Clubhouse Rulez

"Clear your place at the table." 
"Get a good night's sleep if you want to drive to school." 
Growing up, I wasn't just a fervent rule-abider, I was a rule internalizer.

I like rules. They make sense to me. They make me feel secure. In that sense, I may even be too German for the Germans. 

On the one hand, Germany has a lot of rules. Many are direct: recycle glass bottles before 8 pm;  bikes left, pedestrians right. Others are just strong incentives: if you don't visit the dentist once a year, you'll pay a lot for dental care in the future. Still others are hallowed tradition: a towel at pool-side indicates a radius of undisputed ownership.

For all the rules there are here, however, there is also a lot of resistance to rules, and that can be frustrating for people like me who crave structure, efficiency and agreements that hold. 

In my first shared housing experience, we had a dinner system. Each person cooked one night per week. For me, the convenience of a warm dinner six nights a week vastly outweighed the inconvenience of being tied into cooking for 7 people once per week. When I suggested a similar system in my current shared flat, my flatmate said, "My life already feels too much like one long series of obligations to fulfill." 

At work I try in vain to keep my colleagues from using exclamation marks AND CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis on our website! Not to mention the fight I lost long ago on the usefulness of text styles. I have also been ridiculed for asking people standing under no smoking or no cell phone signs to oblige.

So, where does one go if Germany doesn't offer enough rules? Isn't that like bemoaning the dearth of water in the Caribbean or luxury hotels in Dubai? 

Three paragraphs to explain a ban on climbing up to the roof.

It's not like I am completely out of touch with my inner rebel. I was proud to once be chastised for jaywalking: "Young lady," growled an angry driver, "You are not above the law!" ("Rot gilt auch für Sie, junge Dame!") If I experienced enough outbursts like that, I might muster the courage to do something really radical like ... mow the lawn on Sundays.

Pieces

As an environmentalist, I have always been fascinated by systems and their parts. 

Yesterday's unprecedented 7:1 victory in the semifinals of the World Cup got me thinking. 

To what extent was Brazil's dramatic loss due to its top player Neymar being out of commission (after being fouled and fracturing a lumbar vertebra)? 

Germans, who have a long history of losing to Brazil, were exhilarated by their triumph. 
The whooping and hollering continued long into the night. 

A few conceded feeling a bit unangenehm (lit. uncomfortable, here embarrassed or guilty), given the expectations placed on the Brazilian team as World Cup host.

But suggesting that the absence of Neymar may have been decisive for Germany's win evokes a defensive reaction:

"Brazil has an excellent team, and an excellent team doesn't put all its eggs in one basket."

Even as a soccer Banause (someone with totally crude knowledge), I wager to disagree. 

We live in a risk-taking world in which we are constantly looking for short-cuts. With a superstar athlete on your team, wouldn't it be hard not to - at least subconsciously - use a "get-the-ball-to-so-and-so" strategy? What are the chances that that person would suffer an injury serious enough to keep him off the field?

Furthermore, the morale of the Brazilian team suffered a major blow, even if its cumulative physical capacity hardly dropped. The fans swarming Neymar at the hospital, the death threats to the Colombian player who fouled him: Brazil's collective psyche felt lost without its front man - and sometimes that's all that matters. 

I am surprised that's Neymar's injury didn't overshadow Germany's jubilation more. I suppose athletes often face injuries and this one doesn't make Germany's victory against Brazil artificial. On the other hand, anyone who has ever played KerPlunk knows that taking away one sliver from what looks like a solid nest can result in a loss of all the eggs.

Reflections on Home

The young man seated next to me on the plane from Dulles asks if I'm headed home. We're about to land, and I know he's just making small talk, but I answer, "Not quite sure where home is anymore."

Is home the place I just left, the place where my whole family was gathered over the past few days? Or is home the place I am about to be met with bursting anticipation and a bouquet of wildflowers?

Is home the bedroom full of my school essays, childhood photographs and all the letters I have ever saved, or the one in which I built a loft with my landlord, the one I painted chartreuse, the one whose four walls free me?

I have lived in the same shared flat for 6 years, longer than my brothers have owned their respective homes - combined. And yet it feels temporary, a step towards I-don't-know-what. Its creative potential enchants me, but I sometimes long for retreat.

My professional persona is German. I never held a serious job, signed a lease or put money into savings anywhere but Deutschland.

I don't speak English or German as fluently as I would like. 

I vote in Virginia, but am out of touch with its politics. 

Referring to the German World Cup team, I slipped and said "we". But I feel most at home ensconced in an intellectual disdain for professional sports.

I feel at home on a bike, in whichever country. The flavors of ginger, maple, mint and garlic ground me, in whatever kitchen.

I feel at home in water or a warm embrace. 

I feel at home in the heavy Virginia humidity, but once every five years might be enough of its summer. 

