Penis Galore! I mean, German Saunas

I have always firmly believed in doing things just for the experience. Before I left for Germany, it was my goal to do as many things as I could that I have never done before. I mean, the big one, obviously, was moving to another country. Some days, it is small, like actually waking up when my alarm goes off and going to class (today, epic fail). Traveling alone for three weeks in a place where no one speaks my language (fluently, I guess, since the German education system actually requires their students to learn foreign languages...fancy that), check. A lot has happened over here in Deutschland that has made me grow as a person. Ha ha, that verb is so going to be euphemism later on.

This week has been pretty shitty. Actually, Monday was all right, which gave me hope for the rest of my week, but then I woke up on Tuesday--fucking Tuesday--to freezing cold temperatures and snow on the ground, and I just knew. It was so not going to be good. I had two tests on Tuesday, neither of which I was entirely prepared for, but I have always been quite good at winging things. Like I told my mom: when you set the bar low from the get-go, people do not expect too much from you. So when you exceed expectations with little to no effort, people think you are actually trying. I do not know whether or not my mother was proud of this little personality trait of mine or disappointed. Either way, it has severed me well in my education. I know my accounting professors would disagree, and sadly, accounting may be the one example where I actually just do suck at it. I cannot help it. I am a creative person. The world is a cruel, cruel place when it rewards the drones in jobs that suck your soul out, but leave you struggling to make ends meat when you have a creative bone. The world needs more creative people.

Okay, ADD, back on track. So I took these tests on Tuesday and it was, well, how do I put this: fucking scheiß horrible. My reading test was all right; I am sure I still did pitifully dreadful, though maybe I surprised myself. Who knows. My grammar test, however. You know those moments where something is so horrible that you do not know whether or not you should laugh or cry? Like you start out laughing, and then you laugh so hard that you cry, and then you are just blubbering like an idiot? I had that moment looking at this test. I had absolutely no idea. NO IDEA. The last time I felt that hallowing hole of despair in the pit of my stomach was my Accounting 306 final. When a teacher calls you into his office after a test and says you would be better off just dropping the class and trying again in the fall, you know you might have done poorly.

I did not even understand the entire back page, let alone have the ability to follow the directions. I think I filled some stuff in, some in German, some in English, there may have even been some Spanish in there, and turned my test in. As I was walking out the door, I said to Frau Grigorieva: "you know, I think under different circumstances, you and I would have been friends." She smiled at me and said "probably." To which I promptly retorted: "but now, hells no. I just do not think our relationship would work after this." And walked out of the classroom. I am nothing if not eloquent with words.

So after that: slight funk. Followed by a night of drunk cooking. Followed by more funk. And "Fried Green Tomatoes." Which just made me even more depressed. Nothing makes you question your life choices like being bitch-slapped by something that you just cannot seem to attain. For me: language acquisition. And that fucking game with numbers...Suduko? What the hell is that even called. Okay, not important.

Yesterday, I went to class, where I was in a foul mood, and was preparing to go home and wallow in my self-pity with a jar of peanut butter and large pizza, when Estelle texted me and asked me if I would be interested in going to the sauna. Well, quite frankly no, no I would not. I told her I was in a pissy mood and the last thing I needed to do was waltz around in front of people naked while sweating balls (I said all this in English, to which she responded I needed to say it in German because she was doing chat on her iPhone and did not have google translate. I told her I knew that, and I wrote in English when I didn't want her to know what I was typing. She called me a bitch). Anyway, she told me that I needed to get my ass over there now or she would, I believe the verb was "schlagen" me. Well, always the submissive, I packed my backpack full of "sauna" essentials and headed over (after having a drink). She promised that I would feel better after. I doubted this seriously.

Okay, lets talk about German saunas.

