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Chopin Imaginaire

I attended a fantastic performance at the Cottbus Staatstheater (State Theater)last night. The program was titled "Chopin Imaginaire" and was a combination of Chopin's piano music and original ballet dancing! That there, my friends, is an amazing combination!!!

There were two people on the piano performing live but invisible from my seat on the first floor. I have no complaints at all about my seat though because it provided a great head-on view of the dancers, which were also not too far away as this is a relatively cozy theater (seating for ~ 260 on 3 levels). There were 4 female and 4 male dancers.

Chopin's compositions vary in length from barely a minute to several minutes long. The dancing performances ranged from classical pair dancing to comical skits. One of the wonderful things about ballet is how open it is to creative movement and expression. As the title of the program gives hint, the dancers brought to life what one may possibly imagine when listening to Chopin's pieces.

I cannot recreate in words the fantastic things they did on that stage, but I will give a few hints so you may develop a little bit of an idea of why I sat in that theater gladly smirking. For one of the pieces, the dancers wore socks and gloves which showed up in the black lighted stage. As they danced around and interwove their arms, all we really saw from the audience were free-floating hands and feet! In another piece only the men danced together and created with their legs raised up on one another what I thought of as a caterpillar marching around!

The stage and costumes continued to change as the show progressed. At the start there was a glossy black wall with 4 doors in it across the stage. The dancers spent a while "dancing" with the doors. Eventually the wall and half of the doors disappeared and only two doors remained but further back on the stage with a new, shear curtain as the wall. Since their were only 8 dancers, the dancers themselves used different additions and subtractions of black clothing to keep their characters fresh in each scene.

Although I could have easily attended this program on my own, I found out about it through the International Office listserv (emails) and attended with other students from BTU. The International Office coordinated a tour of the theater before the performance which was pretty sweet. We got to go under the stage and see the mechanics for how the center of the stage turns (which they used during the show) and where the doors are for actors to disappear through the stage floor. The guide also told us the history of the building. The most important fact for you to know as to the history is that this is the only large theater in the state of Brandenburg and it is supported through state funds. (Don't we have a theater in Detroit called "the State Theater"? Is it supported by state funds? Was it once upon a time?) In order to attract theater-goers from around the region, the theater has a different show each night covering the whole gamut of live performances like operas, plays, ballets, and orchestras. Many of the shows are put on by visiting performance groups since Cottbus is not such a major city as to have its own opera company, ballet company, orchestra...

One of the delightful aspects of this Chopin Imaginaire was its combination of live music and frequently changing visual entertainment. With a classical ballet there is one story line and one musical theme for a couple of hours. This can be wonderful, but a little tiring. I wasn't sure what to expect from this Chopin Imaginaire, but I was greatly pleased with what it turned out to be!

Rhyming in German

You know what's great about the German language? I'll tell you: the standard form of verbs ends in -en and one of the past tense forms ends in -t. Can you imagine how easy this makes things for poets?! Let's make a poem right now (instead of writing for schoolwork)!

Ich habe einen Hund gekauft,
obwohl es nicht erlaubt war,
Ich habe ihn getauft,
obwohl es nicht gestattet war.

Wir sind im Park gegangen,
er hat einen Ball gefangen.

Wir spielen jeden Tag,
weil er es mag.

Ich muss ihn verkaufen,
weil er zu laut ist,
Ich muss eine nette Familie suchen,
weil er mir so wichtig ist.

I bought a dog,
although it wasn't permitted,
I baptized him,
although it wasn't permitted.

We went to the park,
he caught a ball.

We play every day,
because he likes it.

I must sell him,
because he is too loud,
I must seek out a nice family,
because he is so important to me.

-----------------------------

I can see how much is lost when translating poems!!!!

All Gone!

My neighbor apartment building is completely torn down. All that remains is the rubble and a new view from my living room. I can now see the park across the street.

Is Blue Really Soothing?

The background color of Microsoft Word 2007 is blue. Blue is supposed to be a soothing color. What's your opinion? Do you think it works? When I know what to type, I don't even notice the color. But when I sit here wishing words would spring onto the page without any effort on my part, I fear it doesn't work so well.

Dreams -- Welcome to My Unconscious Head

I have the amazing ability to remember my dreams when I wake up in the morning, so I'm going to share some stories from the last few days.

