commitpoetry

From Bangor / Wales to Literary London

2009-04-28T19:58:00.013-05:00

I had planned every detail of the trip to Wales now. I had booked a flight to Manchester from Hannover, booked train reservations from Manchester to Bangor, booked the youth hostel in Bangor, paid the conference fee for the Great Writing Conference at the university of Bangor, and booked the train ticket to London. The new friend from the DRUPA apparently fell sick and did not show me around Manchester after all. But the long bus trip and the short walk to the hostel whet my taste for a city, which I thought would be ugly and boring, but which, in fact, seems absolutely lovely and exciting! I was too tired to explore and went to bed early to catch my early train, but it really does look good... I did not take any pictures there, though, because it was dark, but the first one is out of the train window on my way to Wales.

After missing my connection, I finally made it to Bangor, but discovered that I took an involuntary detour from half way to the hostel by finding the bus that dropped me off only a little further from where I deviated from my original path only to get lost hiking up the wrong side of the hill. After finding the right way by the house with the hound underneath the bay window I trudged uphill over gravel and stone to find a rather unfriendly hostel hostess.

Either way, I made it and then took off to find the castle. I found it all right, but could not get it without any cash on me. But instead of hiking back to the town, I ventured along the highway towards a mysterious ATM which never materialized. I turned around when I realized that crossing the huge roundabout that lay after the bridge and the highway (neither of which had a sidewalk for pedestrians) was too dangerous. Thank goodness, there are Welsh out there that stop for lonely female hitch hikers to give them a ride only after insisting on securing the seat belt and gently warning you that hitch hiking is a dangerous sport... as if I did not know that, but hiking along the highway in search of non-existing ATMs is even more dangerous.

Well, I never made it back to the castle, but instead took care of replacing my forgotten UK sim card so I could call Phil and secure a place to stay in London. The conference went well, although I only got to go for one day. Bangor is lovely, however, and you meet interesting people on the train to London. There, I stayed with my friend phil for a couple of days until we both moved into the dorms on campus in Uxbridge to be close to the Literary London Conference. I presented my paper, dressed as Sweeney Todd of course, successfully and had the chance to join the revels in the local pub without worrying about missed trains back to London at night. It was great!

In London, I followed in the steps of Sweeney Todd and explored Fleet Street, and finally went to tour Kensington Palace, which I missed out on last year, and had tea and scones at the Orangerie. Exquisite, I must say! I splurged, but it was worth it! I flew back to Cologne on Saturday, but not without attempting for a third time to see the Globe! After all, I was going to take a Shakespeare class this fall and wanted to be prepared. So I actually made it during opening hours, lugged my green rolling duffle bag behind me up and down the galleries and stairs, but got to see it on my way to the airport! Thanks, mom, for the rolling bag! It helped a lot.

Back in Cologne, I called people to say good-bye, pack, and take leave from Germany until another year from now. Hopefully, with as much fun and adventure and less worries about return flights...Thank you all for hosting me!

Italy during Germany on way to Great Britain

2008-10-11T15:47:00.007-05:00

So, another month or so has passed and I am finally posting the third stretch of my trip to Europe. My friend Nicola had invited me to stay with him for a week in my old home town Vicenza, and of course I seized the opportunity. Even though it is not exactly easy on my pocket, spending time in Italy is not only good for my soul (I so love it!) but is essential for my language skills which are the only assetts getting me jobs in Germany during the summers.

So, without further ado, here are some stunning pictures of a trip that started out rainy and then turned sunny. My trip also started in Vicenza, to Venice, to Milano, to Vicenza... It was great!

It was kind of funny, though, because I had packed the wrong clothes, again, and had to borrow jeans and sweaters from Nicola's mom Natalina. It was she and I who talked a lot after dinner while watching TV, which gave me the practice I needed! How exhausting and exhilarating at the same time! They are such a lovely family...

My Exciting / Expensive Trip to Europe Continued

2008-09-01T10:42:00.014-05:00

I cannot believe another full month has gone by before I find the time to continue my blog on what happened BEFORE I returned to Texas... Well, I promised I would fill you in and so I do. Just bear with me and enjoy the excitement of having to wait on updates! (Now that's what I call Positive Thinking!) So, here we go.

