2005
It's the end of the year, which means its time for one of those beautiful, long, German words: Besinnlichkeit, a word which maybe best translates as "contemplation", although especially at the end of the year it has a certain element of spirituality to it. I am a very contemplative person, so I like the end of the year. It gives me time to think about the things I did last year, the books I read, the music I heard, the films I saw. I have made the yearly charts of all my 2005 books, films and records, the only thing missing is the list of the things I did, something I traditionally (well, for two years now) write on the second-to-last night of the year, i.e. tonight. It ususally takes me about two hours to write.
As a Preface, I think I should say that while 2004 was a year with many ups and downs that could be divided into two parts, a crappy one (the time with my girlfriend Judith) and the good one (after I split up with her), 2005 was a very good year overall. Two major events define 2005 for me: My new girlfriend (and best girlfriend ever) Cecilia, and my moving to Edinburgh for 9 months in September. But let us start at the start, shall we?
January
Because the two last New Years Eves had been major disasters (involving girlfriends, alcohol and attempted suicides (not on my part)), I opt for the most quiet option available and spend the last night of 2004 at Gideons place, together with a few people I really like. We play traditional German New Years Eve games, watch the traditional German NYE sketch "Dinner for One" on TV and have a really good time together. I have the feeling that if 2005 kicks off this well, there can only be more good stuff to come. Not much else happens in January, I have exams to prepare as always and I go through my usual ups and downs. Another good thing is that the friendship with Cecilia seems to work. After having to tell me "Sorry but no" when I asked her about her feelings for me in late November of 2004, we manage to keep a very positive friendship alive, go out and spend some quality time together.
For the first time in ages, there atually seems to be hope for the year abroad to happen. I sign up with Audioscrobbler and my musical behaviour is forthwith monitored.
February
If January was quiet, February is noisy. Not only is there a new Spock's Beard Album, but something very important happens that will change my feelings about the rest of the year (my life, even) forever. The only thing that isn't noisy, perhaps, is the day I spend with Carsten at his place watching films, while Mainz goes mad outside during the Carnival season. I try a new hairstyle (baldness) and hell yes, I like it!
Allright, I'll cut to the chase: My birthday is February 25th and I have a big party at my place. It is a really good party, all my friends and even people such as my sister come to see me. I get completely drunk, get lots of great presents and have a wonderful time. At four in the morning, I sit on a couch in the room, with the still-woman-of-my-dreams next to me and we timidly discover that maybe there should be more than friendship between us. Being so unsure about it, we only hug when she says good bye, but then I apply the reliable "now or never" tactics and kiss her briefly. It is a wonderful moment. On the next night, at another party of a friend, she uses the oldest trick in the world and says: "I am cold, would you hold me?" The rest is history...
Being with Cecilia gives a new meaning to everything. At the end of 2004 I wrote that she would be the only woman I would dare to love and indeed I do. While we start very very cautiously, I soon discover that I might just have met the woman of my life. Hold that thought, it's time to move on.
March
Semester break and I'm working. Academically, that is, although I also get the chance to do some translations and earn lots of money doing it. But I have two papers to write, one of them on pretty much the same topic I want to do my masters thesis on (New Digital Aesthetics). I also try and come to terms with the fact that I have a girlfriend now, which is great but also scary, because my last relationship was shit and I am very afraid of Bad Things Happening again. Music is one of the key elements of coping with my usual blah-ness, the album of the year is presented to me by a new band called Kino and I go to see bot Kino and Spock's Beard at one great gig in Aschaffenburg. The Spock's Beard concert is even recorded and later released as a Live CD, where I get mentioned in the liner notes (not by name, but I feel addressed).
Cecilia knows now that she will go to Galway for 9 months starting September.
April
End of Semester break already? Ah well, new Semester. Highlights include an English seminar on Black British Fiction and a film seminar on Tim Burton. A lot of other stuff is rather lame, however. I especially hate (and continue to hate) one seminar in Publizistik where I have no idea what the instructor is actually talking about (and, apparently, neither has he). In general, I've seen better summers at uni, but that's okay. Little do I realize that this is the last chance for me to relax before the real stress starts.
