Random Ranting XXVIII
Jun. 9th, 2006 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielI think I love my job. It’s so wonderfully surreal to update the 42 folders of operating manuals while mad alarm bells go off because the instructors are busy practicing the handling of nuclear catastrophes around me. ♥
On warm days, when the sun is shining, going out on the street is almost like going to another country. “My” part of Solingen is mostly inhabited by Turkish families, with a few Italians and Portuguese and very few Germans thrown in for variety, so when the sun is shining and the streets are hot, it’s not hard to feel like you’re actually on vacations in Turkey.
It’s nice, I suppose, if Turkey is your vacation country of choice.
Currently, that illusion is ruined by the Last Acceptable Reason For Misguided Patriotism (a.k.a. the FIFA World Championships 2006). Due to this event, everybody and their dog’s brother has put our country’s fire-coloured tricolour out of the windows (yes, especially the Turks, and yes, that’s probably only because there’s no Turkish team taking part in this year’s WC).
After all, it’s that time again. At work, people have already placed their bets. The charming lady I bought my lunch from today was wearing a German jersey with a Dutch cap and was South Korean, which goes to show that you can use occasions this for peaceful eclecticism, too.
(Yes, there are Dutch and South Korean teams in this year’s WC.)
I don’t generally care about soccer. Certainly not in the way many Germans do. For those who don’t know, in Germany soccer isn’t so much a sport as a religion. Now I tend to be mistrustful of organized religion in general and hyped organized religion in particular, especially when the standard cultist appears about as appealing and as intelligent as George W. Bush, only more drunk and more colourfully dressed. (I should, I suppose, insert an apology to all soccer fans who are not like that right away; unfortunately, all soccer fans I encounter on the train occasionally are alcoholised, sweaty Prolls* who enjoy picking fights with people.)
But then, of course, World Championships are special. Firstly, I’m generally fond of international events.
Secondly, they occur every four years, and when they last occurred, I was just graduating.
Now you must remember that Germans are usually older than Americans when they graduate – if we’re talking about the “highest” form of graduation, the Abitur (Matura if you’re Austrian, and may I just throw in that I like that name so much better than Abitur?), anyway. I turned 19 the day after the first exam. The Abitur is also known as the “test of maturity” (hence the Austrian name, of course), so of course we all used the time around our exams for as mature things as barbecuing in the courtyard, climbing the school roof armed with super-soakers to drenchunsuspecting teachers and freshmen, and dressing up for the Star Wars preview. (Episode II premiered at midnight on the day of my oral Philosophy exam. Tried both; no compare.²) Oh- and watching soccer.
I still don’t understand the finer rules of the game (beyond “the ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes” or “the round thing goes into the angular thing”, that is), nor did I then, but I spent a lot of time with Isa, my then-best friend. It was already clear at the time that Isa would be going to study in Toronto, so we stuck together a lot before she had to leave. And whether we were dying our hair (yes, I did girly things like that in those days) or pickling cheese, making lightsabres (replicas, not real ones. duh.) or loading her belongings into boxes, there was always some soccer game we could watch. It didn’t matter much who was playing. Germany got unexpectedly far, though, which naturally made it a bit more exciting.
On the day that saw our official graduation celebration and our prom – close to Midsummer - the German team was playing against the US team. Quarter finals. We got to watch the first half while we were getting into our finery and fussing with our hairdo and such, and then we had to leave for graduation service. (We’re old-fashioned; our graduations come accompanied by an oicumenical service for all pupils and all members of their families that couldn’t find an alibi quickly enough when they were invited to the celebrations.) After about half the service, in the middle of the Protestant reverend’s (what is the female form of reverend?) sermon, we heard three loud honks outside, soon followed by a cacophony of honks and chants.³ “The horn of Gondor”, my friend Inga snarked, and “We won!” the reverendrix shouted from the lectern before remembering where she was and what she was supposed to do and continued her sermon.
On the day of our first post-Abitur meeting, when hadn’t actually been long enough apart to begin missing seeing those of our classmates who were not close friends anyway but when our head students thought it would be good to see each other again, the German team unexpectedly made it to the finals.
Those who care about soccer will know that in the end, Brazil beat Germany, but seeing how nobody had expected “us” to even get beyond the preliminary rounds, people were triumphant anyway (and celebrated with the few Brazilian pockets around the country).
The point of this story, really, is that I associate soccer World Championships with my graduation and early post-graduation time, the beginning of the “best days of my life” (which, at the current count, would begin in May 2002 and last until December 2003, leaving out all weekends of June 2002, which were horrible and have left me with an unjust but strong dislike of nursing homes). So they're good.
Today, the first WCs since then have begun. Of course I was aware that four years had passed since then, but nothing showed me how fast these four years went by so brutally as this. Life happens really fast, and I still sometimes need a “pause” button. (At other times, I’d be grateful for “rewind” or “fast forward”, but that’s beside the point.)
- - -
*A simple-minded person, usually of a big city, whose topics of conversation tend to circulate around soccer, beer, motorcycles, breasts, bad music and the latest Aldi (likeWalmart, only smaller and less constant in its stocks) bargains and who usually deem themselves quite intelligent
actually, thank you very much
²The origin of this is an old German joke:
In the students’ dormitory of the medical faculty, the professors found it necessary to put up a note: “It is forbidden to dissect corpses or see young ladies in the dormitories.” Soon after, another note was pinned underneath it, written in the scrawly hand of a student: “Tried both; no compare.”
- This one was for free!