Keep in mind that I am an American, which makes me inherently somewhat of a prude, but also means I am used to saunas attached to locker rooms at Golds Gym, where you are actually required to be in some form of clothing. This particular sauna was not just a sauna, but a culmination of, like, seven different saunas, a pool, hot tub, meditation room, relaxation rooms, snack bar, beer bar, etc. Imagine if Wal-Mart was a sauna: your one-stop total relaxation experience. We paid to go in and went into the locker room which, by the way, was co-ed. Okay, shocker number one (ha ha, shocker). So I disrobed and promptly put on the robe that Estelle had brought for me. We went out into what I guess was the main area of this ginormous establishment and all I saw were penises. PENISES everywhere! Penises attached to fat men, skinny men, balding men, hairy men, young men, old men. You name it, there was a penis attached to it. I could not stop staring. I have never seen so many naked men in one place. Lets not even talk about the last time I actually saw a penis just hanging out; imagine seeing, like, 20 of them all in a row.

Now I guess I have just been lucky with the penises that I have seen, but I did not know they came in such varying sizes. If I were to create a scale upon which to base the sizes of the penises I saw, it would range from lemon (sick) to foot long hot dog (sick). And here is another little tid bit of information: apparently the majority of men in Europe ARE NOT circumcised. My level of allowable trauma in one day was far, far surpassed. Or so I thought. Until a guy walked by who was OBVIOUSLY really excited to be in the sauna. Seriously, buddy? So not okay.

Oh, and it was not just naked men, mind you. Though few and far between, there were naked women as well. Mostly old naked women, which depressed me ever so slightly. It is one thing to read about what time will inevitably do to your once (sort of) tight, wrinkle-free, skin cancer-free, young 20-something body. It is quite another to actually see what is going to happen. The day my tits sag lower than my chatch is the day I move up to the mountains and start raising goats before meeting my timely end. Or, hopefully by that point, cosmetic surgery will be such that they can transplant my brain into a newer, younger body.

When I finally got sort of used to all these scary naked German men walking around, and by used to, I mean that I was able to have a conversation with Estelle without gawking at a wagging pork sausage as it walked by, I began to really enjoy the sauna experience. At this particular sauna, they have a schedule of when you can go get tortured in an exceedingly hot room. After my first time in the room that, I am fairly certain, was upwards of 90 degrees CELCIUS, I realized why everyone was walking around naked. Imagine playing tennis against Lindsay Davenport in Tucson in July at noon. And then imagine, on top of that, that some dude who really enjoys torturing other people comes in and starts waving a hot towel at you, thus making it feel like you are getting hit in the face with, well, while we are on the topic of penises, Satan's fiery sword. That is what this room was like. I attempted to keep my towel on during this 15 minutes of hell (literally), but by the second go-round, I flung that bad boy off and just splayed out in all my glory. It was fantastic; I am pretty sure I sweated out a baby, and probably every last drop of alcohol I had consumed in the last four weeks.

So, to leave out all the other nitty, gritty details (oh, like naked pool swimming, going to another sauna that smelled like three-week old vag, having some guy hit on me in the sauna while I am sweating like a pig and naked, and while HE is sweating like a big-ass hairy pig and naked (p.s. buddy, even if I swung that way, not impressed)) I had a wonderful time at the sauna. So I guess Estelle was right; my shitty week got exponentially better after that (and I subsequently made a conscious decision to not go to class for the rest of the week). The sauna kind of reminds me of being high, though I think it is my brain screaming at me for trying to fry it in my skull. But I left really wanting a bacon cheeseburger.

Gingers are CREEPY...

Most people who know me fairly well know that I have a very low tolerance for children. I find them to be smelly, inquisitive to the point of annoying, relentless, restless, and needy. Now, I am not saying this holds true for all children; dare I say there have been kids I have met that I have actually liked, but they are so few and far between that it is safe to say that the majority of children just piss me off.