Cecilias Birthday is also very nice. I give her a CD and write a sonnet for her (like you do ;) and she seems to like both gifts a lot.
May
At the beginning of May, I have one of my worst breakdowns of the year. I have a day full of nihilistic feelings and a night full of bad dreams, waking up and feeling dizzy. For me, I guess, this proves to be the big test for Cecilia. She is great. She is the first woman ever in my life who knows how to deal with me when I'm down in the dumps (the valley of the shadow of death, as I like to call it). All she does is listen to me whine and hate myself, take me in her arms and tell me that everything will be allright and that I am not as bad a person as I think I am. She never reproaches me and she rarely tells me to get a grip, only if it's absolutely necessary. She always manages to make me feel better instantly. It is only through her care that I have actually noticed that this stuff happens to me regularly (about once every two months I guess, although there is no real sequence to it) and that it always passes. The end of the world is yet to come...
I guess that this is one of the major points why I love her so much. My "dark side", as I like to call it, is something that not many people expect from me and that has startled many a good friend when he or she first saw me in that state. Cecilia knows how to deal with it and she knows how to inspire confidence in me, which is simply invaluable. She makes me "laugh at tomorrow and live today" as Kevin Gilbert says.
In other news, Edinburgh is finally decided. I will go from September to May and I am looking forward to it very very much. I know, of course, that this will put my relationship to the test, but for some strange reason I am extremely confident. Getting the actual scholarship involved lots of luck and persistence, but I feel it was worth it.
June
Comes upon me much too soon (don't worry, it's a song lyric). I have (early in the year) decided to join the Taunusbühne on their annual quest for cultural greatness and play a (small but important) part in their production of The Taming of the Shrew. Now, a few weeks before the premiere, there's rehearsals every fucking weekend, most Wednesdays as well, and it's a blazing hot summer. My allergy kills me as it does every year (although I will discover the absolute miracle of Nasonex later the same year). Then there is the premiere and the stress of rehearsing is over only to be replaced by the stress of having shows every fucking weekend and most Wednesdays as well (notice the difference? Me neither). However, the people I am working with are all great and despite all the stress, I also have a good time (so good, in fact, that I have already decided to join them again next Winter).
Since June is so dominated by the theatre, I hardly notice all the other stress going on with applying for Edinburgh, doing presentations and - oh, yeah - don't I also have a girlfriend?
July
End of term, two papers to write. One on Zadie Smith (cool) and one for that dreadful Publizistik seminar, together with two fellow students. Live 8 happens and I almost weep as I see Pink Floyd reunite on the stage for three songs - absolute bliss. My own band reunites on stage for good (we have a new bassist now) and I have the absolute greatest gig of my life so far. I buy a laptop and call him Jack-Jack.
August
It is a time of saying good bye. Every time I see someone, I have to think about the fact that it might just be the last time I see him or her for some time. This is especially weird with my best friend Carsten, who is spending his year abroad in Indiana. It is a brief good bye but nevertheless a hard one, because he really means a lot for me. Cecilia and I have a farewell party and most of our good friends come and we have a good time and get drunk once again. We also spend a lovely four days in Freiburg. My relationship is weird, because we actually worry about the fact that we don't fight. "Surreal, but nice", as a British screenwriter once put it. I also start moving out of my flat, still searching for someone to rent it off my hands, which also means saying good bye to the place that has been my home for the last three years, and spend a great weeken at a LARP dressed up as a wizard.
August 30th also means saying good bye to Cecilia, who is leaving for Galway. I am leaving 12 days later and I still have a paper to write. Getting her on the plane is hard, but maybe not as tragic as I suspected. We both have a good feeling for the time we will have to spend apart, and as it has turned out, we were right so far.
September
The inevitable happens: I get on a plane to Glasgow Prestwick and take the train to Edinburgh, together with Lena, another film student from Germany, whom I don't like too much but get along with okay. The first night is hell, but once we're settled in, a new sort of everyday life starts to unfold. I now have a flat in the centre of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, together with five mad people from Great Britain and France. There is a lot of weird partying in Fresher's Week, a lot of meeting new people and a lot of feeling very old (because of all the Freshers).
