I said I would post when I got home from the second interview, but I didn’t. I wanted to make sure I got the praktikum before I posted again. Well I just got an email that I didn’t get the position. The Arbeitsamt in Dusseldorf need the company tho prove why they are giving me an American the  praktikum and not a German citizen. The guy I interviewed with said that it would be too much work. Damn, to put it politely. It is not a surprise, it is something I read in doing research about work permits before we moved. But when I happens, it sucks. Plain sucks. Are we bummed (Susanne and I)? Yea, just when things look like they are coming together, they then seem to fall apart. One step forward, two steps back. Shit, (to put it politely, again!). I still have a chance at getting a work permit, Susanne and I have an appointment for next Friday for doing the thing I can’t really mention here yet (see a previous post, I can’t remember which one it is right now ). We will see how that goes. CRAP! that  is the last polite thing I can say, the rest is not fit for ears, so I’ll move on to another subject.

I have my deadline set for the end of the week to get my ecard website live. I am putting a donate button on it and who knows? I may make a few dollars there. I don’t know how I am going to render the card I am working on, it is more than a mintue  long all in animation. I got inspired by watching Fanstasia, the 1940’s version not too long ago. I love that movie, so I thought that I would make something along those lines, but little did I know  how long something like that actually takes to try to recreate. And trying to keep the file size down is a real challenge. Thankfully, I am almost done and can move on to the next card. I still have no birthday cards yet and I have to fiish the actual site that they will be displayed on. Then there is sending out emails to people so they can see the cards and hopefully send a few to their friends. Speaking of friends, we had a couple of friends over for dinner on Saturday. I love there people, they are like family, we always have a great time together laughing and just enjoying being together, They have offered to be with us next Friday and then afterwards go back to their house for food and fun. We are fortunate to have such good friends!

Boy, it is hard to stay focused today, I feel like walking out onto the balcony and screaming,  just letting it go. The people in the offices across the way would probably think I am crazy, they might be right, Germany is making me loco. Maybe I’ll go run up and down the street in my underwear screaming at the cars and buses. Then I can go throw myself into the river with the ducks. I dunno, may be not, it’s cold and I am a not as crazy as I used to be (or so I think). I think I will sit here and listen to Jennifer Hough’s quantum calls back to back to get back into a better head space. Gotta keep going forward somehow. Down but not out, there are other companies, and I have myself and my list of ways to make some income happen. Perhaps I will find the Gloria Gaynor song on youtube “I will Survive” and play that back to back, on the balcony, in my long  johns, and sing it to the top of my lungs to the people in the offices across the way. Whaddaya think? They say your supposed to let out the fustration somehow. I am thinking that if nothing else, it will make a great picture for the blog. Oh well, hopefully my next post will be alittle more upbeat, and no I am not talking about the C-word- (Christmas). More to come from the never ending saga, “To Live or Not Live in Deutschland”  or “I am going F*^#@ng crazy here!”

I called Herr Rudolph to find out what their decision was for hiring me and they want me to come back down to answer a few questions. At least that is what I understood. I should have put the phone on speaker so Susanne could hear it too, that way I would know what he said exactly. Oh well, I understood most of what he said and I told him I would come in tomorrow at 10am. So I am not in yet, but I am not out of the running either! I have no idea what they want, I can sit here and try to guess but I think I am going to forget about it tonight and just be happy he still  has some interest in me. Looks like I’ll be posting tomorrow about the outcome.

Susanne and I walked thru the Weihnachts Markt today, it looks really nice all lit up. The booths have some great stuff. One has nothing but salami, cheese and other meats from Italy. This was by far my favorite booth! I could live in it – honest! I will get some pictures when and if the rain ever decides it wants to stop for a while. It has been really windy and rainy here, not great for picture taking. I don’t have a whole lot to write about tonight, the suspense of not knowing wether I will have a job or not is too much, I can’t think right now. We did some chocolate cake from the store, so that will definately help take away some of the stress. Until tomorrow!

I went to my first job interview here in Germany. The owner of a post production company in Dusseldorf, Chamaeleon Digital Video called me last Friday and wanted to know if I was still interested in working for them. At first I had no idea who he was, I thought it was the guy from the English school for kids calling me about teaching down in Koln. So I slogged through the cold, pouring rain to the interview. It went pretty good I guess but I have absolutely no idea if I made a great enough impression to get the position. I got their floor wet twice, once when I carried my soaked umbrella across the room and the second when I went to take a drink of water and spilled it all over myself and the floor in front to the 2 guys interviewing me and another worker. Lovely, they probably think I am a klutz now. At least I didn’t spill it in one of the editing rooms! Next time I am offered anything liquid, I am passing, better to be thirsty then make an ass out of ones self I guess. It is pretty funny though.

