We Need to Talk.

American Dresdner: JEM, could I have a word with you?
Jasmine E. Michaelson: Yeah, sure.
AD: In the conference room? Alone?
JEM: We have a conference room?
AD: (closes door solemnly) JEM, I'm going to cut to the chase here. Your performance lately has been disappointing to say the least. I know you had your little vacation in the U.S. for three weeks, was it?
JEM: Yeah.
AD: Wowsers! Better not get used to that! Anyway, my point is, you've been back for over a month and posted here only once. Now, I consider myself a patient person, but when your performance reflects on me and my reputation, I have to address it. And as much as I hate to resort to threats, I'm afraid I have to tell you that if you aren't up to this anymore, I'm going to have to let you go and find someone else who is.
JEM: Wait — what?
AD: Now let's not get emotional.
JEM: Emotional? AD, are you seriously threatening to fire me?
AD: Please don't make a scene. No one's firing anyone yet.
JEM: But this is MY blog! I MADE you! You can't fire me, you little ingrate! Maybe I'll fire YOU! How about that!
AD: Clearly you're under some emotional duress.
JEM: Yeah, I'm under some emotional duress! I've been sick for a week along with Jethro and Jake, and you know what I learned? MAMA DON'T GET NO SICK DAYS! I spent three days up to my elbows in snot and spit — and only half of it was mine. And I'm just so tired. (bursts into tears) But I love them so much, AD. Jake's such a sweet husband and Jethro's such a funny, loving little guy. Look at this:

Couldn't you just DIE!? I'm a lucky woman, AD, I really am. (wipes tears) I should also mention here that I quit nursing Jethro entirely about a month and a half ago and that has triggered some hormonal changes I wasn't anticipating. (laughs hysterically)
AD: OK. No need to get into your lady issues here. Is there anything else you'd like to disclose regarding your poor work performance?
JEM: Well, I had to give a talk last week in church, and about a month before that Jake and I gave a fireside to a church group. And you have to realize that whenever I have to do things like this in German, it takes at least four times as long to prepare as it would in English, mostly working out strange vocabulary words and verb constructions I manage to avoid most of the time.
AD: OK, noted. Anything else?
JEM: Yes. I also recently lost a significant amount of sleep after watching "Let the Right One In", a Swedish vampire movie that BLEW MY MIND.



Best vampire movie ever, as far as I'm concerned. Seriously scary but also strangely sweet and innocent. Anyway, my brain wouldn't turn off for hours after I went to bed. I eventually had to hypnotize myself to go to sleep.
AD: You what?
JEM: You count backwards from 100 with the singular thought that by the time you reach 1 you will be relaxed, not afraid, confident ... whatever you need at the moment. It doesn't always work. You have to really focus. Jake read about it in a book and taught it to me. He's a lot better at it than I am. My mind wanders too much, but it does often help me go to sleep when I'm really keyed up.
AD: Fascinating. Are there any other lame excuses that you'd like to give me for being such a slacker?
JEM: No. I think that's all I've got. But I would like to share something interesting.
AD: Shoot.
JEM: You remember my crippling phobia of slugs? Well, Jake decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to address my fear, and he gave a Family Home Evening lesson on slugs. (We usually have pretty unorthodox home evening lessons.) We learned about the anatomy and lifestyle of the slug. Did you know that the black hole on one side of the slug's mantle is a single nostril? I always thought some joker was giving them all cigarette burns on the same place.


Anyway, the most fascinating part of the lesson was this video of slugs mating. Yeah, it's gross, but it's also actually quite spectacular. I had no idea slugs were capable of such an intricate and elaborate ritual. It's kind of (and I can't believe I'm saying this) beautiful. And I have to say that it actually did give me a greater appreciation of slugs. Not that I'm planning to take one on as a pet or anything.



AD: I think I could have done without seeing that, but I'm glad it helped you. Now, as for that post on your reverse culture shock that you promised a month ago?
JEM: Yeah, I know. I'm working on it.
AD: Can we expect this sometime before CHRISTMAS?
JEM: Yes, definitely before Christmas. I can promise you that. Hey, AD?
AD: Yes?
JEM: You wouldn't really replace me, right? I mean, sure, I've had my ups and downs here, but I do OK, right? And we're old friends, you know? You wouldn't turn out a friend, right?
AD: Right ... (sweeps applicant files into a drawer while faking a sneeze)

Clap Your Hands

Last October our ward had a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the completion of Dresden's beautiful LDS church building, which also serves as a stake center. Interesting fact: The Iron Curtain was still standing when it was built. Our church was only the second LDS church building constructed in East Germany. Anyway, I was asked to play two "American folk songs" at the party, which had a sort of international theme. So, please enjoy this video of an 8-months pregnant JEM playing a couple of old country songs.



