Garbage police

Yesterday morning while I was bringing my boxes down to the foyer (in preparation for their trip to the post), the garbage police showed up!



The van says "Schwarz entsorgen ist nicht fair!" which translates to "Illegal disposal isn't fair!" The door says "Kontrolldienst" which means inspection/monitoring office. The adjective "schwarz" literally means "black" and is frequently used here to mean illegal--schwarzfahren is riding the tram without a ticket, etc. I find the substitution a bit creepy because I can't help but suspect it has racist undertones.

I had heard that there were garbage police in Switzerland who would dig through bags of garbage for improperly disposed items (recyclables or hazardous materials) and for something with your name and address on it so they could send you a fine, but I'd always wondered if maybe the tales were just rumor or exaggeration. I know for a fact that your neighbors will dig through your recycling for your name and address and write you a note informing you of what you've done wrong (improperly tied bundles or wrongly sorted materials) and I thought maybe the garbage police were just an out of control exaggeration! I guess they really exist!

So yesterday they pulled up and nabbed a bag of trash on the sidewalk. The old system here was that we put our garbage into official, taxed garbage bags and left it on the sidewalk for pick up on certain days of the week. The new system, starting last spring, was that we carry the taxed bags 0-5 blocks to an official community dumpster. This was a slightly traumatic change for me, but I adapted. A lot of my neighbors either ignored the memo (and I can't blame them since I myself have developed the habit of deleting/throwing away email/mail in German because I just don't want to deal with it--I figure if it's really important they'll write again, or a colleague will tip me off to the content...) or they just don't care, and have been leaving the bags on the sidewalk. Finally the garbage police came, although I'm not sure if it was a random inspection or if another nosy neighbor called in to report the violation. So they swooped in, picked up the bag, and brought it into the van where they have a big sorting table. They opened the bag, dug through it, and appeared to find something with a name and address, then put the bag back together and moved along. I tried to get pictures of them digging through the bag, but I was also trying to be incognito and by the time I got my camera out they had moved the bag out of sight! It was still pretty exciting, though!

And I found a 50 CHF (about $50) bill on the street the other night. It's one of those weeks!

Oh the handshaking!

I've been showing my flat all week to potential renters. The one woman who came by a few weeks ago clearly was told to come to the wrong apartment, as the new ad for my place shows no rent increase (she'd been told 1200 CHF!). I had a little misunderstanding with my landlords--I thought they were going to choose one day to show the apartment so I gave them several to choose from. Instead, they took them all so I've had about 40 people traipsing through here over the past couple of nights. The first dude totally surprised me--I'd been expecting the landlords to call and warn me of when the showings were, but since they thought I knew, they didn't call, so this guy caught me in the middle of sorting some recycling and general chaos. He could barely get in the door, actually! And he politely didn't comment on the second surprise of the night for me (maggots in my trash can). It was a fun evening, let me tell you!

So I've been getting to practice my german a lot with all these folks. Oh joy! I have my little spiel down, though, so as long as they don't ask any weird questions I'm OK. There's also a lot of handshaking going on. The Swiss really like to shake people's hands. A couple months after I moved here I finally had to break down and ask one of my colleagues what the "rules" were about handshaking. I clearly wasn't shaking their hands every day, but I was always being taken by surprise when a hand would come flying at me from someone I already knew. Of course, my colleague couldn't really articulate the system, since he just knew how it worked instinctively. Finally we agreed that one shakes hands upon meeting someone for the first time, and then on any subsequent meeting (and departure!) if one tends to meet the person less often than once a week. This excludes daily-contact colleagues, but includes pretty much everyone else in the country.

I have to admit I'm not overly excited about shaking my doctor's hand (twice) at every visit. By definition the man is around sick people all day, right? Not what I want to be rubbing up against. But then, the viral theory of colds* doesn't really hold sway here, so spreading germs by pressing the flesh shouldn't be a problem either, I guess.

The other greeting/departure move is the cheek kissing, although when one gets upgraded to that was even less clear than the rule for handshaking frequency. Women seem to upgrade to kissing other women relatively quickly, with men less so, and men-men seems to be mostly a southern Europe thing. Here in Switzerland it's three kisses, although I still haven't figured out if you actually are supposed to make cheek-to-cheek contact or just kiss the air. I think it's really funny that the kissing thing really creeps me out--as in, it really violates my personal space--but hugging, which involves full body contact is fine with me. I guess it's all what you grew up with!

The handshake to kissing upgrade confusion is similar to the first name and informal-version-of-you confusion. It's extremely rude to use the informal version before it's been agreed upon, but I have no idea when or how that happens. With everyone in my group at work (4 people) we all started out on the first name and informal-you basis, and everyone else I've known in Switzerland has either been non Swiss (thus first name from the get go) or I've never really gotten to know them (hence we're still on formal-you and Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so). I did have one funny experience: after my knee surgery in 06 I was having a lot of muscle pain from walking all hunched up on my "sticks" (as they call crutches here), so I had several massages. At one of them, the masseuse was quite chatty and I was working really hard at making sure I used the formal-you (which definitely cut down on the "relaxation ambience" of the massage, but then since it was at a physical therapy place, there wasn't much ambience to start with), when suddenly in the middle of the massage the woman stops and sticks her hand out at me and keeps repeating "Hi, I'm Barbara". She said it about 4 times before I suddenly realized what was going on--she was introducing herself with her first name, meaning we should switch to the informal-you!

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*People get colds here from drafts (even relatively hot air "drafts" in the hot summer) rather than from viruses, so fans and air conditioners (or even open windows) are very rare. I think it's similar to the idea that in the US we think we get colds from getting our feet wet in the rain....

Rent Control

Because I gave notice on an allowed date, the company that owns my building is now looking for the next renter. They asked for specific dates and times when I could show it, so I was hoping we could do the open house style on just one or two evenings. Instead they opted for having individual renters call me to set up individual times to come see the place. This is more hassle for me--more phone calls (my absolute least favorite thing to do here), more of my time wasted. One person called and we set up a time, then she called an hour before she was supposed to arrive and wanted to reschedule for the next day. Grrr. She finally showed up yesterday and as soon as she walked in I could see she wanted to leave (and she did 3 minutes later). Turns out they told her the rent would be 1200 CHF (about $1200). This is a 25 m² (250 square feet) apartment on one of the busiest streets in Zurich in a relatively dumpy (by Swiss standards) building. My rent is 841 CHF (about $841). I was already annoyed that it had gone up from 776 CHF in April (I know landlords raise rent, but why wait 2.5 years and then hike it all at once?). I'm glad I decided to give notice when I could walk away--if I had to find a follow-on tenant, I would be really stressed about trying to lie and sell the place, whereas now I can just be honest!

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This blog post about the psychology of dealing with climate change (or not, as the case may be) and some more general thoughts about risk assessment psychology is interesting. I especially liked "The science of human behavior, particularly the psychology of risk perception, robustly shows that we use two systems to make judgments about risk; reason and affect, facts and feelings. It is simply naïve to disregard this inescapable truth and presume that reason and intellect alone will carry the day. That’s just not how the human animal behaves." This reminds me of something I consider to be a fundamental flaw of traditional economics: the idea of the rational actor as the basis for the entire economy.

