Month 10 - Off topic - Shia LaBeouf

For this post, I am not going to write about my time in Germany. This may come later. When I decided the topic for this blog, my palms became sweaty and my heart began to race. I have been talking myself out of writing it for days however I think it needs to be said.
It has been in the news this week that Shia LaBeouf claims to have been raped. I am not his biggest fan, in fact on multiple occasions I have spoken about my dislike for him, but NOBODY deserves that. Reading through the comments on the articles, turned my stomach. I could not believe that people could be so judgemental and shaming towards someone who has gone through something so horrible. People were calling him pathetic and shaming him. Why are people being so cruel and disbelieving? Because he did not fight his attacker off, and he did not report her. After being horrified by the reactions I began to wonder, am I only so trusting of his story because I can empathise? Is it possible that most people are not aware that your own body can betray you at a time when you really need it to listen to your brain?

The day before my 16th birthday a guy in my class, a guy who I liked, a guy who I actually had a crush on asked me if I could go with him to the library. I agreed. We went to the art section which was hidden from view from the rest of the library. After a while he asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend, and I said yes. He then proceeded to kiss me, and touch me in ways I did not want him to. This was normal, this is what boyfriends do, but why was I so scared? I wanted to tell him that I had changed my mind, I wanted to tell him to stop but I didn't. I wanted to push him away and kick him in the balls, but I didn't. I stood there motionless and silent unable to respond to anything, while he did what he wanted to do to me. I hated every second of it. I was begging for someone to see us, looking up at the CCTV camera above us, hoping someone was watching and would come to tell us off. I couldn't understand why he didn't notice that this wasn't what I wanted. Then I realised that he did notice, there was no way he could think I was enjoying it, he just didn't care. Once it was over and we walked back to class he told me I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, that the guys would make fun of him for being with me because I wasn't popular, and most of them thought I was ugly. Later on in class he grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side, he told me off because I wasn't acting normal. He told me that I looked upset, that people would notice something was wrong and ask me what happened, he reminded me that I was to tell nobody, he told me that I needed to go back to my table and smile, make up another excuse to my friends as to why I looked down. So I did.
I didn't report it, technically I consented to it, I didn't fight him off but I also did not want it to happen. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he knew exactly what he was doing. I heard a few quiet rumours in the remainder of my time at the school that he was sexually harassing other girls. Nobody reported anything.
I saw him everyday Monday - Friday. I played my part I smiled at him I pretended nothing was wrong and then I left school. He lived in the same town as me so I still saw him from time to time. The next year I had an older boyfriend, who protected me and gave me the confidence this guy stole from me. The first time he saw us together on the street coming from the opposite direction my ex-boyfriend held my hand, starred him straight in the eye with a stern look on his face, not looking away until the guy crossed to the other side of the street so to not pass us. After that he stopped talking to me, all the inappropriate side comments stopped and I could stop being afraid of him because he is nothing more than a sick pathetic coward.
What this guy did to me was extremely mild compared to the allegations Shia LaBeouf has made. I was so terrified I could not move or speak. I cannot even imagine how he was feeling. Your mind can be screaming at your body to hit them away, begging your lips to open and scream, but you find yourself shutting down, completely vulnerable and at the other person's mercy. By not believing Shia's claims, you are proving to him that it was right not to report it, and proving to other victims that they shouldn't either.

Month 9

No vlog this month, my mind has been crazy busy and I forgot to really document anything I did! The theme for my previous 9 entries has been me wandering aimlessly through Germany asking for a big sign to jump out and give me direction. Unfortunately the sign was not exactly what I was hoping for, these days I do not consider myself to be a religious or even spiritual person, but I do believe in fate. Too much evidence has presented itself for me to ignore it. Whether it was meeting a random South African outside a nightclub in New York City, who just happened to have gone to a house party in London with some school friends of mine, these friends mind, did not actually live in London, instead 2 hours west of it. Or starting to work for a company just to pay bills and save up to move to Germany and finding a career option I had never even considered, was actually something I thrived in. I moved here with a solid plan, I would work as an Au-Pair for 2 or so years, learn German, study to be a kindergarten teacher, meet a nice German man, have bilingual German children and live happily ever after in Frankfurt. Fate obviously had different ideas clue number 1, despite all my planning and searching for a family near Frankfurt I matched with a family in Karlsruhe, which is 150 km away from where I wanted to be. Clue number 2, this match ultimately failed. Clue number 3, studying to be a kindergarten teacher suddenly became very unappealing to me, no idea why, in fact until writing this blog I had completely forgotten about it, the thought hadn't even entered my conciousness for the last 6 months or so. Clue number 3, 2 very bad German courses teaching me virtually nothing. Clue number 4, when I finally decided on the course I wanted to do, it was virtually impossible to find a course in Germany that a) I could afford and b) I would actually be accepted into. Clue number 5, despite living in Germany, I have yet to meet any Germans my own age whom I could actually become friends with. Clue number 6, I have wanted a little sister for pretty much as long as I remember, and last month my Dad and his wife granted that wish.  I found myself clinging onto to Germany with my claws, yet feeling all of these forces pulling me away from it. Therefore I have finally decided that although I love this country, it is not the place for me.
After making this decision I visited England, and wondered why the hell I was trying so hard to run away from it. I like England, I like English culture, I like the way English people treat each other, I like the way you can work your way up in a job, I like how pretty it is, I like being able to open my mouth in a shop and not wonder if I am making any sense or not, I like being able to see my friends whenever I want, I like doing the same with my family. As if I needed more convincing, meeting my little baby sister kind of put it all into place for me. I almost feel embarrassed to say it but after holding her for just 10 minutes I fell completely in love with her, she is so precious and tiny. I found myself awing over every facial expression she made, and feeling this great sense of loss when I left my Dad's house, even though I knew I would see her in the morning. I knew that I would always be there to protect her, and above all I knew that there was no way I was going to miss out on being there as she grows up.
So with great relief I have decided to move back to England next April! It honestly feels like a massive weight off my mind and I am incredibly excited about it. Now I can enjoy my precious last months here without constantly worrying what the future holds for me.

