A New Job, A New Year, A New Hope It's A Trap!

Winter is here.  It's cold and white and unforgiving.  But somewhere in there, there's the holidays...

 

Lol, hopefully it's not a trap.  But judging by the way things have been going, it probably is.

I just read over my last post and was amazed that it was only three months ago because it felt like a lifetime.  I was also amazed that no one has left me any comments:-(.

Since October things have gone pretty downhill (with a few occasional ups).  The problem that served as the source for most of the stress was that my student visa expired shortly after I posted that last entry.  I knew this but I purposely didn’t go to the courthouse to talk about getting permanent residency because I had already done that over the summer and they specifically told me not to come back until I had the letter from the university validating my enrollment for the winter semester.  Because I couldn’t register until the end of September, I didn’t get that letter in the mail until two days after my visa expired.  I went to the courthouse and the guy there was pretty rude.  He was impatient and didn’t let me finish my sentences and kept leaving to answer the phone or help one of his colleagues figure out how to do something.  And he made it very clear to me that he was doing me a huge favor by extending my visa and not reporting me to the police because I would have been deported.  I got the feeling he was expecting me to slide him a 50 or something under the table for doing it.  Asshole.  In short, he told me I had to prove that I could finance my studies because permanent residency is only available to students or people with careers.  I could do this in two ways: open a bank account with 7,000€ in it…fuck that, who has 7,000€?  Or get someone to sign off as my legal guardian saying that if I can’t afford it, they’d pay it for me.  Coincidentally doing that would also legally bind them to me in several other ways that make the whole process complicated…things such as covering any damages that I may cause if an accident is determined to have been my fault, or travel expense should I need to return to the US in the event of an emergency and a bunch of other bureaucratic bullshit that Germany loves.  Anne’s parents said they’d sign for me but they’d already lent me the money for tuition and I wanted to ask my family here first.  After a long while, they decided it was better to open the bank account.  They would put the money in it for me…but that just serves as proof that my studies can be financed; it doesn’t mean they’re paying for me…just helping me get around the red tape.  So I went back to the courthouse and told them this and unfortunately was attended by the same asshole.  Anne came with me to help me explain some things about my studies because they’re super complicated.  The guy got pretty pissed off again because even he couldn’t understand it, even though Anne explained it perfectly.  The guy is just a jackass that can’t deal with anything that’s even the slightest bit out of the ordinary.  Basically, I couldn’t register for my major because I registered so late and only so many people are allowed to register for it and it was already closed.  So I registered for another major which doesn’t have a limit and am just taking class for my actual major which I will switch back to after this semester.  Well that was too much for the guy to comprehend so he told us we were making him crazy telling him this story.  I wanted to kick him in the face and remind him that this story was my life and it’s making me crazy.  Eventually we discovered that I would have to pay 40€ and sign a piece of paper saying that I changed my major for personal reasons.  You have to pay a fee to do this because university here is nothing like the US where most students change there major at least 2 or 3 times.  So instead of opening the account right then, we were advised that it would be better to wait until after I’ve registered for the summer semester with my actual major and then apply for permanent residency that way I don’t have to pay 80€ (40€ to switch to my bullshit major right now and 40€ to switch back).  The thing is though, that leaves a very narrow window for me at the end of this semester to work this all out…so the stress is still there and it’s actually more than before.

