Lifeform

So, maybe 37 weeks into a 40-week gestation period wasn't the ideal time to watch the movie "Alien" for the first time.



But we couldn't resist.

Just for the record, though, that can't really happen, right? I mean, for a little guy Junior can get to kicking at the walls pretty hard, but he couldn't actually, you know, make my torso explode, right? Right?

Hello?



JEM

P.S. Thanks, Andreas, for letting us borrow your copy of this fine film.

Nazism Not Good, Claim Protesters

We stumbled upon an anti-Nazi demonstration a couple of weeks ago.

We were headed to Dresden’s main train station at the heart of the city to buy me a new public transit month pass, when we noticed a number of law enforcement vans and SWAT teams decked out in body armor searching people. After getting off the tram, we had to pass through a row of police officers, who stopped us and asked if we were there for the rally. Turns out we’d arrived just in time for a major anti-Nazi march, which was convening at, and would shortly be embarking from, the train station.

These happen pretty frequently in Germany. Dresden’s last big anti-Nazi rally was about 8 months ago. They tend to draw out lots of liberal young adults, many of them punks with Kool-Aid hair, most of them dressed in black, a lot of them likely socialists. More or less the same people you’d see at a vegan march or an Iraq War protest. Rally kids.

As a foreigner, I find these anti-Nazi rallies particularly interesting. Considering that people generally rally to bring awareness to issues that the public is split on or undecided over, could there really be a need for a rally informing us that Nazism is bad? Haven’t we all pretty much been in agreement on that since — y’know — 1945?

For an American, sure, it’s that simple. Of course, for an American, Nazis have been considered enemies of the State from Day 1, or darn close to it. In Germany, it’s a little more complicated. For Germans, the Nazis of World War II aren’t simply the sadistic Aryan caricatures that they are to most Americans. For Germans, the connections are often personal, and the reasons are visible. The Nazis were the ones who temporarily brought Germany out of a devastating economic tailspin, creating jobs and slashing Germany’s whopping post-WWI unemployment rate. They’re the ones who built the Autobahn, for crying out loud.

Obviously Germans today are aware of the atrocities the Nazi party wreaked during WWII. They’re painfully aware. It’s a burden every German — whether they were alive during WWII or not — carries. (This fantastic piece from the German news magazine Der Spiegel goes into it more deeply than I could ever attempt to as a non-German — and it’s in English.)

But the point is, Germany’s relationship with Nazism is a complicated one, and nowhere in Germany is this complex relationship more apparent than it is in the former East Germany, particularly here in the state of Saxony. Thanks largely to high unemployment and a general sense of disappointment in Democracy’s promises of prosperity, a rising number of young East Germans are finding a sympathetic ear in thinly-veiled neo-fascism.

Germany’s far right political party, the Nationaldemokratische Partei or NPD, never overtly associates itself with neo-Nazism, but openly touts ideas such as making German citizenship impossible for any “African, Asian or Oriental”. By and large in Germany, the NPD is considered racist and extremist and not taken very seriously since it’s never gained the minimum 5 percent of votes required for the party to be able to send delegates to the German Parliament. But in the 2004 state election in Saxony, the NPD won 9.2 percent of the overall vote. The next state election will be next year, and the NPD is expected to retain its seats. They’re doing it with the help, primarily, of young, single, male, blue collar Saxons who feel the NPD is the only party that will listen to them. (You can read a little more about their history and recruitment methods, which focus on milking public fear and anger at vulnerable moments, here.)

So that’s why the left-wing rally kids feel the need to remind everyone that Nazism is a bad thing.

Though I suspect this fight won't be as simple as saving the sea otters.

JEM

Happy Birthday, Robot Husband

When we were first married, my mother-in-law, a marriage and family therapist, gave me a book called "The Five Love Languages". The writing was pretty gushy, but I thought the ideas were really good — namely, that different people have different ways of expressing love and of accepting expressions of love. The key, of course, is determining the love languages of the people you love, so that you can express your love to them in the way that is most meaningful to them.

Most of the people in my life were fairly obvious, but I struggled narrowing Jake down. I watched him and analyzed him, but I couldn't figure him out. Finally I just asked him. And he wouldn't tell me. Over the six years of our marriage, I've occasionally come back to this and tried to work it out without much success. But about a month ago I asked him again and he finally came clean with me.

Turns out Jake's love language (and I can't believe I wasn't able to figure this one out) is binary.