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I've been spinning a lot. I dyed a bunch of wool this winter, but I hadn't been spinning so much because my back always hurts after sitting all day. So I've been planning to sell my wheel before I move, but I just couldn't let go of all the wool I dyed! So I've been spinning in 10 minute spurts (one little ball of prepped wool), and it's going ok. I'm surprised at how much I can get done! Of course, now that I'm seeing results, I'm second guessing my decision to sell the wheel. Argh!

Recent yarn I've spun. The red yarn was spun in April, knit into bad, thick socks, and frogged.

One batch (the rusty stuff on the left) was so pretty I couldn't bring myself to ply it--I knew the colors would just kind of muddy out. So I've been dreaming up patterns that would look ok using energized singles which bias like mad. I was thinking of a tank top knit in the round--the leaning stitches would just add textural interest! However, when I finally skeined them up, I realized something about my spinning: my singles don't have much "energy" (twist). They hardly coil up on themselves. This explains why my plied yarn is never very plied--the whole idea behind plying is that twisting two yarns together in the opposite direction from how they were spun means that the over-twist in the singles untwists in a way that makes the ply tighter. Balance is achieved. Instead, I have these barely twisted singles, which turn into two strands that are more like neighbors than plies.

Rust colored singles without much twist

Blue and red yarn--note how the plies are barely plied in the red yarn!

I've also been working away on my bog jacket. I worked up the back and sides (the bottom part with the fold/phoney seams), then added extra stitches for the arms. I put in the red racing stripe at the neck/shoulder/top of arms, and now just reached the neck. The front shoulders/arms are worked separately--I've started on one side. I might rejoin the fronts when I get back to the long-color-change yarn because I would prefer the stripes to be the same on both sides. That means steeking the front top. I've had some bad steeking experiences---no disasters, but just a lot of hassle and not being so thrilled with the results. I stumbled across some advice recently about not steeking heavy weight yarns, and suddenly my past troubles made a lot more sense--yes, dealing with tons of bulky ends does add a lot of bulk to the steek opening! Since this yarn is pretty fine, I think it would go better. I'm trying to figure out crochet steeking on a little test square--no ends to weave in, or so I'm told! And this is definitely the yarn for that--it's super grabby. When I dropped the stitches for the phoney seams, I had to hand tug apart the stitch in every row! In fact, I could probably just cut without securing the steek at all...

Bog jacket up to the neck split

Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

I've lived at 21 different addresses in my life (a couple of them more than once), ranging from a few months to a decade. And I've had 21 jobs at 17 different companies, ranging from a few weeks (temp work) to 3 years. I have a love-hate relationship with moving. I hate the hassle of it, and part of me hates the change (change is bad! love my routine!) but another part of me loves the change (new things to explore! get away from the people who bugged me at the last place! run away from your problems--if you run fast enough they can't catch you, right?). "Doing a geographical" is a habit I'm trying to break, because I've realized that I tend to bring myself and all my baggage (emotional and otherwise) with me, and I can also see the, well, mayhem is a bit strong of a word, but the damage it's done. I don't have a good support system set up, and I struggle with long term "relationships" with other people when I remain in the same city as them (and by relationships, I mean all kinds--coworkers, neighbors, friends, romantic types, etc). Plus actually, physically moving is so tiresome for us booklover types!

I'd honestly like to settle down and be a part of a community. In fact, I came to this realization some years ago, and my response was ... to move! Because of course, the community I was in wasn't the one I wanted to build roots in. And so, I arrived in Switzerland with that mindset, so I pretty badly was hoping I would love it (and fall in love with someone who could ease the work permit situation!) and expected I might settle down here. As I've blogged before (a, b, c, d), things didn't go as planned. And so I face another huge upheaval, fully cognizant that moving will not solve my problems, yet knowing I have to move to begin solving my problems. Well, I don't have to, but staying here just out of stubbornness (moving isn't the solution, so I better stay just to not-move) is a pretty bad reason to stay when I have literally no other reasons to stay (tramlove, sadly enough, is not enough to tip the balance). Argh! How do I get myself into these situations? Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

Some big transitions in my life:

• Age 7: parents getting divorced
  

  No, no, no starting this far back would make this a book. We'll move along. Anyway, insert the standard story here (one promiscuous sister, one goody two-shoes, all survive and grow up, eventually).

  
  
• Age 25: ending first big adult relationship. Lived with an awesome guy for 7 years (all of college and a few years after).
  

  Whoa, long story. Most of us have been here. My transition involved exceptional quantities of alcohol, more than enough for a lifetime. Definitely (to misquote Dickens) it was the best thing that ever happened to me and the worst thing that ever happened to me. The 'ship needed to end, as we'd grown apart, and it ending led me to directions and opportunities I'd never have had otherwise, but boy hardy the transition was tough. Hadn't realized how much my identity had been wrapped up in the "us" that was no longer.

  
  
• leaving south pole
  

  Going to south pole was fun. Dream come true, lots of self-pinching to see if it was real (really, though, the constant frostnip should have obviated the need for the pinching!). Leaving was tough. I'd lost the majority of my social skills (whaaaa? indoor snot rockets are considered rude? and my favorite thing to say was "noted" in this really dismissive tone of voice. That came from the weird habit people develop when being cooped up too long with each other with nothing to do: coming up to you and saying something either totally obvious or totally irrelevant. Like if I am eating dinner and someone comes up and says "you are eating dinner" or "you should eat the peas first, not the hamburger". I mean, WTF are you supposed to say to that? At first I'd whip out my little "green brain" (notebook we all carried everywhere to combat the severe memory loss we all developed) and my pen and pretend to write it down, saying "your input has been noted." Eventually that got shortened to a dismissive "noted".), and emotionally I was just shattered. I had had some high expectations about how my friendships would evolve once we left the station. People pretty much went their own way and I was "left" all alone and was incredibly bitter about it and felt very "abandoned". I now see this was a slight bit of distorted perceiving/thinking on my part, but that insight took several years to coalesce. I might add that I was a very bitter and unhappy person by the end of winter, so I'm not surprised (in retrospect) that nobody really wanted to be around me!
  
  I traveled the world for a couple months grudgingly and resentfully--we basically got a free round-the-world ticket (15 stops in unlimited countries), so everyone felt "obliged" to make a big world tour, but most of us were emotionally too wrecked to enjoy it. I spent two months circling New Zealand, basically dragging from hostel to hostel and spending a large portion of my time crying in my bed. I didn't speak to anyone, and I didn't laugh for about 4 months after I left (if you know me in person, you know that I laugh all the time).
  
