In the meantime I learned about what Germans need to apply for jobs. You guessed it - a collection of Zeugnises! Besides being stunned to learn that submitting a photo and including your birthdate are expected components of a job application (literally this left me speechless - are Germans just really good at not discriminating or am I missing something big here about how people get jobs or don't get them), here instead of simply a resume and cover letter, it's your certificates that matter. Whenever you leave a job your boss must write you a Zeugnis, like a final report card. The Zeugnis must be positive and describe what you did at your job. If they want to comment on some of your challenges then there is this whole superficial language that is positive but not too positive to actually connote something negative. And they basically expect your Zeugnis collection to account for the time from when you finished school until present day. For example, another Bosch Fellow on Claire's program has also applied for another grant last year and left out the two years after he graduated from college. He told me he did the typical float around waiting to figure out what he wanted to really do thing and then went back to graduate school. Basically his jobs were not professional in a way connected to his career path. In there eyes his application wasn't complete without these two years accounted for and asked him in a follow-up e-mail to detail what he did during this time. Apparently "worked as a barista" when you now do energy consulting is better than a gap in your Zeugnis collection.
I think I'll make my own Zeugnis for the second half of my year. I've been trying to talk to people about volunteering, but I think that will also turn into a better story than reality. I emailed the contact at this big clearinghouse organization for volunteering in Berlin, she is the volunteer coordinator. She gave me one possible date we could meet in January. Unfortunately I was unavailable that day. Then she was going to be on a business trip until the end of the first week in February. So I called back then but she was sick and so I left a message. Then finally yesterday she contacted me again and offered me a new appointment on the last day of February. That would be 7 weeks after first contact. I haven't had the heart yet to inform her that I am leaving at the end of May because I want to follow this out to see how it works. I'm afraid that classified information would end the whole exchange. It's a good thing my mother taught me to read and promoted reading, so that I would "never be bored."
The freedom to simply wander or to simply stay home and read is absolutely wonderful and not to be underestimated. Last week I read a book about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose which is about student resistance to the Nazis in Munich. This week, after following the developments in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern nations, I started in on a giant book about the history of Islamic societies. My choices are limited by the options in English at the library, but so far I haven't come home without more books than I can possibly read. My German reading skills leave me in the young adult literature section where I have found some wonderful books. If you can read in German or find a translation of Lilly unter den Linden, I would highly recommend it. Unfortunately I just missed the stage production that closed in January. This novel tells the duel story of a young girl dealing with death of her mother from breast cancer. She is left as a virtual orphan since the year is 1988 and she lives in Hamburg, but the rest of her family lives in Jena, a town in East Germany. As she tries to find a way back to her family in Jena, you learn story of her mother's childhood and how she fled East Germany.
Yesterday on my way home from the post office I decided to take a round about path home and explore a part of Kreuzberg that I had only skirted in the past. I found a new platz that led out to the Spree River along a lovely green space. Since the sun was out I just kept walking and found greenspace that was a canal from about 1870 to 1923, then it was filled in and became a park. After the end of war the space was part of the border between the Soviet and American sectors and eventually became part of the Berlin Wall. Now it has been restored to a park, sunken, however, to reflect the original use as a canal. Then I stumbled upon this old hospital that is now a community arts center. They were have an exhibition of contemporary Indonesian art, so I couldn't say no. The exhibition was great and helped me make the mental connection between Berlin and Yogyakarta. Both cities have such a strong art scene. I loved seeing traditional Indonesian art depicting the contemporary world. Berlin is so huge you can just get off at any stop on the public transportation system and start wandering. When you peek in buildings or through arches into back buildings, you just never know what you will find. Now if they'd only been serving pisang goreng (fried bananas) wrapped in fresh banana leaves, it would have been the perfect day!
