What does it say? - Greek Edition

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High School of Rock

In the early 90s I changed from an elementary school to a gymnasium, an advanced academic high school. There, I showed that I have many talents: The first year I was successful in being a class clown. The year after I tried out as a know-it-all.
Soon, I found out where my strengths and where my weaknesses were: I failed English and English failed me. On the other hand, I was an A student in STM (in science, technology, and math). In several exams I scored A+. It's a good feeling to score A+ in STM. You know you have done everything right and you can be proud of it. Onetime, I managed to get an A+ in history. That brought some weird questions to my mind: What did I write different from the usual C rated exams? Was the teacher tired rating and scribbled A+ on my exam? It was an exam on marxism and communism - Does it mean I'm a communist deep inside? Ironically, the same teacher, who rated my exam an A+, after another exam presaged I wouldn't graduate. He told the class the name of one or two students, who, he predicted, will graduate, then the name of four or five other students, who, according to my teacher, maybe will graduate. Everyone else, including me, would surely not make it. But he was wrong or maybe he said that because he wanted to motivate us by reverse psychology. I noticed that when teacher told students in advance "you will never score enough to pass", the students scored enough. The teacher, who predicted I wouldn't graduate, forecast I will never write a book, which makes me more hopeful. Eventually, I graduated and had my graduation on my birthday.

Primary School Musical

Kids, in the late 80s, I changed my school. I went from a regular elementary school, where I didn't understand a word, to a language class, where I learned German. As a kid it is easy to learn a new language. After half a year in the language class and before the summer break my German was not fluent. I remember coming back from the summer break and, somehow, I could speak fluently German.
Before the summer break two Iranian sisters were in my class and they could help me out with things that I didn't understand. The two girls left and two Iranian brothers, twins, joined the class. The mentee became the mentor- I had to help the twins.
In the language class we sang a lot of German children songs. We learned a lot of songs about birds for example the "Bremer town musicians", "the bird wedding", and the sing-off between "the cuckoo and the donkey".
School is of course more then lessons. It was at that school where I was elected class president and was lead actor in two different productions of "Where the Wild Things Are". After one and half years in the language class, I could attend a regular 5th grade at the same school. There my grades dropped. My mother blamed video games and, therefore, she allowed us to play only during school breaks. My mom might have been right. In the sixth grade, I got better grades and I could change school and attend a gymnasium, the advanced academic schools in Germanys education system.

Elementary School High

When my family and I moved to Germany in the 80s of the last millennium ("Waa!"), we didn't understand any German. There was no free spot in a language class therefore I had to attend an ordinary elementary school. It was a big change for me. Before we moved to Germany, I attended a boys school where I didn't have any problems with the language and suddenly I was at a school where I understood no word. Everyone else in the class could speak fluent and without any mistake... I think. It was a difficult time for me.
There was only one subject where I did not have so much difficulties. It was the math class. One day we had a math exam. I knew we have an exam when the question sheet was handed to me. Before that I didn't have any clue. The teacher saying in German: "we will have an exam next week" - not a clue for me. But it was nothing to worry about. Some simple arithmetic equations that I could solve without any problems. Only the last two questions were text questions. I couldn't figure out what the text was saying so I took the numbers from the text and applied simple arithmetic operations on them - I thought it's worth a shot. After what felt like 15-20 minutes, I finished my exam while all the other pupils were busy with theirs. The teacher was delighted. I had everything except the text questions right. In the movie "Contact", someone said math is a universal language. I like that particularly because I can relate to it.
Unfortunately, school is not only math. After half a year I still couldn't follow, that's why the teachers  wanted to regrade me in a year below. But before they could do that I got a spot in a language class. Half a year after I entered my first school in Germany I left the school for good.

The school changed beyond recognition since the 80s.

Lock Up

When I was a child I collected stuff. I collected stamps that were passed on from a sibling who was annoyed by collecting them. It was not my passion and naturally I passed them on to another sibling. I collected coins that were passed on from a sibling who was annoyed by collecting them. It was not my passion and naturally I passed them on to another sibling. The thing I collected with my whole heart were keychains. I had awesome and funny keychains. Collecting keychains is an awesome hobby and much more interesting than collecting sport cars or paintings, I assume. I changed my interest when I grew up and my hobbies became more active like scuba diving or playing chess or playing chess while scuba diving. Actually the last one hasn't been my hobby... yet.
Let's go from keychains to our actual topic: door locks. Some people lock themselves up, and I am talking literally now. I got used to not lock my apartment while I sleep. It's like the scene in Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" in which he checked doors in Canada and observed that Canadians don't lock their doors. I'm staying with my parents now and they lock the door overnight. Why does locking the door make them feel save while it makes me feel locked up? You would think that my parents who were born in small villages would not lock up and I, the urban man, who has always been in "dangerous" city environments would lock up. But the opposite is the case.  What does that mean? Am I living a life on the fast lane? Am I a secret Canadian without knowing? O those Canadians! Do you lock your door? Why or why not? What do you think?

