Well, I now have two incredible places to study, one with my own personal window in-between two book shelves where nobody seems to go, American intellectual history, and where I currently am, in the Klasische Philology Raum comfortably lived with ancient books, small and cozy, with a great big window that covers the entire wall on the 3rd floor that in fact overlooks the very building from where I spend the other half of my time while not in class. On finally finishing Derrida’s essay on ‘Differance’ I needed a change of space so I left to purchase a 2 euro sandwich that I immediately regretted choosing at the moment of touching it. Then on my way to this delightful library I thought some chocolate to be in order and on route lo and behold I was handed a chocolate Christmas calendar which I am currently eating, and not in order. It’s a chocolate calendar advertising a certain nativity and pizza, where every door which opens to a little world of chocolate shaped festive figures also reminds one of the zippy yet delicious delivery of another savior, i.e. hot pizza.de.
I am already halfway through my first calendar while sitting here writing and only now have I stopped to pay attention to their chocolaty forms. Number 5 was in the shape of a rustic cottage; now number 11 the chocolate shape of Santa’s boot stuffed with little toys spilling out from the brim, I am procrastinating heavily as I don’t have the ability to return to what has already taken me 5 hours to read through and underline.
A funny thing happened yesterday night while coming home. I had bought two rolls and while sitting in the tram ride home I began building a sandwich from the meat and cheese that I tote with me in my bag. While during eating, a recorded message plays through the entire tram saying something more than the usual next destination, though I wasn’t paying it any attention I realized the recorded message might have been directed at me since a disproportionately large amount of people began smiling at me. (Number 17 is just a boring chocolate shaped star) So I smiled back and continued to finish my sandwich (belegtes Brot). A fat man sitting across from me with a jolly glimmer in his eyes points above him at a perfectly obvious black globe which houses a camera and asked me if was indeed as hungry as I appeared to be. I responded incorrectly causing him to probe further by asking where I was from. I told him Czechoslovakia for some reason thought fully aware of that country having been disbanded since I was still in elementary school and the mans face became congested, his eyes belying at that moment some hidden indigestion. My stop came immediately afterward and he wished me a pleasant evening and I him and that moment moved into memory.
This morning another telling incident occurred again with the tram, although this time (number 10 is a French horn wrapped in a bow) it was the tram itself and not some fictive Czechoslovakian causing a seen. I arrived for the tram at 7:50 AM joining probably the largest group of other people waiting including a classroom of elementary kids and adults waiting together for the ride of their daily lives. The tram arrived already packed with people yet some how everyone managed to wedge themselves into the tram, the doors making a metallic vacuum clamping sound as they shut. I had decided to forgo this round and wait another four minutes till the next tram would arrives. From within I received smiles again from middle aged woman with elegantly wrapped neck scarves and other dollies all pressed together wrapped and prepared for shipping, but the tram wouldn’t move. It just continued to stay where it had arrived and soon the next tram came, practically empty, where I warmed up and spread out inside. Something was wrong with the other tram though, it hadn’t moved for nearly 10 minutes, but surprisingly (for me) though everyone inside must have been uncomfortably pinched between one another and hard plastic seats nobody seemed to stir about, or cause a seen, or even think to relocate to a profoundly more spacious tram directly behind them even when the doors could be opened and for most of the time were. One might think that a spell had struck them docile upon entrance, passively accepting this moment in over stocked packaging with a regrettable delay in shipping. I nearly drank my entire mug of coffee alone waiting for the tram to move. Eventually the tram jerked to a start causing a collage of pinched faces to appear from the back window as the tram scooted off. I extended my legs as I awaited my own shipping toward the university. (Hey on the night before Christmas there is a chocolate Santa with a plump sack filled with pizza, how perfectly expressed)…
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