  I came home, lived with my parents, and took up meditation, although at one point my dad said "if you get any 'calmer' you'll be dead!" because I was nearly catatonic, emotionally. It was weird, because I was clearly broken somehow and had little emotional affect, but I was working full time at the video store AND revising and defending my master's thesis, so I'm hard-pressed to call it depression (since it had no effect on my productivity, sleep, appetite or sex drive, nor did it cause the various kinds of bad thoughts that normally signify depression). I just simply had no idea who I was, and I mean that in the most literal sense. I was just broken.
  
  I didn't know what was important to me, or what I liked to do, or what kind of people I liked, or if I could trust my own take on events. A lot of this came from having been deeply invested in some perceptions of life/situations at pole that turned out to be different than I expected, leading me to no longer trust that I knew what I thought I knew, about pole or anything at all, actually. One example was about role in station life. I had thought I was a "good comrade"--I was funny, excellent at hanging out (seriously, this is a legitimate skill needed in order to survive 8 months in a cold, dark, isolated place!), involved in community activities, cooked dinner for the whole crew (50 people) several times (there were no meals cooked on Sundays, so it was fend for yourself from the leftover fridge most of the time), organized some social activities. Sure, I was a little non-plussed with the cooks, and I was vocal about my opinions, but the vast majority of the time I was simply saying what others were thinking but didn't say (I know for a fact this is true). At the end of the winter, we had a performance evaluation, and suddenly it turns out I was one of the worst crew members on station, several letters had been written to the station manager complaining about me, I had made the station a worse place, blah blah. There was a loud screeching sound as my grasp on reality broke. I mean, I know everyone tends to have slightly unrealistic views about themselves and how they come across, but this was too much. I suddenly had no idea who was "right", and if I couldn't trust my perception of events on this, then really, I couldn't trust anything I thought I knew, could I?
  
  Anyway, meditation firmly in hand, I moved to a cabin in the woods (although sort of also on the rural highway), to lick my wounds for a couple more years. Eventually I "humpty-dumpty'd" my personality back together, did some serious emotional surgery to cut out the festering wounds, and, well, I got over it!
  
  Mostly got over it. I have lingering health issues from that winter, and some permanent, well, brain damage is the only term for it: memory loss and slight cognitive impairment. My IQ dropped like 15 points over winter. Literally. I tested it. Most of that I was able to recover, but there are definitely things that I can't do or are harder for me to reason out now. It's scary, but in a way it's good because now when age-related mental decline comes, I won't have to freak out!

  
  
• moving to Switzerland
  

  Hey, why not? How hard can it be? Ha ha. I went through the classic stages of culture shock:
  Arrival to 3 months: wow, this is paradise, OMG, this is the most amazing place ever!
  3mo-6mo: I hate this place, I can't find x, y, or z and everyone's weird and I'm tired and I want to go home.
  6mo-12mo: ok, some things are better here, some are worse, ha ha, wasn't I so hysterical the first 6 months in my opinions about this place!
  12mo-18mo: look at me, I'm still so sophisticated with my "living abroad" and "being so balanced in my perspective", but really, the idea of being an expat is so cool, I'm going to stay here for the rest of my life!
  Then I diverged onto my own path, which mostly was a self-reinforcing loop of
  
  

  
  
• Repatriating
  

  This is the upcoming transition, two of them, actually. Returning to the US, and leaving research science to become a teacher. I'm excited about both of them, and a little nervous. I'm worried about "reverse" culture shock, although I haven't experienced that on my trips to the US since I've been here. What's far more likely to happen is I gain 20 pounds from a daily dose of gluten free donuts... (donuts! People, I had no idea it was so good in the US!) I find myself anxious and fragile right now--I'm not quite at the point I was when I left pole, where even breaking the lead on my pencil would cause me to burst into tears, but I'm definitely easily verklempt, especially around things that have been important parts of my journey here. In particular, I am finding the weekly Anglican/Benedictine Evensong (done in Gregorian chant) service that I attend to be pretty emotional for me, as this has been an important part of my spiritual life here.

  
  

On some level I feel like my experiences are not at all unique--what I mean is that all of us humans go through tough times and have emotional reactions. The particular details of my stories may seem more glamorous and exciting, but the same kind of profound changing and growing experiences can be had by someone who's never left their home town. Marriage, divorce, having a child, losing a child, changing jobs, or even just waking up one day wondering "who the hell am I? It was all so clear at 22" are things that can be just as powerful as any international adventure. I've learned a lot from my knitting, actually, about patience, correcting mistakes, accepting imperfection (and the wisdom to know the difference!), about process (the present moment, the journey) being more important than product (the goal, the future) and, hell, I don't even have to leave my couch to knit!

Of course, this doesn't diminish my delight in the details of everyone's version of the human experience. Because the details are where it gets interesting! I recently read Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, which is about these kinds of phoenix processes. It was a fascinating read--so many people, so many transitions! I can't wait to read the rest of this blog carnival!

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August scientiae-carnival

The train has left the station

I gave notice on my apartment yesterday! It's starting to sink in that I'm actually going to be moving home soon. There was a bit of last minute excitement--I had originally intended to leave at the end of October, but when I looked at my rental contract I was reminded that I have one of the "standard" Swiss contracts which allows me to vacate my apartment on only 2 days in the year (1 Oct or 1 Mar). If I wanted to leave 1 Nov, I'm still legally obliged to cover the rent till 1 Mar, and would have to find an "after-renter" (nachmieter) to take over the lease. I was really worried about finding someone--the place I have is fairly small and kind of dumpy (hasn't been renovated since the 70s--most places are renovated at least every 10 years) and also the neighborhood isn't so great (noisy, lots of immigrants, very near the red light district).

I realized on Thursday that if I want to leave the flat on 1 Oct I had to send in my notice by Saturday, so I hurriedly cleared the idea with my boss (he's fine with me working from home, whichever continent home is on), painstakingly wrote out several termination notices in German (for the flat, the cable TV, internet, health insurance, and "personal* insurance", all of which require 3 months notice).

I'm surprised at the mix of emotions I feel, although I guess it isn't really surprising. I'm excited and terrified at the same time--I was practically hyperventilating on the way to the post office yesterday, although that was also partly due to the impending conversation in German required to send registered mail...

I've been looking forward to going home for so long, what if I get there and don't like it? I'm sure that I've changed since I moved here (I have lived 10% of my life in Switzerland, as a matter of fact), and the coming-home culture shock in some ways must be harder than the going-abroad culture shock: I'm supposed to know and like how things work at home, right? And I'd sort of forgotten about all the logistics of international moves. A couple weeks before I moved here, I had a routine appointment with my therapist at which I blurted out "I think I have an anxiety disorder!" She looked at me and said, "You're moving to another country. You should have anxiety!" At least I can laugh at my anxiety this time around!

Mostly, though, I'm just really excited!

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*I have no idea what "personal insurance" is either, but I was told it's virtually mandatory and since it's 80 bucks a year, I just paid up rather than risk some looming fiasco. I think it covers the in between things--if I hit someone while driving a car, my car insurance would cover that. I guess if I hit someone with my hair-trigger umbrella and they got injured, it would be covered by this insurance?

