the po'

You are in midst of daily poverty when you’ve found the trailer parks, when piles of trash clog the front yard, backyard, and porch, when dogs bark loudly and run uncontrollable from junk yard to junk yard, when a dozen obese women in a row along main road sit unshakably on porch swings, kids hang out on the sidewalk in front of the former but now rotting movie theatre and are still glued to the same spot when you drive by three hours later. You have found the po’ people when the houses look tipsy and so do their residents, when you can’t tell where the trash of one neighbor ends and the junk of the next one starts, when a coal mine is near, school houses have been closed and a public library doesn’t exist. When junk food is all that is consumed for lack of access to organic nutrition due to money and possibility and individuals vomit into their backyard and nobody cares.

where bush looks for donations

You are in rich man’s country when houses are build with brick or wood instead of plastic siding, when the building looks more like a castle with different wings than a cubic home, with a driveway clogged by a few trucks, hummers or other vehicles bigger than a basketball player. When residences possess a gate house, whole villages constitute one estate, and Rockefeller used to have his summer home next to you. You know you’ve found one of Bush’s favorite places to visit for donations when the When the residence is surrounded by fresh green land, a pond, a pool plus pool house, the main house features a butler bell and (former) servant’s quarters -- recognizable by the humbler style of doors and silver doorknobs instead of golden one. You recognize rich man’s country by schools that look like mini-Harvard, own their own forest property too ample to see where it ends, a lake big enough to need a dam, and a fish hatchery to teach non-interested athletics obsessed CEOs-to-be the wonders of nature. When the school library is bigger than the public library, co-ed is looked upon as distracting and uniforms are as normal as pricing a lemon-broccoli-pasta salad the size of an espresso cup 3$ each. When through the service entrance of the school black and Hispanic people in aprons rush in and out but the front entrance is crowded with dressed up alumni happy to spend fortunes on auctions for things they will never need in their life.

for fans of hilarious stine videos

check out how i can't get words out of my mouth that were typed, printed as large as possible and taped underneath the camera - special feaure: i do roll my eyes as i realize i totally screwed up this live intro

go to:
http://www.athensmidday.blogspot.com
or
click on link in the list on the left side of this column.

have fun :-)

napping

remember back in kindergarten
remember the pale mint green and pale blue wooden pallets
remember how they made us take them out from behind the curtain
remember how we had to unfold them with tiny hands
remember how they made us sleep on them after lunch
remember how you sometimes couldn't fall asleep but had to keep quiet

i remember very well and each of those naps that i hated back then i would love to take now

the husband of gesine schwan

sat right next to me this noon. introduced as our special guest he gave an interview in our newscast "midDay" without me knowing about his identity. after a while of him talking i detected an accent similar to mine: a clear, rational, down-to-earth german pronunciation. realizing his decent i googled his name and learnt about the man who worked for the world bank in charge of african countries, got fed up with the institution, founded transperancy international in 1993, and currently among many other projects is an honorable professor of the freie universitaet berlin.

happy and excited to meet another german plus an interesting figure in international ngo life i introduced myself and learnt about a lecture given tonight. chatting in german and english he said his wife ("gesine schwan you probably have heard of her") wanted to come to but was too busy heading Viadrina university to join him.

trying to explain to fellow u.s. american students the meaning of his wife when running for what would have been the first female federal president in germany i realized that some issues are better be talked about with germans only to share my excitement.

roman confusion

After a rather heated debate I shouldn't hesitate to admit that proof exists that Roman numbers can be twisted to some extend for different reasons. However, discussion with a bend-the-rule-supporter didn't bend my opinion. I'd rather stick with the original rule of not having four symbols of the same sort in a row...

on air

Pulling a story out of a routine mayor's press conference is hard enough. Nevertheless, I met the challenge to produce my first one man band tv package with great enthusiasm. Within less than 24 hours I got to come up with a halfway decent story idea, shoot video, arrange and tape an interview, do a stand up, write a script, record my voice track, pack everything together with some quality and intro my package live on air. The result was a 1:40 something about false fire alarms and the university's role in the scenario. If out of default or not, my package made the story of the day on Athens MidDay online. Curios? Check out the video on: www.athensmidday.blogspot.com.

