A "roundup" of recent and slightly interesting events

The "blog" is back, alive and well, unlike this Christmas ham.

Since you all know I'm not the type to make excuses, I'll don't really want to bother going into too much detail about how I haven't had much time to "blog" lately. But of course the problem in doing that is that I would have to ignore some of the slightly interesting events that have transpired in my life over the past several months. That just wouldn't do. After all, isn't the word "news" or "journal" or something an integral part of the word "blog"? (Well, I suppose not.)

Regardless, I now present you with a set of recent happenings, some of which may interest you, in the reverse order of their occurrence, and using the "roundup" format, that most popular journalistic writing utility.

January 4, 2008, 10:00 a.m. Plumbing issues. While Sophia takes a nap, Conny and I take advantage of the peace and quiet to romantically unclog the drain beneath our bathtub. (For more bathroom related writing, see this related blog entry.) Seeing as Conny and I are both amateur plumbers at best, I can only properly describe the action as having to do with displacing/removing lots of slimy black stuff. I'm sure most people reading this have had to engage in some sort of similar activity. It is unpleasant. Trying to alleviate our combined revulsion, Conny pointed out that at least it was our slimy black stuff that we were removing from the drain. But I say that anything that looks like that really has nothing to do with my body, and most certainly does not come from me or anyone I consider to be my friend and or family. Fortunately no photos were taken.

(Having written this, Conny asks that I delete it, claiming that people will always think our bathroom is constantly in a poor state of affairs. I remind her that it is.)

December 14, 2007, 4:30 p.m. Certified... at something. Having undertaken and completed a training program that will now permit me to teach the English language to adults (appropriate acronym not used here), and having spent the better part of previous four weeks surrounded by people from the United Kingdom, I receive a teaching certificate with my name and the word "PASSED" printed upon it. While initially this makes me very happy, as conceivably it should improve my chances of finding work here in certificate/rubber stamp-mad Germany, I am later slightly concerned when I see that certain of my classmates have received a very similar certificate but with the word "CREDIT" instead. "What might the difference be," I can't help but ask, at first myself but then several of my classmates. Apparently some of my fellow students were somehow determined to be better prepared for teaching than others. I suddenly cease to care when I consider that I'm probably the only one in the classroom who always writes the word "blog" in quotations marks according to personal stylistic whim.

December 8, 2007. 8:30 p.m. Getting to know Tom. In a bizarre twist of events, I end up welcoming a Cambridge graduate into my apartment for the weekend, a sofa bed, living and working space having been vacated for the weekend by mother and wife and daughter, respectively. Tom is the only person I have ever met who told me that he is planning to live in a city where there is a lot of drama. Frankly there is a lot of drama here in the Seelingstrasse at times, although I'm pretty sure that isn't what he was referring to.

November 29, 2007, 9:20 p.m. Group therapy. Struggling to keep my head above water during my certification class and in deep need of some brief distraction, I download the podcast of the latest McLaughlin Group in the desperate hope for some amusement on my bus ride to class. Panel member Pat Buchanan obliges.

November 13, 2007, 1:30 p.m. Failure at dog imitation. It's a Tuesday afternoon, and having spent the best parts of the previous weekend singing children's songs, demonstrating my skills with a puppet and sitting in a circle and holding hands -- with a group of exclusively adults -- I receive a phone call from a certain nursery school subcontractor (name of person and business purposefully omitted) in which I am told that I am not cut out for teaching children English because I don't seem comfortable crawling around on the floor and barking like a dog. While admittedly I was somewhat disappointed about not being offered a job at first, after some short consideration, I must wholeheartedly agree. My main objection is that now, even after two months' time, I still feel as though two wonderful weekend days were sickeningly wasted. I vow revenge, but decide to vent my irritation elsewhere after considering the options.

November 4, 2007, 12:55 p.m. Exhaustion. Wearing my jogging outfit and sweating profusely, I blissfully come around the last corner of a 9K "fun" run. At the last possible moment, with all of my energy expended, a fit and attractive young woman I had purposefully overtaken a few kilometers back in what was supposed to be proof my personal physical prowess, sneaks ahead of me. I can not retake the lead. Although nine kilometers, rather than five or ten, is something of an odd a distance to run, frankly it is probably still a couple kilometers longer than I can enjoy. Nonetheless my wife and young daughter are ecstatically proud of me.

October 27, 2007, 3:30 p.m. Mediocre soccer. Myself and some friends go to watch Hertha play Bochum, a match that ends 1-0, if I remember correctly. The game was far less interesting than was the commentary from my companions, four of whom hail from Italy, who concurred that the match nearly met the quality of a second league Italian game.

October 15, 2007, 4:00 p.m. Getting lost in translations. Thanks to a very thoughtful friend with connections at a German theatrical society, I land approximately sixty hours of translation work that will keep me (and Conny) occupied (and reasonably well-paid) for the next week and a half. If I haven't mentioned it before, Berlin seems to be a place where almost no one has a permanent full-time job. Most people just get by through cobbling together a set of freelance jobs. This has been my life as of recent. At any rate, it was a joy trying to come up with translations for concepts such as Schlagermusik (I went with "German beat music") and just having the opportunity to write something snappy.

Of course there were also holidays, visits from numerous friends and family, and plenty of "firsts" from Sophia. But in comparison to the sublime, that's all rather ordinary, isn't it? Well, that is about it for now... if I haven't at least left to go buy some groceries by the time Conny and Sophia get back here, I fear some sort of serious spousal disenchantment. Toodles.