Adam Fletchers - The Zig » the zig goes…

The Zig goes………Away from the Zig

fletchy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:00:50 +0000

So here it is, the final “so what did I learn from my one year in Germany post”. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, now. In my head I see my old flatmate Johnny from Uni at one of his American summer camps. He used to talk about how on the last night, everyone would sit around the bonfire holding a “truth stick”. In turn they would share one memory and then reveal how camp had changed them, forever……Shameless deforestation I hear you cry. Johnny told a story for which he was forever then gently teased it goes like this. At the end of camp he took a 6 week long tour trip somewhere, I can’t remember the specifics I know it featured Las Vegas and pissing into the Grand Canyon I guess that gives you an idea. At the end of the trip, I think at the airport he told of standing in front of the mirror looking at his hands and his face in the mirror and thinking to himself “I’ve become a man”.

Many boys have become men for the first time in a mens bathroom. I’m not sure if John was alone in the bathroom, what he was doing with his hands or face at the time, its not polite to ask. Nor is this the point of this post.

I guess I’m ready to have my own mini-reflective moment. Somewhere between the truth stick, and bathroom realizations of manhood here is the cringingly, lame, preachy and ultimately unsatisfying conclusion for everyone watching, you know these moments they occur at the end of American movies, accompanied by flashbacks of highlights narrated by the main characters voice overs and possibly ending in toilets and “I looked down at my hands, and then at my face in the mirror. I looked different somehow, aged by my experiences that summer, a summer I would never forget. I’d become……….a man.

Half the cinema vomits.

Sorry if I make you gag:

Unlike Johnny I was a man before I came to Leipzig, I have the receding hairline to prove it. In fact my experiences in Leipzig taught me the opposite. I was an old man of 23. My key learning of this year is the learning not to care. Opportunity is everywhere, everything I experience a million people have already experience, the more people opt in, the more possible it is to opt out, people everywhere are much the same, but the conditions which with they live are very different. 80/20 is everywhere and effects everything.

Now I live much more to impulse, I’m totally open to everybody, i’ll befriend anyone, I appreciate people 100x more and know how little I need to be happy, which liberates me to have almost unlimited options. Life in Germany has shown me the possibilities of life without the rat race, without concerns of status, the quality of life achievable when the stakes are lower and life moves slower.

Not all of this stuff is new, you see what you choose to see no matter where you’re looking. I guess I’d written my conclusions of Germany before I set foot on the plane, this was going to work because England for me despite all its good points somehow didn’t. Through hard work, coming here on my own with no support network, quite a few lucky breaks, it did work.

I think I’m going to leave it there before this turns into some dribbly, smug, cringe worthy and overly personal splurt. So instead I’ll just say thanks to everybody I’ve met here. I owe you invaluably.

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England you’re alright

fletchy — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:09:12 +0000

If this sucks I apologise I’m moving out in 10mins and I’m lacking in prooof reading time….I wrote this on the plane, on the way back to Germany.

Before this trip i’d of told you the only thing I miss about england is prepacked sandwiches. Sure it feels a little wrong that after 23yrs the country of my birth hasn’t seeped deeper into my psyche than a sandwich, but only the english it seems understand the fundamental importance of a good sandwich. So I was at peace with it. But I think after this trip i’ve realized that there is more than that, so i’ll try and give england a little break for a while. I think maybe its a little like picking on the fat kid at school. Its an easy option, but its hardly an intellectual workout in mockery. So lets throw England in a special category along with the disabled, and the USA and make them exempt for today.

Why this sudden england love-in? Well I think it was the 2 days I spent in Nottingham with Fraser my roomie of 3 years at Uni. Its actually a pretty great place. The best bars anywhere (even beating Leipzig), the best music scene bar London. Its actually a pretty great place to spend your twenties. There are a few downsides of course like the overabundance of english people (sorry couldnt resist that cheeky one) and its not easy to find a job that pays more than 15k. I think I under-estimated how many good memories I have from there and just how well I know the city. Its a close to home as I’Ve felt in a city in England which makes sense as actually I spent a fair amount of time there, and it was the first place I moved out from home to.

Friday night saw me playing wingman to Frasers tried and tested Napoleon Dynamite persona. It had been so long that I enjoyed the friday night moron show that takes place in its city centre, the scantily clad women, men that makes those strange primal noises which i’m pretty sure we outevolved just before we discovered the “poke” as a communicative tool. But these drunkmonkeys seem somehow to get the complex messages they are trying to convey across with a simple

“ooooaaayh”

translation:

“you are a level of attractiveness or I’m a level of drunkeness that would allow me to have sex with you. Right here in the street if you like? Or perhaps in the alley? Anyway let me know i’ll be over here crushing a beer can on my head and pissing on my shoes”.