P.S. You'll get to see me being totally confused before reading text off of the teleprompter...

know thy numbers

1. You need to get a parking permit for bikes (in form of an ugly bumper sticker that doesn’t match my bike’s color which is of course blue).
2. Cottage cheese goes very well with apple sauce although I was reluctant to consider the mixture proper food before.
3. The German “Gruene Punkt” is considered a "like a little green Ying and Yang according to the U.S. Embassy’s survival guide for U.S. citizens – who would have thought that someone grants Germany some Asian wisdom???
4. A room temperature below 75 °F is only acceptable for polar bears.
5. Some students here don’t know their Roman numbers – they rather think of “bending the rule” as one put it.
6. Hot cocoa is not hot chocolate but some bars uptown don’t know how to fix neither one although they present it as a choice on their menu.

happiness

Throughout the last couple of weeks I was lucky enough to explore more of Ohio. There are beautiful waterfalls and cascades in Hocking Hill State Park not to far from Athens, miraculous rock formations, caves, ice lumps clinging to stones high above and adventurous hikes that challenged my balance. I have already grown fond of the rolling hills and driving through the area feels like riding a roller coaster including tickling in the tummy. Closer to Athens you can walk along the shores of Strouds Run whose forrest confronts you with the steepest hikes my feet here have had to cope with until now. Or stay in town and go up to the Ridges - a former mental asylum with two creepy cemetaries but also radar hill which was supposedly formed when a unidentified flying object landing on a it. Radar hills is good for bbqing, star watching and meeting deer.

Going back to man made sights I can recommend Dayton and its Air Force Museum featuring three huge hangars filled with giant planes chronologically put in order. For some fun shopping go to Hebron, Kentucky to dig through piles of Banana Republic and Gap ware at the huge outlet store that doesn't fail to provide maternity clothing.

With knowing my way around and discovering hidden spots to hunt down healthy food (the bread will never come close to German style loafes though they try hard) and a busy schedule that makes time fly by way too fast I feel very comfy here.

things I still have to get used to

1. Almost translucent hankies not standing one proper blow (if you have a cold)
2. Being charges when someone is calling ME
3. Bus schedule giving you just two chances per hour to catch the vehicle
4. Our washing machine featuring just three temperatures: cold, warm, hot (literally)
   
5. Bringing your own lock to the aquatic center to store clothes while swimming
6. No hard alcohol being sold on Sundays before noon (because God is watching you)
7. Four times ads during a half hour news show
   

what I like for sure

1. Water fountains
2. Overall friendliness and generosity
   
3. Our dishwasher
4. Our dryer
5. Stacks of free local newspapers in journalism department
6. Can take all my bags and food into the library to my work desk
7. Free current dvd rental at library
8. Free pool, kicker and ping pong tables to use for entertainment
9. 24/7 opening hours of supermarkets
10. Pool providing radio music during lap hours
11. The roaring wring out machine for swim suits at the aquatic center ("suit mate")
    
12. Smart resealable caps of half gallon milk and juice containers (no rotting hard to open cart board boxes anymore!)
    

on how to get a cell phone

Getting hold of a cell phone produces a great amount of crashed hope on a daily basis as to really really now finally get hold of a cell phone and involves the following steps:

• Going to the cell phone shop for one and a half week – daily! – and hang around the air conditioned freezing shop for a couple of hours per visit.
• Providing two sets of copies of visa, I 94 document, passport, the credit card (yes the credit card is copied), state id and German drivers license and a letter from the university stating all the other mentioned documents.
• Getting to know the girl running the store including her husband (Cullen) and her dog (forgot the name but was informed about that).
• Paying $60 for a phone on which the assigned phone number did not work.
• Getting a second number because the first one was not working.
• Receiving an invitation to go hiking with my new friend – the cell phone girl.

Considering the company that makes you go jump through all the loops in the world you get the feeling that German bureaucracy has conquered the world – T-Mobile has not exactly earned my sympathy.