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!

This is too funny. Ironic. I am shopping for Christmas music for my ecards. I don’t want to say hate, so I’ll say ’strongly dislike’ hearing Christmas music over and over and over again. It drives me crazy. I have turned into somewhat of a scrooge over the years. By the time Christmas rolls around, I just want to hide  until it is over. I can’t really put my thumb on when the scrooginess started, it just did. Maybe it began when the stores started putting Christmas stuff out in September or the endless advertising on tv for 2 months. Maybe it’s all the commercialism of holiday season. Could be that Christmas (in America) overshadows all the other religons and the solstice. Maybe the less money I seem to have each year at the holiday has something to do with it. Maybe it is because most of my family is now in boxes under the ground.

Whatever.

Now I find myself in a very insanley funny position of making e-Christmas cards. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!   lol    ROTFL
What I am doing now is getting music for my library, I don’t have samples anymore, they got lost after a past major computer crash. So I am going to site after site, listening to holiday music. After listening to 10 samples, I am already ready to throw up. How am I gonna get thru this? The one comforting thought is that I cam possibly make a little money off the holiday like other people. I know, I am selling out, right? Yup, I need money. I gotta get creative here and start getting some income somehow. My work permit is still a couple of weeks away, so I decided that instead od being so humbug about the whole dang Christmas thing, I might as well turn it around and make some money off of it. Then maybe I won’t ’strongly dislike’ the holiday season so much. I like money, it is green, like a Christmas tree.
I know there will be another post or two on this subject. The season is getting started. So am I.

I am sitting here reading different blogs from the Expat blog site. Most of the blogs seem to be from people living in the bigger cities. Nobody was crazy enough to try to live in small place like Muelheim I guess. They seem to have interesting things to talk about too; vine tasting, gastronomic experiences, pretty photos of boats, teaching experiences, yatta yatta. What in the hell am I writing about? Supermarkets, being unemployed, fixing my computer, some esoteric crap about staying positive. Who in the hell wants to read about this drivel? My friends don’t read it apparently. One of the reasons I started this thing was so that they could keep up with what was going on with Susanne and I and I wouldn’t have to send 100 emails off telling everyone how we are doing, But all the comments I get (and I appreciate every one of them!) are from readers who stumbled onto my little piece of the internet. So why do I keep posting? I can’t post about the wine and beer here, I did the world and myself a favor and stopped drinking 10 years ago. Pitty too, I loved imported beers, Guinness Stout was one of my favorites. I watched a bartender pull a draft of the dark brew a few weeks ago and thought to myself  “this is f*%ked up”, I now live in Europe and can’t drink anymore! But it is immensely better for me to watch than to be a drunken wretch and  I think Germany would concur. Plus they seem to have enough drunks here already. As for the food posts, I have posted once about it and I am still trying to figure out what all I like about the food here. I don’t think I want to get started on that subject in this post.

So back to why I am blogging. When I first moved here, everything was new, I wanted to write about whatever happened to me or us on a given day. And I did,  hoping some experience I had might help someone else trying to “fit into” the German culture. Now I don’t know. I really love writing, it gets out the stuff pent up inside. But am I helping anyone? Maybe I can make someone laugh, that was another goal. Humor is important to me, I love to laugh and make others laugh. Here in Deutschland though, humor seems to have taken the train to some other country. I guess maybe some bloggers go through the ‘why am I writing this’ period.  I have no teaching experiences to write about, no vacation ( have to have a job for that!) stories to tell. I could sit here and post about whatever I happen to be doing everyday, kinda like facebook, where some people have to share every mundane minute of their lives with everyone else. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!  Let’s see:

Post for Monday: got up and scratched my butt, then took a shower. After breakfast, I sat looking out of the living room window at the people working in their offices below and thought to myself, ‘bastards!’. They have jobs! With the looking out the window hour over, I went to the store, scanned  the  local paper for  job postings that I really don’t understand yet without a dictionary, scratched my butt again and went to bed.

I think not.

What I will do though is try to post as the inspiration hits me. And I will continue to post. Germany has a lot to offer, I have barely scratched the surface of what it is really like to live here. Lots more to do yet. Lots more to see. I guess after all, I must write. Some inner drive I guess and after all these years of saying that I am going to write, I am finally doing it. I still am trying to figure out what my blog is really about, maybe I am working out a rough draft for some book to be written in the future about all of this. And for those waiting for the meaty stuff, the nuts and bolts stuff of living here, I’ll get back to it. Or maybe this is it!? Anyway, I gotta go finish cooking my soup. Then it is window hour.

See ya!