Since I don’t do any 3D yet and am not really a great compositor, I have been looking to find a job where I can work mostly in After Effects and Photoshop. Guess what, they want someone to do just that. I decided I wanted to work in commercials when I first started at the Art Institute, they do nothing but commercials. I didn’t know this whan cold called tham back in October. I think I can do the work, I can at least try it. The owner said he would fill out the necessary paperwork for me to get a work permit for that job. So now I have to call back Wed. and see if they want me.I will certainly post about it one way or the other. I would be making enough money to pay for the rent instead of Susanne and would have money to but luxury items like new shoes and some new cloths. I call them luxury because I haven’t been able to buy much since I moved here and after loosing some weight, I need new stuff.

Thanksgiving is this week, I can smell the turkey already. I am going to miss the big dinners and football. No Thanksgiving here and trying to find the ingredients here in Muelehim is like trying to find a palm tree in Siberia. I have not seen celery here at all. I will not make stuffing without it. I have not seen yams, sweet potatoes and other things that make up a Thanksgiving day diner. I think I will buy a drumstick though and cook it and watch soccer. Next year I am going to the states to see someone on Thanksgiving. Christmas I can do without, but Thanksgiving? I miss the 4th of July too, the hot dogs and hamburgers and of course the ribs and potato salad. Imagine a hot dog on a real hot dog bun. As you can tell by now, I am a foodie, I love to eat.  I don’t know about all the sweets that are now available because of the upcoming holidays. I got burned out on the cookies last year, Susanne’s mother sent us a box of these cookies that are only made around Christmas, Spritzgevaeks and we ate and ate them until I was sick of them. We ended up not finishing the box. It sat in the fridge for months before we finally got rid of them. I had one the other day and that’s enough of the Spritzes. No more. One of Susanne’s friends says she is sick of all the sweets by the time Christmas gets here too. Susnanne was going to buy me an Advents calender, I told her I would just open all the doors and eat the chocolate, she said she would be very pissed if I did that. I told her to save her money, what do I need with an Advents calender anyway? Like I need anymore damn Christmas spirit?

Anyway, I will post on Wed. and maybe I’ll have a job by the time Christmas rolls around. Then I can buy Susanne and Advents calender and I’ll be good and leave the chocolate alone!

The search continues for the elusive job. I haven’t been posting much these days, I have been either riding a train, tram or bus to/in Colonia and Dusseldorf,  walking uncounted miles or trying to communicate to someone in my less than perfect German about what skill I may posses that would make them hire me. I have going somewhere almost everyday now, our tickets will expire at the end of the month then going to Koln will be out until we can afford it. I need to start learning 3D, I have the software, 3D Studio Max and a big, thick how-to use-it book to go with it, but I can’t use it on my laptop, my grapchis card is not that powerful I guess. I have installed it and when I open the program I can’t see any of the 4 view windows. I just see the desktop thru where the views should be. I can see everything else, menus, tool bars etc…

Without the 3D, I don’t know how much of a chance I have getting hired in an VFX company. Some companies look like they are really struggeling to keep the employees they have, the economy sucks here too. I have had some positive feedback and a promise that if anything comes up they will call me. I don’t know how much of this is lip service and how much is genuine. I also don’t know hwo much skin color weighs into all of this, I have seen only one other black person in all the companies I have looked at. But I continue to hand out my resume  (and follow up), talk to who I can get to give me a few moments of their time. Gotta keep trying, right? It might also be time for me to just start doing  freelance work and working on my list of making money on my own online. I have many ideas, I just got a paypal account set up and I think I should start moving my ideas from the paper to the in development stage. Who knows? I may have one take off and I won’t need to to the “gotta get a job” dance anymore. That, my friends, would be magnificent. The possibilities are there for me to make a pretty good living and create passive income streams.

