Bonnet Seeks Bee

Reports of the death of this blog have been greatly exaggerated. Well, mildly exaggerated.

But it is true that the fire in my belly about blogging has cooled a bit.

Remember when every day in Berlin was like breaking in a new pair of shoes? That is, both excruciating and debilitating?

I bet you miss that.

Now every day in Berlin is like...a day...somewhere.

Not so interesting, is it?

Well, my schadenfroh readers, it has happened and I'm not sure what to do about it.

Take today. I figured out how to print stuff at the FU from my laptop. Nothing special. Just googled "Zedat drucken" (it's an FU thing, don't ask), was taken to the FU Web site where I followed the straightforward German instructions.

Of course it took an hour and a half to install the driver, but whatever. I wasn't bothered. Well, I wasn't *that* bothered. I mean, not bothered enough to blog about it.

I mean, I'm blogging about it right now, but not in a ranting, venting, steaming sort of way, like I normally would.

And the thing I was printing out? Oh, nothing. Just a fax I had to send to Sallie Mae to let them know I'm still in grad school so they wouldn't make me start repaying my student loans.

Wait, a fax, you frantically ask? How are you going to send a fax? You don't have a fax machine! You may be forced to *go* somewhere! But where!? And what if they make you speak German?!

OK, folks, chill. No problem. I just walked to the copy shop by the FU and asked, in German, if they'd send a fax to the US for me. It didn't even matter that I didn't know the international access code. "Null, null, eins?" Suggested the friendly copy shop guy. "Why not?" I said. "Let's try it."

And it worked. Of course it cost three and half euros, but I wasn't bothered. Not *that* bothered.

I just don't know what's wrong with me! Nothing bothers me anymore! It's so frustrating!

Another thing is that my German is totally functional. Spoken, written, whatever. Es ist mir egal, as the Germans say. It ain't pretty, and I sound like an idiot, but I'm not afraid of total communication breakdown anymore.

So, look, I'm not saying it's not still *hard*. It can be very tough to keep up with people and to make sure I don't say the *completely* wrong thing. But it just doesn't make me want to go home and blog myself to sleep anymore. What can I say?

I guess you guys could always hope something terrible happens to me. Well, not so terrible that I can't rant humorously about it. You know, just terrible enough that my head almost collapses every time I think about it. I wouldn't hold it against you. After all, what's a bonnet without at least one bee in it?

(Please stop picturing me in a bonnet.)