An American Furry in Germany

    I'm taking four courses at the moment. Java programming is in German, which should speak for itself (pretty difficult is the message I'm trying to convey), but the other three are harder to define. Two of them are in the HfK (Hochschule für Kunst, or University of the Arts), which also says a lot, but the remaining course, even though it's more of a computer course than an art course, has many similarities. The three courses range in number of participants from 5 to 15, no more. In America this is unheard-of: courses at Humboldt State University, prized for its "small class sizes taught by professors who know your name" (from the website) get as small as 20 people sometimes, but lately there's been a push (from higher-up, opposed by the students) to add more 150-person lecture-hall courses on basic required general education subjects. They're more cost-effective, certainly, but I can say from experience that it's one hell of a lousy learning environment. I don't know how they afford it, but I certainly appreciate the socratic style of round-table discussion in a small group--although Frieder Nake has a tendency to ramble (I feel tempted to shout out "Digression!" in the middle of class, but I don't think anyone would get it). And yes, that was a name drop--I'd never heard of him, but they say Frieder Nake is very well-known in Germany. Or maybe just in Bremen. (He seriously almost bought half the class copies of the Communist Manifesto, until he found out that English language versions couldn't be had for cheap.)
    But anyway, it seems like a lot of the essays I've been reading lately are very... obtuse. Unclear. Using a lot of big words to cover the fact that they're not saying anything at all. And I always hesitate before calling something out as BS, because there's a chance that I simply don't understand, and I'm making the mistake of denouncing something because I don't understand it. I think this is part of what I was talking about in the last post. I prize conciseness. Yes, if you read my LJ you'll often find me using strange phrasings or joking around with the English language (or German, when I dare). That's just for fun, though, because I'm typically trying to entertain more than to inform. But in these essays, it seems like their writing style is running contrary to their purpose--to inform. And it turns me off of the whole educational system. I don't want to constantly read and interpret 20-page manifestos that could have been summarized in a paragraph. I don't want to learn how to write essays to fit a minimum page limit, when I feel that I could be clearer if I said less. In fact, I always feel that one can be clearer by using fewer words, up to a point (the exception sometimes is in highly technical discussions among users of a particular jargon, where bigger words are more precise, but also likely to be understood). It's like the development of computer hardware--by making a processor smaller, you at once make it faster, and more energy-efficient. It's a sign of a novice when one uses newly-learned big words just for their own sake, because they think it represents intelligence. Maybe I'm just being arrogant, but I think that it's a sign of higher intelligence to be able to explain complicated concepts to a young child, not just other "experts". (I go by the assertion that any concept of any complexity can be explained in as little as two words. Not necessarily precisely, but it's a good start. Very concise. :P)
    So I'm worried about spending two more years in university. And if I want to go to graduate school, I know I'm going to have to write a thesis or sommat, which is pretty much the very embodiment of what I've been explaining here. I don't want to learn to BS. That's a skill I can do without.

Okay, okay... this might be one of those "you had to have been there" moments, but I think it transcends that. I couldn't stop laughing. First, let me update you on the situation.

Today, after having been in Bremen for 6 days, it was finally time for orientation. At 9:30 am I went to the Hochschule (one of the buildings--the university is actually scattered all over Bremen), and met all the other transfer students here this semester. There was a big group from Spain, and generally a huge sampling of all sorts of countries. Along with me, though, there was only one other American student, and he didn't know any German at all. So finally I get to know more German than someone! Heh, heh. Anyway, I was pretty successful in my attempt to become a social animal. Granted, it was a pretty simple situation, but I didn't hide in a corner with the chocolates the entire time! (Yes, of course there were chocolates. It's Easter time, and it's Germany.)
Unfortunately, registration for the non-Europe students did not occur today. I'll go back tomorrow at the same time, then I will finally register and get my Semesterticket, so I won't have to pay 2 Euros for every tram. (The public transit here is convenient, but a bit expensive.)
Afterwards, we were introduced to the cafeteria, which I think was not quite as delicious as the J (the cafeteria at Humboldt State University), but still edible. Then was the first day of the short, intensive German course. It was three hours, although it didn't seem that long--there were so many different nationalities there, and we all had a lot of fun. (This intensive course was B2, the highest bracket. We all took a short online German language placement test, and only a couple of people were better than B2.)
Anyway. We started off, of course, by talking about ourselves. The girl from Finland mentioned that she was with a program (in Finland) called "Adventure Education"--the professor said it was "Erlebnispädagogik" auf Deutsch. Nobody really knew what this was, so she started out to explain it (in English--she didn't feel capable of explaining it in German). I'm not kidding, these are her words I'm using. (As best I can remember--but not far off.)
"Well, we go to people who need help, like for instance, someone using drugs, or something. Then we take them into the woods (this is the moment where I burst out laughing), and we do things with them (continued, barely stifled laughter). Then when we are finished doing things with them, we take them out, and they can get a job, or an education, or something." (Uncontrollable laughter. Wondering if she thinks I'm laughing at her usage of English.)
Maybe it was funnier in person, but really. Fortunately I had a chance to ask her later, because I really did not understand. It turns out that it's a program to build the self-esteem of disadvantaged persons. They find people who need help, like drug users. Then they take them and give them tasks--one example would be pseudo-boy-scouting, building fires, forestry stuff. Through success in these small things, they begin to realize that they can be successful in life, if they put the effort in. Alles klar?
Heh... it was funny, though. Oh, what a day.

