpfully untranslated- and attempt to work out what the feck it was all on about. Roughly 11.00 Open instructions. 11.01 Oh dear. 11.03 Start to giggle as realise that I probably wouldn't get what is was going on about if it was written in English, let alone the Swahilian German in the booklet. 11.07 Right. Cannot be that difficult. Turn to bit about answerphone. 11.10 'To record a greeting, press 'save' button followed by 'record.' What? 11.12 Is no 'save' button. 11.13 Ah yes. Press button. Nothing happens. Press again. Nothing. Giggle at lack of practicality. 11.17 'Save' button definitely lifeless. Attempt to simply turn on answerphone to see if is a pre-recorded message thing which will save me time and hassle. 11.18 Aagh, aagh, loud, angry beeps, evidently meaning 'fuck off' ?try to smother sound as flatmates are still in bed. 11.20 Ah! Answerphone is on! 11.21 Turn off and on again a few times in triumph. Now, where was I? 11.22 Ah yes. Trying to record a message. Suddenly notice bit in booklet saying that answerphone has to be operational before recording a message. Rah. 11.25 Record message about 14 times before give up and realise that I'm going to sound like an effortless bint, however hard I try not to. 11.30 Bollocks. Just realised that have forgotten to record in English as well as German. 11.35 Recording done. Sound like a turd, but never mind. Replace receiver, whereupon phone bleeps lots, flashes lights, and generally announces new presence in my life. Hope to the Lord that this is simply phone's way of saying that it's ready to to its stuff. Go back to work. 11.49 Why hasn't anyone called me yet? 11.50 Bored bored bored bored bored shit bored 11.51 Ring answerphone to see if message works. Yes, I sound like a turd. 12.00 Ooh, time for lunch! Another morning wasted then... Anyway, right, so lunchtime came around, and I made this weirdy mixture of pasta, spinach and mozzerella, which, if you don't mind me indulging for just one moment, was really rather tasty. However, I realised afterwards that I had managed to melt bits of the plastic container-thing which I shoved in the microwave to hurry the spinach up (don't ask.) Meal may have tasted very slightly odd, although this could also be due to the fact that I think my spinach was slightly out of date. So here's my question for today ?I presume that melted plastic probably isn't the healthiest thing to eat, right? But I also presume that I will survive the afternoon. Do mail me with answers, not so much because I am interested in the timing of my immient self-poisoning, but more because I am very, very bored. Saturday 3.5.03 GOODNESS me was I pissed last night. Still don't know quite how it happened as I'm sure I had planned to have a chilled evening with Matthew after the exertions of yesterday (writing approximately 20 words of a shit-boring essay about the environment - joy) but somehow we were still sitting in this cafe at around 2am, paying a -shock-horror-drunken- 75 Euro bill (oops - guess I didn't check out cocktail prices but once every few months won't hurt.) Feeling surprisingly good this morning, all things considered, perhaps a touch poorer. Sunday 4.5.03 LOVELY, quiet weekend, spent doing very little on the one hand and enough to amuse and entertain on the other. After I wrote the above, I went home and attempted to work, realising within about 12 seconds that I needed a nap first. Nap turned into full-blown catch-up snooze, and I rather guiltily woke up again at 8. Wrote a really dull essay about environmental protection, did my ironing (realised all of a sudden that it was Saturday night, and, erm, I was doing my ironing, but these things happen) before hitting the sack. Yesterday was endlessly blissful - sitting out, having brunch in the hot sun, gassing, having coffee, talking about everything and nothing, corecting the English translation of a menu (we were asked to, honest!), that sort of randomness. Decided to walk back home afterwards, and then proceeded to gas for about 2 hours on the blower to various people, and then, goodness, it was time for bed. Productive day, then. I appreciate that this is all very boring to read, believe you me. I hope that I will be able to spice life up a little tomorrow after my job interview later today. Until then. :-) Note added later: Ooh, I know what I wanted to put on here. There is a Chinese girl in my German class called 'Fang.' Now, I know that this is a theme which I have touched on before, but it deserves repeating; I am aware of the fact that 'Mark' probably means 'shitkicker' in Korean or something, and it is neither fair nor nice to snicker at another people's names (I was almost called Eric, for goodness sake,) but honestly. Fang. Giggle. Tuesday 6.5.03 Interview went well - as far as I can gather, I have a job. Admittedly, I can't gather very far as the man was very strange, and we were sitting in a very noisy cafe (Sounds dodgy I know, you're probably right...) but the long and short of it is that if I am capable of saying 'This is the Berlin Wall' in German, than I can work on the Tourist Buses of Berlin! Oh god. Giggle. I do hope this isn't going to be yet another mess I'm going to have to shovel myself out of. Anyway, other thing to report was the mortifying conversation I had with my new semi-flat-mate (as in, she's is my flatmate's girlfriend, she's not semi-flat, although at first I genuinely wondered whether she ran on Duracell) who, for those of you quite not up to speed with the linguistic spaghetti in which I live, speaks neither English nor German very well. Anyway, so we were 'chatting' about this and that, and suddenly she asked me if I had a girlfriend. Oh god. I tried to say 'Nein, ich bin eigentlich schwul' ('No, I'm gay actually') which she got apart from the 'schwul' ('gay' - surprise!) and, well, how does one explain these things to someone who doesn't speak your language? Actions? Hand-gestures? Anyway, eventually I managed to say something along the lines of 'You-Andreas, girl-boy, yes? Me-boy, yes?' Aagh, was so embarrassing but comic at the same time, especially when it dawned on her precisely what I was saying. I was thinking about asking Andreas simply to interpret for me, but since I he's never asked about my love-life I've never told him anything about it, I wasn't keen on throwing the fact in his face and telling him to translate it at the same time, understandably, I think. Oh well. | |||||||||