Let’s see, what else have I been doing? I went to the store the other day to buy Qtips. Simple, huh? Ha ha ha, not so fast. Simple if you know what the damn things are called in German. I didn’t think about that when I left the apt., I am just thinking to go buy Qtips. I get to the store and start looking around, trying to find them. I looked up and down every isle and couldn’t find them. That’s when it dawned on me, I can’t ask where I might find them because I don’t know what they are called here! Qtips is just a brand name in America, so I think ‘ ok, their real name is cottom swab’, how would I say cotton swab in German? Well I know the word for cotton, baumwolle, but if I said “I need baumwolle for my ears’, they might think I am trying to put a sweater in my ears. I am not gonna even try to imagine the word for swab, I might as well make something up, how about cotton on a stick? In the end I just left the store, I went home and looked at the empty box cover. The name is something I would have never have guessed so I thought it would be better for me to just take the lid with the name on it to the store. Ends up Susanne went and got them, she knows the name. Today I got asked  in Koln if I was Arabic. Arabic? Interesting, I am adding that to the “What nationality do people think I am?’ list. Polyneisian, Puerto Rican, Arabic, Haitian. Cool, the list keeps growing, I am always surprised what people come up with.

Oh yea, something else that happened recently, a few hours after the post about being positive and all that stuff, I got down in a deep funk. Hilarious! Here I am trying to share a little bit of what has been helping me get through this rough time and I crash and burn, forgetting my own advice. Susanne got down there with me and pretty soon we were at each others throats, each blaming the other for the situation we are now in (me with very little money and her having to support both of us). We had to get a coaching session with Joe to get up and out of it. It is tough keeping the faith that it’s all going to work out somehow. But I know it will, I just can’t see it yet and I am impatient. It would be really great if everyting would start working out say, tomorrow. I would wake up and the sun is out in a heavenly blue sky, the  little birds are chirping their little asses off, the deer are running throught the forest, everyone is walking around smiling, waving hello to one another, there is a harp playing some beautiful song………………………………

Disney movie. Yea, sure. Make my day Uncle walt!

I just got back from Koeln (I have no umlaut on my keyboard) after another round of  handing out my CV/resume. One of these times this will pay off and I will finally land the job I have been waiting for. Where it will be I don’t know. It could be Koeln or Dusseldorf or Aachen, Frankfurt, Hamburg… I have expanded my area to the bigger media
cities. Keeping up the positive energy is hard to do and having no money doesn’t help.

I know I have to keep trying though, it would be just as hard for me back in the US, trying to get that first job in motion graphics or vfx or editing. That’s just how it is, it’s who you know and unfortunately I don’t know anyone and for lack of a better way to say it, that sucks! It has been fun to go cold calling on companies though. The look on the faces of the people I talk to is priceless. They ask me “how did you find us”? The internet, of course! Endless searching.
From what I have been told, not many people do this, it is more of an American thing to do. This is what they taught us in school, keep going to companies,that whay they see who you are. So here I am, going to these companies with my basic German and resume in hand, it’s another adventure.

I get to see some of the cities this way, get to know my way around which is good because we will be moving out of Muelheim when I can find work. I have my google map printout of the companies location and I look up which train I need before I go, that way I don’t have to spend alot of time looking on the train schedules at each stop. Most of the people I have met at the various companies are nice, they are helpful and most do get back to me when they say they will. A few, even though they don’t have anything open have given me a list of other companies to contact. I try to follow up with a phone call and this for me is often times harder than meeting the people. I am just not much of a phone person, I guess. On an up note, Susanne got her first freelance programming project, so now at least one of us has somekind od income. She was so excited! She worked hard on the first part of the project and now the client wants to give her more work on the future. Well done!
Now it’s my turn to get employed and soon.  I don’t know if I can get another extension to stay here. I have got to get a job and health insurance. I don’t know how other people have done this; I have read far more posts about people not finding anyting and having to go back to the US broke. Some try again, others just say forget it and give up. It is tempting, to go back home, but something inside of me will not give up. Plus what in the hell am I going to do there? Unemployment is high there, especially for people just out of college. So I guess I will end this post with a shameless plug for myself

ANYBODY OUT THERE HAVE A PLACE IN THEIR COMPANY FOR AN UP AND COMING, JUST OUT OF SCHOOL MOTION DESIGNER/VIDEO EDITOR? I AM A VERY HARD WORKER, SELF MOTIVATED, EAGER TO LEARN AS MUCH AS I CAN ABOUT MY WORK, WILLING TO RELOCATE AND FUN TO WORK WITH.

Oh yea, I can make coffee too!