Women on the ball

Here's another interesting billboard ad:



It seems to be related to the the UEFA08 European Soccer Championship which is being hosted here in Switzerland this month. My off-the-cuff translation of "Frauen an den Ball" was "women on the ball". Coupled with the image I interpreted that as meaning something along the lines of women are only allowed to be sporty if we're also extra-feminine (to counter our transgression against gender norms), or perhaps that the only role of women in football games is as a sex object since they clearly intend the double meaning of being "on the ball(s)".

But when I actually looked closer, I realized that "an" is being used in the accusative, which (in German) implies motion or movement from one place to another rather than fixed location, so the translation is closer to "women coming to the ball". It turns out if you go to the website advertised, you can download a brochure (pdf) which includes several similar images and a several page summary of the rules of soccer ("das kleine ABC der Fussballregeln" = "the small ABCs of football rules") apparently targeted towards women to bring them up to speed on the game so they can enjoy the games too. The intro text, which I can't entirely translate, discusses surprising your man with your knowledge of football so you can talk with him (rather than avoiding the topic as in years past). It certainly seems targeted towards enhancing his pleasure of the games by having an enthusiastic female at his side (rather than a party-pooper who doesn't care about the games).

I'm submitting this image to Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing. I really enjoy that blog because it's so thought provoking. It's like getting to take a sociology class, delivered right to me! I took a couple women's and labor studies classes in college, but always wanted to take more, so I really appreciate having resources like this!

Space

I'm fairly large for a woman. I'm tall (5'9") and busty and am probably best described as "solid" rather than curvy. I've never been ashamed of how I look--sure there are the odd bits that I'm not thrilled about, but all in all it's a pretty decent package. The only time I ever feel bad about my body is right after I visit a doctor, where they inevitably harp on me about my weight. It's pretty tiresome, especially when they seem to miss the forest for the trees: I walk everywhere, I eat healthy foods, I have a quick (and awesome) smile and laugh, and an eager, playful approach to what I think is a well balanced life. In the grand scheme of things, I can't believe 20 extra pounds really matters. But doctors seem to make it their special mission to humiliate overweight people, and blame as many of our ailments on our weight as possible. It's like they had a whole class in med school about bullying techniques and diverting the attention from what really matters.

I've noticed a pattern in my Alexander Technique lessons, where my instructor will have been repeating a certain phrase or action for weeks (months!) and I have no idea why, and then suddenly, it clicks. One of her longest running expressions is about me having "enough space" around me. Sadly, it's one of the few that I haven't entirely been able to understand (which is surely why I'm still going!). I suspect that my habit is to kind of withdraw my limbs and head into my body as much as possible, which is a tense way to hold and move my body.

It's a strange comment for me to hear, because, of all the flaws I might have, overdoing self restraint in limb movement has never been at the top of the list. I'm one of those eager, clumsy puppy types, arms and legs flying all over, knocking things off walls and tables, hitting strangers in the head on the street, and making shop clerks very nervous. I've always sat with my legs sprawled out, knees wide and ankles flung out, often an arm draped over the next seat if it's empty. All my friends know that when I arrive anywhere I sort of take over the place--bags and hats and coats distributed across all surfaces, inching into their space.

And yet, somehow, this other me has edged in, one who needs to be told to take up my allotted space. I think some of this may be my (possibly misguided) attempt to "grow up" and toe the party line in terms of "how adults behave". Moving to Switzerland has surely made that worse--in an attempt to fit in and not be the big loud American, I've felt myself getting more stiff, trying to control my movements and those damn limbs! My first year here I tried to dress "European" (leather shoes, blouses and slacks), and I even kept my hair all bound up in Pippi Longstocking braids. Talk about symbolic. At some point, though, an acquaintance mentioned that I even "walk like an American", at which point I realized the jig was up. There was no pretending I fit in, and I have since reverted to wearing sneakers and a lot of t-shirts, and I let my crazy hair fly loose. Even in the US I'm a bit eccentric, but it's OK to be eccentric in the US. I'm looking forward to not feeling like a freak of nature every time I step out of my house, of letting my loud voice boom away at it's natural, unrestrained volume, and letting my crazy-fun personality flourish the way I used to.

The other "space" that I have not been fully using is my contribution to groups, especially meetings at work. I've always been the type to speak up and express my opinion or ask questions, but I've really struggled with that lately. After I read Why So Slow by Virginia Valian , I realized that when it seemed like my input at meetings was repeatedly being ignored, that feeling isn't all in my head. And the wind just went out of my sails. Valian talks about how continuing to speak up in group situations and being ignored can actually be ultimately damaging to a woman for a couple of reasons: one is that all her colleagues repeatedly see her speak up and then be ignored, which harms her reptuation, and the second is that it's damaging to self esteem. And it's true--no matter how many times I tell myself it's them and not me, it still hurts when I'm ignored, and I find it ultimately less painful to just keep my mouth shut. I'm pretty disappointed about this (both that I'm in such a situation and that I don't seem to have the energy to fight this battle right now), and it's another thing I hope to work on in the future.

I've certainly consumed more than my share of adventure-space, leading a lot of people to tell me I must be really brave. I'm not sure brave is the right word--it's more like I have no idea what I'm getting into, and I perpetually think, how bad can it be? I'm pretty proud of myself for this: acting despite my fears, pursuing my life-long dreams, and biting off more than I could chew a time or two. But I've always survived, and I have a raft of great stories to tell, and I like knowing that I can try my hand at anything that takes my fancy. I hear so many women undercut themselves before even trying something new, even something small like knitting a more complicated pattern than they've ever tried before, and it's so sad. It's not like someone will die if the sweater sleeves come out the wrong size! I think my freedom from self-limiting beliefs is one of the things I treasure most about who I am because it means that anything is possible in my life.

For the June, 2008 Scientiae.
Tag: scientiae-carnival

Creepy ads

I've been seeing these ads around town for a few days, and I find the bird one incredibly creepy, so I'm submitting them to Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing.

I'm not entirely sure why they bother me so much. I guess partly it's the sexualization of animals, but I think it's also because I can tell instantly that the bird is supposed to be female and the chipmunk is male by their poses. (I have no idea what that flower is.)

The statement at the bottom says: "TerraSuisse guarantees natural Swiss agriculture." I don't know what natural is supposed to mean. It seems to be a new line of "happy animal and plants" foods at one of the grocery store chains that implies more sustainable use of resources. It's separate from the official organic certification.






I dropped the ball last year on snapping pictures of the racist anti-immigration ads during an election campaign. Examples can be found elsewhere (one, two and the Wikipedia entry).

Missed sights

Today was one of those days I should have taken my camera to work.