I wouldn’t reccomend it for every weekend, but once in a while its a nice mini-break from civilisation. We first hit the Ropewalk and played two gruelling scrabble deathmatches (in which Fraser cruelly shat upon the space I had reserved for my seven letter “repented”, with a strategically placed time waster and won by 2 points). If theres a better way to spend your Friday evening patent it, quick. Then off to the indiegoodness of the Rescue Rooms (even played a Ryan Adams track) saw people drinking shots from a teapot, narrowly avoided an annoying evacuation as someone made a fire in the toilets and then moved on to the Cookie Club another valut of indie goodness. To say we started the party would be an understatement, only two people beat us in there. I guess you know what happened in the next few hours, we drank danced like buffoons to the beastie boys, walked home narrowly avoiding an expensive run-in with the casino.

What happened next was a master stroke as we both managed to mangle my instruction of “I have to take a train at 7:30am, can you set an alarm at 6:30″. Instead both setting it at 4:30am. Beautiful time of the morning, populated only be the dead and new parents, the difference mere technicalities.

Anyway the planes beginning its decent now, so far i’ve not been called in to pilot it. So i’ll knock this one on the head. You know what England, your alright duck, go away and work on your cost of living and come back and see me in a few years and we’ll talk again.

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Short video of 2nd presentations q&A

fletchy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:14:50 +0000

The guy asking the question is actually a bit of a legend in this area. Seeing him on the second row put me off a bit to be honest, but I was chuffed he came to my talk, asked a question and told me it was “very interesting research”. I have no real idea what i was chatting about, the q&a got better when I re-discovered my point with the later questions

Lots more photos on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamfletcher

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The Zig goes……………….Boston pt.2

fletchy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:16:20 +0000

Cheeky, Cheekies, all aboard the party bus

Yay! A country where the default language is some sort of english…..”diet english”. The journey was eventful if you like airport waiting lounges, if so it was practically an orgy. They threw all but the kitchen sink at us, delays, flight cancellations, rail strikes, lost luggage – all packed into one long 24hr patience test. It took a weeks worth of my english charm to get them put us on the 9:25pm and not the 7am flight after the 6pm got canceled.

I’ve been English charmless since, waiting for the stocks to refill ready for the next emergency.

Any of y’all expecting long posts of comedic mishaps and cultural malfunctions in the good old USA are likely to be dis-appointed. Perhaps its because everything I read, watch and listen to comes from here anyway but that fish out of water feeling has so far eluded me. Except when I’ve tried to pay for the bus in Boston, something I’ve managed to fuck up every single time to great comedic effect, but effect that wont work so well in word form.

Being English is usually a green light for traveling most places without any hassle, but surprisingly it was me causing the problem on the way over.

Check-in lady: (seeing my English passport) “And which country is your permanent residency sir?”

Me: “Erm (cultural identity crisis)…..German I suppose (she seems friendly so I throw in a) whatever is easier for you (English subtext: Tell me what is easier for me)”

Check-in lady: “Doesn’t matter to me, Germany, okay. So can I see the identification confirming your German residency”

Me: (Your lucky I even remembered my passport I’m thinking) “erm…..actually England is my permanent residency”

Check-in: “Oh” – disappears with passport to talk to someone else.

But eventually we got to JFK. I expected good things from the airport of New York, New York so good they named it more than once. Actually it turned out to be the crummiest airport I’ve ever seen, literally. It was crumbling, I’d have taken photos of the cracks in the walls if I wasn’t concerned that they would have thought I was photographing possible security vulnerabilities.

Me and Bill G

That would have been pointless, as you wouldn’t need a bomb to destroy jfk, just push hard one of the cracked walls and I think the whole place would have come down like concrete dominoes. But we snaked through the rat tunnels hunting our plane shaped cheese and after only a teeny tiny 7hr wait flew to Boston.

Plenty more happened but I’m bored of writing about travelling, so now I’ll just jump to the Hotel. Our area is “interesting” there are alot of activities on offer, the most common being mugging, stabbing, narcotics and even if your lucky enough the little more exotic “death”. I’ve done my best to blend in with my miscellaneous ethnic origin allowing some sort of chameleon-a-bility. German people stick out like floods in the desert everywhere they go, so Ami is causing more of a problem. Lucky our hotel is also full of germans. In-fact the conference is also 50% German, if the food hadn’t got a 100 times better, but the beer a thousand times worse it would feel like i’d never left the fatherland.

