Hello. I have now been in Berlin for exactly 1 month, with about 1 month exactly left.

I came to calss early this morning to yoink some free Internet time. Thus, I´m here. Trieed to blog yesterday during break, but when all the computers are in use the system seems to crash. Which, for some reason, the DID folks don´t seem to see as a problem.

Enough excuses. I´ve been watching a lot of TV. Practicing that listening comprehension. Sounds great, right? Sit around watching TV and eating yogurt, call it studying? Well, it would be pretty cool, except that German TV is truly the saddest example I´ve seen of the death of the media. It´s two thirds American knockoffs and ripoffs (I swear, they play Big Brother twice a day at least), and the rest is infomercials.  You could say I´m dying a slow death by pop culture. For a change.

BUt yesterday afternoon, I did not watch TV. I went over to Laura´s, where the band was practicing, because they had a show last night. At Bassy´s. Which is right across the street from the delicious pizza place you may or may not have heard me rave about. This week was Laura´s birthday, Paul´s (her banjoist) birthday, and some other girl´s birthday. What do you do on your birthday? Sign up to work overtime, of course! At least if you´re a starving artist. So their bands all got togther and played this club. I hung out and did homework while they practiced, and then we went over to the club for sound checks (passed a guy busking on the square with a PIANO on the way), and then they went off to busk the pizza place before the show started, and I went home. Being a groupie is fairly boring, even if you get free drinks. Mostly it´s just sitting alone backstage. And when, as was the case last night, there is no backstage, you have to–God forbid–Go To A Club. And Stay There. Which I just wasn´t up for. So I went home, ate some quark, watched crappy TV, and studied notecards. It´s a thrilling day in the neighborhood–won´t you be mine?

::EDIT:: Are tehre any former residents of Germany or EUrope reading that could tell me how to type an (at) sign? I´m tired of googling e-mail addresses so I can  copy and paste it.