yo hablo espanol

It's a very exciting time in my high school career. I'm going to community college! Of course everyone knows the best part about high school is when you don't have to go anymore. I still have to go next year of course, but it's summer and I've gotten my first taste of freedom by taking Conversational Spanish 101 at FRCC.

Me gusta. Me gusta mucho.

This is especially exciting because it means eventually I will be able to do the very thing I've wanted to for oh so long.

Watch spanish movies without subtitles. huzzah! It will only take years and years of studying, but when I'm 30 I will enjoy myself thoroughly. And I'm just now taking the first step. The next time I'm watching a little masterpiece of my buddy Pedro Almodovar, if anyone says "my name is," "how old are you," or "I would like to buy a half kilo of apples," I will so know what's going on.

We watched a movie in my german class with spoken german and german subtitles, and I was very happy because I could pretty much understand it. It was called Barefuss I think, and I actually really liked it. It was about this women who's in a mental institution and falls in love with the janitor and they have wacky adventures together. awwwww.... It reminded me of Benny and Joon. But the really significant part about this story is it was a german movie that wasn't depressing! I had previously thought this was impossible, save for Maenner Wie Wir, the gay soccer players movie. Because, most of the German movies I've seen are either about the holocaust or gay teenagers.

We have cultural growth!

Touche, John Waters, touche

Ok, John Waters. You win.

That's right, you managed to actually genuinely gross me out. I thought you used your powers of campyness for good, not evil! Why, I loved Hairspray! It was a sweet movie about dancing and desegregation. What's not to like? And Crybaby! Very strange, but still oddly sweet. Even A Dirty Shame, which seemed to touch on every strange kink and fetish known to man, was ultimately endearing. But this last movie of yours I watched? My brain simply feels violated and afraid.

Congratulations.

I thought I had seen everything, I thought I was pretty non-squeamish, I thought South Park, Kevin Smith, and Shortbus had desensitized me. But I was sadly mistaken.

Pink Flamingos really took the cake. I was prepared for the shit-eating, I could even get past the way Divine carried steaks around town. Even the keeping women in a dungeon, getting them pregnant, and then selling the babies I could stomach because it's so over-the-top anyway. The chicken-fucking scene was uncomfortable, but it was really the incestuous blow-job that got to me. And good god, at the party scene, what one man did with his asshole was absolutely unholy. I shudder to think about it.

In any case, gentle readers, if you want to be thoroughly grossed out to the point of no return, watch mid-night movie classic Pink Flamingos. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Damn krauts! and how I'm coping with racism

Oh my goodness it's my blog! Why, I haven't seen you for many moons! School is 100% to blame. I swore I would never become one of those sad I-don't-like-to-write-because-my teacher-makes-me people, but it sort of started happening. No Bueno.

Updates on the fascinating saga of my life? Let's see here....
I did indeed go to Germany. It wasn't exactly a walk in the park, although ironically there were many physical walks in parks. To summarize, I didn't get along with my host sister at all, and was really quiet and kind of miserable. I tried putting it in perspective with "well, at least I'm not sitting in a pit waiting for a crazy person to make a human-suit out of my flesh...." but it wasn't super effective.

Perhaps it would have been bearable if I could at least have seen some decent films, but all my host sister liked was crap. garbage. awful, disgusting excuses for cinema. I couldn't believe it. Monster-in-Law? Good Luck Chuck?!?! She's the one criticising american culture, and then goes and rents crappy american movies dubbed in german? She also said something totally unforgivable. I can't even type it I'm afraid what it would do to my computer.

Ok, here goes...... *Queue fuzzy screen and backflash music*
.
Host Sister: "What did you think of Good Luck Chuck?"
Me: "Um, it was okay, *struggles to find a not-super-negative comment* kinda predictable I guess"
Host Sister: "Oh, ALL american movies are like that. Hollywood's stupid."
Me: *Soul shrivels to a husk*

Please note the conversation happened in german, so the whole thing was 2.3 times more sinister sounding. The only good thing about that little exchange was it was sooooo wrong it didn't make me feel bad, I just thought she was an idiot.

The truth is I really don't like talking about it, but I've been thinking about it a lot since I went there exactly a year ago. When I got back I was horribly nationalistic and didn't ever want to leave the country again. But I've healed since then! I no longer think all europeans are evil! Huzzah! I still love german grammar, and I want to live in germany at some point. I will find some nice people who don't watch Sex in the City all day and then bash america culture. 'Twill be good.

But enough of this! I won't submit my loyal reader (hi grandma) to my little self-therapy session. Although I should add a footnote of all the really nice people I met. My host parents were amazing, so were most of the teenagers. The cashier in one store actually gave me this whole big book with pictures of germany, so I could see everything, not just schleswig-holstein. And these drunk teenagers thought it was really cool I'm from Colorado because that's where the South Park guy is from! And this girl Wiebke was really nice and spoke slowly to me so I could understand. So 95% of the people were total sweethearts (sweethearts who don't like our gov't, but sweethearts none-the-less), I was just around the not-nice one all the time. I bet if I went back it would be different because Obama's president. (Woo hoo!) Germany totally has a hard-on for him; they went bonkers when he visited Berlin. Totally crazy.

Anyway, that's the low-down on my journey abroad. Maybe I'll make a movie out of it one day. It'll be a dark comedy. I'll get Ang Lee to direct. He's a god, after all.

And foreign! God damn it!