Whew. Well, it's 3:30 am in this time zone, and in another three hours I'll be on a bus. The bus will drive for about 7 or 8 hours, until we get to Martinez, where I will transfer to a train. 2.5 hours later the train will pull in at Hanford, a town in the middle of nowhere California. I will wait there for 3 hours until a new bus arrives to take me to Paso Robles, finally arriving at 10:20 pm. Total travel time: just about 16 hours. I never sleep before this trip, because I would only get about two hours anyway, given my normal sleep schedule, because I can always sleep on the bus (and usually do), and because I just won't risk sleeping through an alarm clock. If it can happen during finals, it can happen before a long trip... and I don't have anything planned for that frightening contingency.

I just realized that the flight I'm taking to Germany is also in three parts, and will also take about 16 hours before I arrive, much like this long trek I've survived several times before. This makes me feel like it won't be so hard--the only difference is the timing. I'll be leaving in the middle of the day, plenty of time for a good night's sleep, and I'll be shifting time by -9 hours. I feel like I might survive this. :P Of course, it's what's at the other end that scares me.

Germany intimidates me. Or maybe it's just the distance, both geographical and ethnic. I just can't prepare my mind for it--I'll have to take it as it comes. And moving always makes me sad. The Talking Heads were right... sometimes it's better to be stable. I love traveling, but I wish I didn't have to move my whole life every six months. And I'm not too long from graduating from college, either. I think I feel like settling down. I'm tired of traveling... I want to be somewhere. I want to form ties... I want to be anchored. I don't feel like I have any inertia on my own... at any moment I could just blow away.

Apparently there are furries who fursuit, and there are furries who don't... and I'm either a third category, or in a transitional period (also known as college). I have a big fuzzy tail and ears, and I do enjoy them. And I suppose if I could afford a fursuit, I would wear it to go shopping, go into airports, or go to the bank, etc. :P Unfortunately they're terribly expensive, and I'm something of a perfectionist. I would love to get a fursuit someday, but I'll wait until I can easily spare enough funds to make something that looks nice, but isn't all bulky and restrictive (and hot, if I can get around that). Somewhere between the mascot look and the human-with-prosthetics look, but closer to the latter. In the meantime, though, I've made the difficult decision to take my tail and ears with me to Germany, for two reasons.
1. The last time I went home for vacation (after already having shown up before while wearing them), a lot of people kinda expected me to bring them, and were kinda disappointed when I didn't. :) I have a pretty great family.
2. The host family I will be staying with has taken in students from other cultures before, so if anyone in Germany is going to be open to new people with new ways of life, it ought to be them. I suppose in the worst case I could create an international incident, but if you get right down to it, I could do that anyway.
3. Germans tend to be a private people. I think as a result of that, most German furries are somewhat closeted... those that I've talked to don't really know the others very well, and they seem to be pretty scattered. Maybe a stroll down <insert popular street in Bremen> in furry gear will attract sympathizers.
Besides, wasn't Bremen founded by four talking animals? Or so I have been led to believe.

Anyway, to my main point. And keep in mind that I have never worn a fursuit before, so some of this is just speculation. Wearing the tail and ears out in public is, I think, much harder than fursuiting. I'm ignoring the physical trials--of course I'm not going to be overheating, I won't have to worry about communication problems, and it's only moderately difficult to sit down. But I think it's much more confusing for the general public. Fursuiters fit into an understood, if not necessarily "acceptable" niche. When trying to explain it to a plebe, eventually you're going to get a response of "Oh, mascots." But a person just wearing furry ears and a tail, for no apparent reason? Confusing. No less confusing/amusing than a fursuiter, if not more. But in a fursuit, you have the privilege of anonymity. You're inside a suit, and your headspace and the image of yourself that you present to others is entirely of your choosing. Without the full-body costume, I manage to attract everyone's attention to me, not to a suit. Even without worrying about people I know recognizing me personally, there's still the direct feeling of having the attention of everyone in the room, and having to do something with that.
If there's anything I'm not, it's an extrovert. I strongly dislike making eye contact, any sort of confrontation, or just generally being paid attention to. Walking around in public for any amount of time (at one point, a 16-hour trip back home via public transportation) as the complete center of attention is nothing short of a trial. I guess you could call it a crucible, because so far I've always managed to come out of it better for the experience. During the 16-hour bus/train/bus trip I just mentioned, I became comfortable with it. I didn't know that was possible. I faced my demons, I guess.

I have the advantage of having easily-faceable demons. :P You might wonder why I wear them in the first place if it makes me so uncomfortable. I do it because I like it. Philosophically, I like doing what makes me happy in the face of pointless opposition. Viscerally, I like the feeling of a big fluffy tail hanging behind me (although it could stand to be more limber...), and being at least partly soft and fluffy. :) And I guess I just enjoy bringing a little strangeness into people's lives. It makes them happy--sometimes they laugh at me, sometimes they laugh with me, and sometimes they want to pet me. :) But so far I've only met one or two people who didn't respond to my unusual appearance with some form of delight (and that was because he had to be seen around me in public). Also the chicks dig it.