After Freiburg, I worked at the tradeshow called DRUPA in Duesseldorf for two weeks straight. That's right, no weekends off or anything. I was really lucky to have found this job, though, that allows me to work in one long block instead of breaking up my summer into tiny little hectic pieces of working as a hostess, waitress, promoter or the like for two to four days in a row interrupted by continual searching for more employment to save up for the return flight's fare... But still, two weeks straight is stressful. Especially, if you stay with a friend and her 70 year old mother in a villa surrounded by a gate and the unusual schedule of that friend waking up at 5 a.m. to go to back to sleep at 10 p.m. I am really grateful she let me stay with her, considering that the trip from Moenchengladbach was supposed to save me commuting time to Duesseldorf, whereas Gerhard's place in Cologne/Rath would have supposedly taken me longer. In the end, I am not so sure that it really helped a lot (since her place was located at the end of the following itinerary: train from Duesseldorf to Moenchengladbach, train from Moenchengladbach to Rheydt, bus from Rheydt to house, walk to house for 10 minutes) and I certainly felt continuously bad about messing up Claudia's schedule and ringing her out of bed at night just to let me into the house...

Often, there were no buses running anymore and I walked from Rheydt trainstation to the house or vice versa, if it was a weekend... I felt like I was back in highschool with a curfew and no vehicle. However, she and her mom were lovely hosts and spoiled me whereever they could and I am very grateful for that! Often though, I chose to spend the night at my colleague's place so that I could go out with him and my other colleague without having to worry about waking Claudia. Overall, it worked out just fine and it was a fun two weeks!

This fun was mostly due to my colleagues and I going out every night and enjoying the pleasures of German beer! I indulged pretty much every night, though with Alster (a mix of beer and Sprite), as to save up the taste to last for another whole year in the States! I also tried to eat German every day and that might be why I have not really lost any weight while I was there, despite my irregular meals.

After that stretch of work and before setting out for Italy, I met up with my long friend Sarah Mueller with whom I used to share a horse in Braunschweig. It is incedible how small the world is, but we actually ran into each other one night before even managing to meet up after the show to catch up on things! She and her boyfriend were riding their bikes while I was going for a walk with Frank along the Rhine... Which is something we did every night, by the way, because neither of us knew people there and would have spent the evenings pretty much alone otherwise. This way, we got to hang out around Germany's romantic spots, such as the ruin of Friedrich I's Barbarossa Burg in Kaiserswerth, for example. For some one as tradition-hungry as me, that was great, of course! That is me in the picture standing in the castle...

And on a sidenote: If you think the dog that Claudia is depicted with is normal-sized, think again!

And just some more images from beautiful Germany...

Kaiserswerth Old Center:

Bathroom Art:

My Exciting / Expensive Trip to Europe

2008-07-31T22:22:00.012-05:00

So, I have finally finished my extremely stressful spring semester, taken off to Germany, freaked out about return flight prices, worked a trade show, brushed up my Italian in Vicenza, seen my godchild and family, flown to Wales and London to present at conferences, and returned to summer session II in Lubbock, which by now is also almost over. In light of all this, I apologize for not keeping up with the blog... I hope you understand.

I promise to fill you in, though. Let's just start with the end of the semester and my one-week rest, only interrupted by my daily outbreaks of panic about skyrocketing flight prices versus no secure summer employment. After finishing my endless paper on Sweeney Todd and the Gothic, a topic I could have written much more on if I had had the time (Dr. Whitlark made me stop at 25 pages!), I had one week to get everything ready to leave for Germany.

After flying in to Frankfurt where I could only stay with my friend for one night and had to leave her house again at 8 a.m. the next morning, I shared a ride to Freiburg, where I stayed with my friend Tanzbaer (Allison knows him, don't you?!).

There, as mentioned before, I tried to read, sleep, and not kill myself about the prospect of having to stay in Germany for not being able to afford the flight back home. Everyday I looked online, the prices for plane tickets had risen yet again, but I could still not book my return flight back to Germany in 2009 far enough in advance, making the situation absolutely impossible. Everyday I researched, freaked out and finally went for long and beautiful walks in the Black Forest. Tanzbaer lived in Horben, which is a tiny town outside of Freiburg on a mountain from which you can see to France and Switzerland, while still being in Germany. So, to distract myself, I climbed on trees, which was really fun. I had not done that in years, mostly because there are hardly any trees left to climb in nowadays.

I also had some interesting experiences with the German small town bus service of our glorious public transportation system. Every time I thought I knew when the bus left and I hiked downhill for 20 minutes to catch it, it turned out that the time was only valid for a weekday, or for the morning, or whenever school was in session. In other words, I spent a whole lot of time running to catch the bus just to have an extremely long wait ahead of me anyway...

After Freiburg I went back to Frankfurt for one day to see my mom, before sharing another ride to my friend Gerhard, the minister, in Cologne. But more of that next time around.
Some last impressions of Freiburg... Now that Tanzbaer has moved on to South America...

