On making horcruxes.

Maybe we should go back to a time where people didn't have the option to move away from their hometowns and to all corners of the earth in pursuit of dreams, friends, love(r)s, lives, happiness, self-fulfilment, freedom...or simply jobs.

I'm aware this might not be a very popular opinion.

But here's the thing:

Each time I move, I leave part of my soul and my heart behind. And quite frankly, I'm sick of it.

I've done my share of moving over the years. I spent 19 years there, one year there, seven years there, one more year there, now six years here... Every time I tried to build a new life, be open, make an effort to settle in, to fit in, to make new friends, to weave myself a little safety network of people who ideally might catch me if I fall or simply be available for coffees, chats and dvd-nights in.

And it's certainly doable, in some places easier than in others. It might happen without you really noticing or  take a huge amount of effort, of trial and error.

And then at some point, for some reason you have to move. Or feel you have to move. Or think you should move but cannot face the idea of having to start from scratch. But that's only half of it. What I really cannot face is leaving people behind. Again.

How many ways can you split a soul? Seven seems to be the currently accepted number. It's been done. But parallel universe precedence also tells us that it is not recommended. At all. That it ought not be attempted. Even, or especially, if you place those pieces of your soul not into inanimate objects but something as fragile as other human beings.

So here I am, stuck in the middle of all those worlds I have so far been part of.

It's a case of being overwhelmed by the mere idea of having to start over.

It's a case of wanting to belong somewhere. Of putting down roots. (But where? Heaven forbid if I choose the wrong place!)

It's a case of ultimate indecisiveness. Of wanting to feel complete. And of the realization that apparently that's not gonna happen.

Fight fright with flight.

I'm trying hard to be philosophical about this whole endings and new beginnings thing, you know, doors closing, windows opening... all that. But today was another bad day where it all just seemed too much to handle and I'm caught in this useless limbo between heartracing panic and pillar-of-salt freeze.
So, let's forget about sordid reality for a bit and instead watch this video that I find strangely soothing:



As usual, my not so subconscious subconscious reacts by cooking up a corny little melody and some rhymes. I won't go so far as to say that it has self-healing powers, but at least it's distracting:

Like the swallow in the sky
waiting for summer
Like the seagull way up high
wants the wind to be stronger
Like the blackbird needs the dawn
to come before it sings
Like those starlings on the lawn
you've got to spread your wings.

Mayday, mayday!

And so it begins. The end of something. I'm not quite sure what to say. I've had a week to let it sink in, but somehow the shock doesn't seem to get old. This is some naive behaviour from someone with a temporary contract. I really, really thought that things would continue as before. That just as in the previous years the principal, the education office, someone would magic up a new contract for me. Because - all hassle of over-the-summer-payment from a couple of years ago put aside - that's how it always worked. How soon you forget! The times they are a-changing: there's a new principal, a new education office, new policies and no someone (i.e. someone pregnant) to rescue me this time round. And here we are, with - what? - seven more weeks of business as usual before that ugly, slimy monster unemployment will raise its seven heads. Seven weeks, and already everything feels different. The details will have to keep for another time. For now, just some random thoughts: I feel sad, confused, disappointed, angry, frustrated, tired, overwhelmed by the tasks ahead, unable to cope. I don't want to leave my students so suddenly (well, not all of them anyway). I don't want to have to organize applications in the middle of my exams, write CVs, scan adverts for substitute teachers in impossible remote towns, advertise myself in letters, wait, get my hopes up, get rejected, start over again. I don't want to face the financial implications of having to apply for the dole in case nothing comes up. I don't want to start those movies in my head of a range of worst-case-scenarios of having to give up my flat, move back home, of constantly not knowing what is going to happen next month ('cause that's how substitute jobs work). But most of all I don't want to leave my school right now. I was meant to have another year before having to say goodbye. And I don't want to leave in this haphazard, half-hearted, lukewarm way. Without a proper goodbye, because they will tell me that maybe, maybe someone might get ill and that they'd love to take me back in that case because they desperately need me for English. There will be a final-day-of-work, three weeks before the end of term (don't ask), and then possibly (be a good girl, fingers crossed) they'll be able to keep me on for three more weeks until the holidays. Or possibly not. But I will get no proper chance to say goodbye, and no Thank you. I will simply disappear, not be there the next morning. I know this will sound silly to you, but it seems somehow very important right now. Contrary to what you might have deducted from my years' worth of rants and anecdotes and contrary to what I will say tomorrow round lunchtime after a handful of lessons and two dozens mini-fights: I really, really like my job. And most of my students. And most of my colleagues. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Schubert&Haydn, Jupiter&Venus, Shoes&Varnish.

