Thesis

I am happy to report that the culmination of my work in Stadtschlaining is complete. I have finished my second Master thesis! The paper, “The Half-Life of a Negative Discourse” was submitted and graded. For a while, I thought I wouldn’t get it done, with a difficult transition back to the United States, and my eventual relocation to Bangkok. In fact, I wrote 12,000 words in just about 4 weeks. Considering all I’ve been through, I think that’s remarkable.

In the blink of an eye

In the blink of an eye, I’m now back home in the United States. Fortunately, my adventures will continue as I make a move to Thailand to work for the United Nations Development Programme in Bangkok. I’m sure I’ll have a blog for that too.

UPDATE: Sure enough, I do. Check out the continuation of my overseas adventures at my new Bangkok blog.

 

Distrusting Alex

Yesterday was a disaster. I thought I would write my 500 words for the day on my paper, but as usual something else grabbed my attention.

One of the new students (Chelsey, I think) went to the library, where she ran into Ronnie, the interim academic director. Ronnie let it slip that the human sleeping pill (you remember Pete, right?) cancelled class for this week due to illness. As much as we rejoice at hearing that,  we were all furious at the news–particularly because most of the new students need the credits, and those of us who came late REALLY need the credits.

Apparently Ronnie hit a nerve when he allegedly told the Rock and Chelsey that we would simply watch movies for that week and we would be “given” credits. That just didn’t sit well with us.

It made matters worse when we gathered to talk with Ronnie about  situation, when he became extremely rude and almost walked out. I asked him to get Alex on the phone so we could ALL  meet with her as well–to which he said he would.

He never did. The vast majority of us gathered in the great room waiting for Alex to show, but since Ronnie didn’t actually call her we waited for nothing.

When a student finally made contact with her, she agreed to meet at 3 p.m.  In what seems now like a long string of passive-aggressive behaviors by all of us, I deliberately delayed the start of the meeting in order to let Ronnie and Alex sit just as uncomfortably as we did.

The meeting went terribly. Alex rolled her eyes at certain times during questioning–a mistake I was quick to point out.  She did, however tell us that Dr. Kurtz from George Mason University would be joining us as a replacement, which only temporarily pacified us.

It took them a full day and several more angry emails for Alex to respond in detail to our questions. All of this could have been prevented if she would communicate with students in bulk rather than one on one. Some of them complained later that they wanted the “last 25 hours of their life back.”

Unfortunately, time waits for no man.

 

Das Trumpeter

Tonight was the big Stadtchor concert at the old school. Nailed the solo, or “trumpet,” as the Austrians call it. All of my good friends were there in the back row cheering me on. Andy and Chiara recorded the whole thing for me. Giorgi even made a nice sign for the whole choir, “You are our Burgenland Superstars,” or something like that. The choir ate it up. Gotta love Georgians.

If only that could have been the end of the night.  The crowd was crammed into just barely a quarter of the music hall, with the majority squeezing their way into the buffet lines and the beer/wine line. And that’s where it went all wrong for me.  It was as if I was repeating spring of 2008 all over again.

In my head it wasn’t shouts of praise or congratulations. Rather it was those loud noises, unexplained sounds coming from nowhere, people sneaking up behind you to say something terrible. (Don’t touch me on the back of the arm.) I couldn’t escape. I retreated to the bench, with my friends calling me back over.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Are you tired?”

No, just scared shitless. I couldn’t move. I tried one of those semi-useless relaxation techniques where I press the finger into my forehead and concentrate on the sensation, to no avail.

(Can’t they go home now?)

(Can’t I go home now?)

Yet they kept coming to greet and thank the “trumpeter.”

“No, I’m just tired, thank you.”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you. I just had some water.”

Traumatic stress can turn anything special into something unpleasant. I’m fine up there on the risers. It’s just me, the two baritones next to me and the sheet music in front of me. Yet, off the risers and into the crowd, there’s nothing to concentrate on. It’s just the continual calculation of the nearest path to the meat sandwiches and away from the maddening crowd.

The walk from the school to Haus International was pretty damn miserable. I got out without visible panic, but the damage inside was already done.

(Quickly now,  up to my room to take the red out of my eyes and pop a couple of pills.)

It’ll all be over in 20 minutes.

No more of this for me for awhile. I just can’t take it.

International Day of Climate Action

Asking for 350 parts per million...

Here are some photos of our little Climate Change event this morning, courtesy of my friend Renalda Ludvika.

The human sleeping pill

When I first arrived, I was quick to criticize professors for not being close to what I would consider “graduate level” instructors.  I’ve leveled off since then. I’ve actually been pretty reserved about my judgments. Until now.

In hopes of preserving this man’s reputation, I will just refer to him as Pete. His course on Theories of Violence not only is dry and dull, but he has the uncanny ability to put people to sleep. You might think I’m kidding, but I’ve never seen more people get up to “use the bathroom” more often in one day than I have with this guy.

I wasn’t present for the first part of the class, where he allegedly asked people to share stories of violence in their lives…mind you, that there are people here from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Georgia, etc….and then told them that they were not qualified to teach about violence because they might be biased. He on the other hand wasn’t because he had not experienced such violence. I wish I could have seen that.

Today puts an end to a long and painful week.