I think Germans must have all the fun forms. :P I'm filling out a short housing form right now (perhaps the last bit of paperwork necessary... :D), and it's just full of fun. Right after they ask for my name, they ask me what I would like to be called. I'm not sure if they want me to just choose between Tom/Tommy/Thomas, or if they're genuine about the question... but the text field has exactly enough characters for "Unter Freunden heiße ich Foxx.", so it must be a sign. And the options for gender are a little limited, I think. Ich bin doch einen Mann, aber ich bin nicht gerade männlich. At least now I know why they call it "geschlecht". Ich bin schlecht in Geschlecht... :P
They they ask me how much  I "wish" to pay--250, 300, or 350 Euros, Ja or Nein for each. It seems to me less a matter of preference than it is one of necessity... unless I'm misunderstanding the word "möchten". I don't want to appear stingy, but 250 Euros is more than I'm paying now.
Then one last thing... after asking me if I smoke, there comes the sentence "Bitte denken Sie daran, dass eine Vermittlung für Nichtraucher einfacher ist." I vaguely understand what "Vermittlung" means, and I vaguely understand what the rest of the sentence means... but I can't figure out how the two fit together, so I don't understand what they're saying.

I think. It's the weekend, so I'm pretty sure the booking hasn't gone through yet. Hopefully I'll get the e-ticket tomorrow, and I can reserve my seat. As I predicted... I still can't believe it. One thing that scared me, though...
The day I was going to buy the ticket, from a little site called Student Universe, I was waffling. I could either get a cheap flight, or a reliable carrier, and it was a tough choice. In the end I decided that Air India had reviews far too bad to risk--more for my luggage than myself--so I would get the $900 United Airways flight out of SFO. So, a few hours later, I went back to the site to double-check, and possibly buy the flight right then. Only to find that every fare on their website had jumped by about $200. Now the only flight I could find for less than $1000 (most around $1,100) was Air India. So I was freaking out about this for a while, until I went to the other site I had been looking at. This one couldn't offer me better fares, because Student Universe sells tickets that aren't available to the general public--I have a slight advantage, being a college student. It was competitive, though, and this site hadn't raised their fares by $200. So rather than risk waiting again, I pounced on a $950 United ticket out of SJC. This had the added benefit of going out of San Jose instead of SFO or LAX.
So now I'm somewhat relieved that it's over and done with, hoping that www.airlineconsolidator.com is a reliable agent, and pissed that suddenly Student Universe's prices are back to what they were earlier yesterday. Mostly just confused, though. And it's still the weekend, which probably explains why I haven't gotten an e-ticket yet, and my bank account hasn't been debited.

Phew.

Okay... I've taken a Precalculus course before, but that was several years ago--so I remembered some of it, but not enough. Let me tell you a few things that math needs to straighten up. It's a little too old and hallowed, and some things need to be fixed.

• Degrees, minutes, and seconds. I mention this first because it's going out--decimal degrees are nice, radians are even nicer. What might be even nicer is if our entire numerical system was somehow based around pi. 1 = pi, maybe. Base 10 seems like the most logical choice, but that's only because our characters are set up for it. When you actually think about it, it's kind of arbitrary. What if our system was actually tied into one of the fundamental constants of the universe? Groovy.
• Implied multiplication. I've been learning a few computing languages, most recently Lisp, and I'm getting a bit tired of the whole "when two things are next to each other that means they're being multiplied" thing that algebra has. It never really bothered me until I saw "cos (tan i tan x)", which could easily mean "tan (i * tan (x))" or "tan (i) * tan (x)". It's not that hard, and being explicit really helps when you're trying to do something as specific as math. I've found too many "common sense" assumptions in math that should really be made explicit, if you want me to take math seriously.
• Here's the one that actually makes me angry: sin^-1 x. That's the inverse sin. It is equivalent to the notation for (sin x)^-1, which means 1/sin x, or csc x. Which is a completely different thing entirely. I did not know this until today. First we learned the first three, then we learned their reciprocals--cosecant, secant, and cotangent. At first I thought the second set weren't on my calculator. Then when I found out that csc x was 1/sin x, I said "Oh, there they are, above the regulars." But no... those were the inverses. And I had no way of knowing, because the notation was the same! Gaaaaa... And I'm a lot quicker than most of the people in that class. I guarantee that half of them went home thinking that sin^-1 x was the same as csc x. The teacher never addressed the confusion.

There. Will somebody go fix math for me?

I read a news article a while back saying that student loan interest rates were going down--by about 50%. Wonderful news, I though... but I didn't think until now to check if it was retroactive. Apparently it isn't. I'm stuck at 6.8% interest. :( After I had gotten my hopes up and everything.
At least if inflation keeps ramping up, the dollar amount that I owe might lose value faster than interest can accrue. Fingers crossed!