What karneval did to me

Karneval. Crazy days. The fifth season. These are few terms used to tag this holiday period. It is a week-long period where people dress up in every costume imaginable.  And as the name implies, crazy and foolish things/acts take place.  And so did to me.  Listed are just a few things the karneval spirit infused into my bloodstream…

1.  Got me dreaming for a new boyfriend, but oh my, I was busted (!)  C.G. and I bid for this gorgeous baby on eBAY. Unfortunately we didn’t get it.  Felt bad. Ouch! 😦  We’ll keep trying though.

Olympus EPL-1(Photo from http://www.techdigest.tv/olympus%20epl1.jpg)

2. Finally, a clown in me was born.  Or painted at least.  I am quite sure though that I will never ever be really good pretending and hiding my feelings.

The frowning clown

3. Made me miss my train and jump on the wrong tram because of the captivating costumes. I wanted to take photos of them and so I followed them, talked to them (they were foreigners like me – came from London just for the Karneval), and even said goodbye to them when we reached their stop.  Only did I realize that I was on the wrong tram the minute they got off.  This made me 45 minutes late to my movie date night with my labmates.  My bad!

The British ghosts band

Friendly ghosts from UK

Noisy tram seatmates

The drummer

4. Drunk my best wine ever – it’s French! And that made me want to go to France.

The wine

5. Got me intoxicated with German beers.

The six-pack

6. Learned something about English in different tongues.

“Honor” is  pronounced [on-er] in American english and [hon-er] in British english.

While in some isolated cases people speak English differently. For example,  H is missed, added or misplaced. Hmmm….  That is something isn’t it?

An example?  “He has honor” can be “He [ass] [hon-er]. 🙂

7. Got me fighting over candies like a child ending up in a fall with my mate.

The children in us

8. Filled my room with fresh flowers and candies from the Rosenmontag parade!

Rosenmontag chocolates and flowers

9.)  Made me learn more about culture and traditions, got to love Germany more, and appreciate its people better.  I think I am now embracing life here.

First glance at Germany. It was love at first sight.

10.  Made me temporarily forget about work; a holiday fun with my mates’ a plus; work and experiments piled up’s the downside.  I think I need to go now and attend to my gels.

J.

Read Full Post »

Teach me to pretend

Laugh while tears fall

(Photo isn´t mine.  Got it from the internet)

It was 20:00 and I was still in the lab collecting Agroinfiltrated samples for western blotting.  S came to me and asked “Are you okay?  How’s everything going?”  I answered. In my usual casual way. I said Yes, everything’s fine.

“But I can see in your face you are not fine.  Are you homesick? Don’t worry, some time, after I finish this shitty PSL seminar, we will go out together and explore the city.”

I gave a big smile. My eyes’ pupils were dilating to the max. Pretending to be so excited.  Hoping the “going out and exploring the city” can resolve my loneliness.

“Ah… Don’t worry, just think of the places you will visit here… You can go to Holland, to Paris, and you will go to India on June right? Don’t be sad. And your work’s gonna be okay.  You have three years more and you will learn all of these eventually.  You will have lots of paper to publish….”

Yes she is right. And right at that moment, I was praying thanking God for S.

 

But the question is, why everybody can just look at me for a second and know how I was feeling?!  It is freaky you know? L also used to do this- interrogate me with the question “How are you?” and answers with “I can see you are not okay. You look terrible.  Did you sleep well? Did you eat?…..”

The same is true with K.  He knows exactly how I think. He knows me. He gets me. Him knowing me too well even we haven’t spent much time together makes me jitter.  Gives me a thrill and a shiver. I like it, and hate it, at the same time.

I will be glad if even just once I am not that transparent that I can pretend.  Pretend that everything is okay when everything is tearing apart.  Pretend that I am happy when I am hurting.  Sing when I really want to curse.  Laugh when I want to burst into a loud cry. Will you teach me how to pretend?

J.

Read Full Post »