Uni starts off fine, the film courses in Edinburgh look very promising and I start to relax, although I miss Cecilia and my friends very much. I also join the roleplaying society GEAS, meet some nice people and play some great games. However, on the whole, I still wait for that magical Erasmus feeling to happen. To meet friends for life and to have the best time EVAR... I had that in Mainz, maybe that's the reason I can't have it in Edinburgh.
The people of Germany vote in exactly the right way.
October
Uni goes on as usual, life goes on as usual - although I do get a post as drummer in the Edinburgh University Jazz Orchestra. I give in just a bit too much too the feeling of loneliness I feel occassionally and have some crappy moods. Temptation becomes an issue for me for a small time as there are indeed attractive ladies in Edinburgh as well. However, my love for Cecilia and my sense of honour are strong, and so thankfully nothing happens except for a few guilty thoughts.
A Visit in Galway where my true love dwells lets me forget all about temptation, boosts my spirits and makes me want to make more of my stay in Edinburgh. Together with Lena, I take part in an ISC excursion to St. Andrews and have a very nice time there. But as fate has it, the nicest people I meet, two girls from Holland, are leaving mid-november.
November
Although I now fully feel like a citizen of Edinburgh and have madly fallen in love with the city (having, for example, just written a very enthusiastic article for my student newspaper at home), I continue my general array of moping about. A welcome excitement is the ISC weekend on the Isle of Arran, maybe the best weekend I've had in Edinburgh so far. There, I also meet a bunch of very nice German people, that I really must try to do more stuff with next year. Cecilia visits me one week later and the weekend with her becomes a strong competitor for the Best Weekend in Edinburgh title. We visit the Castle and the Gallery of Modern Art and simply have a wonderful time together.
As the semester is drawing to a close, people start getting essayitis. I have started preparing early and finish my first essay on Jean-Luc Godard with time to spare.
At the end of November it is official: Cecilia is the longest-lasting girlfriend of all time for me - and also the bestest.
December
I finish my second essay (albeit with some stupid complications), say good bye to Edinburgh knowing I will be back in January. Before I leave, I go to a great Porcupine Tree concert in Glasgow and do some Christmas shopping. I am glad to be back home and stuff my days with meetings and reunions. I manage to visit most of my available friends in less then a week and because we are also steering towards Christmas, I get a bit weary of everything. Cecilia gets back five days later than me and we happily reunite. Christmas is rather nice and quiet, as it has become in our family over the last few years.
The time "between the years" as we call it in Germany (the week between Christmas Day and New Years Eve) is also very relaxed, which, for some reason, stresses me out enormously. By the middle of the week I am sick of sitting in my tiny village with no one but my family around me and nothing to do, really. There is some tensity with Cecilia that is partially resolved bit by bit, however. The end of the year, it seems, it not only a time for contemplation but also, tenseness.
Yup, and there I sit now, at 1 am on the 31st of December, feeling still a bit like I have felt in the last days, sensing a strong urge to get out of Huppert and into the real life. In a certain way, I am almost looking forward to going back to my everyday life in Edinburgh. Tomorrow/Today, Cecilia and I are going to a small town called Marburg, where we will spend New Years Eve with a good friend of ours and some people we don't know. It promises to be yet another good New Years Eve.
As I have said: Overall, 2005 was a very good year. One of those questionaires recently asked me to sum up the year in one thing I learned and I picked "I didn't know love could be this great". I believe that sentence, and it is absolutely true. My relationship with Cecilia has changed my life for the best and I hope it will stay like this at least forever. The other paradigm shift, moving to Edinburgh, has created some interesting new experiences and some interesting new emotions inside me. But for me, nothing tragic happened, and I can't think of anything right now that I would want to undo (Ctrl+Z).
I usually never make New Years Resolutions because they rarely come true (last year I said I didn't want to fall in love), but I have told myself to get a grip and make the best of the remaining four months in Edinburgh. I should be able to enjoy myself there, it cannot be that hard. After I come back from Edinburgh in April, I will start directly with the German summer semester. Everything after that is pretty much a blank space in my head. I know that I will have to start preparing for something like final exams, I know that my American friend Sarah wants to visit me in May (something I'm very much looking forward to), I know that Cecilias Sister will marry in July, but I have no clear idea what will become of me, my life, my love, the universe and everything.