Month 8!

Month 7! (GISHWHES EDITION)

It was a normal July afternoon binge watching supernatural on prime, little did I know, by pressing the "Nächste Folge"button, my summer would be completely different after watching that one episode titled "The French Mistake" The episode basically set in the real world where the actors are playing themselves on the set of supernatural. During the episode Misha Collins tweets constantly, usually really stupid but funny things. This prompted me to follow Misha on Twitter, where he was posting constantly about some strange thing called GISHWHES (Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) , for a few days I simply ignored it. Then I got curious, then I got really curious and started watching video after video about GISHWHES, but I still didn't understand what it was. I thought it was some kind of fancy dress geocashing. I had some credit left in my uk paypal account so I thought, screw it just sign up and if all else fails you'll just have paid for a signed holiday card from Misha Collins. 
Only after I paid my $45 did I decide that maybe I should look up what happened last year which might give me a better idea as to what I am actually supposed to be doing. That is when I found the list, reading through this list gave me cold sweats and brought me close to tears. What the hell had I let myself in for? This list contained things such as:

"VIDEO: Go order food at your favorite fast-food restaurant. Greet the attendant, explain how hungry you are, what you want to eat, and how good it will make you feel. One thing, you must speak as the Bard wrote. Place your order in Shakespearian verse.42 POINTS"

"IMAGE: You know the expression, “Beefcake?” As in, “He’s such a beefcake!” Have you ever really stopped to think about it? What exactly is a beefcake? It sounds good, right? I think we should have beefcake for dinner. Serve frosted beefcake at a family dinner where at least 3 generations are represented. 39 POINTS"

"IMAGE: You, dressed as The Flash in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) tunnel. If this is too difficult, you will get full credit for dressing as The Flash in any actual, operational particle accelerator. 216 POINTS" 

1) I am in a country where I can barely speak the language, how am I supposed to order something in translated Shakesperian verse? 
2) I am vegetarian and I don't live with my family, and the only family I do have here do not like photographs of them to be online.
3)?!?!?!

That's when the realisation kicked in, we need to create the items we are looking for. What the hell have I signed up for? Over the next several days I was contemplating calling it quits, just ignoring the whole thing pretending I never spent that money and just be happy with a card. After all the teams were made up of 15 people where the hell was I going to find 15 people to help me?! Luckily this was also around the time the pre hunt emails came rolling in.
 

  

 

Now I am not an idiot, I know the e-mails from Misha personally addressed to me, were computer generated. However these combined with the other e-mails written in such a kind and humorous way made me realise this was something I want to be part of. A whole organisation with its core being supporting a charity called Random acts of kindness and putting a smile on people's faces, who wouldn't want to be a part of that? I started spamming madly on facebook trying to get people to sign up. Registration soon closed, and my little team of 5 (two strangers I found on twitter, my friend from England, another au-pair from my town and I) were merged with two other teams bringing members from England, USA and Venezuela. We as a team will not win GISHWHES, as we were mostly a team of first timers, and a few members of the team had last minute commitments which came into play forcing them to not dedicate as much time to the hunt as they wanted. However I grew to love the team, we had so much fun and as cliché as it sounds, I still feel like we won something. I still can't believe what we achieved in that week. I grew closer to the Au-Pair friend I was doing it with as we had to spend so much time together, it reawakened my creativity, my mind was constantly active and I had the most amazing dreams!
 