You'll notice a fascinating cultural phenomenon at the end of the video. Rather than whoop and whistle the way Americans do when enjoying a musical performance, Germans are a chronic clap-in-time-to-the-music people. It's like an epidemic. If you don't believe me, watch the runway segments of the season 2 finale of Germany's Next Topmodel at the beginning and end of this video:





JEM

Couch Time

I grossly underestimated how much time a new mom spends with her can glued to the couch. I haven't actually worked it out, but I'd guess that on average I now spend about two-thirds of my waking hours sitting on the couch.

I think this would drive a lot of people nuts, but lucky for me, couch-sitting is something I've always done remarkably well. It's integral to almost all of my primary hobbies: knitting, guitar playing, movie and TV watching, reading, and couch sitting. The thing is, now, my couch sitting is accompanied by my hands being occupied. And usually sticky with milk and baby puke. So that means that, most of the time, knitting, guitar playing, and reading are off the list. Oh yeah, and we don't have a television. But (thank the heavens), about a week before the birth, Jake — in all his unparalleled brilliance — figured out how to get us American television.

Normally, videos on sites like hulu.com and all the network sites aren't available to us because the Internet fairies tell them that we're not in America and some sort of legal-copyright hullabaloo makes viewing the videos in other countries illegal. Or something. Anyway, turns out, the trick is getting a server in the States and routing your traffic through that. You'll have to ask Jake for the details if you're interested. All I know is that now I can watch TV. And, boy, do I watch a lot. Random stuff. Stuff I never watched before. And I have a new favorite show.



Seriously. You should watch "Family Ties" again. They have a kajillion episodes here on cbs.com. It is a fantastic show. You'll thank me.

Michael J. Fox aside, though, all the guilt-free time on the couch is made even better by the fact that much of it is just spent snuggling this:


hiccup from Jasmine Michaelson on Vimeo.

Hey! I'm an American!

Yeah, OK. I'll bite. But not too hard.

Although I'm not currently working as a journalist, I still consider myself one and try to hold myself to the standards I like to think good journalists hold themselves to, namely keeping my personal political opinions private. I'm not opposed to sharing them in private, but I try to avoid broadcasting them to the universe.

That's why I wasn't going to bring this up at all.

But for the last couple of days I've had the almost irresistible urge to elbow strangers in public and, beaming, say, "Hey! I'm an American! Did you hear what we did?" And I just realized that this feeling has nothing to do with my personal political opinions — but, rather, everything to do with my homeland proving, yet again, that anything is possible on its soil.


And I'm proud of us.



JEM

P.S. Here's a great (and short) piece about how, all of a sudden, being an American in Europe is OK.

All Work and No Play ...

Jake got it in his head that he wanted to watch "The Shining" on Halloween. Me and scary movies don't traditionally get along too well. (I like to think it has something to do with an overactive imagination, but it's really because I'm a coward.) So anyway, I'd heard rumors that "The Shining" was, like, the most terrifying movie ever made of all time, or something along those lines, so I was a little hesitant. But after watching this trailer on YouTube, I felt a lot better about it and decided to give it a go:



Turns out that trailer is a little misleading.

But in a related story, there's no way I'm letting Jake talk me into watching this one:





JEM

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.

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

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

Paul Newman, 1925-2008

Paul Newman, you were a man among men. A scoundrel with an angel's looks and a heart of gold.
And one of the coolest sons-of-a-gun ever to walk the Earth.
You'll be missed.

The End is Here

Well, Planet Earth and all of its living inhabitants, no one can say we didn't have a great time, am I right? Unfortunately, every party has to end some time and it looks like ours might do so (in rather spectacular form) today.

Say hello to the end of the world:

This is the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. This is how big it is:

Entirely underground, this single machine spans about 17 miles. It has been built by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to crash tiny subatomic particles called hadrons into each other, using giant magnets, at just under the speed of the light. These particles will explode, theoretically creating 100,000 times more heat than the sun — though only for the smallest fraction of a second and on a far smaller scale (the area of the explosion will be about a billionth part of a speck of dust).