PS: Next week the back to school weeks will start with posts that show me off as an A student. Check my blog frequently.

My keychain collection today is not fun anymore.

Garden Estate

A lot happened the last months. I moved back to Germany and I had my farewell party on my birthday. I asked my guests not to bring any birthday presents- it was a birthday party where the guests received gifts. The next day I took my flight to Germany with my two bags. After four years in Denver where I worked as a scientist I changed my profession. Although it was not a big change. I code now but I used to code also before. The keyboard is still my main tool at work. But now I also play on a keyboard in my free time: I still have big hopes for a career as a member of a music band with my siblings. The Pezeshki Fives' big break through could happen anytime.
While everyone is busy emptying a bucket full of water on themselves, I was busy helping my father with his new garden. He recently bought a shack for the garden. It took us less than a day to finish the walls and the last roof beam. I wanted to stop the work and celebrate "Richtfest" - the topping out. But my dad said no and continued the construction. Working that fast can be dangerous and accidents can happen easily. Sure enough, my dad had an accident. While he was hammering he hit his thumb. The next day his thumb was swollen. That brought some painful memories up.

Scientistnado

It's tornado season in Denver. We had two tornado warnings this week and there was apparently one touch down. Both times, I was at work in my window less basement dungeon. I wouldn't know there was a tornado out there if not all the other scientist came to my office for shelter. There could be a zombie apocalypse out there and I wouldn't know in my office. And the other scientist? They changed their attitude from feeling pity for me in the dungeon to envy of my office where you even can work in the worst of times.

Day of Past Failure

Folks, I haven't blogged for a long time and I'm sorry for that. I was busy and I didn't have any good ideas for a new post. My girlfriend furiously demanded "lovingly asked" for a new post.

It all started about a month ago, when my friend asked me to help her move. All of the heavy furniture had already been moved, with the exception of one heavy dresser. That dresser was the beginning of the day where everything went wrong.  Being the late comer, I was asked to move the dresser. In the new house, we had to take it downstairs. My friend went to the front and I was pulling it on the other side where the trolley handles were. While I was taking the dresser down I saw that my hand can be squashed between the dresser and the trolley. I started to pull my hand as fast as possible from the danger zone. Unfortunately, it was not fast enough. I saw it coming like in slow motion. As the dresser went down a step, it pulled the trolley closer to itself and in between the trolley and the dresser was my poor little thumb. It started bleeding profusely a little bit. But that was enough to make me light headed. After getting a band-aid, I was off the hook. The others could finish the moving without me.

Later that day my beautiful girlfriend and I went down a highway that had a lot of construction. The road became bumpy and the car started to rattle. Suddenly, we hit a fairly large pot hole and then the car started to shake. We had a flat tire. We started looking for a place to pull off the road. But we had just passed the last exit before merging onto a highway and because of the construction the shoulder lane was closed. We started freaking out. Fortunately, we found an abandoned entrance ramp right before the big highway merge. Now, all we had to do was to change the tire. Except we never changed a tire before. We went to the trunk and grabbed what we could, which included: one spare tire, a lug wrench, and a lifty thingy. Yep, the lifty thingy. That is what they call it in the car mechanics shop. We decided to divide and conquer to get some extra assistance to change the flat tire. Jennifer went off to find help, while I sat by the car and cried "waited for help".  A few moments later, a young man accompanied by his dad started to work on the flat tire. That's when we found out that the lug wrench we had wasn't the right size for our tire. The only fortunate thing was that the dad had a truck full of tools. I mean full of tools.

That evening after dinner, my thumb started to swell up. By the morning it was clearly bigger than the good thumb. But at least the day where everything went wrong was over and we survived. I acknowledged it with a thumb up- a big thumb up. Part of the reason why I didn't blog for so long was because I was injured. I couldn't hit the spacebar with my thumb and using the other one is just wrong.

PS: Extra credit for Jennifer, who gave me the idea for this post, contributed to it, and edited it.