I find German children particularly abhorrent, mainly due to the way they stare unabashedly at anything and everyone. A while ago, I had a rather, we will use the word creepy, encounter with a scary looking German ginger child of about eight or nine. I can think of no worse combination: German AND a ginger. Gingers in and of themselves are socially awkward and weird; their bright red hair, light skin and lack of soul causes me severe angst and apprehension whenever I am within a five foot radius of them. Couple that with what I guess are considered German social norms, and it makes for one frightening clusterfuck of a human being.

I was sitting on the bus with my friend Brice, and Brice nudged me on the shoulder and said "that kid is giving you the stare-down." I looked over and gasped slightly as these blue eyes tried to pierce my soul, no doubt trying to steal it due to a lack of its own soul. This kid was literally staring at me so hard, I felt the hole burning through my skull. I looked away, but my gaze kept being drawn back to his, as though it was some sort of magnet. "What the fuck is this little bitch's problem" I asked Brice. You know, I thought, fuck this little kid. I proceeded to return the stare-down. And for two minutes, our eyes never left each others. The kid got off on the next stop, and I stared him down from inside the bus, and he proceeded to stare back at me. As the bus drove away, I pointed a menacing index finger at him and stuck my tongue out. Stupid little asshole.



After this incident, I became more cognizant of a certain fact: Germans stare at everyone. Everywhere. Today on the bus, this girl just kept staring at me for no reason. Every time I would look over, she would just be looking at me, like there was something hanging out of my nose. Now, I have been caught staring at people as well; normally this is because I have zoned out and am thinking about laying poolside naked with a mai thai and some Percocet, but as soon as the person I am staring at returns said stare, I look away. I think this is normal. No one wants to be caught staring at someone else. But the Germans? Oh no. They will just keep staring at you, even if you return the stare. It is the creepiest thing ever. Young people, old people, homeless people, students, prostitutes, whatever. It makes me wish I had some mace. I know one of these days, some fucker is going to be staring me down, and I will have had such a shitty day that I will stand up and scream "what the fuck are you looking at douche fucker?!" I just hope someone has a video camera.

This all came about because I had to go to the grocery store today, which I hate doing, mainly because I still have yet to figure out how to check out a cart. I think it is going to be one of those things I have to do when I am with other people. I think it is far worse to make an ass of yourself while you are alone. At least if you do something embarrassing when your friends are around, you can laugh about it. If you are alone, then you look like one of "those" people. Laughing at yourself is not an option; people just think you are either crazy or pathetic. So whenever I go grocery shopping alone, I either have to remember to bring a bag (oh, because they do not just GIVE you plastic bags to take your groceries home in, you have to pay for them) or I only buy a few items.

I then went to the bakery to pick up my bread. I am getting much better about understanding people, and by understanding I mean that if they just ask me the same questions each time, I am good to go. Occasionally, though, I get a person who has never helped me before, and she will shoot a bunch of random questions at me, and I just stare blankly and either say "langsam, bitte" or "Ich spreche nur Englisch." I went in today and some woman helped me who I had never seen before, and I politely said "ich hätte gern ein kleines schwarz Brot." She then launched into a series of questions and I was like "der...." Bakery girl (who I still have a small crush on, though not to the extent I did) came over from the other side of the store and told the woman I only spoke English, then went and got my bread for me (since, yeah, I get the same bread every single time). It is the little things in life, like someone recognizing that I suck at German and helping me not feel like an idiot, that makes my day. So Bakery girl, whose name I still do not know, thank you. You rock! Creepy girl who stared me down on the bus with the bad hair, fuck you. :)

the little gnomes that live in my room.

I swear they do. They have to. I have started to notice that little things are going missing. I am down to one knife. One. I started out with five. Knives just don't up and disappear. My life is not an episode of "Law and Order." I am not concealing crucial evidence. And Christ, these knives aren't even sharp enough to cause any real damage. It takes all my strength to cut through an effing tomato!

And pairs of socks. Like entire pairs. At least these little fuckers are considerate and take both socks instead of just one. There is nothing more irritating than only being able to find one fucking sock.

