Aller Anfang ist Schwer

It’s a German phrase that means every beginning is difficult.

I’ve been here for three weeks now. I finally got to working on my dissertation. And I finally got back to feeling a little bit like myself.

Depending on how you feel about my normal personality, you might not think that’s a good thing. But I missed me.

I don’t actually know whether it was my hitting the three week mark or the fact that I got paid a day earlier, but Tuesday was the day I first started to feel slightly normal again.


The dopey grin means I GOT PAID!

It happened on the bus on the way to the FU. I was standing, because I like to surf the bus, which is what you do when you try to keep your balance without holding on to anything. It’s a game my dad taught me when we used to ride the subway to school.

It was the first time in three weeks that I’ve had any spare mental capacity. Ever since I got here I’ve been like a kid on one of those little merry-go-rounds at the playground, the kind you spin by hand. I’ve been just clinging to the bar, hoping not to get flung off into the dirt or worse, turn white and throw up.

For the first time in three weeks, I was inside my own head, which, as a philosopher, is where I prefer to do my exploring. Set me down by the fire in my winter dressing gown with a ball of wax and I am happy to boldly investigate the most unfamiliar regions of the universe. I would rather be an astronomer than an astronaut. I want to see the stars, but through a telescope, not a spaceship.

But anyway, I’m here, now, I made it. And it’s nice to be here. Whenever I talk to someone, I try to learn from them. I mean, unless they seem like an idiot, like the Hausmeister (apartment manager) does. As a non-native-speaker I’m a novice in a land of experts, which is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, everyone knows about a million things that I don’t, from the rules about tipping a barber to the word for shoelace (the latter I’ve now learned, the former I’m still clueless about). On the other hand, I don’t need to consult a reference book to find these things out—there are two million walking reference works all around me.

Another German expression I learned is “Punktlichkeit ist ein Form von…”, which means ‘punctuality is a form of…”. Well, I almost learned it. I couldn’t figure out what the last word was. Godliness? Courtesy? Respect? I don’t know. Whatever it is, I’m sure it perfectly sums up the Berliner attitude toward punctuality, which is zealous.