The second major problem was that I got fired from my job at the café which was my main source of income.  The boss is a complete douchebag.  He and his exwife are co-owners and they just split up last June and he’s really bitter about having to still work with her and he’s just a really unpleasant individual.  He took all of this out on me because my language inefficiency meant I couldn’t defend myself.  First he started telling me that I was doing a bunch of stuff wrong at the end of the night (stupid little really insignificant things…he was just finding excuses to yell at me really, it was quite obvious).  Then after doing all of my fixed shifts in October, he told me I did a shitty job and for Novemeber, I could only work call-in shifts –which his ex-wife specifically said she didn’t want me doing because it took me too long to get there.  But he had to one-up her too, so basically I could either quit or come in every single day I was scheduled in November (about 12 days or so) and just sit there in the corner and wait until the fixed shift person needed my help.  I think out of those 12 days, I got to work maybe 3 or 4.  Then in December he gave me fixed shifts again but only three and he still gave me call-in shifts knowing I don’t have a car and would have to do the same bullshit sitting and waiting.  After working two fixed shifts, he said I hadn’t cleaned the menus (even though I spent 15 minutes cleaning the menus that night and one of the other girls that works there was drinking coffee with her friends and watched me clean them all) and fired me.  If there was anyone I’ve met in Germany that deserves to be kicked in the balls, it’s that guy.  All of the girls hate him, too, and were really supportive and told me where I could look for new jobs and invited me to their Christmas party.

So my money situation is shot because of having worked so little in November and December.  I did manage to find a new job though.  I’m working at a pizzeria as a kitchen-aide and dishwasher.  Which is pretty ok.  Washing dishes brings me back to my work at Heather Glenn where I would just space-out and think about whatever the hell I wanted to…I’m so used to doing it that my hands do the work automatically and my mind is free to think.  Hopefully with this new job, I’ll be able to turn this around…but it’s definitely going to take a while because, first I have to worry about paying tuition for the summer semester.  The job I got as a Förderlehrer is through the university so I have the same problem as I did with that other job in the summer: I only get paid once every three months.  That means my first paycheck (for December, January and February) isn’t due until sometime in March and I will probably have to pay tuition before then, arrrrg!  I’ve still got the hockey job, though, and that’s usually about 100€ a month.  I’m also about to send a form to my loan company and ask for a deferment from my payments on my undergrad stadium.  Keep your fingers crossed that that works out and I don’t have to send any more money back to the US to take care of that because that would mean certain doom for me, as I am completely out of possibilities of making that work.

Enough about problems though (I know it seems like that’s how every one of my entries starts out), let’s see what good stuff’s been going on since October…

First I’ll post some updates from my last entry and then get into some stuff:

I never got caught riding black but I had to ditch out of trains at random stops at least three times that I could remember because there was a controller checking tickets.

BVB has been number one in the Bundesliga for a couple months and lost their first game since the season opener just a few weeks ago as the last game in the first leg of the season.  If they had won just one point in that game, they would have been the best Herbstmeister (Fall Champion: winner of the first leg) of all time.  I’ve sadly lost track though of the NHL and NFL seasons.  My kids at hockey are rowdy as all hell but I’m going to whip them back into shape when they go back to school next week.  A couple of them are getting pretty good though.  In Scharnhorst, as Förderlehrer, I have two groups of 7 students, so 14 total which is pretty challenging but in a good way.  I like the job, I just wish I got paid monthly.  I finally got around to seeing the Deathly Hallows.  I can’t afford the movies, so I had to wait until a good version was uploaded online.  I really liked it.  I had thought it was a dumb idea to split it up into two movies (especially since the book wasn’t that long) but after watching it, I have to say, I prefer it that way much more.  They were able to put in a lot more detail and the dialogue seemed real because they weren’t rushed to fit it all in.  It developed like other movies which I found much better than any of the other Harry Potter films and somehow stood out from the rest.  I’ve always had the feeling that if movies were twice as long they might be able to do the book justice.  It’s annoying that the second half is being released much later than the first but I think this at least confirms that thought quite a bit.  I also watched Black Swan which I found all kinds of messed up.  Other than that, I’ve been watching my usual shows every now and then: South Park (the Coon episodes were pretty lame but “Crème Fraiche” was hilarious), Family Guy (Jedi episode was great!) and Always Sunny (the Christmas episode was one of the best sitcom episodes I’ve ever seen).

Ok so maybe I’m never going to get around to writing a post about the Croatia trip I took this summer…but maybe it’s better that that trip remain a mystery:-D.