So, Jake, on the occasion of your 28th birthday, this one's for you:

01111001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01101110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110 00100000 01101001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110101 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01110100 01101000 01100100 01100001 01111001 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01100100 00101110




Love,

JEM

Civic Duty

I've got a 2008 U.S. presidential absentee ballot sitting in my e-mail inbox. I'm supposed to print it out, fill in the bubbles next to my choices with a dark-colored ballpoint pen (not red), stuff it in an envelope and send it back to the Cache County Clerk's office in Logan, Utah, my last American residence, by Nov. 3.

Now if I could just make up my mind.



JEM

Mugshot

JEM

German and Not German

Now presenting 11 things that are and aren't German:

1. German chocolate cake. Not German.

2. Gummy bears. German.

3. Adolf Hitler. Not German.


4. The Scorpions. German.

5. Albert Einstein. German.

6. German pancakes. Trick question. Based on a German dish but reinterpreted by Americans, such that it no longer resembles the German dish at all.


7. Mannheim Steamroller. Not German.

8. Almost every fairy tale you've ever heard. German.

9. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not German.


10. La Bouche. Another trick question. One-quarter German, three-quarters American, but established in Germany.

11. T-Mobile. German.

BONUS: David Hasselhoff. Not German. (Although I'm sure they'd grant him citizenship if he asked.)

A magazine in the waiting room of my OBGYN.

JEM

If You Like Me, Maybe You'll Like ...

If you don't know me, or even if you do, but enjoy reading about the adventures and mishaps of a hot, 25-year-old, Mormon female from the Intermountain West living in an alien land and culture, then please allow me to make two recommendations. The following blogs are operated by two of my girlfriends, who both happen to be hot, 25, Mormon, from the Intermountain West and living in pretty unusual circumstances:

1. The View from the North. This blog comes from the brain of Angie Alston, whom I met in high school. She was the reigning Idaho Junior Miss when we were seniors and can hold a pencil in her cavernous, adorable dimples when she smiles. Strangely, Jake also knows her through entirely different avenues and actually pursued her romantically for a brief time. (Ang, I've never taken the time to thank you for letting him down kindly, but I truly appreciate it.) But now, she's a middle school Social Studies teacher living in Shishmaref, Alaska, a tiny village located 20 miles south of the Arctic Circle that's accessible only by airplane and subject to the occasional polar bear attack. The town doesn't have any flush toilets, and Angie and her endearing hubby Steve (an elementary school teacher) attend church every Sunday via conference call. It's a fascinating, thoroughly entertaining read.

2. The Finnish Line. This blog is operated by our friends Ben and Missy Ames, but from what I gather, primarily by Missy. Missy and I met our freshman year of college at Utah State University and have been tight ever since, but especially since, during college, we both married men who turned out to be one another's tech-geek soul mates. In August, Missy and Ben moved to Jyväskylä, Finland, where Ben is working on a two-year master's program in physics at a campus so breathtaking it looks like it was constructed by God, and Missy is working as an English teacher. Neither of them really speak Finnish, despite Ben's being half-Finish, but they're learning and exploring the landscape almost exclusively by bike. All their entries so far have been interesting and entertaining, but I've especially enjoyed their beautifully-assembled video tours, and I'm looking forward to many more in the next two years.

But, in the words of the immortal LeVar Burton, don't take my word for it!




JEM

T-Minus Six Weeks

American Dresdner: We haven't had a chat in a while.
Jasmine E. Michaelson: I know! How have you been?
AD: I'll ask the questions around here.
JEM: Oh.
AD: How have you been?
JEM: Things have been pretty good. You might be interested to know that as of today I have exactly six weeks left in my pregnancy!

The protuberance as of this writing.

AD: Thank you for volunteering that personal information and yet another semi-nude photo of your torso.
JEM: Anytime! We're just so excited!!! : )
AD: You did NOT just incorporate an emoticon into this interview.
JEM: Oh, I did. What're you gonna do about it? >: } Anyway, the pregnancy is going super except for a few things.
AD: Such as?
JEM: Oh, you know. The usual. Can't tie my shoes or pick things up off the floor without almost passing out. It takes me about 45 minutes to walk up our six flights of stairs. Pretty much need a winch to stand up. Heartburn like the fires of hell. Tiny fists of fury pummeling my lungs and kidneys. Waking up with a dagger buried in my lower back. Generally unable to find a comfortable position for longer than five minutes. And then, of course, there's been the rare but spontaneous lactation.
AD: The miracle of human life.
JEM: Also, after nursing Jake (no connection to the aforementioned spontaneous lactation) back to coherency from his man cold last weekend, I caught it. 
AD: Man cold?
JEM: Yeah. It's like a regular cold, but carried by a man.