Just next to the tram stop by my house, there is a tram parking lot (you know, where the trams sleep at night). It's usually empty during the day, but this morning there was one there, surrounded by 3 fire trucks and about 20 Swiss fire fighters. Several were lying on pallets inspecting something underneath. At first I thought maybe someone claimed there was an explosive device on the tram!! But I quickly realized they would have cleared the surrounding area. There was no evidence of fire (no scorch marks on the tram or any hint of smoke smell) and I really couldn't figure it out. Strange realization--this was the first time I'd seen fire fighters since I moved here. They looked more like a road construction crew than fire fighters, although I can't put my finger on why, and their helmets seemed a bit Star Wars, which amused me.

Then I passed a moving operation--someone was moving a company into a 3rd floor office via the window. The buildings here don't have those hooks that are so common in Amsterdam because the buildings there have such narrow stairs. Here they had a kind of ladder/conveyer belt thing going up to the window. I love watching weird stuff like that. One day I "caught" the emptying of the recycling bins. Here in Switzerland you recycle metal and glass by carrying it to a set of bins which are scattered about the city--usually you don't have to walk more than a few blocks to find one. They are blue and about as tall as a person (here is a tiny picture), with a little rubber-flapped mouth at eye level. Turns out they open from the bottom when picked up by a giant crane. I was mesmerized one morning watching the ones by my apartment being emptied.

Speaking of hauling one's waste around, yesterday I got home and found a note taped to the door stating that, effective immediately, we were no longer allowed to leave trash on the sidewalk. It used to be that you bought special, taxed garbage bags, filled them up, and left them on the sidewalk and the city picked them up on designated days (once or twice a week, depending on the neighborhood). Some buildings have smallish dumpsters for the bags, but not all. My current building is one of the dumpster-less ones. I now have to walk 3 or 4 blocks with my garbage to an officially designated drop off point. Ugh. The bags are really cheap and often rip, and the handles are very thin plastic which really cuts into the fingers. The last place I lived, in New Hampshire, had no garbage service. I had to drive to the dump to get rid of my trash, and the dump was open only on Saturdays from 9 to 12 and I found it a real pain to get over there. Since moved here, I had been really enjoying the fact that someone comes to my house and takes my garbage away. Guess the honeymoon is over.

On a good note, I found some clover honey last night--I find the local honey to be rather strong (no idea what those bees are snacking on) and I was thrilled to find some good Canadian clover honey. We will not discuss my carbon footprint at this juncture.

I'm furiously trying to finish the unspun sweater. I have 8 more rows on the front top (I knit the body in the round up to the arms and then split it--the back is done), and I still have to knit the sleeves and a collar. I've also been spinning up a bunch of sock yarn so I have some good portable knitting when I head off to Tromso next week to visit the unspun sweater's new owner.

Living the high life

You know your potato chips are overpriced when the serving suggestions include wine selections (nay, champagne suggestions):



But then you probably good have guessed that from the front of the package already:



This webpage was advertised in my feedreader as

Six new denizens of the deep—from crustacean crushers to pale and fleshy-lipped eelpouts—were found recently in oceans off Antarctica.

Possibly the most irresistable link I've seen in a long time.

I didn't realize I'd taken such a long blogging hiatus. I have the usual complaints (busy life, empty brain) and some not-so-usual (debilitating eyestrain-induced headaches from too much computer time which flare up from time to time). I've also been engaged in an abbreviated course of the spiritual exercises in everyday life. I've been flush with blogging topics because of it, but strangely hesitant to actually blog about any of them. I guess I'm a bit uncomfortable talking about my spiritual beliefs. This is partly because I don't want to alienate anyone (although I noticed myself getting a bit strident at times on environmental pollution topics), but also because I came of age at a time when it was really Not Cool to be religious, and I find that hard to shake. Anne Lamott talks about some of this in her book Traveling Mercies--the bizarre, ironic shame of having to "come out" as a Christian to one's hipper-than-hip friends. This prejudice is only magnified in the science world, where I sometimes wonder if they will secretly revoke my degrees if they find out I'm not an atheist!

I make occasional mysterious references to my "secret life" to my colleagues, implying that I have some kind of wild side which keeps me busy in my off hours. The irony of this amuses me to no end--my activities are in fact the most sedate, wholesome kind I can think of. It's also funny to me because I used to engage in a lot of wildly unwholesome ones, which I never kept very secret when they were going on. But that's a whole 'nother post. Another blog, even!

But I've also hesitated because, frankly, I fear the posts would veer off into self indulgence. Yes, even a personal blog has a limit to self absorption! I will say that I've found the experience extremely rewarding and enjoyable so far (I've done 2 weeks out of 5). I'm currently struggling with What I Want To Do With My Life, and this is a helpful process. More on this in the future.




A brief knitting update:

My two color brioche in the round cowl thingie (knit from all wool, not a wool silk combo like I mistakenly wrote). All I can say is squish heaven:




Pecan Pie Beret. While I achieved exactly the gauge specified in the pattern (possibly a first), the brim came out faaar too large.




I knit it with a wool silk blend which already had another life as an overly tickly neck gaiter:

I contemplated ripping back the beret and adding way more decreases, but I can't bear the idea of tinking so much brioche (and my experiences with ripping and picking up the stitches in brioche is far worse). The entire hat is a bit floppy. Since I already hate this yarn for being expensive and being such a failure (2 scarf attempts, a gaiter attempt) I'm going to take the plunge and see if I can't felt it down just a bit.....

The rest of that yarn is trying to be a pair of fetching, but all that tight knitting is killing my hands. Plus I need to extend the part so it even reaches my knuckles. I'm now feeling all self conscious about my hands being freakishly long.



I'm about to rip the half done bearded cap and the strap to the Monk's Travel Satchel. Both had been started in Zehpyr as a stash buster, but my experience with the aibhlinn stretching out like a mofo has made me realize I need to save the wool silk blends for items that don't need to hold their shape somehow. Hmmm, how is this relevent to the Pecan Pie Beret?

And I whipped up a little scarf for my mom. She liked the black hearts of oak pattern scarf I'd made, but also wanted something a bit lighter for better night-saftey. This is icy blue bamboo cotton and white polyamide furryness that was the softest thing I'd ever touched. I've always been a bit of yarn snob so I was surprised to find myself buying synthetic fun fur, but there you go. This was also my first garter stitch scarf!!



And I've made a bit of progress on the unspun sweater for my friend:

London pictures

I finally got my London pictures up. I had to rewrite my html-generating script in c. I am a really crappy programmer, so this took forever. I also had to keep reinstalling bits and pieces of tools--still finding broken things since I upgraded to OS X 10.5.