And my freaking bottle opener. My really nice bottle opener that has a lovely Universität des Saarlandes logo on it. Gone. Without a trace. Which means that these little gnomes are probably hiding under my bed, using my knives, socks and bottle opener in some strange, fetish-y way that I do not even want to think about. Pervy little gnomes.

Anyhoo, I am sitting here on a Friday night in my room blogging because I just do not have the energy to go out tonight. But the good thing about living sort of on campus...when I get bored and want people to come over, they are just a phone call away, and probably live within walking distance. It is hard for me to remember whether or not I had a social life on the weekends back in Boise. It seems to me that I was so exhausted by the end of the week that more likely than not, I spent my Friday nights catching up on all my favorite television shows, eating pizza and drinking wine with my cats. Is that pathetic? When did I become THAT person??

But is there really anything wrong with wanting to be alone after spending an entire week interacting with people (mostly BSU students) who I find to be incredibly draining with their competitive and antisocial personalities (and cue the accounting department)? I do no think so. Some of my friends seem to, however. I do not know. I have always been fine entertaining myself. Fuck me, I am the funniest person I know. I mean, I will not deny that more than once, I have probably gotten inebriated and turned up music really loud and lip-synched to my reflection in my bathroom mirror while prancing around in my underwear. Who WOULDN'T be jealous of a weekend full of that? It just has fun written all over it.

But tonight, I have some people coming over to my closet of a dorm room and we are going to eat pizza and drink and watch "RED"...in ENGLISH. See, I am getting better about including people in my naked dancing lip-synch-a-thons!

In other news, I bitch-slapped my test in my class today with a fucking 2x4. Ha ha, fuck you, test! You are my bitch now! We will see how cocky I am after my grammar test on Tuesday, however. I am fairly certain that the vast majority of the test will consist of me, and I quote directly from the worksheet I have sitting in front of me, "Wandeln Sie die Partizipialkonstruktionen in Relativesätze um." Well fuck me sideways, I do not even know what that means! I do not even think that is a real word. Why the Germans insist upon shoving all their words together to make one giant word is beyond me. And how do they have enough air in their lungs to pronounce some of these words??? Everyone over here smokes! I know that has to affect their lung capacity! I think it must have something to do with years of German breeding. It only makes sense. Germans are bred to drink beer, watch fußball, smoke copious amounts of tobacco and pronounce insanely long words that make no sense to everyone else on the planet while sounding like they are going to beat the shit out of you for existing.

Someone today also told me that I needed to work on my German accent, because I sound too American. I am not entirely sure I want to sound like a dominatrix. I think I have a commanding voice anyway; I think if you couple that with angry German hacking and spitting, it is just going to be too much for people in America. Someones head might explode. I cannot be responsible for heads exploding. But I think my American accent over here is cute. The Germans probably find it super annoying. But whatever.

so you want to watch American television...

Oh, you, yes, you there! Living in Germany! You want to watch American television you say? Like, real, actual American television not dubbed in German? CURRENT American television? Like season 6 of "Bones" on Fox? Or the new season of "Greek" on ABC Family? Perhaps you are interested in watching a movie on Netflix instant streaming? Or catching up on "30 Rock" on Hulu? Amazon on demand? Well...



Ha, ha! Fuck you! You do not live in America! You live outside of this great country! You must watch last the last season of "Bones," dubbed over in German! Oh, you think you can outsmart itunes and pretend to be living in the states? Itunes knows. Itunes knows! Amazon.com detects that you are not currently in one of the 50 United States. Hulu says "Germany? Where the fuck is Germany???" Netflix will let you make changes to your account, but don't count on watching the 200 movies you have stored in your instant queue.

I feel like my very livelihood is cut off! The first thing I do when I move back home: call Cableone, have my internet and cable set back up, order a pizza from Guidos, stock up on bottles of New Age wine, and not leave the couch in my living room for 72 hours straight, catching up on all the television I have missed while being over here. No more Charlie Sheen in that fucking horrible "Two and a Half Men." No more listening to the German version of Kyra Sedgwick in "The Closer." I am talking real, honest-to-God, fucking amazing American television. Oh Emily Deschanel, how I have missed thee!

while we are on the subject of dreams...

