27.8.04

just for quick reference

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wondertone/

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wondertone/48397.html
OH MY GOODNESS my father is driving me CRAZY. I SWEAR I will never live another entire summer in Olympia.

Okay, calm down. It's fine. You're overreacting to something that's not that big of a deal. This is temporary, it will pass.

STILL though. Do I really have to spend my summers being bossed around both as an underling as a daughter? Tcha. No way... I want more freedom than this.

but I really have it good. I don't have to pay rent, I can get hours or days off if I really need them, I can come and go whenever I please as long as my dad doesn't get woken up, I'm allowed to take road trips or shop or go swimming or do anything I can think of.

still though...
Been back for almost 4 days now. Weird how it works... I really slid right back into the swing of things pretty quickly. I wouldn't say I've been experiencing "culture shock"... but there are a few things that come to mind:

1) I miss the good food in Germany. Every store had inexpensive, fresh food for you to buy. There is no broetchen here... I tried to bring a piece of Germany home with me by bringing Nutella. But this morning I tried to find something I could spread my Nutella on, and there wasn't anything! I finally had to settle for a piece of toast. Then at the store a few nights ago, I looked for Campari tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. The tomatoes were there, but the mozzarella - the kind sold in the little bags with a lot of moisture inside - was nowhere to be found!!! dar. So I had to settle for "low-moisture" mozzarella, and it just wasn't the same.

2) I'm used to typing on the German keyboard, where the "y" and the "z" are switched, and the various symbols are switched around. My name frequently is typed out initially as "Kzla". Cute.

3) The language thing... it's so nice to understand and be understood 99% of the time. I can tell you, that wasn't the percentage I was maintaining in Germany. I now have a lot more confidence when calling people I don't know, because at least I know they will probably be native English speakers, and that is comforting. So this is a postive culture change.

I had a better 3rd point, but I forgot it so I had to replace it with something weak.

Anyway, so being home has been fun. I got to see Batman and ... um I forgot what nickname I had for him, but yeah, I guess I'll call him Robin, because they pretty much go together. For example, we loaded Batman's car last night, and today they are leaving for school, since they both go to the Claremont colleges. But I did get to hang out with them a good deal... yesterday I went to lunch with Batman and Manzinita. We really had a rollicking good time, and I was 45 minutes late in getting back to work, but it was fine.

More later.