Steve was in Germany for 24 hours. Yup, he flew up here from Afghanistan for 24 hours to attend some sort of event and then was going to be flying back a few hours after I spoke with him.

I was cooking and trying to salt my food, but the salt box had multiple holes at the top and across its middle. I instantly mentally blamed my apartmentmate Dominick and when he entered the scene I yelled at him, "Did you do this!?!"

I was hiking on rocky cliffs with a couple of people, one who I couldn't identify and the other an old apartmentmate (Christy Admiraal). Christy was trailing behind this other person and myself and fell off the cliff onto a sandy riverbank where a tiger was prowling about. Sorry Christy, but in our search we didn't find you.

I was in a mansion with some rooms with really high ceilings where large giraffe-like animals were hanging out for tourists who were mingling about, a few really quiet rooms with normal house-furniture like couches and beds, and a big, open, dirty cement-walled room with big rats running around on the floor. But these rats weren't pet rats like Hans and Frans. A couple of these crazy, dirty rats were in the hall where I was walking and jumped up viciously and tried to bite my arm. I woke up to reality flinging my arm away from my stuffed animal dog Perkins.

I love dreaming!

Ich uebersetze Deutsch.

I bet you don't understand the title of this post. That's okay, it's not your fault that you don't love the German language like I do.

I translate German. That's what the title says. And it's true, I do! I have signed on with the university's International Student Office to edit English texts and translate German texts to English.

I worked on my first assignment a couple of days ago. It was a lot of fun! I was given a couple of forms from the city office. I had to edit some stuff that was already translated and do some of my own translating. There was an entire page explaining a certain law, which might sound like dry reading, but it was actually kind of exciting to find out what all the words meant and learn all the regulations for this law.

I expect to learn a lot of new words through this work. You might be thinking that I should already know all of the words which I need to translate, but in fact I don't. What is important is understanding how German verbs conjugate (so I can find the core verb in the dictionary), how German builds compound words, how sentences are structured, and the German psyche behind word choice. I have these skills and I'm puttin' 'em to use!

"Ah-ha" Moments

There was a moment early on in high school when I remember sitting in English class and saying to myself "ah-ha! I finally understand the parts of speech!" It was a very jubilant moment since teachers had been trying to get it into our little idiot heads for years.

I had an "ah-ha" moment today in Aquatic Ecology. The topic of the course today was "acidification", which is a concept I've been taught about in several courses from various perspectives, but my chemistry skills are poor so thoughts in my head about acidification usually just felt like a blobby gray mass. Until today.

Unlike last week, when the professor for this class kind of sucked (we have a different professor nearly every week), the professor today was fantastic! He started with easy basics, hands-on examples, built up the concept in a simple way, and answered my questions clearly so that by the end I was actually comprehending the chemical formulas he was using to explain acidification!

It always feels good to say "ah-ha".

Building 2/3 Gone

This is my neighboring apartment building still in the process of being torn down. They seem to work every day, but are not making progress very fast. When I showed my new Chinese friend Lili the building and told her that they've been working at it for a few weeks now, she said that in China they would have that thing down in a day or two. I feel like they would in the United States as well. I guess these guys just want to hold on to their jobs for as long as possible.

COOKIES

Steffi and I made cookies on Sunday!

The light brown ones are chocolate chip. The dark brown ones were made with crushed haselnut, sugar, and graded chocolate. Both types of cookies taste delicious!

Delicious but hard. We need to develop a different technique next time to make sure they don't dry out. For the chocolate chip cookies I always wanted to wait until they were a little golden, but perhaps a combo of more butter and earlier removal would save them from being crispy.

Ultimate Frisbee Bruises

There are two categories of bruises in this world: the ones earned in a proud fashion and the ones to be ashamed of.

These are PROUD bruises! I earned them last week whacking the frisbee out of the air so that the opposing team couldn't catch it. This was the first week that I had done this with any proficiency (ie making contact with the frisbee). These were the kind of bruises which formed instantly and went away in just a couple of days. As proud as I was to have these bruises, I will try to adopt a new whacking method this week so as to not cause my hand too much more harm.

Cottbus Animal Shelter

It seems to rain on 99% of the days I go to the animal shelter. It worked out for the best on the day I took these pictures because the world looks really beautiful when it's cloudy and wet. We walk on paths alongside the Spree River and farm fields.

