Breaking up with grad school

Most of you probably know that I've spent much of the past couple of years thinking about leaving my grad program. It may come as a surprise to a few of you though to hear that I've actually done it. As of a couple of weeks ago, I am officially on a leave of absence from the U of M. The decision was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I assumed I would feel primarily relief with perhaps a side of joy. Instead, I felt mostly sad. I guess when you become completely invested in something and spend a lot of time convincing yourself that it can work out, it becomes hard to walk away. For the first couple of weeks, I kept thinking about running back, but the more time passes, the more I am convinced that this was the right decision.

I haven't completely dropped out. After emailing back and forth with my advisor, we agreed that it was a good idea to keep the door open, so I can still return next year if I so choose. At the time, I thought that was highly unlikely, but now I'm not so sure. Leaving grad school has given me the distance to see things a bit more objectively and think more clearly about why I might still want a degree my field and what steps I would need to take in order to get it while still preserving my sanity. Ironically, leaving grad school may turn out to be the most important step for me to finish my program. We'll see what the next year brings.

In the meantime, I am keeping all of my options open. The funny thing about walking away from something that had sort of taken over my whole life, is that I'm not really sure how to define myself any more. If I'm not a grad student, who am I? If I'm not pursuing a PhD, what am I doing? These simple questions have become surprisingly difficult. But I'm excited to try new things and hopefully find some answers. Wish me luck!

The past few months...

So when it comes to timely blogging, I appear to be a complete and utter failure. I could argue that I've been traveling a lot lately, but as writing about my travels is the reason for this blog's existence, that excuse doesn't hold a lot of water. So I'll skip the apologies and promises to do better and will give you a quick run down of the past few months.

December:

Mid-December involved a trip to visit grad school friends, Anne and Carsten, in Copenhagen. It was my first trip to Denmark and I had a lovely time. Copenhagen is beautiful (if extremely dark at that time of year) and Anne and Carsten were wonderful hosts. Among other things, I enjoyed the Rosenborg Castle, a boat tour of the harbor, Christmas lights at Tivoli (an amusement park in the middle of the city), and an Aebleskiver and Gløg party at Anne and Carsten's. I became a big fan of the Danish love for candles, and began lighting a number of my own each night after I got back to Berlin to help get me through the rest of the winter.

At the end of the month I headed to Jochen's for Christmas. He had to work the entire holiday season, so most of the celebrating was done with the house he works in. We did manage to find a bit of time to have our own celebration, complete with a mini Christmas tree. Making the decorations in the days leading up to Christmas helped keep me busy while Jochen was working.


January:

New Year's was also spent at Tennental and, as Jochen was working, involved the requisite tradition of being silent into the New Year (schweigen ins Neue Jahr). Though certainly much quieter than New Year's Eve in Berlin, there is something to be said for taking time to reflect and after midnight there was a lovely bonfire and fireworks in front of the main hall.

January also involved a lovely visit from my friend Martha. Martha is another grad school friend, who is currently studying in Graz. She came up for the weekend and we had a great time seeing the sights, catching up on life, and making the best American breakfast this side of the Atlantic.

February:

The February highlight was a visit from my Macalester friend, Adrienne. She arrived just in time to help me celebrate what was perhaps the best Valentine's day ever - a romantic candle-lit dinner, red wine, chocolate cake, and a really sappy movie, all enjoyed ironically, of course. After Valentine's Day, we took off on a short trip to beautiful and snowy Prague before returning to Berlin for a Neko Case concert and some more shopping and sightseeing. It was really great to see her again after such a long time.

After Adrienne returned to the States, I headed down to Stuttgart to visit Jochen. He had a week of vacation, so we spent a couple of days visiting his mom and from there took a quick ski trip to the Allgäu. The weather was gray and dreary, but there was lots of snow and the area is so beautiful. I managed not to seriously injure myself, which is really all it takes to make skiing a success in my book.

March:

I headed back to Berlin in March, just in time to pick my brother up at the airport. It was great to see him, catch up on his life, and reminisce a bit about childhood. We enjoyed a relaxed week of hanging out in Berlin and also took a quick trip to Dresden and Leipzig. We happened to be in Leipzig the same weeked as the Book Fair, which was exciting for me, if perhaps less so for Per. Dresden remains one of my favorite German cities.

After Per left, I once again headed to Stuttgart to be with Jochen while he took the first of three important exams. He passed with flying colors. Yay!

April:

April finds me finally back in Berlin and starting another semester at the University. Instead of teaching, this semester I am assisting with a BA colloquium, which so far has meant that I sit in on classes and then sit alone in my office for two hours reading a book. I hope that students will eventually start taking advantage of my office hours because right now I feel kind of useless. I'm also taking a seminar on Berlin Film and sitting in on a couple of lectures. I may also try to take a Spanish course at the University.

There is more of an update on a recent big decision coming soon, but it's not something I can explain in a short post. So I'll save it for another time.

One of the few American traditions I am proud to export

I think I left off with Thanksgiving, which was......... a month and a half ago. Sigh. Sorry folks who read my blog. Anyway, Thanksgiving was amazing. Linda and I have been talking about it since we decided to move in together sometime last spring. We wanted to have a traditional American Thanksgiving with all the fixings and, since most of our guests were not American, we agreed that we would make it all ourselves. And then we invited 20 people. As you can imagine, it was quite the undertaking. Our Thanksgiving took place on a Saturday afternoon, but cooking started on Friday.



We peeled and chopped about 5 kilos of potatoes and 3 kilos of carrots.








And I made six pies.