But I am pretty sure that 2006 will, once again, be a year of many decisions, interesting films, blowaway music and periodic nervous breakdowns.
Bring it On!
As a Preface, I think I should say that while 2004 was a year with many ups and downs that could be divided into two parts, a crappy one (the time with my girlfriend Judith) and the good one (after I split up with her), 2005 was a very good year overall. Two major events define 2005 for me: My new girlfriend (and best girlfriend ever) Cecilia, and my moving to Edinburgh for 9 months in September. But let us start at the start, shall we?
January
Because the two last New Years Eves had been major disasters (involving girlfriends, alcohol and attempted suicides (not on my part)), I opt for the most quiet option available and spend the last night of 2004 at Gideons place, together with a few people I really like. We play traditional German New Years Eve games, watch the traditional German NYE sketch "Dinner for One" on TV and have a really good time together. I have the feeling that if 2005 kicks off this well, there can only be more good stuff to come. Not much else happens in January, I have exams to prepare as always and I go through my usual ups and downs. Another good thing is that the friendship with Cecilia seems to work. After having to tell me "Sorry but no" when I asked her about her feelings for me in late November of 2004, we manage to keep a very positive friendship alive, go out and spend some quality time together.
For the first time in ages, there atually seems to be hope for the year abroad to happen. I sign up with Audioscrobbler and my musical behaviour is forthwith monitored.
February
If January was quiet, February is noisy. Not only is there a new Spock's Beard Album, but something very important happens that will change my feelings about the rest of the year (my life, even) forever. The only thing that isn't noisy, perhaps, is the day I spend with Carsten at his place watching films, while Mainz goes mad outside during the Carnival season. I try a new hairstyle (baldness) and hell yes, I like it!
Allright, I'll cut to the chase: My birthday is February 25th and I have a big party at my place. It is a really good party, all my friends and even people such as my sister come to see me. I get completely drunk, get lots of great presents and have a wonderful time. At four in the morning, I sit on a couch in the room, with the still-woman-of-my-dreams next to me and we timidly discover that maybe there should be more than friendship between us. Being so unsure about it, we only hug when she says good bye, but then I apply the reliable "now or never" tactics and kiss her briefly. It is a wonderful moment. On the next night, at another party of a friend, she uses the oldest trick in the world and says: "I am cold, would you hold me?" The rest is history...
Being with Cecilia gives a new meaning to everything. At the end of 2004 I wrote that she would be the only woman I would dare to love and indeed I do. While we start very very cautiously, I soon discover that I might just have met the woman of my life. Hold that thought, it's time to move on.
March
Semester break and I'm working. Academically, that is, although I also get the chance to do some translations and earn lots of money doing it. But I have two papers to write, one of them on pretty much the same topic I want to do my masters thesis on (New Digital Aesthetics). I also try and come to terms with the fact that I have a girlfriend now, which is great but also scary, because my last relationship was shit and I am very afraid of Bad Things Happening again. Music is one of the key elements of coping with my usual blah-ness, the album of the year is presented to me by a new band called Kino and I go to see bot Kino and Spock's Beard at one great gig in Aschaffenburg. The Spock's Beard concert is even recorded and later released as a Live CD, where I get mentioned in the liner notes (not by name, but I feel addressed).
Cecilia knows now that she will go to Galway for 9 months starting September.
April
End of Semester break already? Ah well, new Semester. Highlights include an English seminar on Black British Fiction and a film seminar on Tim Burton. A lot of other stuff is rather lame, however. I especially hate (and continue to hate) one seminar in Publizistik where I have no idea what the instructor is actually talking about (and, apparently, neither has he). In general, I've seen better summers at uni, but that's okay. Little do I realize that this is the last chance for me to relax before the real stress starts.
Cecilias Birthday is also very nice. I give her a CD and write a sonnet for her (like you do ;) and she seems to like both gifts a lot.
