Roads to Safe Places

It was Crocky's sister Teddy's birthday party yesterday, or rather, one of them- this was the "queer adult edition". I was reacquainted (do people still use this word?) with Crocky's and Teddy's older bisexual foster sister and Crocky's bisexual godmother. I've often marvelled at the fact that my MIL, who died in 1991, had so many queer friends and foster children, and then wound up having a bisexual daughter, too.

Teddy, my former Russian learning partner, is still at it because she's planning to spend a few months in that country on her world tour. I'm slightly jealous because I could never do the same. I'm worried for Teddy, too. Still, I hope she's going to have a great time touring the globe and will return home safely. She cooked a tasty dish from her Russian cuisine cook book for us.

We spent the time eating, laughing, and trying to fold Fröbel stars. which their foster sister brought. The English Wikipedia has this to say:

"Froebel stars are very common in Germany, although few people know how to make them."

To which I can testify- IRL I don't know many people who can do Fröbel stars. I know that my grandparents could make them and my mother can, too, but I am convinced that in my generation I think that only the incredibly crafty like angie_21_237 can do it- and the latter is the head of a kindergarten, so it's probably basically her job to know these things.
I have the shrewd suspicion that you talented flisties are probably experts at paper crafts happily fröbeling away, too.

We did end up with things resembling the stars, though and were quite proud of ourselves.

If you want to have a go yourself or need a refresher on how to make them, here's something that looks a lot like the directions we had:

It's a relief to see that so many of you storm-tossed flisties out there have checked in to say they are fine. 

I'm still waiting for FB confirmation that a friend is alright, but someone said that they'd heard they were fine, which hopefully will turn out to be true. 

Stay safe, and warm, everyone. ♥

Thank you so much for all the pretty glass hearts, kellychambliss, pale_moonlite, lordhelleboreand moonystone! ♥

I hope you all had a pleasant day on the 14th, however you spent it. 

So, I asked my family to sign this petition I keep harping on about and was told by my father that he doesn't really see the point because only so few people are taking part, so he doesn't see a reason to bother with it. Edit: but he did sign it in the end, yay! Leaves only my brother and my mother who are deterred by ... having to sign up?

That doesn't really sound all that logical to me, especially as a reason to not bother as well if it's something you even moderately care about, but it's true. It is doomed, really - to be seriously considered it needs to gather 50k signatures within a month - it has roughly 5k now, and it needs 45k more until March 3. Plus you need to - gasp- sign up to sign it and people are lazy and don't care whatever the fuck is in our constitution, so both the people who actually would be protected by this law and the majority can't really be bothered.

The third article of our basic law reads as follows:

The changed version looks like this:

According to our government, the term "sexual identity" covers bisexual, lesbian, gay, intersexed, transgendered and transsexual people because all components of the LGBTI acronym are the same to them. For once, this might be a really good thing and generally A Step In The Right Direction, regardless of the weirdness of having all those different things subsumed under the term "sexual identity".

Well, before, back in November, people in our government thought that the other parts of our Basic Law already nicely cover all relevant aspects and voted it down, it's now being brought back to attention by major parties, and there is also this petition. But, well, you need to sign up. D=

People like our more conservative and sillier folks thought back in November that would will mean paedophiles would be protected under the law and there would be a need to change the legislation to include something they refer to as "bisexual marriage", which turns out to be polygamy. No, I'm not making this up, these people really are that dense, and judging from the comment section of the petition, they're not alone.

Now I am not a legal expert, but I am pretty sure that there are ways to define what exactly they mean by "sexual identity". Having to define terms that sound incredibly vague is a bound to be a central feature of a legislation in which the first article of the Basic Law is "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority". What is this "human dignity", exactly? And how can state authority protect it? Maybe I'm being naive here, but I can't help but have faith in our lawmakers to get down a definition that says pretty clearly what they mean by "sexual identity".