I stopped watching the news a long time ago. It gave me nightmares. See, I can watch horror movies and not have a problem. You know why? Because horror movies are fake. I mean, "Scream"? Really? Rose McGowan, I judge you for trying to escape out through the cat door. Real effing smart. I understand you have not had a real meal in at least a decade; I still do not think even you could squeeze through that cat door. My fat ass cat can barely make it through his.

The news, however, is very real. It documents all that messed up shit that happens in our messed up world, and not being able to say "oh, it is not real" when I see some horrific event on the television or on the internet freaks me out to no end. Now don't get me wrong: I try to stay informed. Should I ever end up on Jeopardy or stopped on the street by one of Jay Leno's minions, grilling me about some current political or economical event, I do not want to appear to be an idiot.

Here in Germany, they have no problem showing all the graphic and horrific things that happen in this world. KTVB over in Boise? I am pretty sure they edit out all the blood and bodies and such because, well, in America, we try to coddle our citizens. But not over here. Oh no.

So last night, I was trying to fall asleep sans Ambien because I do not want to admit that I rely on a sleeping aide to help me sleep at night, and I had the news on to fall asleep to. I also (thought) I had a test today, so I was a tad bit stressed about that. When I finally did fall asleep, around 2:00 a.m., I launched into a series of horrific nightmares, mainly involving Russian terrorists and bombs and people running after me trying to kill me. I hate those dreams. I do not mind the dreams that are inherently scary for no reason, but I absolutely abhor the nightmares where someone is chasing me and trying to kill me. It reveals a lot more about my fucked up psyche than I think I am prepared to deal with. And though the scenery and sometimes the people change, the scenario is always the same. Someone is always trying to kill me, usually with guns, though sometimes they can be wielding machetes, or trying to drown me, or whatever. And the most random people from my past always show up, and usually end up dead. Sorry Britta, Estelle and Alison: you all died last night.

And here is the kicker: I always get shot, too. Sometimes I wake up before I "die," while other times I wake up just enough to change the circumstances so that I am not exactly "dead" but I am certainly not alive. I think I learned in psychology that that is called lucid dreaming. Last night, I got shot in the knee, and the guy who shot me (said Russian terrorist) starting rooting around in my knee looking for the bullet because it was a special bullet and he did not want to waste it on me. That is when I woke up at 5:00 a.m. sweating and crying with an unbelievable pain in my fucked up right knee.

Should I be seeing a shrink for this?? I mean, dear God. These dreams have become quite frequent, especially since moving to Germany. I am thinking I need to quit watching the news at night in order to "learn German." I think it is really messing with my head. I would also appreciate it if my instructors would cancel all tests from here on out: they are obviously affecting my ability to function as a normal human being.

Tonight I am going to watch "Love Actually" before I go to bed, instead of the news, and see if I have happy dreams with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth and Emma Thompson. I think that would be exponentially more beneficial to my fragile, fragile psyche than watching the riots in Egypt or more footage of the terrorist attack in Moscow. Plus, the mornings when I wake up after not sleeping, I tend to look like I got in a bar fight the night before with fucking bat-shit crazy Britney Spears. The shaved-head Britney, not the other one.

my dreams even mock me...

I woke up this morning around 7:30, which really bugged me because I did not have class today, and thus had the opportunity to sleep in (okay, I lie. I actually DID have class today, at 8:00, but lets be honest: waking up at 7:30 did not give me nearly enough time to get ready and out the door, so I might as well sleep the rest of the morning, yeah??) Anyway, I think me waking up at 7:30 was my subconscious telling me to quit being a lazy mother fucker, but normally I can shut that little voice in the back of my mind right the fuck up with an Ambien or Chamomile tea. Or both. I decided to go back to bed and sleep until noon. Noon is a good time to wake up, right?