The doggy in the photo is Kalla! I know, you were probably thinking that Hannibal the Cannibal had transformed into a dog! I usually walk him. He's a lab mix, perhaps 3 years old, full of energy, and sweet. He has to wear the muzzle because he gets really excited around other dogs (in a bad way). Kalla likes to walk fast but typically partially adheres to my requests to not pull on the leash.

Intro to Today's Posts (but you'll probably read this last)

I've been a little busy lately between classes, schoolwork, eating meals in front of the tv, playing Ultimate Frisbee, and socializing. But, I have made sure to document important happenings with my camera so I will now present to you several entries based on photos. Enjoy!

Yup, I'm "one of them"

You know those foreigners you meet who seem to speak your language pretty well...except for that one word which they always seem to say wrong?

Yup, I'm one of them.

In English we have the word "when" and we use it in multiple situations. Take the following examples.

1) When I saw the ghost appear, I froze in horror.

2) When will you arrive?

The first sentence uses "when" in an if/when sort of way, whereas the second sentence uses "when" in questioning time.

German has two different words for these two different situations.

1) Wenn...
2) Wann...

My apartmentmate Steffi pointed out to me last week that I typically say "wann" for both sentences 1 and 2. Since notifying me about this fact, she has been policing my mouth. I am trying so hard to remember to say the correct word, but it is really astounding how frequently I still say "wann" when I should be saying "wenn". The stupid thing about it is that "wenn" is pronounced a lot more like "when" than "wann" is pronounced like "when", so my mouth should naturally gravitate towards the sound that is closer to English. (If you are trying to say it outloud for yourself right now, remember that the "w" in these German words is pronounced as a "v" and not a "w".)

I have a possible explanation for my consistent mistake.

There's another pair of words in German which share similar meanings and almost identical spellings which I frequently mix up: "denn" and "dann". Ignoring definitions, let's go straight to the point that "dann" is supposed to be used in most situations and "denn" is reserved for more special occasions. My mistake with this pair is saying "denn" too much. This mistake makes sense with its similarity to English because "denn" sounds a lot like "then" while "dann" sounds a lot like "than". I don't use the word "than" very much in English because it is a comparative words, while the word "then" is frequently used in if/then statements.

"Than" example: My dog is bigger than your dog.
"Then" example: If you are going to the store, then I want to come with you.

So, here's the language problem in its entirety: each pair of words has an "a" option and an "e" option.

wenn, wann
denn, dann

Martin Luther, the father of modern High German, would have been a much better person if he had decided, "Okay, it is the words with the "e" in the middle which should be used in most situations." But no. The "a" and "e" usage is mixed.

wenn, wann
denn, dann

Somehow the brain has to be programmed to remember which situation gets the "a" and which one gets the "e".

This may sound like a personal rant on the German language, but this is actually a common problem for non-native speakers.

...And yet, every time Steffi calls me out on it, the personal frustration grows bigger and bigger and ahhhhhhh. I am "one of them" and I don't like it.

Uberraschungsei/ Surprise Egg

This miniature excavator joined my knickknack collection this evening. Christin came home from school a few days ago with news from a presentation one of her classmates had given that day: the Kinder chocolate brand creates a popular kids chocolate called the Uberraschungsei in which a toy is hidden inside a thin chocolate egg, but this particular product is not permitted to be sold in the United States due to the risk of children choking (ie risk of law suit). So, since I was not acquainted with this particular product, Christin gifted me one of these eggs this evening. I was going to take a photo of the whole combo of broken open egg, the plastic egg in which the excavator parts were in, and the excavator, but I couldn't resist eating the delicious Kinder chocolate long enough to get the camera. The chocolate might not have lasted long, but this plastic excavator will be with me forever.

Curious about the histories behind the other knickknacks?

The red object on the left is a lighter I got in a bag of worthless free stuff from the bookstore. The word printed on it is Flaschenoffner/Bottle Opener.

The camel was a gift from Mrs. de Vries, Prof. Bert de Vries' wife. She gave one of these camels from Bethlehem to all of us upon completion of our month in Jordan/Palestine/Israel. The word printed on it is Bethlehem.

The lizard was originally a key chain, but the loop on his tail finally broke recently after about 3 years of dangling on my backpack. He was a gift from Marina, one of my good friends whom I worked with at Potts Park in Germany in 2006.