As for the petition and this matter in general, it seems that there are three basic possibilities to view this - not to give a damn, to be for it with or without knowledge of the legal implications, or to be against it with or without knowledge of the legal implications. So to my mind, you either don't give a damn and I dislike you, you're on the side of the "bisexual-marriage-is-group-marriage"-people or have a more sane legal reason I'd really like to know about, or your name is on that list already or bloody well should be.

This petition, even if it doesn't lead to momentous changes, at least seems to be pretty good a way of showing on which of the three sides people are in this matter. I signed it because I'm still hoping against all reason that this could go somewhere and because also I want to show my support for this publicly, even if this does turn out to be futile. Sometimes that seems to be all I can do, really.

I'd also be much a happier person if more people I know were not completely failing to give a damn or against it, especially my own family, bloody hell.

We had a cookie baking-and-decorating marathon on Sunday. A few of the guys from the theatre group came round to see us and between the five of us we baked and decorated eight trays of cookies for us and for the pre-Christmas rehearsal on Wednesday. We had brought out the green food colouring for the occasion and finally had an excuse to use the shiny new cookie cutters we bought on the Christmas market two weeks ago.

And what could be more festive than green Apatosauri, chocolaty clefs, notes, butterflies, dogs and bats? Oh, and some stars, too.



I was so busy organising the actual baking and arranging the trays in the oven that my cookies did not turn out as absolutely gorgeous as the ones of the others, who were working wonders with icing, sprinkles, and especially the lilac sugar colour. Except for S., who formed a whole zoo with the help of the dog shape. We understood how she got the goat - slightly shorter tail because of a spot of drier dough, slightly odd ears - even the seal made sense, somehow - hind legs pressed together, the head being roughly the same shape, anyway - but we have no idea how she got to the cock, the mouse or the elephant.

( Really festive cookies )
 

A very happy birthday, lordhellebore!!

A friend (jaywalker23 ) showed me this version of Somwhere over the Rainbow back in the day, when we were still at school, and it's my favourite version of the song.

Well, it's everybody's favourite version, really.

( Click me )

For me, it's of course connected with memories of her as well, which makes it even better.

Seriously, I need a break, this weekend is going to be STRESS... although in a fun way. Well, for me, I think it must really suck for Crocky.
My well-deserved holidays have been great so far with lots of time spent either at home with Crocky or going out. And it's so HOT outside, you wouldn't believe it...

It all began on Thursday. On Thursday, we went clubbing with Julez, who is about to go back to Germany. We'd been there fairly early, so half the time it was rather empty in the coziest bar in Glasgow. Seriously, I wish I'd taken some pictures, the decoration was just great. It has a really friendly atmosphere and you somehow don't get drunk as easily as usual in that pub and therefore somehow end up spending stupendous amounts of money on drinks. I have never had so many drinks in a row, me, who is usually quite tipsy after one Bacardi Breezer or a half-hearted glass of wine... 
We had a lovely time talking to a whole pack of gay guys. Actually we had just taken the sofa opposite them because all the others were occupied and had thought they wouldn't talk to us because we were speaking pointedly in German, but once more, we had to find out how amazing the language skills of the Glaswegians are - half of them could speak German, had just come back from a year abroad in Germany or had taken German courses at the uni. One of them, the one I wanted to smack around the head for his annoyingly impolite questions ("What do you think about semen in the face?" - "Is it true that all German women have a lot of hair in their arm pits?" - "Hey, petal, why aren't you talking to me? What was your name again? Ah, never mind - oy! You! Gretel!"), reminded me oddly of a very stupid version of Kat from my Russian and Psy class. Sca-ry.

Yesterday, I took a day off from cleaning the flat and throwing away the uni stuff I am not going to take home with me and finished the books which have been lying around in the flat since before the Exam period. I had almost forgotten how great it is just to sit in the living room and read for hours on end...