CERN scientists believe this could help them recreate conditions similar to the Big Bang, on a very miniaturized scale, thereby gaining a greater understanding of — well, everything. Terms that come up with the Large Hadron Collider tend to be pretty grandiose — discovery of the "God particle", for example, or the development of a legitimate "Theory of Everything".

So, theoretically that's what this thing will do.

Theoretically.

Thing is, they don't really know what it will do because they haven't actually tried it out yet. That's why other scientists have petitioned to halt the project. They fear turning this thing on could create a black hole. To which Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of CERN replied, "The chance we produce a black hole is minuscule. ... Even if we do, it can't swallow up the Earth."

Although certainly intended to be comforting, the immediate cry heard round the scientific community was one of: "Wait, you mean there is a chance that this could create a BLACK HOLE???"

But efforts to stop the project didn't pan out. And today, Sept. 10, 2008, at some point between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central European Time (my time zone), they're going to turn it on.

I recommend spending the last hours of your life checking out these incredible photo essays of the Large Hadron Collider (here and here) and looking directly into the eyes of your imminent doom.

See you on the other side.



JEM

P.S. You can read more about the Large Hadron Collider all over the Interwebs, but since you don't have much time to sift through all that stuff, what with the end of the world and all, I'd recommend this in-depth National Geographic article. It explains all this business of God particles and Theories of Everything better than I can. Happy reading!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 2: Amsterdam

America's European travel guru Rick Steves suggests this approach to visiting the capital of the Netherlands: "Approach Amsterdam as an ethnologist observing a strange culture. Stroll through any neightborhood and see things that are commonplace here, but rarely found elsewhere. Carillons chime quaintly in neighborhoods selling sex, as young professionals smoke pot with impunity next to old ladies in bonnets selling flowers. Observe the neighborhood's 'social control,' where an elderly man feels safe in his home knowing he's being watched by the prostitutes next door."

There really are two stories when it comes to Amsterdam — that of the anything-goes-live-and-let-live society that has made the city a mecca for those drawn to the beacon of pot and prostitution without any legal ramifications, and that of a quaint Dutch settlement steeped in centuries of tradition that attracts conservative history buffs and tulip enthusiasts. But the two sides coexist so seamlessly that when you're there, it really does feel like one story. And Rick (after the last week, we're on a first name basis) is right. The only way to get this story is just to walk around and watch, which is what we did there for two and half days. And we came away in love with it.


JEM's favorite things about Amsterdam:
1. Canals.

Amsterdam's got more canals than Venice, and they're all lined with cute boats. They also have swans and these weird little black ducks that prompted the following exchange:

JEM: Wow, y'know? Look at that duck's feet. Those don't look like normal duck's feet. I don't think those are ducks at all.
Jake: Jaz, (sigh and eye roll) it's pronounced 'Dutch'.

2. Tall, skinny houses that look like they're melting.

Apparently the reason Amsterdam's houses are so skinny is that they were and still are taxed according to their width. Their stairwells are so steep and narrow that all the houses have hoisting hooks on their fronts for moving furniture through the windows by rope. All this combined with their skewompus melting angles caused by their centuries-long descent into the adjacent canals makes them look like they were designed by 4-year-old architects. They're adorable.

3. Bikes.

Amsterdam wasn't built for cars. The streets in Amsterdam are so tiny and so crowded with pedestrians that the thought of attempting to navigate them in a car is laughable. The resulting society is, I'd bet, the most bicycle-congested one in the western hemisphere.

And the bikes are great — these old, hammered things with chipped paint and squeaky breaks and stripped down metal child seats attached to every possible appendage. Our favorites were the ones with these built-on wooden buckets. They're like bike pickup trucks.

Jake really wants to get one someday. We're still working out how we'll get it to wherever we'll be living by then, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it.

4. Narrow alleys that feel like secret passageways.

5. Food.

Strawberry kiwi tart

Dutch apple pancake

Dutch apple tart

Some of the tastiest hot chocolate ever to go down my gullet

Bizarre vending machine hamburgers

6. The Red Light District.

Sorry, no photos here. Apparently if you take pictures, pimps will leap from the shadows and give you a black eye.

