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.