It seemed rather questionable to put a vegetarian in charge of the Thanksgiving turkey, so reinforcements arrived on Friday evening in the form of Eric. On Saturday morning we picked up a 8+ kilo turkey at KaDeWe and rushed home to try to get it in the oven on time. Cooking on Saturday was a bit hectic - with our oven filled with a gigantic turkey, Linda took drove our stuffing and cornbread to a friend's apartment to bake. The turkey made great progress.


(Before and After)


Soon our guests arrived and the feasting began.

(<--This is only about half of the feast.)











Unfortunately due to the number of guests and the lack of a large enough common space, we ended up splitting into two groups. Linda's guests dined in her room and my guests dined in mine. In my room, we ate ourselves silly, drank Karol's father's homemade wine, and then played ridiculous games. I believe a good time was had by all.

Some catching up to do

Once again, I'm far behind. And I was doing so well. I don't think I can entirely be blamed. Things have been rather insane lately and I've only been in Berlin for about 4 days this month. So what have you missed? First of all there was Thanksgiving for 20 people held at my apartment the last weekend in November. I made six pies and many other things and had wonderful guests from Berlin and beyond. After Thanksgiving, I headed down to Stuttgart to be with Jochen for a week. We checked out a medieval Christmas market in Esslingen and enjoyed the Glühwein and Gemütlichkeit that is Christmas in Germany. I came back to Berlin for two days to teach and then I was off to Denmark last weekend to visit friends who are living in Copenhagen. It was my first trip to Denmark and the first time I've left Germany since arriving here in June. Exciting. Copenhagen is beautiful and very dark this time of year. (The sun set at about 3:30.) I enjoyed seeing Carsten and Anne, checking out the city, and sharing in some very yummy Gløgg and Aebleskiver (think round balls of pancake). I will try to post pictures and more detailed travel stories soon, but I only have one more day to get my Christmas shopping done before I have two marathon days of seminar and then head to Jochen's for Christmas. So if I don't manage to post before then. Happy Holidays! (Lilly wishes you happy holidays, too!)

German Word of the Day

So my word of the day is nüchtern. My understanding of this word, prior to my doctor's appointment this morning, was that it means sober. This is true and in most cases, this is how the word is used. However, if you are at the doctor's office and talking about blood sugar, nüchtern means fasting. I learned this important distinction when my doctor asked, "but you weren't nüchtern the last time you were here, were you?" and I thought she was implying that perhaps I had been drunk at my last appointment.

Preparing for Chaos

I've woken up to snow the past two mornings. The first snow of the season is always exciting and gets me in the mood for the holidays. But before I start thinking about Christmas, I need to think about Thanksgiving, which is taking place at my apartment next weekend. When Linda and I decided to live together sometime last spring, we agreed that we would host Thanksgiving. Over the summer, I extended an invitation to the European participants of my summer program. We also invited friends from the States currently living in Europe as well as Berlin friends. Apparently Thanksgiving is a big draw, because we're now expecting about 20 people from Germany, Austria, and Poland to converge on our apartment next Saturday. I come from a small family that's pretty spread out across the US and it's rare that we manage to get more than 8 people together, so though I love big Thanksgivings, I have little experience cooking them. And, as one can't exactly ask non-Americans to prepare traditional Thanksgiving dishes, we'll be doing all the cooking ourselves. Fortunately, I have reinforcements arriving on Friday. Eric is coming in from Münster and has promised to cook the turkey. Cooking a turkey is stressful regardless, but even more so if you are a vegetarian and haven't cooked meat in any form in the last seven years. So I'm extremely grateful to Eric for making the trip. Martha (a friend from the U of M who's currently studying in Austria) will also be arriving from Graz on Friday. I'm really excited to see her again and so glad that she's also willing to lend a hand in the kitchen. And Linda's friend Lotte, who lives nearby, has kindly offered us use of her oven. My parents even mailed me pumpkin pie tins from the States. With a little luck, we might pull this off. I'll keep you posted.

Quarterlife Crisis

So those of you I've been in touch with more recently know that I have a lot of big decisions to make this year. First and foremost among those decisions is whether or not I want to continue with grad school. No matter how I answer that question, more questions follow.

If the answer is yes: Can I survive 3+ more years of grad school? What do I want to write a dissertation on? If I finish, will I be able to get a job? Do I even want to work in academia?

If the answer is no: Will I regret not getting a PhD? What will I do instead? How am I going to get a job with an MA in German and little practical experience?

It's kind of like one of those choose your own adventure books, except that I can't look ahead to find out if the path I'm choosing is going to wind up with me abducted by aliens. And though I'm not sure of much these days, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be abducted by aliens.

At any rate, I'm reflecting a lot these days. I'm also reading a lot, which is a great way to gain perspective. Most recently, I came across this fantastic quote from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet which I find both beautiful and extremely appropriate for where I am right now.

Ich möchte Sie, so gut ich es kann, bitten [...] Geduld zu haben gegen alles Ungelöste in Ihrem Herzen und zu versuchen, die Fragen selbst liebzuhaben wie verschlossene Stuben und wie Bücher, die in einer sehr fremden Sprache geschrieben sind. Forschen Sie jetzt nicht nach den Antworten, die Ihnen nicht gegeben werden können, weil Sie sie nicht leben könnten. Und es handelt sich darum, alles zu leben. Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen. Vielleicht leben Sie dann allmählich, ohne es zu merken, eines fernen Tages in die Antwort hinein.

And the English translation (not mine):

I would like to beg you, [...] as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

And so, as I continue my year in Berlin, I am trying to be patient and live the questions. But I'm still open to answers if you've got any. :)