My dad always said that when he got a cold it was worse for him than it was for the rest of us because he was bigger.
AD: I don't follow.
JEM: More of him to get sick.
AD: Hmmm. Fascinating logic.
JEM: I think it also applies to pregnant women, because in addition to generally having more mass, you are literally being sick for two people.
AD: Are you sure this theory is scientifically valid?
JEM: Oh, it's no theory. You want to sit in this body for a spell?
AD: Tempting, but ...
JEM: Lightweight. Which reminds me. Jake gave me a new pet name this weekend. We were leaving the apartment and he said, "OK, Blimpy, you ready to go?"
AD: Blimpy?
JEM: He means it in the best way.
AD: Sure he does. So, as you close in on the blessed event, do you have any worries?
JEM: No. None at all.
AD: None?
JEM: Well, maybe there a couple of worries.
AD: Would you care to share a few?
JEM: Oh, there's not a lot to share. Just little things like, will my bellybutton ever look normal again? What pain have I experienced thus far in my life that could possibly compare to the pain I will soon experience during labor? Or, after watching me push a human being out of my body, will Jake ever again be able to see me as a mysterious and alluring creature? Or, what if my water breaks and I'm nowhere near a telephone or a taxi? Or, what if I'm home alone at go-time and have to get myself down all these stairs? Or, what if there's a lot of traffic and I have to deliver the baby in the backseat of a taxi with a cigarette-smoking-beer-swilling-soccer-hooligan cabbie named Olf as my only support? 
AD: So, the usual concerns?
JEM: Of course, those are just dealing with the birth itself. There are other worries, like, what if the hospital staff are so out of practice with circumcisions, since the only Europeans who have their boys circumcized are the occasional Jews, that they flub it up and we have to raise Junior as a girl?
AD: That doesn't seem terribly likely.
JEM: I'm just trying to prepare myself for every possibility.
AD: Do you have a name picked out yet?
JEM: We're leaning, but we're not making anything public or official yet.
AD: Any clues?
JEM: Only that some reactions we've had to it so far have included:
"It sounds kind of evil." —Melissa Rojas, Jake's little sister
"It sounds like he'd be a cool kid. Like Ponyboy Curtis." —Ford Erickson, my little brother
"(Stunned silence)" —Anne Michaelson, Jake's mother
AD: Sounds like a keeper.
JEM: Can I say something else?
AD: I told you I'm the one asking the questions.
JEM: Fine. I'm going to say something else.
AD: I'm all ears.
JEM: In all seriousness, though, Jake and I really are so excited and so at peace with all of this. I've always been terrified at the prospect of crossing this bridge into parenthood, but it's been incredible to witness the peace that's come into our lives as this has panned out.
AD: That's beautiful. :´)
JEM: Oh, now don't you start.

AD: <: 0 Start what?

Happy German Unity Day!

On Nov. 9, 1989, buckling under the pressure of a collapsing regime, the communist government of the German Democratic Republic lifted all travel restrictions previously placed on East Germans.

From 1945, when the Soviets took control of Germany's five eastern states and the eastern half of the city-state of Berlin in the fallout of World War II, to 1961, the border between East and West Germany was relatively soft, resulting in many East Germans emigrating to the West in pursuit of better wages and fleeing political oppression. But on Aug. 13, 1961, East German troops sealed the border and construction began on the Berlin Wall. For the next 28 years, it was virtually impossible for ordinary East German citizens to travel west of the Iron Curtain. At least 136 people were killed attempting it.

So, when the announcement was made on Nov. 9, 1989, that East Germans could now cross the border at their whim and leisure, it was understandably epic. In Berlin Westerners and Easterners flooded to the wall that divided the city and tore it apart in their efforts to embrace each other.

Nearly one year later, on Oct. 3, 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany (a.k.a. West Germany) formally welcomed back their Eastern brothers and sisters, reuniting a nation that had been severed for 45 years.

Germans refer to those events as "die Wende", or "the turning point", and since that day have dubbed every Oct. 3 "der Tag der deutschen Einheit", or "the Day of German Unity".

And that, dear readers, is why we over here in Germany don't have to go to work today. So I don't want to hear any whining. You want a day off? Reunite a nation and peacefully play a major role in the fall of a massive, corrupt regime and then we'll talk.



JEM