And I’m disappointed that nobody wants to learn about the Werewolf Game…it’s so much fun!

For Halloween, I went to a party at a friend’s house.  It’s not really celebrated that big here because they have Carnival in February.  Halloween is also strictly spooky costumes…so I was pretty out-of-place dressed up as Eddie Vedder…plus none of the Germans knew who Eddie Vedder is *facepalm*.  But it was a fun party; we played the werewolf game, of course.  I was alone on Thanksgiving night, after having just had class for almost 10 hours straight, when my buddy, Tim, called me up.  I have to admit, I was pretty depressed.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and there’s just absolutely no concept of it here because everything is American…the parade, gravy, sweet potatoes, football.  I went over to Tim’s place and it started snowing on the way.  We watched some movies and drank beer and ate some delicious things that I can only describe as a toaster strudel made of meat…yeah, meat that you put in the toaster, lol.  It was a good night.  The next morning I rode to Hombruch to get my haircut and discovered that it had actually snowed pretty hard there.  On my way back it started snowing again.  By that night the campus had a few inches.  It snowed every day from Thanksgiving until two days after Christmas (where I was at least, because I went with Anne to Neuenheerse for the holidays).  Everything is still pretty white but it’s starting to melt a little.  I’m sure this isn’t the last of it though.  Anne’s parents said even for Neuenheerse which is up in the mountains, the weather is pretty similar to Asheville and they usually don’t get their first snow until January.  The last day of public school before the break, it was snowing really heavy so a bunch of parents picked up their kids as soon as school let out.  So I only had four kids show up for hockey.  We had a snowball fight outside instead which was awesome.
The Christmas market in Dormtund boasts the "Worlds Biggest Christmas Tree" which is actually hundreds of trees together and though I'm not sure if it really is the biggest, it's pretty damn impressive.  The market in Dortmund was also really great and way better than in Düsseldorf, which I also visited, despite Düsseldorf being a larger city.

The first week of Christmas break, I took a trip over to Essen where my friend, Rica, is studying.  She was an exchange student in my sister's class in high school some years ago and we've kept in touch.  We walked around the Christmas market there and drank Glühwein and ate Lebkuchen and had a great time. 
Christmastime in Neuenheerse was awesome.  Delicious meals and snacks and warm drinks.  I played chess with Anne’s dad a couple times and our record is 1-1.  I even got to play Catan for the first time this year!  Anne’s parents gave me and her older sister a gift certificate for a BVB game because we’re both fans.  So I think we’re going to see either Mainz or Köln in the March.  I also got a couple other cool gifts from Anne and her family: a couple shirts, book on German history and another on European Myths and Legands, a BVB mug, a journal and a copy of “Yukon Ho!” (a Calvin & Hobbes) in German which I’ve had a blast reading and learning new vocabulary that actually fits my personality (I think because Calvin & Hobbes really shaped who I am because I read them so much when I was younger).  I had to go back to Dortmund to work one day between Christmas and New Years but then I went back.  On the 31^st, Anne and I and our friends, Heino, René and Volker drove to Göttingen where Volker studies and celebrated New Years there.  It was a great time.  The best part was standing outside just before midnight and Volker’s roommate came out…Anne held up a sparkler and said “Willst du eine Wunderkerze?” (Do you want a sparkler?) and he responded with “Brauch ich nicht, ich hab ein Jagdhorn.” (I don’t need one, I have a hunting horn).  He held up the horn and at midnight started playing songs on it for the whole neighborhood to hear, it was pretty awesome.   

The next morning I had to get up pretty early though to head back to Dortmund to go to work (4 hour train ride, ehhh).  Yeah that was actually yesterday, now that I think about it, so I guess this post is done.

I hope everyone had a happy holidays (why does that sound more correct with an article even though it’s plural???) and I hope 2011 starts out awesome for you all.  Wish me luck on the stress I’m facing and don’t forget to COMMENT!