I loved it so much that when it was all over I was suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms and had this big gaping hole in my life, with no idea how to now spend my days without GISHWHES. Which is why I was so happy when a team mate of mine referred me to the facebook group The GISHWHES Network . Here everyone was sharing their submissions and talking about the hunt, it was incredible to see the variation between submissions especially when one of the rules of the hunt was you could not interpret an item. If the item says stand on top of the Eiffel Tower singing eye of the tiger, you need to be doing exactly that, it can't be photoshopped or a model Eiffel Tower.


In addition to joining the facebook group I have signed up to "FEGVEP program (First Ever Gishwhes Volunteer Extraordinaire Program) – even though it’s technically the “second”? It offers you the chance to review items that might make it into the Gishwhes Coffee Table Book or the Gishwhes Hall of Fame and earn Gishpoints!" The quality of submissions is beyond amazing and have inspired me greatly! Its amazing to still be actively part of GISHWHES and being involved in helping people get recognition for their hard work.


All in all I cannot sing GISHWHES praises enough, I didn't realise just how much it would take over my life and change it for the better. I thought it would cost me lots of money and I would be terrified the whole way through. However the items I am most proud of, I didn't spend a single penny on, and I was exhilarated not terrified of the tasks done in public. I cannot wait for next year! 

Month 7

month 6

Month 5

Month 4!

First things first, MY HAIR IS GROWING BACK!

I've always had a full head of thick curly hair, but somehow in the last 12 months between; the changing to a lower salary, changing my working schedule, changing job title, getting more responsibilities, leaving said job, moving house, moving country, things not working out as planned in new country, my hair started to fall out and dramatically thin. I lost the life in my curls and was feeling generally fed up with it. 

However now that the sun is shining and I am in a really good situation I am finding several 4 or 5 cm strands of hair popping up all around my head bringing the volume back into the mane I am used to! Which has prompted me into restoring the rest of my body into a healthy state. Sitting in an office for 12 hours a day, with every other day being an excuse for someone to bring in a massive pile of chocolate cake, sweeties and other delicious goodies, for two years meant that I really started to pile on the pounds. Now the temptation is gone there is really no reason I should still be holding on to this weight, especially when Bad Homburg has two fantastic swimming centres, the one I go to consists of 8 swimming pools, and thats not including the baby pools and whirlpool. I have started going swimming and loving it, especially as when I get bored I just move to one of the other pools and start again. 

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss home, or when a group of people from Yorkshire sat around me on the U-bahn, I didn't nearly burst with excitement and want to join in with their conversation. However my feelings towards the UK and Germany are inexplicable. I miss the crazy stressful office environment of the call centre, I miss the noisy gym below my flat, I miss seeing the same people everyday that I have seen everyday for my whole life, now if you asked me why I was leaving I would have given you the same list only it would have looked like this. I hate the crazy stressful office environment of the call centre, I hate the noisy gym below my flat, I hate seeing the same people everyday that I have seen everyday for my whole life. I left England with a head full of ideas and a heart full of dreams. I have absolutely no desire to live back in the UK at this moment in time, but I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do in Germany. I originally wanted to go to university and study to be a kindergarten teacher, however I don't think my german language is ever going to be good enough to do that, and especially not after just 1 year.  I always felt very German, like an outsider in England. Now that I am here I realise just how much I didn't know about the country.  I am discovering new things about it everyday and all though I love it here, I am not sure there is a place in German society for someone as scatty minded as me.  But I have until mid April next year to make up my mind, maybe I'll move to Australia after all, at least there I might still stick out like a sore thumb when I speak, I will at least be a grammatically correct sore thumb. Or didn't I hear they have just discovered another earth like planet?  Maybe I will start up there, you never know the aliens might have something for me to do. 

Month 3!

Hello! I was considering doing another video blog, but after two attempts of recording the video with me either completely out of focus, or with my head chopped off I decided the old fashioned route would be easier!
Lots have changed since my last post, for starters I now live here:

A beautiful little city on the outskirts of Frankfurt. I really like it here because it has everything I need within walking distance, it has an amazing pool, night life, shops, u-bahn, s-bahn, bus and train stops.  The cherry on top is of course that my new family are also beyond amazing, I am so lucky to have found them.

After me only being here for two days we went on a mini holiday down south to Hammelburg, while we were there we visited a castle which was built in 1010, it was incredible how big it was. From there you could also see for miles and miles.

I moved out of Bruchsal on the 5th of April and didn't move into my new place (properly) until 21st of April. This meant I was able to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and cousin as I stayed with them in the interim. My aunt and I tried about 10 times to make these stupid string easter decorations, every time we either made the holes too big so the eggs fell out, or used the wrong type of glue so they did not hold their form.  Here are the ones that looked good enough to photo, but nowhere near strong enough to touch! 

and here is what happened the the majority of the others:

Other Easter snaps:

This month also has given me the time to work on my book. Its incredibly frustrating, but also very enjoyable to write freely. I just hope one day I will be able to finish it, I only started it 7 years ago.

