Dorm Life: Parties and Permission

So I've complained about people cooking dinner in our kitchen before, but this isn't about that.  This is about that.  This is about the common courtesy one extends to neighbors when in a joint living situation.  When I suggested my kitchen as the potential Halloween party/Birthday Party location for my friend Eduarda, I told her to hold off on sending the invitation to everyone until I had a chance to ask everyone else on the floor if it was ok.  I even invited them all to come.  And they did come, even Miss Montana who hardly ever leaves her room. I think because it was a courteous exchange and because it wasn't a big drunken crazy party, people felt comfortable there. This isn't to say that the simple act of asking people for permission to have a party automatically makes it a better party, but it fosters a certain amount of goodwill amongst the people with whom you live.

Showdown in the Kitchen

So last night I was suffering from what can only be described as one of the worst sinus headaches in the history of mankind.  It's much better today, but I think I should still probably take some ibuprofen just to be on the safe side.  I have a lot of friends who get migranes, and I don't know what a migrane feels like, but this was probably the sinus headache equivalent of a migrane.  It hurt my entire head to cough and though I was just laying in bed and breathing my head was pounding.

Anyway, because of the pain, and the fact that I have to get in just the right position to sleep with this head cold, I had some problems falling asleep.  I tried reading just before I went to bed, but the headache was too bad and focusing on the words and writing notes was too much.  This was at about 1:30 am.  I put a warm compress on my eyes and finally drifted off to sleep at what was probably around 2:00 am or so.  At 3:45 I was woken up by loud voices in the hallway.

Hunkering Down and the Putzplan

Having had a relapse of whatever it was I got about 2 weeks go, I've spend the last 2 1/2 days in my dorm - not really leaving my room except for showers, food, and other necessities.  It has afforded me the opportunity to finish up some reading for my Ph.D. exams and given the cold and the amount of rain that we've been having, it's actually been preferable to going outside.  Apparently, however, my absence has been noted as people have been asking about me.

Rather than this being a lengthy post about either my reading or my illness, I figured I would take this as an opportunity to tell you about the latest goings on in the 2nd floor of Prinz Karl.  The more responsible of the Brazilians decided that it would be a good idea to sit down on Tuesday evening and talk about our Putzplan.  Putzen is the German word for cleaning, and Plan - well, I think you can probably figure that one out.  Anyway, at 8pm we met in the kitchen and assigned weeks for cleaning and other responsibilities.

Basically, if it's your week, you must purchase toilet paper, make sure that the bathrooms are clean between visits from the Putzfrau, make sure that the garbage gets taken out, and clean any big things in the kitchen.  In addition, we agreed that if you make a mess you clean it up.  It is not the responsibility of the person on duty that week to clean up your dishes from making dinner for 10 people in the kitchen.

That was Tuesday.  This morning, I go into the kitchen and find it a disaster.  I almost took a picture.  I really should have because it would show you the level of filth that some people think is acceptable to force other people to live with.  Anyway, there were apparently about 8 people in our kitchen last night drinking, eating dinner, and having a good time, but nobody decided to clean up after themselves.  Now it's one of the Brazilian's job to clean this week, and let's just say that he is challenged when it comes to basic household maintenance and well anything else that takes place in a kitchen.  (As an aside, we were amazed that he cleaned his room last weekend, but then he has a girlfriend, and if he wanted his girlfriend to stay over, the room needed to be cleaned.)

Having talked to one of the Brazilians briefly in the kitchen today, he said that he cooked, but that the other Brazilian didn't get a chance to clean up.  I thought to myself - wait a minute - it's not his job to clean up your crap.  I mean, it's nice if the people for whom you cook help you clean up afterwards, and given the number of plates and glasses that were washed, I would suspect that someone did clean up after dinner.  But don't blame your friend and fellow countryman because your dirty pots and pans were scattered everywhere. OR because there were beer bottles everywhere in the kitchen.  OR because you were too drunk to take care of it.

Anyway, it's week one of the Putzplan and it's not going too well.  The German woman on our floor -  is up next week and I suspect it will be a little different with her.  Let's hope.

Cook in your own kitchen!!

I get that our kitchen is bigger.  I get that you may even be cooking for a couple of people who live on this floor. But seriously there are four other people who live in this hall, for whom you are not cooking and each and every one of them wants to cook and eat their dinner.  So unless you're going to invite us all to eat with you, go back to your own frickin' kitchen and cook your food there because you're taking up the ENTIRE kitchen to cook your food.

Seriously.  You have to bring all of your ingredients downstairs to cook in our kitchen.  Isn't that inconvenient?  Wouldn't it be easier to cook upstairs and invite people up to your place to eat?  Not only that, but we just cleaned our kitchen and you and the two boys for whom you are cooking are not known for cleaning up after yourselves.

And the worst part is that I know pretty soon the guitar playing is going to start.  

Yea for my dad!!!

After reading my last post, my dad did a little bit of research and now I'm able to at least get to Pandora with regularity and all the TV stations - as well as Hulu on occasion!!!

Whoo hooo!!

Thanks Dad!!

We interrupt this blog to complain...

I'm going to bitch a little bit right now.  I know...you're thinking to yourselves, what the heck else do you do on this blog...seriously!!  But this time I'm going to be complaining about technology and the lack of services that one can receive in Germany.  For example.  I cannot watch Hulu - which is a Web service that allows you to put various television programs in a queue and then watch them at your leisure.  I had been watching a couple of tv programs in the US via hulu....but that's all over now.  Even if I tunnel in through my university's VPN software, it can tell that I'm not in the US.  I also can't watch the shows directly from the tv network Web sites.  They can tell I'm not in the US and block me from watching....

The same goes for Pandora - which is like internet radio, but it will create playlists for you based on the songs you insert into the program.  Kinda like the iTunes Genius feature, but you don't have to download the songs.  Finally, I was trying to link to a youtube video that a friend had posted and I couldn't get to it because I'm in Germany.  Come on people!!!  What happened to freedom of speech?!!  What happened to international cooperation?!!  If anyone has suggestions I'm open to them.  Otherwise I'm going to have to start listening to German radio, and honestly that way lies madness.  I mean Rammstein is ok, but they get very little radio play.  Most German radio is techno, dance and top 40 crapola, in which I have no interest.  blah...