It is May and it is very green here in Germany. The park on the other side of the river is beautiful, I get to walk through it every day on my way to and from the integrations course. I love the smell of the flowers and listening to the birds, watching the ducks and swans on the river. Unfortunately the weather has decided that is doesn’t want to be spring anymore and has reverted back to late winter. In some places overnight it was -2 grade, about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I have my thermal sweatshirt on toady and the heat is back on. Sucks. In Ft. Lauderdale it was 74 degrees last night. I have moved back to Oregon.  We moved to Florida because we were fed up with living in damp cold weather all the time and now here we are again. Only for a few years though fortunately, then back to warm and sunny Florida!

So whats been going on here since the last time I posted? Susanne decided she wanted to get back in to dancing and went to check out a dance school around the corner. She went to the introductory class and decided it was okay and she wanted to register. She came home with the registration form to fill out and started reading it. Of course they want her to pay by taking the money directly out of her bank account, which is normal here. Its just that when you have the rent, electric, health ins. and lord knows what else coming directly out every month, you feel like everyone has their hands on your money. If  she paid in cash she would have had to pay more. Not sure why, not even going to go there. The registration form said that she had to sign up for a minimum of 3 months and she would have to give 4 weeks notice if she wanted to drop out of the class. Why? I don’t know that either. Usually when one drops out of the class you (out of courtesy) tell the instructor and then stop going. That ” usually” for America. This “usually” is for Germany. I guess this is the norm. Than if she, for some reason, wanted to go back to the class before the three months were up, she would have to pay an extra month. (This is the “roll your eyes part”). Needless to say, she felt like she would be trapped in this class, which was a video dance class, the students watch a video (ex. Micheal Jackson video) and then do the moves. The instructor stands around until the last 10 min. when she then teaches the students 3 new moves. Whatever. She is back to dancing in the little apartment for the moment. The incredible part was that when she asked why there were so many rules for signing up for the class, they guy there said their school had the shortest minimum sign up times most other schools have a 6 month minimum for signing up!

My integrations class okay, there are great days and really, really boring days. Sometimes I feel like I am back in the 2nd grade. But the pros still outweigh the cons and I am learning alot. Yesterday I got all bent out of shape over some stupid group project which I should have just laughed off. We finished the last chapter of the second workbook, it was about how to write and understand an invitation to a wedding or birthday party, etc…Oh boy! After the break, the teacher said we were going to to a group activity. Oh for joy. Some group things are okay I guess, others are really lame. This was really lame. We were given little scraps of paper and on them were 4 types of events: Birthday, Wedding, Summer Festival and a New Years Party.  Who ever got Birthday had to get together with the others who had the same event. So I got up(unwillingly) and went over to my group. Each group was supposed to make a invitation with some colored construction paper and crayons and glue and scissors, Did I mention that sometimes it felt like the 2nd grade? Let me downgrade that to…………KINDERGARTEN! I didn’t know there was colored paper and apparently neither did anyone else in my group, so we got whatever was left, ie. the ugly colors nobody else wanted. For Frau Kay and I (Frau Kay was a clothing buyer back in her country and has a sense of color and design),  this meant having a shitty card. For the other two Mr X and Frau B. who have skills in areas other than, say, design, feel for what colors go with what, that sort of thing ( I did say that nicely!), they just wanted to dive in and start putting the shitty colors together. I had them slow down a bit, I tried to explain that we should take 5 minutes and get some idea of what we want it to look like, than I would sketch it out on a piece of paper first. Then we could start cutting and pasting and decorating the card. Frau Kay liked the idea, the other two geabbed the crappiest color for the card, some god awful yellow-orange thing and and then started cutting the blue sheet of paper and pasting it on the god awful yellow-orange thing. At that point I (mentally) threw up my hands and said I want nothing to do with this endeavor, I don’t want to be associated with butt ugly. At this point, Frau Kay was still trying to talk some sense into Frau B and Herr X, she was still trying to participate.

Now the god awful yellow-orange and blue card is underway and the other woman, Frau B. decides to cut another piece of blue for the middle of this monstrosity for the text- the invitation text. Mr X thought we should use the dark purple for this. I had to say something, I told him that the text would be harder to read on the dark purple. He didn’t get it at first and continued to shove the purple sheet of construction paper at Frau B. who was going use the dark purple paper until I said something.  Frau Kay helped me on this point and they ended up using the blue. at least it matches the blue triangles on each of the 4 corners. Before I could say, “okay, Frau Kay and I will work on the design and you and Herr X can do the lettering, don’t glue anymore yet”, Frau B. had already glued the piece of paper for the text to the middle of the god awful yellow-orange piece of paper (the larger one) and she and Herr X proceed to take 30 min. to do the text. It should have took 10 min -at most. How to write the invitation was in our work books. All she would have to do was copy the words and add a date and time and perhaps a name or two. Then we could have gotten on with making the god awful yellow-orange and blue piece of paper pretty. But since it was all now glued together and Frau B was covering the rest of the card with her arms, Frau Kay and I sat there while she and Herr X tried to figure out what to write for the invitation.

So I doodled for a while, someone asked me what I was doing, I just said I was drawing an idea for the card, actually I was just bored and then I  drew a guitar for one of the other groups while I waited for them to finish writing the text. Frau Kay, I noticed have given up and was just sitting there not saying anything. She looked defeated. Then the group I drew the guitar for decided they didn’t need the light purple sheet of construction paper and gave it to us. NOW YOUR TALKIN’! Frau Kay and I perked up. We had two colors that went together, the dark purple and now the light purple. I told Frau Kay, “you know, we can make another card in about 15 minutes!”. We were in motion, we would make the basic design we already had on the god awful yellow-orange and blue piece of paper and then add a cake and some gifts and confetti, nothing too fancy, but it would look good. I was about to cut out the pieces for the card when the teacher comes over and says, “you don’t have enough time to make another card”. WHAT!!!!  Weren’t you the same person who calls me a “profi” (because I  do websites and graphic design) and said before this little project that whatever group I landed in would be the lucky group??? Than let me do my thing, I can throw something together in the next 15 minutes before we have to stop, this is what I do! (of course I said this in my head). So I stopped, Frau Kay and I sat back down and watched the other two still trying to finish the text.

They finally did finish about 5 minutes before we had to stop, I drew a cake and cut a little confetti up, I wanted to cut more but the instructor had by then grabbed up all the scissors and glue. We finished and had the crappiest card in the class. Someone from the group was supposed to do a quick presentation with the thing, they pointed to me, I didn’t gat up, just shook my head no and tried to talk Frau Kay into doing it. In the end the card was just passed around. I sit there thinking to myself, now these people think this is all I can do. I am supposed to be a “profi” (professional) designer. It just goes to show how much an ego can get in the way sometimes. I was mad that the card looked the way it did, if I hadn’t of been so upset, I might have made the the god awful yellow-orange and blue card into something that look half way decent. I had some ideas about how to do it, instead I just gave up.

I would prefer though not to do these stupid group projects, it was a waste of time to me, I know the instructors are trying to have fun in the class but really, we could play some fun word games, light learning. I guess I should get over it, I took is waaaaaayy too seriously!

If it is still hanging up next Monday (yes the teacher hung them up so now other people who have class in the same room can see then too!), I’ll grab a pic of the god awful yellow-orange and blue card and post it!