The Monumental Heap

2008-03-29T19:49:00.007-05:00

For the end of March, I do not have much to report. It snowed and it turned summerly warm and then it snowed again a couple of times. The photo is out of my office window counting snowflakes. The other one is out of the English Department's bay windows...

I am apartment shopping, but evidently wasting my time, because it is hard to find an affordable place with a similarly nice view!

Easter day was more productive than the other days of Spring Break, but it was terribly lonely. I don't like being lonely on Easter.

One of my major papers is done and presented, but I don't know how I feel about it.

Talking papers, my article "Ben Jonson's 'To Penshurst' - The Artifact of a Divided Mind" will appear in the University of Bucharest Review 4/2007 issue this May. The announcement is on our department's website: http://www.english.ttu.edu/, in case you want to verify the news.

Other than that, I am fighting a stalking nightmare who still has too much power over me. See photo below for an attempt to direct my anger towards something inanimate yet symbolic. The relics of the "orange book." Maybe I should repeat this cathartic shredding of pages until this from borderline personality suffering being is purged out of my system for good.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

2008-02-28T22:05:00.011-06:00

It is interesting how you can work so much ahead only to return to total chaos and the realization that you are now behind on everything... Time truly is relative and our actions in the world even more so...

New Mexican roads stretch long and I suggest driving them at night, when the peril of breaking down with your 15-year old truck is less striking!

The conference was fun! Despite the fact that the hostel dorm was overly heated and therefore gave me trouble sleeping, which resulted in a relapse of my flu, it was worth while. Although the conference was on popular culture which is not directly my field, it was awesome to see what all is out there! There were over 1,200 presenters and the amount of panels so immense that it took hours to browse through the program to figure out a daily schedule!

My own presentation on Willa Cather's My Antonia went well, although I had to cut the paper down to less than the regular presentation length of 20 minutes to allow for extra coughing breaks. I am not sure if people could still hear the last paragraph read in a voice that had completely vanished at that point, but the feedback I got overall was good.

The chair of the gender panel in which I presented, Mrs. Gypsey Teague, did a great job as chair and hostess alike. It was incredibly interesting to meet her and Marla. I can only hope to be working with her again in the future.

My colleagues and I had good conversations with just the right balance of business and small talk to make the conference a truly wonderful and valuable experience. To top it all off, the keynote speaker was Joy Harjo, who took the role literally and performed her poetry accompanied by music on the stage on Friday afternoon.

After the four days of input on the Grateful Dead, the unacknowledged rise of HIV infections within the heterosexual swinger communities of the US, and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre movie adaptations, I walked around Albuquerque's Old Town to absorb some of the city's atmosphere outside the conference hotel and the hostel. It is a cute little part of town and definitely worth visiting! The people there are very friendly and enjoy talking with you to initiate you into the lore of the city that otherwise remains unheard.

Once everything was over, I proceeded to go snowboarding in Sandia and Santa Fe. New Mexico, though very different from Utah, is fun to snowboard at and I thoroughly enjoyed my days out! Thus, I was prepared to face the trouble my students have caused for me with my supervisor during my absence and I had the stamina to survive that crazy week after my return! A big thanks to Ryan Thorpe and Jessicca Vidrine for covering my classes, too! Without you two, I would have not felt good about leaving my "kids" behind.

Sorry, I'm late...

2008-01-22T20:38:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year, everybody!

I realize I am rather late with my blog post seeing that 2.5 months have passed since I last updated it... Hmm... Well, things have been crazy at the end of the semester with another visit to the dentist in Mexico, finals, and a break that was WAY too short! We only had three weeks and the first week did not quite count because I was still running around at school taking care of stuff. I did not even get into Christmas mood and had to force myself into it by wearing my Santa hat and buying my Christmas tree that by that time was already on sale... It only helped a little bit.

The real relaxation began with my trip to Salt Lake City, although my friend Allison really kept me busy there! I slept in a couple of times, but we basically went out every night. She introduced me to a bunch of her friends, all of whom are great! We also did a lot with her family, which was also much fun! They are all wonderful people who welcomed me warmly into their midst! So that week consisted of family movie nights, eating out with friends, going window shopping at the mall, snowboarding at Solitude, partying with Mormons, and basically falling in love with Salt Lake! It is such a wonderful city and totally different from what I expected! If destiny sweeps me that directions, I seriously will not mind anymore! What else can one ask for? There are wonderfully open-minded people, health food stores, the mountains with snow, and newly made friends! I was really sad to leave...

The rest of the break I spent trying to read ahead for the semester but was mostly side-tracked by my turbulent love life... Therefore, no news on that front.

January 8th, school started again. I feel already overwhelmed and behind in my work, mostly because I am normally ahead of things. Not anymore...

