new blog, new face, new life

alright, so with a new job I get rewarded with a new blog! thank you michael!

please come visit me at my new blog

BUT...I've changed things for privacy reasons. IF you want to read my blog (because I'm naturally that damn interesting), please email me at tsmedbol (at) hotmail (dot) com

but only if you're special

otherwise, I hope you already saved the link!

testing testing

for the daycare classes I'm teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday I need to know a few songs, so here I'm going to test my knowledge of the rainbow song:

red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too.

wow, gold star for me!

I must say I feel a little like a reject singing these songs in my room with the cd, but I really got to know them so the kids don't know I'm retarded! at least they sound super cute when saying ANYTHING in english...I just want to cuddle them right up...

however, I am pretty nervous about this whole teaching thing. I don't want to do anything too hard for the students or too easy...but hey, easier is better than harder, I've heard, you want the students to feel comfortable and happy, not downtrodden and helpless!

Frau Tara the englisch teacher!

things I love about germany:

beautiful stairwells


cheap delicious bread!!


the rich heartwrenching history everywhere

work is here (along with christmas)

got hired at two language schools (prolog and sprachcenter mouroum) so that I can fill holes that people have left because of christmas holidays. it's kinda a relief not to have to start a class from fresh, instead I just have to know where they left off and take off teaching appropriately...it's a relief, but oh so scary at the same time...so, I work 19 hours next week (yay me!) and then head off to the om's and op's for a family christmas

I'm really really going to miss my slocan valley christmas, so here's to hoping that next year sees big things for me, and a christmas holiday in the heimatland!

oh that note, I feel I should write a disclaimer, please be aware that I will not be sending out christmas presents due to the nature of my money situation. if things happen to look up soon, then I will re-consider, but until that time, consider your present the fact that I'm able to eat and therefore able to go to work and be a decent human being

great. and thank you.

the end of november, oh how I miss thee...somewhat

my favourite H&M sweater that I bought last month...mmm

my visit with claudia in munich. here we are standing on a hill in the beautiful english garden...


eating dinner with the korn family (my mom's partner's family) who live right outside Freiburg

typical berlin:

3,398,888 citizens...750,003 ticketless public transport users...150,647 linden trees...85,864 guestbeds...29,000 first-graders...17,000 euros of debt per berlin citizen...5,900 hektares of water surfaces...4,950 artists...2,193 imbisses...1,288 U-Bahn trains...979 bridges...427 songs about berlin...182 embassies...48 theaterhauses...15 breweries...12 districts...9 senators...4 jails...3 airports...2 radio and tv towers

**taken from zitty's "das berlin buch"

roughly 5 hours of sleep...

and I'm feeling on top of the world! went out to a club yesterday (a very famous one: Cafe Moskau) and we were on the guest list (thanks to erin, the lady who likes to talk...and then be-friends random DJs!)...in natural German/Berlin style we stayed out until four am...although I was already yawning at midnight...

then I slept five hours, got up and went to photocopy my passport and bank information for my new landy lordies...which they ended up deciding doesn't have enough info on it as I'm not really "earning" anything...but we've resolved it and I have a "sleep couch" and a double bed, so guests can either sleep with me (!) or on the kitchen sofa...or maybe the air mattress that they're going to leave for me. these guys are really wonderful, the place is amazing and bright and the furniture is just heavenly! january 3 is my move-in date and I can't wait!!

(new address: Tara Mende, Danziger str. 164, 10407 Berlin, Germany)

THEN I went to coffeemamas 'cause miriam's friend denise works there (but I'd also say she's my friend as well now)...and she gave me two free americanos and a free sandwich and then boxes of tea AND GOT ME A JOB! I mean, it's just cleaning the newest of the coffeemamas locations in the evening, but that will pretty much pay my rent for a month...so I'm a happy gal. and having my foot in the door at a coffee shop is always good, I could maybe work my way up to barista! but, of course, the position only starts in january...ah well more time to geniess the winter holidays I guess, being pretty much jobless and all

for all the HP fans!

you got the bock?

I'm losing my job application excitement, and fast. probably doesn't help that it's coming up on christmas and most decent jobs are all being taken by over qualified germans...

