banshee beat

Der April macht, was er will.

[April does what it wants.]

In the Verfuegungsgebauede, waiting for Tutorium for a literature class to begin (the teacher of the tutorium is our friend Andreas)

I haven't felt like writing in awhile. That is not to say that there hasn't been anything going on--- generally that means quite the opposite. Summer semester is moving into its third week, and at this moment I am only marginally positive about what classes I am taking. So to avoid the annual jinxing, I'll keep quiet about it for a bit longer. With the start of a new semester comes a disproportion amount of social opportunities, which seem to grow exponentially as sunlight becomes more plentiful. I swear that this town has grown 12 times larger since I've been back--- I guess I wasn't the only one spending half of the winter hibernating indoors.

And as I was walking home tonight, in the early morning hours of the first day of May, I was thinking that it is just in the past week that green has returned to the trees. Once back in Goettingen I was overjoyed to see spreads of hopeful buds covering branches that have long been bare. Der Platz der Goettingen Sieben, the quad of campus, was lined with pink cherry blossoms until demolition by the rainstorm at the end of the week. After yesterday's hailstorm, as the sun shone gaily as if it hadn't just been beaten out of the sky by small balls of ice, white blossoms lay trampled to the walkways of the Siedlung. Trees are blooming, leaves are appearing, grass is taller and crowded with bright dandelions. White and yellow daffodils sway happily next to red tulips, at the corners of traffic intersections and behind white fences and on university lawns. I don't think spring has ever meant as much to me as this one will.

Tomorrow (today) is a holiday. Its the first day I've gotten off of school in Germany due to a national holiday. I think its the equivalent of Pentecost. Sunday night (what I am still considering the present as) seems somewhat akin to our Halloween: the night of witches and demons. Luckily I encountered neither on my solitary journey from Andreas' house back to my own, after a quiet evening of Fawlty Towers and a picture exhibition. Andi has been asking Jacky and I to show pictures from our trip, and apart from the surprise that anyone is actually interested in seeing our pictures, problems arise when you consider the actual amount of photos we have. We didn't plan it very well, so I ended up just sitting there with my laptop and hurrying through the thousand or however many I showed. I felt I was boring everyone to death, especially since Jacky was not being very helpful, but at least Andreas seemed to actually enjoy it. All the Germans laugh at our european excursions; they wonder that we see more of Europe in one year than they have in 30. But it makes sense--- we all know our time here is limited and expense-wise it is more economical to spend the money now than fly back and forth later.

Apparently it is the tradition to bring in May dancing, a tradition I did not take part in tonight. I got my share of dancing yesterday night (if one can ever have too much of such a thing), and have had a raucous enough of a week that I just sort of wanted to come back early ("early") and sleep in tomorrow. As I take more part in social activities here I wonder more at people and all the varied ways we look at life, relationships, friendships, school, place of origin and place of currentness. Last night was the birthday party (get together) of Nadine, my friend Steven's german girlfriend. I don't know her very well, but I like her a lot and would like to get to know her better. It amazes me not only that Steven actually settled down with the same girl for more than a month, but also that she is quite his senior (27). Its funny, but I think the three of us (Jacky, Steven and I) will all have stories of aged exploits to share with one another when we get back to relative (european) anonymity of Santa Cruz. Not something I thought I would really be saying after being here.

Last night I spent in conversation mixed between German and English and got spun around a lot to Johnny Cash by a German and a Luxembourger (did you know that they have their own language? for such a small country!). Nadine had invited me the night previous while some of us were hanging out at Trou, one of our favorite bars, before the Kellnerweg Party. Afterwards we (Americans: Scott, Lee, Jacky, Me and Henry, one of the new kids) headed up by the Nord Uni to the party, which Scott so eloquently described last night as "one of those parties you see in movies with the lights shining on buildings and thousands of people standing around with beer." If the music for the most part hadn't been ridiculously bad it would have been an amazing party; as it was it was still a good time. It continues to amaze me how anyone could meet anyone (you know what I'm getting at here) at a party and not either be completely uninterested or creeped out--- it seems the only people you get into conversations with are those you'd really just at the most want to be friends with.

The night previous had been the Erasmus party at JT Keller, my favorite club in Goettingen. Erasmus is the name of the european exchange program, so when you say you are a foreign exchange student you are generally asked if you are an Erasmus student, to which you reply "almost." So the kids that come here to Goettingen to study from Poland, or France, or the Ukraine, they're the Erasmus kids. The party was giant. I like JT Keller mainly for their 'indie music night' which is the first Friday of every month, where for a few hours I can believe that european clubs are actually cool. But as the site of an Erasmus event JT Keller turns into a stifling, sweaty affair, that my friend Kate remarkably accurately compared with "a jungle." It shocked me to recognize so many people, either from classes or from other such sordid, drunken shindigs. But for the most part the "hey, hows it going!" reunions are kept to a minimum, because if I don't remember their name, I am pretty positive they don't remember mine. It comes at this point the question as to whether any of this will ever really be of much use--- whats the point anymore? (questions the 21 year old)

Earlier in the week was the party for the new Californians, and on Thursday I was quite excited to see Brokeback Mountain in English... I think I did some other stuff. Looking back, its actually been a pretty socially-full week. No wonder I am now trying to figure out a way to get by on fewer groceries.

For awhile I got into a reading kick (started with The World According to Garp, John Irving, currently giving East of Eden a shot), and then I tried to force myself to go running (worked for less than a week), and so now I am going to try to get myself to be a good student. I don't think I'm really ever a terrible student... its just I get caught up in other things. But, as we all are starting to anxiously whisper to one another, our time here in Europe is running out. It is now already May, and I leave Germany at the beginning of August. The issue now is to spend my remaining months as wisely as possible... one of those things you can really only solve for yourself. I'll start with some sleep---

While the cherry blossoms were still intact- on der Platz der Goettingen Sieben