I know I have one reader who is particularly into language differences, so i’ll take a stab at the US, UK and DE language differences that have become apparent on the trip.

The English (UK) language is made for patronizing. Everything is loaded with subtext which is dependent on the person so it takes a while to know them and what they are really thinking. A few examples:

“Thats interesting” = “I was just sick in my mouth, did you notice?”

“Oh right, I’ll check that out thanks for the tip” = “What should I have for dinner? Pizza? Nah, I ate it last night, ah I’ll have a liquid dinner, where can you get a cheeky around here?”

“Oh, hey, nice to see you hows it going?” = “You’re in my way, please move”.

The American language is made in hollywood. As long as you sugar coat everything enough, you can forget the bitter bottom. Its language designed for distraction. If your smile is big enough, no-one notices the knife in your hand. One of the most effective ways of sugaring is to use superlatives and exaggeration like

“America’s wildest sunsets.”

“I would LOVE to help you sir, but I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that issue.”

“Bostons best……..curb” “Voted Bostons greatest……..vending machine”.

I was even wished a “spectacular” day? Spectacular, its Wednesday. When was the last time you had a spectacular Wednesday, or just a spectacular day?

So we have one language missing from this list I guess, my little Deutschey friends.

The German language…hum…well that one is easy, its the language of hate and pain. No examples needed

Andreas and I have discussed the differences between German and American customer service. Of all the customer services, I’d take German.

A nice red car.

I think its pretty simple, people working on minimum wage shouldn’t be forced to pretend to be happy. In the US they are, in Germany they wont even pretend your not inconveniencing them. German people will help and resolve your issue very quickly, and very begrudgingly. You’ll get what you want and they’ll make it pretty clear that they hate you and everyone you’ve ever met in the process. The English just resolve your problem and subtly mock you and make you feel uncomfortable and inferior in a way that makes you not ask again and just put up with what inconvenience you have to suffer.

More from the US coming up soon I hope, if I can find the time. I have plenty more (better) pics that will eventually make it to flickr as well.

The audience for my second talk.

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The Zig goes……………….Boston pt.1

fletchy — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:25:33 +0000

Proper update coming up, but after a rough 26 hour journey including deutsche bahn strike, flight delays, cancellations and still missing bags we finally reached Boston. More to follow, but now exploring, site seeing and The National gig.

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The Zig goes England pt.2

fletchy — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:06:33 +0000

Again from the eyes of my travelling partner in crime, chief spanish,men, and most things basher – nettski…..

A true English experience – tick.

Read the full post

Surprisingly unagitated, pleasantly uneventful, nicely unstressed days in Cambridge that fulfilled their purpose of providing proper change of scenery for a while â€¦ no struggling (With the exception that Adam struggled a tiny bit in his new role as a tourist guide), no culture shock, nothing to bash.

The only English city I can compare Cambridge with is London this may not be the most adequate or most representative one for a English city! Unfairly, I compare it with Leipzig: both have students and bicycles but Leipzig wins, don’t need to think about that

All this may sound a bit boring (which wasn’t the case at all). To boost my adrenaline levels we cycled on the left side of the road aka the wrong side of the road

And of course I, we had typical English weather; rain, wind and sunshine interplay. As we had 38 degrees Celsius when I left Leipzig, I wasn’t too sad about this.

And of course II, English over-politeness; an almost ridiculous amount of thank yous when buying a beer reminded me that Germans have a reputation of being rude – we are not, we are just more efficient when it comes to politeness. One heartfelt, truly meant thank you is enough.

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The Zig goes England!!

fletchy — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:16:24 +0000

(this post was written before the name one, which is why it reads slightly funny, if it wasn’t Friday evening I would re-write or proof read it, but, blah…)

You’re not a real blogger until you’ve apologised for not blogging. So here it is, sorry for the recent dry spell, nothing in comparison to the previous 2 month long droughts but i had the blogging groove recently, but lately I’ve lost the rhythm slightly. I had a weeks holiday last week, so went back to the mother-ship. It was my first time for six months or so, which was great, as for a day or so I felt like I was looking at everything for the first time again, with england x-ray specs on. It soon wore off, and I was watching trashy daytime TV and eating dairy milk unquestioningly, like the good old days.