Yep, I think in a nutshell that's it.

Oh alright, so in February and March the first set of final exams hit home. Big time. I think the best thing that can be said about them is that apparently both Schubert's and Haydn's works are so indestructably brilliant that even months of reading about and listening to the same pieces over and over and mindlessly learning semi-scientific essays off by heart couldn't do them any harm. Of course, a talented, handsome performer might also help in securing one's lasting admiration...

The only other realisation worth of notice for me is that the brain is a marvellous thing. All questions of sense and nonsense of learning two whole essays by heart, verbatim, just to reel off one of them in a designated time slot in an examination hall put aside, I still find it strangely comforting to know that - if the worst comes to the worst - my brain is still able to process, retain and reproduce at will any load of gibberish (in this instance 12 pages of printed text) within three days. I've often wondered how actors cope with such amounts of text, but obviously it's possible. Even if I spent those days freakishly worried that if anyone approached me with any kind of information not relevant to the exam, this one piece of information might just push one of those painstakingly memorized sentences over the edge of my hard drive and into oblivion.
Which - surprise - didn't happen and I'm glad those two exams are over. Ready for more fun to come. In a little while.

After that whole circus it seems that for now I've navigated into calmer waters. Jupiter and Venus are still hanging out companionably in the evening sky (a sight which always makes me happy, no matter what - I know, I'm weird that way...), spring has finally come, the sun is out, the trees have their first touch of green back, the first blossoms are in sight (yet my personal hayfever season is still a little way off, yay!) and the girls and I have succumbed to a mild (ahem) bout of shopaholicism and general girliness. At this very moment I have a different kind of varnish on each nail of my left hand and can't decide which of them will provoke the most (silly, pitying, admiring?) remarks by my students on Tuesday.
Hm, tricky...

Die Sache mit dem Spiegel.

Das Konzert war eindeutig das Highlight meiner letzten Woche. - Nun gut, möchte man einwerfen, gegen eine Stress-lass-nach-oder-kommst-du-etwa-erst-noch?-Erkältung anzutreten, ist vielleicht auch nicht wirklich schwer. Gisbert war trotzdem super. Und das Lied ist sowieso ganz weit oben.

...Und weil ich aber gerade gelernt habe, was das denn so genau mit den Urheberrechtsbestimmungen aus sich hat, ist das Video dann mal besser nicht hier... ;-)

Swapping.

Heard you say
"Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself!
Just get a grip and think how great a life you've got.
I wish it was mine."
Well, maybe now it's time to make you
eat those words.
Maybe it's time to start swapping.

Wanna swap places with me?
I can't recommend it -
What the heck - come inside and see!
Need to drop
those habits that were years in the making,
so stop,
stop judging me
unless you'll swap.

So come on inside and have a good look around.
Do you like what you see?
Ain't it funny how things can seem so comfy and nice
but are really just a nightmare looking out from inside...
How come you don't feel like swapping?

Wanna swap places with me?
I can't recommend it -
What the heck - come inside and see!
Need to drop
those habits that were years in the making,
so stop,
stop judging me
unless you'll swap.

Go on then, kick your shoes off and make yourself at home
If you can
Get used to the view - you'll get to see a lot of that!
Oh, and never mind that monster in the cupboard.
It just wants to play.
Now please, you said you'd be swapping!

Won't you swap places with me?
I can't recommend it -
What the heck - come inside and see!
Need to drop
those habits that were years in the making,
so stop,
stop judging me
unless you'll swap
places with me
I can't recommend it -
What the heck - come inside and see!
Need to drop
those habits that were years in the making.
Then stop,
stop judging me
if you won't swap.

Wenn es nur so einfach wäre...