Let me begin by saying that I am not an advocate of prostitution. Really. But strolling through Amsterdam's Red Light District ranks awfully high on my surreal-o-meter. Since I can't take you there with photos, I'll try to explain the set up as best as I can. You remember that pic up there of Jake frolicking in an alley? So, envision an alley just that narrow, lined with windows at ground level, like shop windows, with a glass door next to each window and a red light over each door. But instead of mannequins and store displays in the windows, there are live girls in lingerie, literally a couple of feet from you, really hamming it up. They wink and smile and beckon and blow kisses and even knock on the glass to get your attention. Bargaining happens through the door, and once a deal has been struck, the customer is admitted into the small bedroom and a curtain is drawn over the window and door.

Did I mention it's really surreal?

The favorite moment of our Red Light District stroll was when we noticed, behind a pretty blond girl shimmying for a group of prospective customers, an open door behind her that led into an adjacent kitchenette that she apparently shared with her next door neighbor, who happened to be in there at the time, standing next to the microwave in a thong and stilettos, fixing herself a snack.

7. Anne Frank house.

I read the Diary of Anne Frank as a kid, I think. At least portions of it. But after standing in the rooms where the whole thing went down, I have to read it again. What an incredible and tragic story.

The clippings and photos glued to the walls of Anne's room in the above picture are still on the walls, protected by sheets of plexiglass. They are such normal girl things to put on the wall — movie stars and the like — that I was really transfixed in there for a while. It reminded me of what a normal kid Anne was, just dropped into such horrifying and extraordinary circumstances.

I had forgotten that Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the only member of their family to survive the concentration camps. There was video of him in the museum talking about how long it took for him to open and read Anne's diary after the end of the war. It was one of the most raw and gut-wrenching things I've ever seen. This small museum is definitely an Amsterdam must.

8. Vincent van Gogh Museum.
This museum tells the life story of the Dutch-born revolutionary, who decided in his late 20s, with no artistic training or background, that he wanted to be an artist.

It chronicles his development and practice, starting with dark, drab rudimentary works and ending with the vibrant, emotional, Impressionism-inspired stuff the world now adores him for.

And, for me, it reshaped my image of van Gogh, whom I had always thought of as an angry, crazy, self-destructive misfit.

In the end, I left the place heartbroken over a sweet, well-meaning dreamer who, even as his work was reaching its creative climax, saw himself as a spectacular failure and, recognizing his mounting mental illness for what it was, checked himself into a psychiatric hospital.

But was unable to heal and, only 10 years after deciding he would become an artist, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

I kept looking at the hordes of people in the museum desperately trying to get close to his most famous and beloved works and thinking, "Oh, I hope he can see this."


9. The flower market.


10. (Tie) Dutch people and Dutch quirkiness.

We decided that the Dutch people have it all: They've got the Germans' engineering prowess, the Scandinavians' ethereal good looks, the Americans' cheerful, laid-back friendliness, the Frenchmen's fashion sense, and a unique, funky style all their own. And they all whistle happy little tunes to themselves everywhere they go.

When I grow up I want to be Dutch.



JEM's Amsterdam cons:
1. Pot.

I don't have any pictures, not because there weren't plenty to be had, but rather because I would prefer to forget this aspect of the city. It reinforced my opposition to the legalization of marijuana, not for moral reasons so much as an effort to protect American society from the flood of obnoxiousness that apparently comes with its legalization. Namely, nightmarishly bad street musicians playing Bob Marley songs on toy guitars that haven't been tuned in decades. One of whom took up residence right under our hotel room window, alternating shifts periodically with the steel drummer, who I swear played the same song all afternoon, and, just as we were leaving, the didjeridu guy.

I'm certain legalized pot was also to blame for the guy who knocked over a recycling bin full of glass bottles right under our window at about 4 a.m. on the first night, and the guy who, the next night, in the early morning hours, went on a lenghty tirade below our window about paying for a house and telling the sober people reasoning with him that their explanations were "BOOOO-RING!"

We also had a gang of hari krishnas parade under our window at one point, singing and playing musical instruments, but I don't think that was a pot-related one. Mostly because their song was better.

I'm not going to say everybody should go to Amsterdam, like I did with Paris. But I'm glad I got to see it. And I hope I can go back again someday.



JEM