Now this month is almost over and I am preparing my trip to the conference in New Mexico in February. I will be presenting a paper on the gender panel and I will keep you updated on how it went.

Well, the only thing that keeps me sane right now is the memory of SLC. I cherish it and think of it whenever I need a boost. Thank you, Allison, for everything!

PS. Salsa dancing is picking up again, so that is good, too!

catching up...

2007-11-10T22:20:00.000-06:00

It has been a while and lots has happened since my midway through birthday month-blog entry.

There was Halloween:

Immediately after that, on November 1st to be exact, there was a road trip to the dentist in Mexico. The answer to the question "How was it?" will be answered with: "As good as a root canal in Ciudad Acuna can get! We had fun!" Thank you, Ryan and Carly, for coming with me and holding my hands!

Then, Lauren, Eric and I finally made it to the corn maze at At'l Do Farms - (Texan for "That Will Do") This MAiZE is owned and operated by James and Patti Simpson. This is also their picture that I got from their website. The pattern looks different every year and this year it was this eagle. And believe me, it was not as easy as it may seem, but it was fun getting lost and running in circles like laboratory rats. Just that we had the advantage of being able to tell each other ghost stories for entertainment...

After the corn maze, there was a bungee jumping thing - whatever you call it. Only Lauren and I could go, but we did great! No screaming on Lauren's part. I did scream trying the backward flip, which I managed only to scare myself with it and to convince myself not to try it a second time... After just another birthday I would like to live through Christmas this year, because I am going to visit my friend Allison in Utah!

Okay, since I have to seriously study because the end of the semester is approaching, I will update again soon! In the meantime: fly high!

Midway Thru Birthday Month

2007-10-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

So, now the month is almost over and other worries are taking over that so far had been suppressed by my birthday euphoria. I guess, it is always good to go back to normal from time to time... Little things keep cheering me up, though; I talked to Tanzbär today and to Claudia and it was great! I miss my friends in Germany so bad!!!! Can't wait for the summer to roll around sometimes.

Other people have finally realized they forgot my birthday and wrote a belated email, others still do not remember. (At least I know that they are bad with birthdays, so I forgive them ; ))

Well, without further ado, I will post some of the pictures we took at the party Zach and I had together. It was a natural thing to do, since my party was on his birthday (Oct 12th), we both turned 24, and some of his friends were invited to my party anyway...

So, enjoy the craziness; it was a fun night! Thanks, folks, for coming!

Birthday Month

2007-10-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

It is funny how on special occasions I sometimes do not feel like capturing the moments on photo... This was the case on my birthday, October 8. But maybe that is because I would like this whole month to be a birthday party, because I am determined to have fun in life now. So far, it is working out well!

The weekend before my birthday I went out to Miss Becky's barn twice and got to ride Paycheck, a very sweet and fun horse to ride. Needless to say, my legs are still sore... Also, I went salsa dancing twice that week and had incredible fun both times! And what more can I ask for than to have dance, horses, and friends in my life?

So many of my friends (those with good memory for birthdays) have either sent an email, called, or even taken me out to lunch! It was a lovely day, even though it felt a little strange mixing work and celebration throughout the whole day... I finished the night by having dinner with Beth, who was the first person to welcome me here in Lubbock after my move here from Louisiana. We went out to this great Italian restaurant, which has incredible food and tasty house-wines... Of course our plans to go home and do more work after dinner were thwarted by the too enjoyable consumption of that said wine. I had to have an espresso just to make it home safe... So, it was good!

And the loveliest things of all were to hear from people that are so far away, or have so very little time that we hardly ever get to talk on the phone! Taking all that into account, I could not have wished for a better birthday. And I hope to top it all off with the party this coming Friday, to which I invited even people I do not know yet. But I thought that would be a good opportunity to get to know my fellow English grad students... Some people say I am taking a chance inviting people I do not know, but I rather think they would tend to hide on my bed with one of my books than up and trash my place... they are English majors, after all!

For the picture I therefore include a pretty one of the cotton fields around here - they are like a scene from a fairyland... little cotton balls sticking up all over the place tinged in orange purplish sunset at the end of the long Texas road of red dirt...