A couple highlights:

a goat in a bush:



a cat that lives at Canterbury Cathedral:



Sidewalk rules:



Anti-protester paint:

Confusion Tax

When I first moved to Zurich, I found myself making a lot of purchasing mistakes. Buying things that I thought were what I wanted, but weren't. This happened because of my bad German, or wishful thinking (it's sugar and it's brown, it must be brown sugar!), or cultural assumption (little jars of tiny cucumbers floating in vinegar must taste like pickles), or different genotypes (translate American clothing sizes to European. Buy pack of tshirts one size bigger than specified, just to be sure. Try on shirt. Nearly suffocate it is so tight, yet find it stretches halfway to the knees.) or miscommunication with clerks, especially at the pharmacy. In fact, pharmacy transactions continue to be a bane for me. Pretty much everything is behind the counter (even, say, vaseline!) and you have to ask for it (hence the expression "over the counter" for non-prescription meds). I find this frustrating for a couple of reasons:

1) The pharmacist, being helpful, will try to coerce you into the product of their choosing. If I really don't know what I need, that would be helpful. When I already know, it just seems patronizing. I know it isn't meant that way, but it's hard to put aside my cultural background

2) I feel like I'm being monitored--I'm not allowed to buy larger quantities of things. One time I asked for wart stuff and they insisted on seeing the wart (I should have said it was somewhere unmentionable) and then refused to sell me the over-the-counter medicine, claiming it was too small. Yeah, they start small and then grow, and they're a lot easier to treat when they're still small! Just sell me the damn crap.

3) I like to browse and compare packages. Which multivitamin has less iron? How many bandaids are in this box? Oh, these bandaids aren't sealed--oh, even worse, you have to cut them to size yourself with your rusty, dirty scissors. I get flustered really easily by clerks, and I can't think straight when someone is staring over me, so I wind up just buying whatever they thrust at me (or running from the store (#53)). When I wanted vitamins, I asked, and they went and laboriously got one single bottle. I could see there were others, but getting them to bring one of each so I could stand at the crowded counter for 20 minutes trying to translate the german and think under pressure? Not a good scenario for me.

So I wound up buying a lot of mistakes. I came up with the idea of a "confusion tax"--it's like a tax for newcomers and idiots. I found the idea amusing enough that it took the sting out of all the money (really, hundreds of dollars!) that I wasted. And sure enough, the monthly confusion tax outlay has steadily decreased.

But it's still there. I recently decided I needed some better lighting for knitting. At one time I had a full spectrum compact flourescent lamp (an Ott knockoff, back in New Hampshire). Lots of searching later, I found an online store in Switzerland with full spectrum CFLs (the real-store selection is very poor). I order. I wince at the ~30 dollars a single bulb is going to cost me. I wait. And wait. And wait. 7 weeks later, my package arrives (mail takes either 1 or 2 days to travel inside Switzerland which is, please recall, the slightly larger than the state of Maryland). I eagerly rip it open and install the new bulb in my it-only-faces-up floorlamp. Guess what. This is a directional bulb. I now have a very well-lit spot. On my ceiling. I've moved it to my hanging-from-the-ceiling lamp in the middle of the room. Giving me a well lit circle in the middle of the room. Far from the knitting couch.

Sigh.

I could try to mount a new downward-facing lamp, but the walls here are very strange--the ceilings are all plaster (I have several gaping holes from where I tried to mount things) and the walls apparently have metal cladding just underneath the weird, bumpy, looks-like-paint, but rips-off-like-wallpaper surface, and I can't get any nails or thumbtacks into it, so I've given up trying to mount stuff. My two ceiling lamps aren't mounted--they literally dangle from the electrical wires.

(It's funny how much apartment customs change. Most places I've lived in the US, all the sort of built in furnishings stay with the apartment. In the New Hampshir village I was in, somehow the custom had developed that you took your fridge/stove, etc with you when you moved. A rude shock to new arrivals having to outlay a grand. Here, the fridge and stove were left in place, but instead of lights, I just had pairs of bare wires dangling from the ceiling.)

Mostly all this seems funny to me--this is precisely the adventure I had signed up for. The great thing about living abroad is it encourages me to question all my assumptions--not just the obvious ones such as universal health care, or how do we, as a society, choose to treat people who find the basic responsibilities of life to be overhwelming. Life is a bit richer when I don't take everything for granted, and some amount of manageable deprivation just makes the enjoyment on reunion that much more intense. The best orange I ever ate in my life was the one I had on station opening at the south pole after a year of no fresh food.

P.S. I changed commenting platforms, which seems to have deleted all the old comments. Oops!

P.P.S. Oh--I guess I could buy another floorlamp, just a downward facing one!

tramlove

I love trams. Love them! It's one of my absolute favorite things about living in Zurich. When I first moved here I found myself thinking a lot about my years in San Francisco. Partly because I was also in school in SF, and partly because SF is such a european-y city (for an American city), but mostly, it was the trams. I love them so much more than buses, I think because the ride is smoother. I love how the whole street rumbles when they pass by. I love them for their more mundane aspects, such as the fact that trams always stop at every stop (unlike buses which usually stop only on demand), meaning that if you are in a new city (or even a new part of your own city) you can count stops to figure out when it's time to get off. OK, the squealing on corners? That I don't love so much.

On my ride home last night, as almost every night, the overhead announcement came on with the familiar [ding, dong] Information der Zuri Linien... announcing a collision or malfunction or anything else that causes sections of the track to be closed and the trams rerouted. The pair of chimes that open these announcements used to strike fear into my heart when I first moved here and couldn't decipher them. Now, despite my poor and uneven German, I understand almost everything in the announcements, probably because they use a ritualized (and tiny) subset of words in these things. I'm always amazed at how fast they organize buses out to the affected stretches, and municipal employees to the larger stops to make announcements and answer confused rider's questions.

Which brings me to a bizarre confession. I have some kind of deep, secret love for municipal logistics. The public transit systems, the garbage and recycling trucks, traffic control, newspaper delivery. I just find them totally fascinating. They are so unsexy, so dirty (although that's kind of sexy), so necessary and overlooked, but almost graceful in a weird, truckish kind of way. I think there is also some strange uniform fetish bleedover--not that tram uniforms do much for me, but more the institutional background implied by uniforms, which must be part of their appeal. I'm very neurotic and rigid do well in structured environments, so institutions draw me towards them with some neuroticmagnetic pull.

Speaking of traffic control, for many years I've had a theory about a pair of traffic phenomena. One is the expanding nature of traffic jams, which I always thought was driven primarily by over-braking. The idea is the person in front of me taps their brakes, I see the red light come on but right at first I can't tell how much they are braking, so I step on my brakes, perhaps a hair harder than they did (err on the side of caution!). If everyone behind me does the same thing before you know it traffic is at a standstill. For a while I got into the habit of slowing down via downshifting, trying to do my part to stop the chain reaction. I'm not so sure that's such a great idea, because if it turns out people behind me really do need to break, then they need the indicator of my taillights. Turns out my theory was right! The other theoretical traffic control issue I've often pondered is what I like to call "line compaction", which happens in long lines or stand-still traffic jams, where people just like the sensation that they are moving, even if there are still the same number of people ahead of them in line, so everyone keeps inching forward, compacting the line while getting to fool themselves into thinking it's helping. Like pushing the elevator button a couple extra times...

My tiny fridge

My fridge defies the laws of physics. It is well known that hot air rises and cold air sinks. This leads me to assume that in a fridge with poor circulation, the bottom shelf would be coldest. In my dorm sized fridge things in the door are warm (spoil in 2 days) while things in the back are cold (freeze solid). I realize this must be because the door leaks (like a mofo, apparently). I'm just astonished that in such a small space no convection occurs, sliding the slab of cold air at the back down to the bottom.