So despite the whole - loosing my job - thing, this has actually been a pretty amazing month, which 30 days ago I would have never thought possible. Every cloud really does have it's silver lining, you just need to know where to look!

I hope you all had a lovely easter too, bis Juni, Tschüss! 

Month 2

The most attractive thumbnail ever :) 

1 month.

Dyson and Malmesbury seem like a lifetime ago, even though in reality I have only been here for a month. 
I had forgotten how frightening it was driving in a new place. I would never say I am one of those people who enjoys driving, I drive, but only really as a necessity to get from A - B. However back in the UK the thought of driving somewhere new never really scared me, apart from the unknown dent the petrol cost would leave in my wallet. Now I am in Germany part of me really wants to drive around and get to know the area however the thought of exploring makes my hands sweaty and my heart race, mainly because of all the bloody trams! Its always that moment on an intersection when I don't know whether I am about to turn onto the tram line or the road as it is very easy to do either. Then there are the tram traffic lights, they have a red and an amber but no green! So I was sitting on a roundabout already completely lost, not even really realising I am on roundabout, wondering if I can go or not because there was no light! You are also expected know the speed limits by heart, and be able to tell what speed you are supposed to be going just by your surroundings because speed signs are for losers.

Now that I have all that ranting out of the way, this really is a great country, the air is clean and fresh, there is still a very distinct culture full of traditions, which I think is fizzing away very quickly in England because people are either too cool, or too busy to take time to goof around and dress up in silly clothes with their children. Fathers here spend lots of quality time with their children, I have seen at least double the amount of Fathers wondering around with their strollers as I would see anywhere in the UK. People here respect the playgrounds, they are well looked after and are not vandalised. Shop keepers will give small children gifts like a slice of cheese, or a bretzle, even the bank has a rocking horse for children to play on and a stash of gummy bear bags to give out to the little ones. It's only a small gesture but I feel like it helps children feel valued rather than they are just an annoyance to society. 

All the focus spent on letting children be children, making them an important and happy member of the community most likely is why Germany has so many very successful adults. If you are made to feel unimportant, if it is not appreciated that tasks like going shopping can be very boring or stressful for you as a small child because half the time you cant even see what is going on, or understand why you have to wait silently for 10 - 20 minuets whilst your parent does what needs to be done, it can be very frustrating and those frustrations can mould the way you act as an adult. This being said I know this is only a theory, and this is not saying that everyone in Britain has an unhappy childhood, I grew up in the UK and I have very fond memories of being a child and all it entailed. My only point is I wonder if I would have turned out differently if I grew up in a culture which values childhood as highly as it is valued in Germany.


I  leave you with a Fastnacht witch, to scare that nasty winter away!

Au-Pair take two.

Moving home is always a stressful event. When I moved to New York as an Au-Pair the first time round, I remember feeling like there was so much to do, so much to pack and a never-ending to do list. When in reality once I had matched with a family all I had to do was go through my small box room and decide which items would make it into my two large suitcases, only leaving behind minimal amounts of belongings. Imagine my surprise when I thought it would be the same process this time after living on my own nicely sized apartment. I naively thought I would fit everything, I wasn't bringing to Germany, into 4 storage boxes; I have given my poor Mother at least double this to put in her attic for me. 

Selling my car, and giving away my furniture were such stresses I still have nightmares about them now. All of this upheaval was leading me towards moving in with people whom I have never even met, in tiny village which I had not even heard of never mind visited, located in a different country where I do not speak the language. 

Sitting on the Plane and looking out the window watching England disappear under a thick blanket of clouds, I kept thinking to myself "What the hell am I doing?". I had a very comfortable job, working for a good company, a nice home and good friends. Why would any sane person give that up? I couldn't shake this thought until I arrived at the Waldorf's home. 

When looking for my Au-pair placement I was exclusively looking for families in and around Frankfurt, if I saw they lived more than 30 minuets drive from my Aunt I straight away wrote them off. However when I got a message from Cynthia Waldorf, something felt different and I agreed to a telephone interview. About 15 minutes into our conversation my Mother texted me to see how it was going, I text back with "I think I am in love with this woman". The 'interview' lasted another hour and a half, by the end of it I was sold. I didn't care that they were further away than I wanted to be from my Aunt, I needed to work for this family.

I have been with the Waldorf's for almost a week, and I can't believe how quickly they made me feel like this is my home, I cannot imagine my life without them and for I think the first time ever I know with all of my heart I have made the right decision.