May
At the beginning of May, I have one of my worst breakdowns of the year. I have a day full of nihilistic feelings and a night full of bad dreams, waking up and feeling dizzy. For me, I guess, this proves to be the big test for Cecilia. She is great. She is the first woman ever in my life who knows how to deal with me when I'm down in the dumps (the valley of the shadow of death, as I like to call it). All she does is listen to me whine and hate myself, take me in her arms and tell me that everything will be allright and that I am not as bad a person as I think I am. She never reproaches me and she rarely tells me to get a grip, only if it's absolutely necessary. She always manages to make me feel better instantly. It is only through her care that I have actually noticed that this stuff happens to me regularly (about once every two months I guess, although there is no real sequence to it) and that it always passes. The end of the world is yet to come...
I guess that this is one of the major points why I love her so much. My "dark side", as I like to call it, is something that not many people expect from me and that has startled many a good friend when he or she first saw me in that state. Cecilia knows how to deal with it and she knows how to inspire confidence in me, which is simply invaluable. She makes me "laugh at tomorrow and live today" as Kevin Gilbert says.
In other news, Edinburgh is finally decided. I will go from September to May and I am looking forward to it very very much. I know, of course, that this will put my relationship to the test, but for some strange reason I am extremely confident. Getting the actual scholarship involved lots of luck and persistence, but I feel it was worth it.
June
Comes upon me much too soon (don't worry, it's a song lyric). I have (early in the year) decided to join the Taunusbühne on their annual quest for cultural greatness and play a (small but important) part in their production of The Taming of the Shrew. Now, a few weeks before the premiere, there's rehearsals every fucking weekend, most Wednesdays as well, and it's a blazing hot summer. My allergy kills me as it does every year (although I will discover the absolute miracle of Nasonex later the same year). Then there is the premiere and the stress of rehearsing is over only to be replaced by the stress of having shows every fucking weekend and most Wednesdays as well (notice the difference? Me neither). However, the people I am working with are all great and despite all the stress, I also have a good time (so good, in fact, that I have already decided to join them again next Winter).
Since June is so dominated by the theatre, I hardly notice all the other stress going on with applying for Edinburgh, doing presentations and - oh, yeah - don't I also have a girlfriend?
July
End of term, two papers to write. One on Zadie Smith (cool) and one for that dreadful Publizistik seminar, together with two fellow students. Live 8 happens and I almost weep as I see Pink Floyd reunite on the stage for three songs - absolute bliss. My own band reunites on stage for good (we have a new bassist now) and I have the absolute greatest gig of my life so far. I buy a laptop and call him Jack-Jack.
August
It is a time of saying good bye. Every time I see someone, I have to think about the fact that it might just be the last time I see him or her for some time. This is especially weird with my best friend Carsten, who is spending his year abroad in Indiana. It is a brief good bye but nevertheless a hard one, because he really means a lot for me. Cecilia and I have a farewell party and most of our good friends come and we have a good time and get drunk once again. We also spend a lovely four days in Freiburg. My relationship is weird, because we actually worry about the fact that we don't fight. "Surreal, but nice", as a British screenwriter once put it. I also start moving out of my flat, still searching for someone to rent it off my hands, which also means saying good bye to the place that has been my home for the last three years, and spend a great weeken at a LARP dressed up as a wizard.
August 30th also means saying good bye to Cecilia, who is leaving for Galway. I am leaving 12 days later and I still have a paper to write. Getting her on the plane is hard, but maybe not as tragic as I suspected. We both have a good feeling for the time we will have to spend apart, and as it has turned out, we were right so far.
September
The inevitable happens: I get on a plane to Glasgow Prestwick and take the train to Edinburgh, together with Lena, another film student from Germany, whom I don't like too much but get along with okay. The first night is hell, but once we're settled in, a new sort of everyday life starts to unfold. I now have a flat in the centre of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, together with five mad people from Great Britain and France. There is a lot of weird partying in Fresher's Week, a lot of meeting new people and a lot of feeling very old (because of all the Freshers).
Uni starts off fine, the film courses in Edinburgh look very promising and I start to relax, although I miss Cecilia and my friends very much. I also join the roleplaying society GEAS, meet some nice people and play some great games. However, on the whole, I still wait for that magical Erasmus feeling to happen. To meet friends for life and to have the best time EVAR... I had that in Mainz, maybe that's the reason I can't have it in Edinburgh.