I somehow don't really like the end of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, it seems so by-the-by and leaves so many things open. Well, at least nothing terrible happened, which I had feared after breaking my vows to myself and reading the last paragraph before I was half-way through. 
I loved, loved, loved  Ignorance by Milan Kundera. Although I really did not like the first chapter, the rest of the book is just so perfect. There are so many passages I read through only to go back and read them again because they are so mind-bogglingly great. I can't wait to borrow more of his books from the library. He is such a great author! Well, obviously, why am I surprised. Still, it's stunning. Well, and it makes me afraid to go home. What if my time here will be unreal when I come back home? What if it also gets "amputated", the whole period between the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2006 gets thrown out and the fall of 2005 becomes the fall of 2006 directly? Will I find the people at home as alien as those here first seemed to me? But then, it was only a year and I am not really an Emigre.
Next was The Spirit Level, which is a short anthology of poems by Seamus Heaney. Who is awesome. 
Currently, I'm reading The Prince and the Pauper. How could I forget how great Mark Twain's style is? I can remember that I did not like him when I was younger, and I truly can't understand why today. 

Today, directly after Crocky's choir rehearsal for the concert on Sunday, we are first going to a pub crawl with Kirsi and some other guys from Russian and the clubbing with Julez.

Tomorrow, Crocky has a final rehearsal, then we're meeting Julez again because she flies home on Monday (on my birthday!! Yeah, go on, guys, desert me! Seriously, everybody's going home either tomorrow or on Monday...), then Crocky has a concert, and then, it's Monday. My birthday, and everyone's gone because the exam period is over. Growl. Well, never mind, I had contemplated going to see Carmen, but I forgot to book seats in advance, so maybe that won't work out.

On Monday, I want to try to find a job. I am in two minds about that whole thing. I could work here, I do not have time to squeeze work into at home due to my full time tables. It would also make the two month ahead less empty, but it would also interfere with my traveling plans. Still... I wish I'd find something with flexible times. 
There are a few things I'd love to do, but seeing as I'd only be able to work for two month and since I haven't been doing anything apart from tutoring kids so far, I'm not all too comfortable with the whole thing. There are some pubs who need staff, but I am not too sure they need an ex-tutor with zero experience in pubs. Some charities need someone to do fund-raising, but they're looking for someone for door-to-door tours on a full-time basis.  And I am not really that good at fund-raising. I'd so love to do something in a more social sector or to do something with languages... Tutoring was the first thing I thought of, but since there are SO many Germans in Glasgow, that proved to be rather unsuccessful already. 

Anyway. Off now. Have a nice weekend!

Saw a play of the Hamburg University Players yesterday with jaywalker23.

 It was great to see her again, I haven't seen her in ages because I am lazy and unorganised and busy on top of that. I really wonder what's going to happen when I don't live in Hamburg anymore. I don't even manage to see people who live here, 10-15 minutes per bike away from me, to be precise.

The Players... let's say they made a spirited attempt at Macbeth. Strangely, all minor characters have been really, really good, and most major characters rather.... boring. Which is strange, because they are all rather gifted actors. They have taken the best actors they have for the major ones, and their acting was good, but somehow, they did not really manage to "enthrall" the audience. "Lady Macbeth" for example is, without a doubt, a very gifted actress, but her monologues have somehow made people yawn and check the watch all the same.
The modern elements they tried to introduce went well, but not all of them. They added some things to the plot, left some scenes out which they found unimportant - and indeed, no one seemed to miss any of them, they erased half the minor characters, added ... I guess I have to call it "music" in want of a better word... I guess it's what happens when you tell someone who is musical: "Hey, we want something sad, dramatic that sounds vaguely highlandish in some parts! But be ... Different!" and then leave them alone with a xylophone and some undefinable instruments.
The wyrd sisters have been very good, but maybe I only think so because I really like Third Witch, whom I know from a couple of courses and who's really nice.  
They also managed to get most of the actors in skirts (they did have a tartan pattern, but they were faaaar too long to be kilts), which definitely looked rather nice.

On the whole - hey, they tried! They were really good for a group of students! But: hey, they have been better than that. jaywalker23 did not seem all too thrilled, either.

Ah, well. Now I have to see to the synopsis of my term paper we have to do in my Gothic Novel course and the summary I have to do in Language and Religion.

I think those things are really pretty, somehow. Not really informative, but nice.
( Click here to see! )