The Soloist, Part 2

Tonight was the second practice with the “Stadtchor” of Schlaining. It’s a pretty nice group of people, all of whom have been singing with the group for most of the past twenty or so years. It reminds me a bit of singing with the Community Choir when I was 18 or 19. You know, the glory days.

Today, Renalda (from Latvia) joined us (Sowmya the Californian and I), although I think she was a tad on the nervous side. I incorrectly thought she was an alto until she realized she couldn’t sing those lower parts. That might have made the night more uncomfortable for her.

As I said last week, the choir director gave me the solo on old Negro spiritual called “My Lord What a Morning.” Today when we got to the song, I think he might have changed his mind. I stunk the shit out of it last time, at least that’s what I thought… After I improved, he seemed to ask the choir whether or not I should be given the part. Thankfully, or not, they agreed.

I’ve got one more practice on Friday to get the thing right before the concert on Saturday. (Remember it’s three beats, not two… Three beats, and slower.) Good thing I don’t have to memorize all of it.

All about marijuana

Last month I spent a few days with my sister in Amsterdam, where I confirmed my suspicions about what happened to that poor city. I noted that the city had nearly completely devoted itself to the exploitation of marijuana and its other marketable commodity—prostitutes.

Confirming this stereotype is the reaction from the WordPress blog statistics, who have begun to inform me that many people are finding my blog by typing in the keywords “amsterdam weed” and “amsterdam red light district” and “amsterdam and sex.” I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that most of these searchers come from college towns in the United States, and most of them completed their search at times where they were supposed to be in class.

The Soloist

Last night, I went to practice with the Concentrum choir or the “Stadtchor” of Schlaining. They welcomed us back to school last week, as they always do. I happened to introduce myself to the choir director, who later invited me to join them for their Tuesday practices.

I noted last week that I liked one of the songs they sang for us, “My Lord, What a morning,” an old Negro spiritual. Sure enough, they planned to practice that tune that night. I even got to help them with the English pronunciation of some words. (Some of you might find that a bit odd considering my thick American accent.) For example, most spirituals roll the harsh consonants. So when they sing, “what a morning,” it is usually sung, “whad-a morning.” I think this is because German has some pretty harsh sounding words and their pronunciation permeates their English.

He asked me to sing the solo portion of the song, which I promptly screwed up. But after we sung the part together, he shocked the heck out of me by announcing that I would sing it in their upcoming concert on the 24th. I have to memorize the thing, and from what I understand, 6 other songs (mostly in German) in just 10 days time. I’ve really biten off more than I would like to chew at this point, but I don’t want to disappoint them or all of the students here who are eager to hear me sing something other than a few cheesy bars of “Copacabana.”

Small victories

"Fuck it! We'll do it live."

If you’ve been following the entries in this blog, you’ll probably be aware of the bureaucratic mess the university is going through to meet the new Austrian requirements for accreditation. Some of the little things, for instance, are new rules that state that all professors must hold a PhD (which eliminates all of those who are career NGO professionals, some must actually reside in Austria (tough for a small institution), and meet new requirements for coursework and research components. These are all understandable, if not difficult requests.

But for the new students, the promise of earning a Master degree in this interdisciplinary field could be cut short by it. They came with the expectation that they would, but were tragically ill informed about the slow progress. Those of us who are here know that the administration is slow if not downright Jurassic in getting any details to students.

So it wasn’t really any surprise that the new students were pissed off when they found out the news, albeit a week after they already left their jobs, gave up their apartments, said goodbye to their families to come to Schlaining to study. Hindsight is not only 20.20, but it’s a real pain in the ass, too.  Even if they didn’t get the Master degree, they hoped to earn at least 30 credits to transfer to a comparable institution, like Bradford in the U.K. or the new WPA in Basel, Switzerland. But according to the bogus information given to them by the administration, they would only earn 24 credits under the new system.  More anger followed.

Last week they decided to have a meeting this Wednesday with Alexandra Elbling and Ronald Tuschl to sort out the mess.  After seething over the weekend, they moved it up to today. This morning, I sort of shepherded them through the process of discovering what is true, what isn’t true, what is known, and what others don’t know. I asked them what they all were willing to do, and what some weren’t willing to do. It’s a part of standard operating procedure for negative campaigns. First, find out what you can say. Second, find out what you could say or get away with saying. Third, find out what you are willing to say. And finally, discard anything you don’t have the balls to say.

They wanted to clarify what had been told them versus forthcoming Mrs. Elbling’s explanation. Second, they wanted the full 30 credits rather than abide by the 24 credits under a system that technically doesn’t exist yet and wanted to be treated to the same rules that apply to the “old” students. Additionally, they weren’t willing to walk away unless the administration absolutely said no. And none of them, after a completely pointless discussion about the meaning “structural violence,” were willing to complain to whoever (the press, the Schlaining community) would listen to how they got the shaft.

However I doubt I had any impact on the result at all. Jamie, a new student from Canada handled the meeting with a prosecutor’s tenacity and Bill O’Reilly’s killer instinct. She was absolutely masterful. No one really needed to say anything. Before long she got everything they wanted, even in writing by the end of the week. We even get to have a class or two in the castle. In the f#$%*g castle!

Perhaps this was a unifying event for these students. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them. If I came here now under the same conditions I arrived in February, I would have come home to die.  Three months wouldn’t have been enough…in hindsight. As I said earlier, this pathetic miscommunication is likely behind them and they can get down to the business of learning about conflict resolution, much like they did today.