Blog or Bust

It has been a nonstop two weeks so far. I don't think I would be feeling this way if I hadn't been enjoying a lot of the experiences so far. I want to spend as much time as possible at my community partner and have been enjoying hanging out with my roommates (the other two guys in the program). Many class events have been taking us across Berlin (and today, up to Hamburg to stay overnight), and everywhere we go I want to wander and explore the area. I want to find cool things I wasn't expecting there. In the time in between, I am keeping up with messages from home and my homework from my classes. Yesterday, while visiting Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, we were caught in a flash flood and were walking in knee-deep water until we found shelter in a vocational school. Everyone in my class got out of the day wet, but safe. Being out wet all day may have contributed to me feeling under the weather now. We arrived in Hamburg this morning, and visited the Kuns...

I thought I would break the ice with this blog post. I am safe and sound in Kreuzberg, a neighborhood in Berlin. The class has had an exciting several days getting introduced to our community partners and having many activities as a class. One of the activities was tonight when we saw Crazy Blood at the Maxim Gorki. I interpreted it as a very dark humor satire, but because of its focus on guns in the schoolroom it was difficult to see the satire to its full depth of meaning. It was easy to shy away from the material, but there were many interesting artistic elements. The show used Brecht's idea of "epic theatre" in which the scenes are framed by songs that take the audience out of the world of the play to make them think about what they are seeing and how it is contrived as "theatre" but also truthful in many ways. We ended the day enjoying the Fete de la Musik, a city-wide festival in Berlin, as we walked home. After some time at the hostel, it is time to rest...

Hello! This week is dedicated to getting ready for my time in Europe, and saying goodbye to family and friends here in Seattle. Today, I tried packing all of my stuff in a carry-on-size bag, which gives me a good idea of what the actual packing will be like when I get my bag tomorrow. With most everything packed, all my stuff is about 15 pounds! I've never traveled this light before, but I am looking forward to it. On Monday, I met with a UW professor and a librarian about my summer research on stories and how I can search for published content related to my research. My major takeaway is that the work that I'm doing may not exist exactly as I see it, and I will probably have to look at research in multiple disciplines to find everything that is related. I have a better idea of where my work fits in just with the conversations, and I hope I can read a bit more material when I am in Berlin. I was having a hard time sleeping tonight, so I decided to write my first personal bl...