Being Kenny McCormick

One advantage of being in the US is I can speak to other people in their language. In general that works fine, but from time to time I have difficulties to understand some people and they have problems to understand me. People, who are not used to my heavy German accent, have the biggest problems. There are the weirdest misunderstandings. For example when I ordered a club sandwich in a restaurant and  I got a cup of soup, or when I asked for a glass of water and the waitress asked: "What? Vodka?", or when I said: "I am from north Germany" and Rezal said: "You are not from Germany? I though you are. I'm confused". The funny thing is that there are always other people who understand me. That makes me feel like characters in TV shows, who speak in a language which is understood by people in the TV show while the audience does not understand anything. For example all adults in "The Peanuts", Kenny in "South Park", Yen in "Oceans Eleven", or short police man in "Cool McCool". Being that person is not healthy: Yen breaks his hands, short police man is always beaten up by his colleges, and Kenny dies in each episode.

Some people told me I have a British accent. I guess, I speak some words with a British and some with an American accent. People here only notice the British accent of course. In school I learned British English. For example, they taught me flat instead apartment. People here look a bit confused when I talk about my flatmate. Instead period I learned full stop. A typical sentence Americans say is: "Because I said so, period!" (usually, followed by a "yeehaw" shout and wild firing in the air) while I say: "Because I said so, full stop!" (usually, followed by a sip from my 3 o'clock tea).

The Very Odd Couple

This story happened to me last year. I was on my way home and I entered with a neighbor the elevator. The neighbor was really curious and started to ask me all sort of questions. Interesting enough the only question he did not ask was what my name is. Anyhow, he asked me when I moved in. After I answered, he asked me if I live with my wife in the apartment or if I live alone. I answered: "I'm not married and I share the apartment with a roommate". He made a wondering face, than he asked: "Roommate? Male or female roommate?" I said: "Male". He rolled his eyes and said: "You need a girlfriend." I rolled my eyes and said: "I know!"
We live in a time where people are not anymore interested in philosophical questions like: Who are we? Why are we here? Instead people are busy with really silly questions like: Are Sesame Street's Ernie and Bert only roommates or are they "roommates"?

The Book Club

My friend Paige invited me repeatedly to her book club meetings. Yesterday, I went finally. There was a reason why I didn't go before. Aren't book clubs for old people who meet, discus a book, and eat Gouda?  Back when I went to school, I hated book discussions. Teachers didn't like my genius book critics ("It's good!").  Since, I became old, I thought I can as well go to a book club.  To prepare for the club I read William Sears book "God Loves Laughter"  ("It's good!"). As it turned out, I wasn't well prepared. I should have watched animated TV shows instead of reading the book, because the discussion of the shows took longer than the book discussion. Now, I know why Paige always says: you don't need to read the book to come to the book club. The book for the next meeting is "Naked". I forgot the name of the author but it doesn't matter. I will google "Naked". The results should keep me busy the next 3 to 4 weeks. 

PS: I was the oldest that night.
PPS: No-one brought Gouda!

Babel: The Dream

I want to share my dreams with you today. Well actually, I want to share the language of my dreams. I have troubles to remember in which language my dreams were - or to be more accurate in which I and other people spoke in my dreams. I can remember what was said, but in which language it was said I can't remember. The only way I can help myself is by concluding indirectly through clues.
For example, some months after I moved to the US, I had a dream in which I was talking to a man. I know that the man can't speak German. When I woke up, I could remember what I said but not if it was in English or German. Since, that man can't speak German in real life, it would be consistent that I spoke English with him in my dream. But that was not the case. I was talking very respectful with him in my dream. For such cases, in German the word "Sie" is used for the English word "you". It is a more respectful "you" compared to "Du". "Du" is used if you talk with friends. "Sie" shows also more distance than "Du" and is therefore used if you talk to strangers. In Farsi there are also two forms for "you": شما and تو. In English there is only one word and hence I was not talking English in my dream.
Today, I had a dream in which I was teaching a children class. Here, again I remember what I said but not in which language. I remember that I had to struggle for finding the right words. If I would speak German, I wouldn't have problems to say the things I said in my dream. And from that I conclude that I was dreaming in English.
Are my conclusions correct? Do we dream really in one language or do we dream only the content without the "wrapping" language? If the second case is true, my dream was that I have talked in a respectful way with that man and I made the false conclusion that I was respectful because I used "Sie". And when I had problems to find the right words in my dream, I was reliving the everyday experience I am confronted with since I am in the US. So dreams would be a communication without any words.
What do you think? Do we dream in a language? If yes, what is your dream language?

License to Go

It’s a while since my last post. Unfortunately, there was nothing exciting going on. Once you settled, everything becomes same ol’ and even new things turn out to be boring. Root beer floats turned out not to be as amazing as people here told. I should show Americans how Germans mix things up and give them some Spezi (Cola + Orange Soda) to try.
To fill a gap in my blog I’m going to tell an old story. It’s from the time I got my driver license. I was driving for the first time with my license, my dad and mom where passengers. I reached a traffic light which just turned red, and while we were waiting my dad told a story. My dad heard that story from a cab driver, for simplicity let’s call the cab driver Jan. My father told: “One day, Jan was waiting in his cab for costumers when he saw a shady man passing his cab and going to the first taxi in the line. The shady man and the driver from the first cab started to discus. The discussion became more and more heated. Soon, it didn’t looked like a simple discussion but a dispute. Jan thought that he had to do something or else that will end bad. He went to the two and said to the shady man:. Go - go”. I was wondering if the shady man will go or if he will pull out a big knife. My dad said: “Go, ... Soroosh go”. At that moment I realized that the traffic light turned green and the “Go - go” was not part of the story but my dad’s desperate attempts to make me drive. The traffic light had a perfect timing to make a fool of me.

PS: I don’t remember how the story with the shady man ended but he didn’t pull a knife.

The One Billion Second Man

Another milestone reached. I have lived my first one billion seconds that's 1,000,000,000 s (for German readers: 1 Miliarde oder 1.000.000.000). That took a while. Yes, I am that kind of guy who use all opportunities to celebrate him self. I also celebrated my 10,000 day alive - it was awesome. That was during my time as PhD student. I was a PhD student between second 837 million and 962 million.
You probably know, I got my PhD in Physics. As physicist, I am wondering how much time dilation I had in the 1 billion second. Thanks to the relativity theory, it is known that velocity cause a clock to run different than a resting clock. Life is movement. If I now sum up all time dilation, because of all the times I run, took an airplane, drove faster than the speed limit, and so on, would these be a second time dilatation? My guess: No, it's more like 1/1 billion second.
Enough physics for now - life is not only physics. I tried out so many things. Last week I went skiing for the first time. Just in time to strike it from my virtual list of things I want to do in the first 1 billion seconds. First thing I want to do in the second 1 billion seconds: write a list with things to do.