I was reading something about how wasteful Americans are, and our obscenely large refrigerators and how the Europeans always make do with little ones. My small fridge has been another thing I just cannot adjust to, and I was feeling bad about my wasteful, consumerist desires for a full sized fridge with a freezer more than 4 inches tall. But now that I think about it, I suspect a modern, energy efficient larger fridge is probably better than this thing, since it's so poorly insulated. Food lasts about 4 days (well, aside from the thin layer of inadvertently frozen food at the back), which means I'm not only wasting energy cooling the air in front of the fridge, but I also throw out far more food than I ever have in my life because I can't get the balance right. I shop 3 to 4 times a week an an attempt to buy smaller quantities. But because I bring food everywhere (thank you, celiac disease), I tend to cook largish quantities of soups and stews that can be transported. Apparently, I always cook just a bit more than I can eat in 4 days. When I try to be more careful and cook less, I always seem to run out of food entirely and wind up eating nothing but plain brown rice for 3 days. (Whose dumb idea was this whole "being an adult" thing, anyway?)

I struggle here with the balance of work and life and play, and getting errands done and food cooked and house cleaned. This fall I joined the choir at my church for the Christmas Carols. I enjoyed it tremendously, but it turned out to be more time than I had to spare, so I've really been swamped. In the new year I want to take a look at my time-priorities and perhaps arrange my life a bit more thoughtfully so I'm spending my time doing the things I choose rather than rushing around playing catchup, resenting the commitments I've taken on.

Learning German

I don't speak very much German. It is one of the biggest sources of misery for me during this whole expat gig. The situation is both simple and complicated. If I simply learned German, many of my complaints would disappear. I would feel more connected, I would be able to communicate better (where communication = actual understanding and connection, not just talking AT someone), I would be able to join activity groups and meet people, and on and on. Yet for some reason, I am unable to "just get over it and learn German".

Here I'm going to list some reasons this is so. I do not mean this post as a bitchfest, whining, or to make excuses for myself. It turns out that life is always more complicated than it looks at first glance. When I step back and look at all this from an outside perspective, it is actually a fascinating pyschological exercise.

• First and foremost, I am a starter, not a finisher. Some might call me a quitter, but you know, it takes all types, so there's no need to use pejorative terms. I'm great at inventing and starting new things, but I'm not so good at finishing. I knit a lot of swatches in new stitches, fully intending it to be the beginning of the pattern, but then I frog it once I've mastered the stitch (and seen that I don't have enough yarn, or I don't like the final product, or I'm just bored with it, or whatever else). I'm cool with this, for the most part. But it's perfectly natural that this would apply to learning German. Sure enough, I got here, and I tore through 2 German classes, getting myself solidly into the A2/B1 realm, and then, well, I just kind of found other things I'd rather do with my time. I'd learned enough to be able to get around--I can ask for things in the shops, I can navigate small emergency room visits entirely in German, I can get the gist of a conversation. This is enough for me.
  
  
• I'm doing a PhD. I'm doing a PhD in three years, in a field in which I've never taken any coursework. I have a lot on my plate. I'm stressed and overwhelmed already. I'm living in a foreign country, and doing that saps one's reserves (to be covered in another post). Ironic as that might be: the exhaustion from living abroad makes me too tired to do what I need to do to make living abroad easier. Talk about counterprodcutive. We will see there are many maladaptive responses going on around this German thing.
  
  
• My health hasn't been so great. I've felt like crap since I moved here--worse than I've ever felt in my life. Then I had knee surgery which just flattened me. I just couldn't seem to recover from that. I spent last winter in a fog of bone-deep fatigue and what I like to call "digestive chaos", wondering if my life was over at 34, wondering if I'd have to go on disability. Then, finally, I got diagnosed with celiac disease. My recovery since going gluten free has been pretty miraculous. But now I have a new hobby/time consumer--staying gluten free. Shopping and cooking and just keeping on top of it all seem to take me a lot of time. Additionally, some other health problems are sneaking around which are busying up my radar.
  
  
• The language that I've studied here is not actually what anyone speaks. Swiss German is said to be a dialect of German, but that's kind of like saying Latin is a dialect of Italian. Yes, they came from the same root language 1000 years ago, but they are very, very different. There is almost no overlap in vocabulary, and where there is the pronunciation is completely different. The grammar is different. The verb tenses are different. What this means is that I understand only one single word of Swiss German ("Gruezi", which means "hello"), even though I can speak a reasonable amount of high German. This generates a series of problems.
  
  
  
  • If I attend casual events such as coffees, parties, or clubs/activities, I can't understand what anyone is saying. So the idea that learning German would allow me to integrate more is simply not true. Most Swiss can speak high German (although it is a second language for them and they are generally reluctant to speak it, which is strange because they aren't reluctant to speak their other second languages...), but think realistically about a casual social situation: A group of people is sitting around, with several small 2-3 person conversations going on. Those will all be in Swiss German. The one I am in might switch to high German, but almost always slides back into Swiss German, and I'm unable to jump into other small groups because I don't understand.
    
    
  • Even if I studied German 2 hours a day for years I would still not really be able to understand people. Kind of a motivation killer.
    
    
  • It is possible for people to learn Swiss German directly. I am not one of those people, in large part because Swiss German is a 100% oral language--there is NO written version. I learn almost 100% by reading, thus I am forced to take the slower route of becoming fluent in high German and then easing into Swiss German like German native speakers do. Not very realistic.
    
  
  
• Here's another motivation-killing scenario. Do I spend all my free time learning a language I don't really like, only in order to be able to speak to people I don't really have anything in common with? I already know that I have nothing in common with my colleagues--don't get me wrong, they're all really nice people but we really have nothing in common, and we already know that. It has nothing to do with language--we just come from worlds that are too different and there's nothing to bridge the gap. I'm pretty wierd--even in the US I'm strange--and the people I connect with are few and far between. I don't mean to sound like I'm judging people before I meet them, but from 35 years of experience, I know pretty damn quickly when I've met someone I can connect to versus someone better suited to the acquaintance arena.
  
  
• And finally, there's the emotional trauma. About a year after I'd moved here, it suddenly seemed like no one would speak English to me anymore. I assumed I was imagining that, that my "you're too sensitive" feelers were waving about getting damaged. Lunch and coffee breaks with the colleagues now felt like stressful German exams rather than a break from work. I could empathize, to some degree--maybe speaking English at the break wasn't all that relaxing for them! And then I found out that, in fact, several of my colleagues had actually gotten together and decided to speak only German to me. They'd decided that "I'd been here long enough and it was time for me to switch to German". I'm not making this up. The really sad part is that I know they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, with the idea that if I learned German I'd be able to integrate better and have a better time here. Um, yeah. I don't really work that way, and my wildly immature response was basically, oh, you want to play that game? Well fuck you. I can win that kind of staring contest hands down. I pretty much stopped speaking German at work out of spite. It's so lame, but by the time I could come up for air, emotionally, I was so traumatized by the whole episode that I now can't study German without bringing up all that baggage.
  