The problem with waking up when the sun is coming up and trying to sleep through its bright, penetrating rays (what sun? There is no sun in this country! I mean the varying shades of gray that the sun illuminates) is that when I dream, my dreams are so realistic that I cannot differentiate between what is real and what is not. Last week when I fell asleep (er, passed out) on Estelle's couch, I woke up in a panic around 10 a.m., convinced that someone had shot a bullet through their window, trying to kill us. I scrambled up and checked the integrity of the window, making sure it had not been compromised by deadly weapons. It is not a good way to wake up. Thank God I didn't pee.

I digress. So I woke up this morning and drank some tea and went back to bed. I woke up, I think, around 10:30, but I had this dream that I was trying to speak German with some people at a restaurant, and they were making fun of the way I said "aber." And I kept insisting that I was not saying it any differently than them, but they just kept laughing. It was like being in my underwear in front of a large crowd of people. Okay, wait. I have done that. It wasn't so bad. Maybe this is more like being naked in front of a large group of people....wait...shit...Anyway, when I woke up, I could not figure out if this had actually happened, or if it was a construction of my overactive and self-conscious imagination. I am pretty sure, somewhere along the line, someone has made fun of something that I have said in German. Fuck, I would make fun of me if I heard me trying to speak German. I sound so terrible, there is no point in me even getting upset over it. I just have to laugh.

But the more I thought about this dream or memory or whatever, the more pissed off I got. What the fuck, dreams?? My subconscious is now making fun of me?? What would Freud say about all this? Probably that it has something to do with lack of sex or my preoccupation with my father or some shit like that (and just so we are all clear, I DO NOT dream about my father like that). Which then got me thinking even more: what if we are all subconsciously programmed to be self-destructive? I mean, I am a fairly confident person, most of the time. At least I would like to think I am. But what if deep down, I am hard-wired to be self-defeating and critical of everything I do?

Whoa. It was a little too much for me to handle this early in the morning. Why do I have to over think everything?? Two nights ago, I watched "Fear" with Marky Mark and Reese Witherspoon. Every time I watch that movie, I always find myself, at the end, analyzing the perceptions of female sexuality and what the movie is actually saying about female virginity, and then I stop myself mid-thought and think "what the fuck, Sarah?? It is a fucking Marky Mark movie! You are analyzing a Marky Mark movie! You are such a fucking tool."

But I decided, instead of letting my dreams, which may or may not be based on actual events, get me down, that I was going to actually study for my test tomorrow. And I have been studying for about an hour now, which I can safely say is the longest I have sat in one spot concentrating on one thing in, like, years. Pardon my ADHD. But I think an hour is my limit, hence the blog. And now I am going to shower.

I hate Tuesdays (and other tales of woe)

I hate Tuesdays. I have always hated Tuesdays. Tuesdays could be my least favorite day ever. Even more so than Mondays. I mean, Monday at least feels like a fresh start...like Sunday. But Tuesdays? There is nothing good about Tuesdays. Crappy television, shitty drink specials. Basically, Tuesday ist scheiße.

I especially hate Tuesdays where I wake up and think "oh, fuck me. This is not going to be a good day." Anyone here take Ambien? Or any sort of sleeping aide? And you know, when it wears off after four hours, and you're awake at five a.m., groggy and feeling like someone has slipped something in your drink, and you feel that way for the rest of the morning? Yup, THAT is how my morning started out. Feeling like, I am sure, Lindsay Lohan feels every morning. Like the world has just shoved a large, barbed-wire wrapped bat up my hoohah. Fuck you, Ambien. Work like you are supposed to!

So an update on my money. The money was found. YAY! Apparently my mother, after asking my father to which account she should transfer the money, sent it to the University. (insert groan here). So yesterday evening, I received an email from my father informing me that I needed to go to the University and have them wire the lump sum to my account, because, well, it did not belong to them. I would like to thank my father for providing me with what I have deemed "learning opportunities" in Germany. Whereby fuck all happens and I have to try to fix it with a fucking language barrier and a short fuse. So thanks, pops! You are the best.

