Blast from the Past: Goodbye to Berlin!
YES! I finally figured out a secret way to update my journal. Ok it's not so secret. It's actually really easy, you just go to www.proxy4china.com and it climbs the Great Firewall for you.
If you haven't guessed, I am now in China! Which means I left Berlin. Here's the last thing I wrote in my REAL journal right before I left.:
Janurary 26, 2008
2:13 am
Goodbye to Berlin
So in preparation for my coming departure, I decided to finally read Christopher Isherwood’s "Goodbye to Berlin." I really enjoyed it and came to admire Christopher Isherwood. I actually I think I had kind of a crush on him. But really I just want to be more like him. He was always able to see just why people were doing and saying the things that they were. He was incredibly perceptive. The best thing about him though was that he was not disgusted by the crazy things he was able to see in people. He understood them and he found them amusing. He told them what they wanted to hear but he wasn’t making fun of them. He truly enjoyed the company of both the down-to-earth and the insane. Anyway, I’d like to be a bit more like him.
After I read the book, I watched the movie Cabaret. My expectations were low. Movies made from books are already usually pretty bad…but a movie based on a play that was based on a book? My hopes weren’t high. I was surprised. Instead of trying to make a movie as good as the book, the director took it a step further. Here we had the same characters from the book, the ones that we all know and love…but now they have been inserted into a new story. Instead of having sets of characters sectioned off into different short stories (as in the book), the film (and probably also the play, which i haven't seen) weaves the lives of all the characters together in one big love triangle-y exciting dramatic story! Two characters you love (who never met each other in the book) meet and fall in love in the movie. Christopher and Sally Bowles hook up. And it was hott. I couldn’t have been happier! What a great adaptation. (I really should see that movie "Adaptation").
Here's the list of stuff that I was also going to write about in that entry, but didn't. anyway i added in (my own present day commentary/summary):
Life in Berlin (stuffy and frustrating, quiet and organized)
Friends in Berlin (minimal faces, maximum hang outs)
German Language (Progress and Di-gress)
Teaching (and NOT teaching)
Apartment (fucking contracts)
Checkpoint Charlie (I don't remember what I wanted to say about that...??)
Boys (enough said)
Visitors (too many)
China (finally)
Up next, Alison Goes to China
If you haven't guessed, I am now in China! Which means I left Berlin. Here's the last thing I wrote in my REAL journal right before I left.:
Janurary 26, 2008
2:13 am
Goodbye to Berlin
So in preparation for my coming departure, I decided to finally read Christopher Isherwood’s "Goodbye to Berlin." I really enjoyed it and came to admire Christopher Isherwood. I actually I think I had kind of a crush on him. But really I just want to be more like him. He was always able to see just why people were doing and saying the things that they were. He was incredibly perceptive. The best thing about him though was that he was not disgusted by the crazy things he was able to see in people. He understood them and he found them amusing. He told them what they wanted to hear but he wasn’t making fun of them. He truly enjoyed the company of both the down-to-earth and the insane. Anyway, I’d like to be a bit more like him.
After I read the book, I watched the movie Cabaret. My expectations were low. Movies made from books are already usually pretty bad…but a movie based on a play that was based on a book? My hopes weren’t high. I was surprised. Instead of trying to make a movie as good as the book, the director took it a step further. Here we had the same characters from the book, the ones that we all know and love…but now they have been inserted into a new story. Instead of having sets of characters sectioned off into different short stories (as in the book), the film (and probably also the play, which i haven't seen) weaves the lives of all the characters together in one big love triangle-y exciting dramatic story! Two characters you love (who never met each other in the book) meet and fall in love in the movie. Christopher and Sally Bowles hook up. And it was hott. I couldn’t have been happier! What a great adaptation. (I really should see that movie "Adaptation").
Here's the list of stuff that I was also going to write about in that entry, but didn't. anyway i added in (my own present day commentary/summary):
Life in Berlin (stuffy and frustrating, quiet and organized)
Friends in Berlin (minimal faces, maximum hang outs)
German Language (Progress and Di-gress)
Teaching (and NOT teaching)
Apartment (fucking contracts)
Checkpoint Charlie (I don't remember what I wanted to say about that...??)
Boys (enough said)
Visitors (too many)
China (finally)
Up next, Alison Goes to China