I'm down, you're down, hey! we're all down together

I've been thinking it would be a good idea to just cold apply to some companies I would like to work for, but then is the question what do I want to work for...I don't even know what's out there...can you hear my scream of frustration?

at least I have the flat to myself for the weekend (erik moved back to Sweden and daniela has accompanied him up there for his family's yearly christmas party...)...nice

as well, my hair went from fungi to pin head...lucky me! my straw that I'm grasping onto though is the new moon. apparently when you get your hair cut around the new moon, it grows faster? I'm hoping it's true...then I'll have mushroom head again, and I'll just have to suffer through it...

I should really be black-listed from employers lists of possible future employees

so...I had another "try-out" day, this time with Forward Marketing, a relativly new branch of the 8 year old Australian marketing company Cobra. And sure, they may have made it look promising with chances of career progression, great earning potential and lots of traveling for company meetings, but the noises of excitement and over-all cultiness that came from the "training" room when I was waiting for the day to begin, and then later after I'd done my "written test" and was waiting to give it to bossman, were just too much for me to stand. I could see the visions ahead of me: Tara Sophia Mende Smedbol (obvious name for a successful person!), marketing guru, smoking in her black trench coat, high-heeled pointy boots and long wavy hair up-do outside the downtown office and then later in-between private homes where she sucks in her next unwilling and non-wealthy victim, laughing, bubbly and worst of all singing horrible horrible songs to keep her spirits high as she culticizes yet another unknowing greedy little bastard

you like that? then please go find another tara to be-friend, 'cause I ain't taking no part in that load of manure...even if I could earn 900 euros a day from my peons (only once I become assistant owner or some bullshit)

in other news, I made pancakes this morning out of my two overripe bananas that were sitting on our kitchen windowsill (man, I should get pictures of this place before I move!)...they were delicious and now I'm full, unwilling to go to the call centre, but unwilling to call them and tell them that, yet again, I'm not going to make it in (this week I've been there a total of once, and that was just to sit and stare at my computer blankly while drinking some free coffee)...and I want to get a haircut to rid me of this mushroom head illness that I get when my hair grows it's thick self into the fungus likenss of that weird character from Mario (yoshi?)

oh, back to the pancakes..yes! samara I wish you'd been there since I know how much you love my pancakes(but really all credit should go to my brother, nat), they were banana-y, sweet, fluffy and well, maybe a bit too fluffy. you see, Germans like packaging things. packing six apples onto styrofoam and then plastic wrapping it, or putting any countable fruit (yest that means almost all) into a plastic box and then putting mesh over it. this even extends as far as INDIVIDUALLY PACKAGING their Vanilla Sugar (their lame substitute for Vanilla extract) AND Baking Powder (one package is good for 500g of flour...of which is HOW much???can you put that into CUPS please?)...this comes with a problem, you either use the whole package or use part of it and then leave the rest of it in a half opened state of existence, poor thing

last time I made pancakes (and less successfully, sorry brianna) I left an opened packet, which brings me to today's pancakes. I figured, okay, let's just throw the rest of the thing in 'cause leaving the packet still in use is just plain silly...I was too frustrated with the retarded packets to care if this would really ruin my masterpieces or not...luckily, I didn't go too wrong, I mean they were fluffy and tasty but there was that indistinguishable after taste of having been careless with the measuring spoons...

so samara, and the rest of the canadian world, that is what you miss out on, living in a country that cares to give you free choices where your choice in the present doesn't negatively impact your future cooking choices. luckies!

shall we talk?

my roommates are having a "discussion", one of those long drawn out relationship talks where one doesn't really hear the other and no conclusion is met. It was triggered by Daniela coming home and demanding Erik to unpack the groceries she had just bought and then asking for him to cook for her although he had just eaten (this happens almost everytime that erik and I eat breakfast together, perhaps at least 1-2 a week)...

and now they're listening to joy division...man, being an outsider is funny, 'cause being on the outside really points to how bad it is to listen to such angst ridden musik when "discussing"

and I had a date from hell last night...actually it wasn't from "hell" just really ridiculously ridiculous...can you imagine someone being so stingy that they complain the whole time about being hungry but then won't buy anything to eat...oh but wait, when it comes to buying his last girlfriend socks with a mouse on it, oh wait, THEN he can fork out money...throw in a little (about half the date worth) of talk about the other people he's met through his ad and all the things they wanted to do to him, commenting on how tall I am (over and over and over and over), and just being overall pathetic and you've got Adrian...

thankfully there's no plans for anything in the future...and no hope for it on my side. phewf. one german down, 89,999,999 to go.