Bitte? Bitte! Bitte? Bitte!

I. Am. So. Excited. The closer that we get to the end of the quarter, the closer I get to a nervous breakdown AND the closer we get to being in Berlin. This is both thrilling and mildly terrifying, especially because I am leaving on June 20th for Italy and going straight from there to Berlin. The exercises in class and the way that time in class is spent is getting increasingly more meaningful, although i still get confused about why we spend so much time with guest lecturers versus actually being in our groups. And, I'm just going to put this out there, I miss Heidi and the big funky looking B.

The composition exercises gave me a lovely little window from which to peer into what future compositions might look like. It was interesting to see the different ways that the groups approached the exercise and that even though we didn't necessarily have to incorporate our topics into the composition that nearly all of the groups did. They didn't seem so much like "drama" to me as a collaborative get-together and make something fun exercise. A creature of drama school, the Viewpoints method has been challenging because I am so used to spending hours upon hours with a text, getting my actions and objectives the way that I want them, playing with dialogue (and occasionally weapons), and this whole 'here are the elements that need to be included, pick your text, and be ready in 2 minutes' thing doesn't jive well with my internal dramatist. BUT, I am enjoying them thoroughly and I am always open to new experiences and methods. Maybe not always. Most of the time. As long as they are "ohne Fleisch". And kudos to Tanya for being such a good sport.

My research has been progressing almost painfully slowly because I feel like most of the work is going to be done through interviews with young people in Berlin. The second lecture, however, made me think about how exactly I am going to video blog my research, especially considering that most of it is going to be through Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous which is inherently...anonymous. I have concluded, therefore, that I will have to talk to people in meetings and then get their consent to talk to them after the meeting, maybe video recorded or audio recorded or maybe not. Another concern of mine is that when I have traveled and gone to meetings in other countries before, most of the English speaking meetings have been full of either Americans or other foreigners, which defeats the entire purpose of my research. I am well aware of how drug addicts and alcoholics cope with their addiction in the States and so am going to need to figure out a way to either go to German speaking meetings and see if there are any English speaking people there, or have a German speaker come with me. Any takers? Bitte?

One final note, something that I can hardly wait for is the Berlin Salsa Congress. One of my best friends, John, is flying to Berlin to be my partner and it is going to be the best experience EVER. Counting down the days...

this is our youth...culture...in berlin

Um...LOVE our group. I felt like the class last week was one of the best and most productive to date. At first, I was concerned with the size of our group in terms of working out schedules and personalities and conflicts, but these fears were dispelled after the first few minutes of our conversation. The rule now seems to be the more the merrier and a merry, merry bunch we are. Everyone is interested in looking at topics that involve a lot of direct "field work" and I am soooo looking forward to romping around as a group through the streets, in dance clubs, music venues, and gay cabarets.
Our composition exercise went really well. Everyone contributed equally and we combined all of our ideas to create something slightly strange and beautiful...just like us! In Berlin, the creation of our composition as a day in the life of a drug addicted closeted dancing musician who promotes himself as an actor on YouTube...but really wants to develop his own fashion line. Writing that sentence makes it seem really complicated, but I have faith that we will make it work.
In terms of my own personal research, I have found some great lists of meetings to go to and I am hoping that there will be young people there who will be willing to talk to me and let me talk to them about their experiences with drug addiction. The only issue that concerns me about my field research at this point is that when I have gone to English-speaking meetings abroad before, they have generally been dominated by tourists instead of locals.
I shared my sobriety with the group and they were extremely supportive...I can't even begin to describe how relieving this was for me. It is hard to be young and sober, especially traveling with young people who aren't, but the response was amazing and I am really happy that I shared this aspect of my life.
Looking forward to the performance today...

i'm still fermenting...

a pickle is a fermented cucumber...

...and also is what I am in right now. I have had some trouble in the past few weeks deciding what topic to choose from the two that I had originally thought of. Both are fascinating to me and both have a direct correlation with my life and interests. So this week I started doing preliminary research on 'tutto due' as they would say in Italian and realized the potential problems with studying social dance. While the 'on the ground' research would undoubtedly yield an abundance of information, the preliminary research has proved extremely difficult. I have been able to find a variety of different dance clubs, but no information pointing to dance as the universal language. Therefore, were I to follow this track, most of the research would have to be done in Berlin. The following is one of the sources that I found that may help point me in the right direction:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1984889,00.html

My research on drug and alcohol abuse has been much more more fruitful than the research on social dancing. In terms of acquiring hard data to support my fieldwork in Berlin, this seems to be the easier route. However, while studying social dance presents problems in the preliminary research, studying alcohol and drugs seems to present problems in the actual fieldwork aspect. The following links offer some pretty solid information on the quality and quantity of teenage drinking in Berlin.

http://www.deutsche-welle.com/dw/article/0,2144,2473172,00.html
http://www.goethe.de/ges/soz/dos/jug/sjf/en1787039.htm
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,474906,00.html
http://www.expatica.com/de/articles/news/Smoking_-cannabis_use-down-among-German-youth_-but-drinking-up-.html

So now I am left with the internal fermented cucumber of what topic to pick between the two. I was thinking about drawing cards, putting them behind my back and switching them around. That isn't going to work. Now that I have this written down, I am going to sleep on it and revisit it in the morning.