³One of the most important ceremonies of the soccer religion is the so-called “Autokorso”, which basically means that, after your team won, you get into your car with as many friends as it will carry, drive to the largest interception of the city with all the other soccerists in the city, where you will block all traffic in some sort of cavalcading barricade along to honking and chanting and waving of flags until even the daftest idiot in the cityhears the people sing understands that it is indeed a great day of triumph.
On warm days, when the sun is shining, going out on the street is almost like going to another country. “My” part of Solingen is mostly inhabited by Turkish families, with a few Italians and Portuguese and very few Germans thrown in for variety, so when the sun is shining and the streets are hot, it’s not hard to feel like you’re actually on vacations in Turkey.
It’s nice, I suppose, if Turkey is your vacation country of choice.
Currently, that illusion is ruined by the Last Acceptable Reason For Misguided Patriotism (a.k.a. the FIFA World Championships 2006). Due to this event, everybody and their dog’s brother has put our country’s fire-coloured tricolour out of the windows (yes, especially the Turks, and yes, that’s probably only because there’s no Turkish team taking part in this year’s WC).
After all, it’s that time again. At work, people have already placed their bets. The charming lady I bought my lunch from today was wearing a German jersey with a Dutch cap and was South Korean, which goes to show that you can use occasions this for peaceful eclecticism, too.
(Yes, there are Dutch and South Korean teams in this year’s WC.)
I don’t generally care about soccer. Certainly not in the way many Germans do. For those who don’t know, in Germany soccer isn’t so much a sport as a religion. Now I tend to be mistrustful of organized religion in general and hyped organized religion in particular, especially when the standard cultist appears about as appealing and as intelligent as George W. Bush, only more drunk and more colourfully dressed. (I should, I suppose, insert an apology to all soccer fans who are not like that right away; unfortunately, all soccer fans I encounter on the train occasionally are alcoholised, sweaty Prolls* who enjoy picking fights with people.)
But then, of course, World Championships are special. Firstly, I’m generally fond of international events.
Secondly, they occur every four years, and when they last occurred, I was just graduating.
Now you must remember that Germans are usually older than Americans when they graduate – if we’re talking about the “highest” form of graduation, the Abitur (Matura if you’re Austrian, and may I just throw in that I like that name so much better than Abitur?), anyway. I turned 19 the day after the first exam. The Abitur is also known as the “test of maturity” (hence the Austrian name, of course), so of course we all used the time around our exams for as mature things as barbecuing in the courtyard, climbing the school roof armed with super-soakers to drench
I still don’t understand the finer rules of the game (beyond “the ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes” or “the round thing goes into the angular thing”, that is), nor did I then, but I spent a lot of time with Isa, my then-best friend. It was already clear at the time that Isa would be going to study in Toronto, so we stuck together a lot before she had to leave. And whether we were dying our hair (yes, I did girly things like that in those days) or pickling cheese, making lightsabres (replicas, not real ones. duh.) or loading her belongings into boxes, there was always some soccer game we could watch. It didn’t matter much who was playing. Germany got unexpectedly far, though, which naturally made it a bit more exciting.
On the day that saw our official graduation celebration and our prom – close to Midsummer - the German team was playing against the US team. Quarter finals. We got to watch the first half while we were getting into our finery and fussing with our hairdo and such, and then we had to leave for graduation service. (We’re old-fashioned; our graduations come accompanied by an oicumenical service for all pupils and all members of their families that couldn’t find an alibi quickly enough when they were invited to the celebrations.) After about half the service, in the middle of the Protestant reverend’s (what is the female form of reverend?) sermon, we heard three loud honks outside, soon followed by a cacophony of honks and chants.³ “The horn of Gondor”, my friend Inga snarked, and “We won!” the reverendrix shouted from the lectern before remembering where she was and what she was supposed to do and continued her sermon.
On the day of our first post-Abitur meeting, when hadn’t actually been long enough apart to begin missing seeing those of our classmates who were not close friends anyway but when our head students thought it would be good to see each other again, the German team unexpectedly made it to the finals.
Those who care about soccer will know that in the end, Brazil beat Germany, but seeing how nobody had expected “us” to even get beyond the preliminary rounds, people were triumphant anyway (and celebrated with the few Brazilian pockets around the country).
The point of this story, really, is that I associate soccer World Championships with my graduation and early post-graduation time, the beginning of the “best days of my life” (which, at the current count, would begin in May 2002 and last until December 2003, leaving out all weekends of June 2002, which were horrible and have left me with an unjust but strong dislike of nursing homes). So they're good.
Today, the first WCs since then have begun. Of course I was aware that four years had passed since then, but nothing showed me how fast these four years went by so brutally as this. Life happens really fast, and I still sometimes need a “pause” button. (At other times, I’d be grateful for “rewind” or “fast forward”, but that’s beside the point.)
- - -
*A simple-minded person, usually of a big city, whose topics of conversation tend to circulate around soccer, beer, motorcycles, breasts, bad music and the latest Aldi (likeWalmart, only smaller and less constant in its stocks) bargains and who usually deem themselves quite intelligent
actually, thank you very much
²The origin of this is an old German joke:
In the students’ dormitory of the medical faculty, the professors found it necessary to put up a note: “It is forbidden to dissect corpses or see young ladies in the dormitories.” Soon after, another note was pinned underneath it, written in the scrawly hand of a student: “Tried both; no compare.”
- This one was for free!
³One of the most important ceremonies of the soccer religion is the so-called “Autokorso”, which basically means that, after your team won, you get into your car with as many friends as it will carry, drive to the largest interception of the city with all the other soccerists in the city, where you will block all traffic in some sort of cavalcading barricade along to honking and chanting and waving of flags until even the daftest idiot in the city