The green cylinder is a candle holder with an expired candle which was gifted to me for my birthday by Asta, also a good friend whom I worked with at Potts Park in Germany in 2006. I've mostly kept the candleholder around because I like how it looks.

Lastly, on the right is a farmer woman holding a lamb. I bought this little figurine while working at Michael's Arts and Crafts last Autumn. I grew up with a few sheep as pets, so this little figurine reminds me of happy times spent with Betsy, Jake, and the rest of their woolly ancestors. Additionally, the woman is holding a baby bottle in her hand with the lamb, which reminds me of Jake's first few months of life spent in the house getting bottle fed, wearing diapers, and getting smacked by the cat.

Rat in the box

Steve suggested I give the boys a box full of paper as a place to nest. I scoped out the discount grocery store today while shopping and found the perfect box. Frans and Hans seem to agree with me that it is nice and snuggly.

I also unknowingly complicated their lives by putting the ladder to the opposite shelf as the food and water. I only realized I had done this when I saw Hans scaling the wall this evening. It might sound mean, but even now that I've realized what I have done I am going to leave it this way. Steve told me that I should make their lives more complicated in ways that they get more exercise and have to think more. And its not like scaling the walls is anything new to them because they do it all the time for their own pleasure.

Ultimate Frisbee Lessons

I've never really been a team sport player. I danced (not partner dancing), did Track and Field, and bowled. I didn't like playing basketball in gym class because the other kids were so pushy with their bodies. I tried playing soccer but I was really awful and didn't have time to improve while still making time for dancing, which was much more fun and interesting. Volleyball has always been a fun thing to play with friends.

But, team sports can be fun and offer important life lessons.

Now that I've played ultimate frisbee for a couple of weeks, I've got a good idea of how all the playing strategies are supposed to work. With this burden of knowledge comes the responsibility to do the right thing.

Let's take a step back a moment and give an example of "doing the right thing" in a non-ultimate frisbee context. Christin set up some placards on our apartment door a few days ago so that we could keep track of who is home and who is not home. It's a great idea and I've tried to remember to flip over my card when I leave and enter, but it is indeed a task to remember to flip the sign when running out the door. On two of the three evenings on which I left the apartment for several hours, I forgot to flip my sign. Tonight was the first night I remembered. The point of this little story is that while my sign does not move locations, it still took me three tries to get it right.

Let's go back to ultimate frisbee. When playing the game, I don't have just one stationary object to think about like I do with the signs Christin set up. I've got teammates and opponents running everywhere and a frisbee which must be thrown with special care so that it flies to the desired destination. My brain spins with decisions to be made and most of them will most likely end in a mistake.

Here's the lesson: Decisions must be made and typically quickly. Mistakes will naturally occur and with frequency. But, time cannot be wasted dwelling on mistakes. Once they are made, try to (quickly)learn a lesson from them and then move forward.

I think that I am discovering why decent team sport players often carry themselves so confidently. They naturally make tons of wrong decisions and mistakes during games, but then they move forward. Without moving forward, there is no hope of doing something right.

I may not be a great frisbee thrower yet, but I am pretty good at catching it. My one excellent memory from the evening is of catching a low flying frisbee in the end zone while sliding and subsequently sitting on the ground.

Oh Boy! Paper Everywhere!

This is a video showing how excited the boys were when I put them in the cage with all the new paper.

The Rat House: Before and After

I completely cleaned out the rat cage a couple of days ago and then put in tons of new crumpled up paper. I covered every surface of the cage with the paper so that I could see where Frans would decide to build the nest, which side the bathroom would be located on, and if any paper would be left not included in the nest.

As you can see, Frans got to work and brought nearly every piece of paper into the nest. As of today when I am writing this, the only paper remaining not in the nest is about 5 pieces up on the top, right shelf.

I tried to create a tunnel out of a brownie box for them to run through, which Frans did do a couple of times, but then they flattened it during the nest building efforts.

In answer to my questions of where the new nest and toilet would be located, they remained in the same places as before cleaning.

Halloween!

I went down to the on-campus club on Halloween to enjoy a metal concert. I didn't want to dress up in a frightening way, but I did enjoy the opportunity to be more creative with my appearance. The music was decent and my cool look made me feel confident enough to chat with some people.

Then I came home and gave Frans some lovin' as thanks to his Daddy for inspiring me and giving me confidence to be myself (in both its bold and quiet forms).