So there you have it. A combination of factors, some reasonable, some not, some wildly counterproductive, and in the end, all a humbling reminder of my imperfection. We humans don't always do what's best for us. Some of us smoke, even though we know the dangers it brings. Some of us drive fast and don't wear a seatbelt, or eat organ meats despite having gout*, or never walk anywhere. It's what makes us human. Me? I just can't learn German to save my life.


*ETA: Perhaps this isn't as funny to others as it seems to me? My mom was diagnosed with gout and they told her she'd have to eat a restricted diet ... that included no organ meats. We agreed that probably wouldn't be too hard to follow.....

Lessons in humilty

Living in Zurich has been a series of lessons in humility. Some of them are general expat-ness, but others seem to be just random. They all seem to revolve around losing a sense of my competency in life. Not being able to read my mail or get telephone numbers from a voicemail. Not knowing how to pay a bill or change a fuse. Not being able to find shoes in a shoestore. Shopping like a bewildered foreigner--hours spent wandering the aisles in frustration, trying to imagine how else item X could possibly be envisaged (and thus which section of the store would have it)--and this not changing at all after 2.5 years--I still shop like I just got off the boat.

I'm feeling it a lot at work, too. In every job I've ever had I've generally played certain roles, such as being the equipment/instrumentation person, or being seen as a resource for using certain pieces of software. Here I don't fill any of my old roles, and it's disorienting and makes me sad. I also experience the silencing effect of being female far more intensely here--that when I speak up in groups people (at best) ignore me or (worse) literally talk over me (seriously they just start talking as though I weren't in the middle of a sentence and still speaking). There have been meetings at work where I just said the same thing 5 times in a row because I was getting no response. This taps into a real problem vein for me--I have a hangup about wanting to be heard, to be understood, and when I'm having a conversation with someone that I can see is going awry, I get really attached to making sure they understand my meaning. This means I wind up repeating myself, ever more forcefully, and it means I wind up in a lot of "arguments" because I can't let go of the idea of making sure they see my point from my perspective.

I had a bad day at work yesterday. At our weekly group meeting someone presented a side project they have been working on for several months. I listened in shock as they described reinventing a wheel I'd already invented at my last job--I have about 2 years experience doing literally exactly what this person in my group is doing. [ETA: And my group knows this--in fact that experience is the primary reason I was offered the position here.] I had no idea, and it really bruised my ego that no one had ever once asked me for advice. This is the heart of my experience here--that I feel as though I have nothing to offer (or at least, that no one recognizes that I have anything to offer). I try not to take it personally--it is their loss, after all, but it does go on day after day and it sort of weighs on me.

I probably needed to have some lessons in humility, though. It's had some good effects. I'm far more detached from things--I'm much more able to see things happening and just let them go on without needing to get involved. Yeah, I've learned to mind my own business. Ha. I've also become way more relaxed about life's administrative duties. I'm one of those people who has never cut class in my life. I've missed class, from being sick or whatever, but I've never just woken up and thought, Nah, I'm not gonna go today. I attend to bills and such obsessively. I'm kind of high strung that way. The most frequent advice I've heard in my life is to "take it easy" and "not take it so personally". Don't you think, if I could, I would?!?! But now, here, I've turned into one of those people who throws away letters from the landlord with barely a glance. My policy is, if it's in German and overly wordy, I toss it. Short German things I'll read, but when I see a dense page full of specialized administrative or technical vocabulary that's not in the dictionary, I just dump it. I've come to believe that if it's important enough, they'll either write or call again, or someone will clue me in (Didn't you get the email about the mandatory meeting that starts in 5 minutes?).

My entire experience here is colored by my lack of ability to speak and understand German. This has turned out to be a pretty traumatic item which I will leave for another post.

ISE5

I got my ISE5 scarf!! Here is a shiny picture of the package--I was so eager to unwrap it that I couldn't take a better photo. I then didn't post for a couple days because my electricity went out from a fuse that blew itself while I was sleeping. It's harder to find fuses here than I thought--I got yelled at by one clerk in a store that didn't have them, finally found them in another store and the cashier wouldn't let me by them, possibly because I appeared a bit suspect because I was buying the store's entire stock of baking soda (which comes in pathetic little 50 g packets here--trying to make bath fizzies means a lot of packets), which irked the nosy neighbor behind me in line who asked me three times what I did I need so much baking soda for. I should have said cleaning, which I know the german word for. Instead I just kept saying I didn't know the word. Anyway, I finally found, and was able to buy, fuses at another store. Really, if my life was a movie, I wouldn't believe it, it's so absurd! Onto the goodness:




Here is the scarf--I love it!! I had requested something a bit longer, but I actually *love* the length of this. I'm such an automaton that I had requested exactly what I'd always knit for myself, and I tend to get stuck in ruts. That's what is so great about this scarf exchange--someone else makes something and of course the minute I put it on I love it, and it gets me out of the little box I sometimes get stuck in! The yarn is so soft and I love the colors! Plus it was all minty smelling from the other goodies--mmmmm! Thanks, Cecily!!!



And, yes, that IS the periodic table on my shower curtain. Partially hidden in the mirror by the poster of Geometric shapes with formulae for their areas and volumes....

Around town

I keep passing these adorable felt shoes in the window of a shop near my Alexander Technique teacher's studio. I covet them. I haven't been in the shop yet, because I have never seen a pair of women's shoes in my size in Switzerland, so why go in and humiliate myself by speaking my crappy german and asking if they have Sasquatch sizes, when I know they don't? I also haven't been able to find anything about them on the net, which is strange. The brand is Living Kitzbühel, which appears to be a small Austrian shoemaker specializing in girl's shoes. These are definitely adult sizes (although they probably would have fit me when I was a girl...)




This was a sunrise view last week from my flat. I don't know what "gummi" is either, and I've been staring at that sign for 2 years.

$750 sunglasses

Ever wonder what a 900CHF ($750) pair of sunglasses looks like?

Nope, me neither. Until I left the glasses shop on Thursday and realized how much I had just spent on these:



Now, that did involve an extra charge for having to replace the lenses. The original sunnies were in normal sunglass frames, but with my nearly-blind prescription, even the small curve for the flattest-I-could-find frames was still enough to cause distortion in the left eye. You know, the kind that gives you and instant throw-up headache. They let me return the frames for 100% refund, the the lenses I got only 50% back. But I'd already decided I really wanted prescription sunnies now that I can't wear contacts anymore (and I'm tired of just complaining about it all--time to ACT), so we thought maybe I could just get regular glasses and put dark lenses in them. Not as good eye coverage, but better than nothing (and far better than the grandpa over-glasses look I was sporting). Somehow, when all was said and done, I wound up paying 891 CHF for these. Ouch!