Bonn welcomed me back with its long, crisp solstice twilight. But as I unpacked my clothes, I delighted in their sweet, damp scent: the smell of muggy mid-Atlantic afternoons before a thunderstorm.

A few of my German friends are so in tune with me I think of them as sisters. But only when I watch my nieces play does our whole family mosaic repeat itself in miniature. 

"I've lived in Germany for eight years, but I am from the States," I explain. 

He seems satisfied.

I wonder if I should have said, "I'm from the States, but I have lived in Germany for eight years," and I let the daydream take the upper hand. 

Listo - Bitte

Who didn't learn in grade school about the "30 different words for snow" that don't exist in your language.

But how often have you been awed by a language for the words that it doesn't offer? 

Here's a tribute to the beauty in simplicity. Why not have fewer words and let those words have multiple meanings?

For example: the distinction between "loan" and "borrow" is superfluous. In Spanish and German the word is the same (ES: prestar, DE: leihen). You just have to ask "Can you loan me..." instead of "Can I borrow..." and wuddyaknow one word less in the dictionary. 

Another example: I never understood why German has two different words for neck: Hals (the front) and Nacken (the nape). It deprives the neck of its right to be a complete whole, the beam that supports the head. This is not only superfluous differentiation but muddling differentiation.

Having fewer words allows words to bring ideas together that belong together. 

The word ensayo in Spanish, for example, doesn't just mean "essay", but practice (e.g. band practice), training and trial (as in "ensayo y error"). If only I had known that while struggling over my ensayos in grade school. No sweat, kid, it's just practice.

I also like that chico in Spanish means both "little" and "child".

Copyright Goethe Institute Chicago                

Take this to an extreme and you get what Mark Twain called "exceedingly useful words". For example, Zug in German. I quote:

"Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition."

Indeed, he asserts: "That thing which it does not mean, when all its legitimate pennants [prefixes and sufixes] have been hung on, has not been discovered yet."

There is a special category of exceedinly useful words that should be the first thing covered in any foreign language curriculum. They allow for immediate and meaningful interaction with native speakers. 

Take the Spanish word listo, for example. 

The following could be a legitimate conversation:

A: Listo?
B: Listo. 
A: Listo.
B: Listo. 
A: Listo?
B: Listo. 

It means: 

A: What do you think? 
B: Great idea. 
A: Alright.
B: Let's do it.
A: Ready? 
B: Ready. 

Incidentally listo also means clever. 

Da Twelve Weeks Caribe - III

This is the final installment of my composition "Da Twelve Weeks Caribe".

"In da ninth week Caribe, da island it give me...

...nine vessels harboring.

In da tenth week Caribe, da island it give me...

...ten kids performing

In da 11th week Caribe, da island it give me...

...11 mangoes ripening.

In da 12th week Caribe, da island it give me...

...12 riders waiting.

Wot da island it give me - II

This is the continuation of my composition "Da Twelve Weeks Caribe".

"In da fifth week Caribe, da island it give me...

... five teens in the park.

In da sixth week Caribe, da island it give me...

... a six-legged black crab (anatomically incorrect).

In da seventh week Caribe, da island it give me...

... da sea of seven colors.

In da eighth week Caribe, da island it give me...

... an eight-pointed fruit star.

To be continued! / No te muevas! 

Dear President Obama

In an English classroom at a Colombian school... 

Teacher: "I am going to say a word and you say its opposite." 

Class: "OK."

Teacher: "Push."

Student: "Obama."

---

Dear President Obama, I challenge you to prove this student right. With the pressure of reelection behind you, can you help restore the international community's faith in you? Can you appear in the dreams of Germans like you did four years ago?

When the relief subsides that we averted the danger of being represented by a white collar criminal in the wake of the financial crisis, (or, worse, living in Virgil Goode's Muslim-, feminism- and gun control-free country), will you recall the promises for which they awarded you a Nobel Prize? 

That will mean facing hard questions. 

Why are we still more concerned with fighting "terrorists" than protecting biodiversity in, for example, Colombia? (According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Colombia is one of the world’s “megadiverse” countries, hosting close to 14% of the planet’s biodiversity, but still the popular association with Colombia is drugs.) Why can't we join Germany in conceding that there is nothing green about nuclear energy and becoming a global leader in renewables? When are you going to stop using drones and mercenaries? Sign the International Treaty to Ban Land Mines? Start cranking on Climate Change? 

I don't mean to detract from your accomplishments. Hooray for steps toward universal health care! I also don't mean to give the impression that politics is for politicians and the rest of us should root for our favorite team and hope for the best. But neither should we underestimate the power of a figurehead to set agendas, thereby shaping discourse and reality. For better or for worse, the President of the United States has the special privilege and responsibility of being on the world stage. Here's a plea to keep one ear open to your constituents abroad.