I met up with Katrin because, heaven forbid, I find myself in a situation where I am trying to play charades with some woman who doesn't speak English. Thankfully, one of the girls in the office did speak English. When I went in and told her I had a problem, she asked me what my name was. "Sarah Ober," I replied. She looked at me and said, "oh, your father has given us a great deal of money!" Wait, what?? These bitches knew that they had my money, on accident, and no one thought to contact me?? What the fuck is that?? So she led us down a hallway to another office, with two other women in it, and in German (by the way, I can understand German now) said "Oh, this is Sarah Ober." And the women in the office laughed. And she said "you are quite famous here." Fantastic. In addition to being groggy and irritable, I was now being openly mocked by German women.

With the click of a button, another women transferred all my money to MY German bank account. Why they could not have just called me last week and informed me of the snafoo, I do not know. Maybe because they, too, wanted to provide me with ample learning opportunities in Deutschland. Like trying to communicate with Stapler-dude at the bank. So far, I am down two points.

I managed to make it to class on time, which was good since I seem to be having quite a difficult time with that, and all things were going well. I even spoke GERMAN in my listening comprehension class. I was feeling quite proud of myself, like I was a fucking Deutsch God, until my grammar class. I think Frau Grigorieva just has a knack for bringing me down off Cloud 9 and bitch-slapping me in the taco (thanks, Glee, for my new favorite saying).

In four weeks, we have what the Studienkolleg calls the "E-test." This is very similar to the test I had at the beginning of the term back in August whereby they gauge our German comprehension and place us in a level of German accordingly. I would just like to state that despite the fact that my speaking skills may not be all that great (I hear my German friends snickering right now), I can actually read and write fairly proficiently. Understanding grammar rules has never been a problem of mine. Chalk it up to the English nerd in me. Once I learn a grammar rule, it usually sticks (at least as far as writing goes). So I know that, since August, I have become much better with German. Or at least so I thought. Frau Grigorieva handed out this sample test from 1994, just so we could get a feel for it, and I just stared at it, mouth agape. You know that fish market in Seattle on the Pier? Where they will throw a giant fish at you should you ask, in hopes that you will catch it just so you can say, fuck yes I caught a giant fish! Okay, now imagine that someone hurls a massive fucking 50 pound fish at you and instead of catching it, it hits you in the face. And you are left standing there, stunned with fish slime dripping down your face, reeking of two-week old vag...

That is how I felt at that exact moment.

WHAT THE FUCK DID THIS TEST EVEN SAY???

There were no words. No words. I wasnt even entirely sure what the directions were telling me. So I did what I do in all situations that I find uncomfortable: I started laughing uncontrollably. And Frau Grigorieva just looked at me and asked (I think, because it was auf Deutsch and I am far from a Deutsch God) "what is wrong, Sarah? A catastrophe? Why are you laughing?" Why am I laughing?? Why am I laughing?? Because my soul is slowly leaking out my butt! Because my will to live has been crushed! Because you are ruining my life woman!

So I am basically fucked. I hope I get placed at least a little bit above the level I am currently in. Maybe I should spend the month of February actually studying, and reading things other than Cosmo in German. Dammit all.

I was pretty much so distraught after my class that I did not want to leave my room. I wanted to hole up and watch "Bones" with my fucking rainbow chip frosting and perhaps a bottle of wine. Estelle invited me over, though, and made me dinner, which pretty much made me super, super happy (um, there were mashed potatoes involved. SUPER good mashed potatoes). And even though she told me that I am like a guy (pardon me?? Just because I cannot cook for shit, and maybe I fall asleep after I eat, does not mean that I do not have other valuable domestic skills. I can vacuum and dust like a mother fucker, thank you) I am feeling a little bit better about life, though I still think I am about to run a train on this can of frosting.


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