The people of Germany vote in exactly the right way.
October
Uni goes on as usual, life goes on as usual - although I do get a post as drummer in the Edinburgh University Jazz Orchestra. I give in just a bit too much too the feeling of loneliness I feel occassionally and have some crappy moods. Temptation becomes an issue for me for a small time as there are indeed attractive ladies in Edinburgh as well. However, my love for Cecilia and my sense of honour are strong, and so thankfully nothing happens except for a few guilty thoughts.
A Visit in Galway where my true love dwells lets me forget all about temptation, boosts my spirits and makes me want to make more of my stay in Edinburgh. Together with Lena, I take part in an ISC excursion to St. Andrews and have a very nice time there. But as fate has it, the nicest people I meet, two girls from Holland, are leaving mid-november.
November
Although I now fully feel like a citizen of Edinburgh and have madly fallen in love with the city (having, for example, just written a very enthusiastic article for my student newspaper at home), I continue my general array of moping about. A welcome excitement is the ISC weekend on the Isle of Arran, maybe the best weekend I've had in Edinburgh so far. There, I also meet a bunch of very nice German people, that I really must try to do more stuff with next year. Cecilia visits me one week later and the weekend with her becomes a strong competitor for the Best Weekend in Edinburgh title. We visit the Castle and the Gallery of Modern Art and simply have a wonderful time together.
As the semester is drawing to a close, people start getting essayitis. I have started preparing early and finish my first essay on Jean-Luc Godard with time to spare.
At the end of November it is official: Cecilia is the longest-lasting girlfriend of all time for me - and also the bestest.
December
I finish my second essay (albeit with some stupid complications), say good bye to Edinburgh knowing I will be back in January. Before I leave, I go to a great Porcupine Tree concert in Glasgow and do some Christmas shopping. I am glad to be back home and stuff my days with meetings and reunions. I manage to visit most of my available friends in less then a week and because we are also steering towards Christmas, I get a bit weary of everything. Cecilia gets back five days later than me and we happily reunite. Christmas is rather nice and quiet, as it has become in our family over the last few years.
The time "between the years" as we call it in Germany (the week between Christmas Day and New Years Eve) is also very relaxed, which, for some reason, stresses me out enormously. By the middle of the week I am sick of sitting in my tiny village with no one but my family around me and nothing to do, really. There is some tensity with Cecilia that is partially resolved bit by bit, however. The end of the year, it seems, it not only a time for contemplation but also, tenseness.
Yup, and there I sit now, at 1 am on the 31st of December, feeling still a bit like I have felt in the last days, sensing a strong urge to get out of Huppert and into the real life. In a certain way, I am almost looking forward to going back to my everyday life in Edinburgh. Tomorrow/Today, Cecilia and I are going to a small town called Marburg, where we will spend New Years Eve with a good friend of ours and some people we don't know. It promises to be yet another good New Years Eve.
As I have said: Overall, 2005 was a very good year. One of those questionaires recently asked me to sum up the year in one thing I learned and I picked "I didn't know love could be this great". I believe that sentence, and it is absolutely true. My relationship with Cecilia has changed my life for the best and I hope it will stay like this at least forever. The other paradigm shift, moving to Edinburgh, has created some interesting new experiences and some interesting new emotions inside me. But for me, nothing tragic happened, and I can't think of anything right now that I would want to undo (Ctrl+Z).
I usually never make New Years Resolutions because they rarely come true (last year I said I didn't want to fall in love), but I have told myself to get a grip and make the best of the remaining four months in Edinburgh. I should be able to enjoy myself there, it cannot be that hard. After I come back from Edinburgh in April, I will start directly with the German summer semester. Everything after that is pretty much a blank space in my head. I know that I will have to start preparing for something like final exams, I know that my American friend Sarah wants to visit me in May (something I'm very much looking forward to), I know that Cecilias Sister will marry in July, but I have no clear idea what will become of me, my life, my love, the universe and everything.
But I am pretty sure that 2006 will, once again, be a year of many decisions, interesting films, blowaway music and periodic nervous breakdowns.
Bring it On!