"Glueck im Unglueck"

2007-09-22T23:36:00.000-05:00

Howdy Speakers of the German Language,

since there is no translation of this proverb that I am aware of, I had to put it up in German. Apologies to everybody who does not know what to do with it. Here is the explanation: As you can see in the pictures, somebody smashed in my window on the driver's side of my truck. That cost me $ 200 to repair, using a used window already. Luckily, though, nothing was stolen out of my truck, even though I had my rollerblades, a book-sack full of riding clothes, and a radio in it; not to mention the truck itself that could have got stolen. (It is fairly easy, I hear, to break the steering wheel column and start it up with a screw-driver!) Since another car was broken into the same night and completely robbed, I did indeed get lucky, because something must have scared those people away. Also, my neighbor discovered the damage early in the morning and told me, which left me enough time to call the police and file a report without having to miss my own presentation in my Modernism class. I even found friendly neighbors and classmates to take me to school and give me a ride back, since I realized that the skillful and decorative plastic wrap on the hole of my window did not really allow me to see anything out of it and thus did not allow me to drive.
This all happened on Thursday. I got it fixed on Friday and now everything is good again. A big "thank you" to my friends and the gods for looking after me!!! My truck and I even survived a short but painful separation Friday night due to excessive drinking on my part to get over the excitement of the week. I had to leave my "Little Blue Cloud" at a very remote apartment complex and travel home without it... A "hurray" to friends who give you rides!

Lubbock's Cowboy Symposium

2007-09-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

Howdy y'all,

after I celebrated the second week of school by not even showing up at the department today, I went to the 19th Lubbock Cowboy Symposium at the Civic Center. It was not as much fun as I thought it would be, mainly because of the lack of cute cowboys in my age-range there. But maybe they would have all shown up tonight for the music... I was too tired, though, and left with the excuse of going home to work.

Well, the symposium is supposed to keep the heritage of the cowboy alive and people from all over the great plains gather here for poetry and story-telling, music, arts and craft shows, book-signing and wagon chucking contests. Native Americans are also involved, according to the program, although I did not see any of them or their advertised activities.

Outside the Civic Center, the chuck wagons were arranged in the park, where there is another big stage for music as well as some little booths. One of those booths is filled with Victorian hats and parasoles. Their authentic looking cabin also advertised "catalog brides" and they invited me to be listed as one. I courteously passed on the opportunity, but not without taking a picture first, just in case I change my mind. This way I could simply email it to them to include in the catalog. I wonder, how much money I would get for marrying a desperate cowboy...?

Survival

2007-09-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

That is what it's all about: survival. Getting through orientation without becoming so muddled up in your head that you do not even remember why you are in the classroom. Living through the first week that started out with the hopeful thought of "I have prepared well and should have enough time for everything," but quickly turned into "why the heck don't they get anything done and make me come to this office three times this week?" There is really no excuse-financial aid offices seem to suck throughout the nation... There were several Louisiana-flash-backs last week, but I think I managed to keep my attitude tuned to Texas friendliness. At least one guy was convinced: the secretary at the office, whom I greeted with "Howdy, your recurring nightmare has returned." But then again, he was also the only one who got my weather frog joke... I still don't understand why his colleague asked me, of all people, if it was going to rain or not. My reply was a dry "ribbit." As I said, not everybody gets me...

So, the first week is over and even the first long weekend is. How fast it went by... Wasn't I supposed to do at least three more things on my "to do list"? Well, I try to focus on the things I did get accomplished, but working ahead is not going to happen anymore. I mean, there are only 5,5 hours left in this day... Maybe some more catching up, then...?

Catch y'all later,

Ronja

Move to a New Life

2007-08-29T11:16:00.000-05:00

So, here I am. In Lubbock, Texas, going through the tedious procedures of starting a new life at a new school. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera went dead and therefore I could not take a picture of my Little Big Cloud (my light blue Chevy Pick-up truck) fully loaded with pretty much everything I own in the States and have not forgotten in Louisiana... It looked quite interesting by the time I had made it here almost a week ago now. Since the blue tarp kept coming loose (a fact that actually detained me from making the trip on Monday because it was safer to turn around and repack), I am now known in two states as The Flapper. Despite all our combined efforts, the tightly bound tarp always found a way to break loose and flap happily in the wind on my way via Dallas to Lubbock.The tarp was the only thing happy, though; yet it tore it apart and eventually looked the way I have now felt for a week: torn.My visit with my pen-pal of 20 years Kissie and her family was a happy event, though. Thanks to her hospitality I could spend Tuesday night at her house in Dallas and continue the trip the next day, allowing me to arrive safe and sound in my new apartment. There, my friend Beth helped me unpack as well as over my first shock about my windowless and North-facing tiny place by serving me lasagne and cheering me up with a dinner at her house with two more of her friends.After I have now overcome my break-down of the week-end, thanks to my friend Allie (thank goddess, she is in Alaska right now allowing for a time difference of three hours so I did not have to wake her up bawling...), I can now enjoy the lovely hospitality and professionalism of the English Department at TTU. I am really looking forward to being here!