MTV Campus Invasion--Marburg

So two weekends ago I attended the spectacular MTV event called Campus Invasion, hosted right here in Marburg. I didnt get tickets in advance so I had to wait with a friend outside and wait for tickets. This ended up being quite fun though. There was a bunch of teenagers in front of us with lots of food, drinks, and card games. They even had UNO!!! I was so excited at seeing UNO I asked if we could play. So the next three hours involved playing UNO, eating their apples, bread, and drinking juice boxes. It kinda felt like the trips to the Como Zoo when I was a kid.

Then the ticket box office opened and pandamonium broke out--what was a nice orderly line of kind and polite Germans, turned into a riot of pubescent teens thinking the tickets were almost sold out. When we finally got to the ticket counter, they had stacks of tickets six inches thick. Next time, I plan ahead. Of course, I always say that too.

So the concert was pretty fun. Its been about six or seven years since my last concert, but its nice to see some behaviors only stay the same. I mean this sarcastically, of course. Mainly, cause I lost a shoe. And my beloved leatherman. This is what I get for being 29 and not being aware of the fellows around me, hoisting me in the air and crowd surfing I went--all the way to the stage where a burly security was much more gentle than I could have ever hoped. What a gentleman, I thought. I gave him my number.

Someone, somewhere has some video of this concert. If I should find it, I will certainly post it. I stick out like a sore thumb do to my ever stylish yellow shirt and green backpack I was wearing.

I stuck around after the concert to see if I could find my shoe (I had no hope for the leatherman), but was disappointed. I did find someone else's brown shoe, which was a size too small, but better than nothing. So there is probably someone out there missing a brown sketcher who had to go home wearing my three-year-old faded tennis shoe. Such is destiny.

Painting, Pills, and Potstickers

Red Tetra. Oil on paper.

My first painting. A neon tetra from my fish tank. He had a hard time keeping still for my picture, but a cup of ethanol in the tank seemed to take care of that little problem. The amatuer in me forgot to sign the picture.

Muddy Sky. Acrylic on canvas.

My second attempt at painting. At least I remembered to sign my name. Ironically, it seems to look better upside down.

Grey Winter. Oil on canvas.

My third painting. If Bob Koss can do it for me, he can surely do it for you. So why the heck are all his paints and videos so damn expensive? He's DEAD!!!! Now please enjoy my inspiring Grey Winter.


Roses in a jar. Oil on Canvas.

Not my painting, but I did inspire the artist to finish it when she quit on it. How did I do this? I merely threatened her with the words,"Don't worry I'll finish it!!" After seeing my paintings 1,2, and 3--this had the right effect.




Dork at Pill Press. Digital Photo.

I learned the fundamentals of mixing and making tablets and pills. Quite interesting actually. Anyone have requests? I thank Juliane for teaching such a slow student.

Potsticker Yu. Digital Photo.

Yu and Cuifang proceed to teach me the basics in making potstickers. Actually, Cuifang made all the potstickers, Yu drank, sang, and modelled, and Terry laughed, ate, and drank all their wine and beer. Careful who you invite to the dinner table.

Not all that gleams is golden.

Back, in another chapter of my life, I once held a job called Residence Advisor, where I had to council freshman college students on some facts of life. Dont drink with fraternities and here is some condoms--use them. Such were some of the lessons I had to impart. Another such lesson arrives at me now. It is called the W-curve and we all go through it, even for me, right now.

The W-curve is a simple concept. New experiences follow an emotional curve in the shape of a W. At the start, feelings are grand, everything is new, and life couldn't be better. But as time goes by, and your new balloon becomes ever so deflated, you hit the first depression of your own unique W. What was new about your experience is now tiresome, what was unique is now blase´and wearisome. The ups and downs of the emotional experience continues until an adjustment is finally made and your new baseline is finally reached.

I thought my baseline had been reached, until about three days ago when my stress levels seemed to keep climbing, with never a dip. That feeling creeps over where you dont want to get up in the morning, dont want to goto bed at night, and everything in between feels like drowning and until the mind turns into a dumb state of numb, a knife so dull it couldn't cut air.

Simply put, I miss my old outlets of stress relief that had become a weekly ritual for me and some of my closest others. Poker at seedy lesbian bars where the waitresses were over friendly, and your friends over the top, and the smoky atmosphere near choking, and yet delightfully perfect. Meeting a friend at Sally's or Big Ten's for a round of artery clogging sandwiches, stale popcorn, and cheap beer--sometimes with a game of cribbage--sometimes with a game darts.

Hanging out with the family was always a great stress reliever. There I could immerse myself in their lives--hear their problems and tell mine, with me always leaving feeling better, knowing others out there often have more pressing problems than my own, and with mine feeling smaller by comparison.

There are others I miss--running on the Mississippi, biking across the Stone Arch Bridge, a walk through Minihaha Falls, grilling at the Poker house, Frisbee golf, techno dancing, a motorcycle ride in the rain.

And of course, the last vestige that keeps me from going insane, on days when insanity feels like the only real option--I write. Sometimes you see it (here), sometimes its in the thick brown book. Thanks for reading.