l'auberge espagnole

Somewhere at home, buried among other childhood trinkets and memories, is a small frame saying: "home is where the heart is." Tonight I watched l'auberge espagnole for my French seminar, and a whole bunch of my life suddenly seemed to click. It's a film from 2002 that takes place in Barcelona about a group of European exchange students, and just about every turn the film took reminded me of my stay in Bamberg. It was were I was on my own for the first time, immersed in the day-to-day life of a young professional, plunged into a new local culture. I benefited immensely from this exposure to an independant lifestyle and new social environment, where I learned what it meant to be the outsider in a culture and place. The transition was difficult; I'm not going to lie about that, but it was so much more than what I found before it, at Princeton or in my childhood home. This doesn't mean that Princeton and Duxbury don't hold special places in my mind and my heart. You have only to meet me briefly to see how enamoured I am with campus and the life and the opportunities offered on a daily basis to those whom luck has favored. You have only to catch me during a nostalgic moment when I desparately wish to escape to the seaside back home or spend a few hours in front of our old wood stove or an afternoon with my kittens. It's all a part of who I am, and yet, what was offered to me in Germany was something new and tantalizing. It hooked me. So now, whenever I wander into a narrow, cobblestone street; sit within the cold, vast stone of the University Chapel; stop in at the local microbrewery, it all comes rushing back. Not necessarily all at once, but the fondness I have for the people and culture of little Bamberg will not easily be pushed aside. One would think that rationally I'd be over it all by now. So why do I still reminisce so much? Maybe it's finally time to put all the stories, memories, and moments into a scrapbook and be done with it. Is it possible to do that? Will that make whatever seems missing disappear? Or do I wait till the fall and hope that wherever I am overfills the spot where Bamberg once was?

Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix

Clear the road of gravel..

So it's been a few days, but they've been busy days at that! I went out to Arizona last Thursday for Fulbright Enrichment Seminar. I was surprised by the good time I had. There were more than 130 people from about 70 different countries of the world, and there was quite a bit of time to talk and get to know one another. We went and toured a desert botanical garden nearby in Phoenix, visited a local high school to share cultures, listened and discussed several lectures about the state of the environment in the area, and had a multicultural talent show the last night. I really got to know a bunch of the people there, especially the few others that got stuck for a couple of days due to the snow storm like me! But now I am back, rested, refreshed and slightly tan. I did manage to get a bunch of pictures up on snapfish, so you should definitely check them out! On top of it all, I will be spending the weekend in NYC with Maria and Ann. It will be a perfect last refresher bit to get my semester started off right, and to top it all off, we will be enjoying my favorite pasttime of catching up :)
AND I found out today that I'm into Georgetown's School of Foreign Service!!!! It's my first choice, so now I am waiting to hear back about the German PhD side of things. I'm also applying to a ridiculously cool Fellowship that would pay for the whole thing and give me several internships (here and overseas) with the US Dept of State. It totally made my day! Onward, ho!

The Housemates

The lovely Miss Jessica

Jess & Allegra

Moving to Princeton was an adventure, and I lucked out in terms of housemates. I have two, and they are wunderbar! While we are all busy, it's nice that we get the odd moment together to chat, have dinner, or whatever. Tomorrow we are trying to go out for drinks at a nearby microbrewery. Yes. They are brilliant, and the perfect solution to a long day.

Music

Favorite new song lyrics: "S.O.S. please someone help me. It's not healthy for me to feel this. Why are you making this hard? You got me tossing and turning, can't sleep at night."

This is part of why I like music so much. Turn on the radio and you can lose yourself in 2.3 seconds to the latest single, a melodic fragment from a contemporary suite, the flow of a symphony, or the pulse of the jazz greats. Ironic that I enjoy it so much and yet gave it up in so many ways to study at Princeton. My brother is studying music at a conservatory. My sister will be next fall. It will always be one of the bigger "what ifs" of my: what if I had excepted one of the conservatories? Where would I be? Who would I be? Guess that's why it felt so great to practice today till my lips were chapped and my mouth was dry.

life...or something

Jeanne once joked that my theme song should be "Everything to Everyone," because once someone is considered a friend, I usually am loyal to a fault. I give second chances. And thirds. I tend to look for the good side in everything. I want to believe that the people around me will change the world with their wit and talents. I can count the number of times this has seriously backfired on one hand. I am definitely more skeptical about life right now than I once was, but I almost always turn these moments back around on myself. Funny how that works. And I can do it in several languages too! So what is it that keeps bringing me right back to believing in those around me, when it finally starts to heal? I haven't figured that out yet. And so it's happened once again. Right under my nose, and I still want to think more of him than I should, no matter what it does to me. Good thing I'm going to Arizona in just a few more days. I need to get away and try to clear my mind someplace new. Who knows? Maybe I will decide -- for once -- I just don't care this time.

Schade. Tant pis.

Schade! Or rather, too bad. Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. My whole plan to visit Bamberg this Spring crashed and burned. The people I really want to see seem to be just too busy. It's really hard for me to give up the idea of visiting this year, because it means any visit I make will not be like it was when I was there. Let me clarify: By the end of the summer, just about every friend I had in the area--with the exception of some of the teachers--will be gone. Some are finishing up university degrees, others are finishing up their stays abroad. So if I go back and they aren't there, then a major part of what the city was like for me will have vanished. It'll be a wierd feeling, and one that I am not truly ready to handle. I'm not ready to give up the social possibilities so soon, and yet that is what I am being asked to do. It's quite frustrating, and left me feeling quite sad all day during my first day at work. I am doing all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to figure out if it's worth it to visit another friend or two in Europe during the same time that I would have been there to travel around Germany. Yet a big part of me is saying I shouldn't. What I should be doing right now is saving for grad school and be responsible, and the only reason I justified Bamberg in the first place was that the young professional population shifts so often. Question still remains: what do I do now??