mal organisée


I think I’m scared of writing because it makes me organize the thoughts in my head. Thus the long hiatus.


It’s not that things aren’t happening in my life. Quite the contrary—the world is turning, the snow is melting, finally. I’ve started my internship at Willoughby, which has really changed my views on working for a design firm in the future. I’ve been losing sleep over what to do with my life after I graduate. My grandparents and my parents are always asking what my plans are, and its just so easy to tell them what they want to hear. “Oh, you know, just going to stay in the safe mid-west, work for a big secure design firm and settle down as far away from Africa as I can.” Blah. Lets make a list of my least desirable life course:


1:settling down
2:not being in Africa
3:getting a real job right after I graduate

The thought of staying places that are considered “safe” is not my main priority when I think of what I wan’t to do with my life. It’s not that I’m reckless or not educated about all the dangers that exist in foreign countries. Life isn’t about always wanting to feel safe, or comfortable. I want to throw myself into situations that I’m completely unprepared for. I want to learn the unordinary life lessons and come out with stories I’m still telling when I’m 80. I want to get rid of the romantic views of foreign places that I’ve filled my head with from Hollywood, Disney movies and saturated Travel Channel vignettes. I want to meet real people, and see real places—the good and the bad. And hopefully along the way do some good.

People are so scared of everything. Oscar Wao said it best, “Fear is the mind killer.” Fear keeps people from moving forward and changing anything. I’m not going to promise to stay in America, or not travel alone, or not talk to strangers, or not hitchhike. I will. I already have. And I’m going to keep doing it until I’m old and wrinkly, and people can look in my eyes and know that I’ve been places, and see my hands and know that I’ve done a lifetime of work.

Get out of my head scared-y cats! I’m GOING to live in Africa. I’m GOING to help people who need it no matter where they are, and I’m GOING to be alright without a “real job”. But for now I’ll keep lying because it’s just so much easier.
pelo de gato

almost

INDUBITABLY
every time
i go somewhere
for the
first
time
on the
first
day
it is
guaranteed to

RAIN..

I think I posted about this a long time ago when I first started my blog. The first week I lived in Nashville it greeted me with ceaseless showers; then Germany, then Ireland, then Krakow etc. I like to think that I like it, that I get to see the city without its pretty shine for the tourist-gaze.* The de-romanticized version of the place that people will not undeniably fall in love with. Australia is no exception. We watched he rain from our restaurant, where we could see the boats going by on the river, and all of the young Brisbane sophisticates meeting for lunch and looking like models straight out of Topshop. Lets hope it clears up so I can stop being so darn phosphorescent..
YIKES

It’s time for an update, sorry guys. Thanksgiving came and went, and of course while being confined in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Alabama without cell service, internet and 5 TV channel options with a satellite, I had an amazingly relaxing time and got nothing school-related accomplished. Last night I stayed up until my class this morning finishing up my sustainable packaging audit for the House of Chá. Here are some pages from my PDF presentation..







What is occupying my time now is the website for my composting project. It’s coming along slowly but surely. I can’t explain how frustrating it is to have to teach yourself a program, and not have a teacher behind you to ask questions along the way. After hours of Flash tutorial watching, I have a few fancy frames to show for it. And then I of course stumble upon beautiful sites like this that make me feel completely inadequate. I should go learn Flash in Japan. They obviously know how to work it.
Trier Photo Ketchup




















crookshanks lovin on my new flowers from the market. My favorite—gerber daisies!



















laundry time!
















ice cream time!


anja not approving of me walkin around the city with booze and fallafels for lunch..












the really old basilica- haven’t gone inside yet, but it’s another really old trier site, and i bought a really cool old postcard of it at the flea market!



there were a bunch of really cool doorknobs that i took pictures of in the old cathedral called the “Dom”. It took 300 yrs+ to build so you can see all the big changes in architectural style through the times! So cool.


Germany DOES have peanut butter and microwaves


It’s been such an exciting week in Trier for me, and it’s only wednesday. I moved into my house on Sunday, and my roommates cooked an awesome dinner for me complete with spargles, crepes and hollandaise sauce 🙂 mmmm. It’s also stopped raining and the temperatures are picking up! I’m sitting with my windows wide open right now listening to the glockenspiel of the cathedral, and the people walking below chat over coffee and little kids screaming and playing. Typical..

views from out of my window
Yesterday was my first class (not counting the German class) and I had Type Design with Mr Hogan. Luckily He had already prefaced the project in the meeting we had with him on Monday, because when we showed up at 10, It was the hardest thing ever to stay awake and try to pay attention. Every now and then he would catch us up to speed and turn to the four of us and ask us what we thought about it—terrifying. I don’t speak in class much at home and I would probably throw up if I had to here.. But he did give us a ten minute break where we ran across the street and grabbed our caffeine filled drinks of choice, and when we got back we got to watch a movie in English!
About America!
And it was sooooo embarassing!
The movie discussed the importance of the Eames’ lounge chair, and the history and politics of the 50’s—the era it was invented. No worries. I wrote down very important points the film made, and here we are:

1) America did not care about politics during the Cold War. They “went into a political amnesia” and instead focused on designing their cookie cutter homes with these lounge chairs and wearing wrinkle free dresses.

2) The lounge chair was perfect for watching media programs and drinking an ice cold Budweiser©.

3) “The Lounge Chairs price is as high as its leather is black.”

4) America has “a culture as cool as its jazz” which was seen through the Eames inventions, and especially they’re star: the Lounge Chair!

This film was so cheesy and hard to watch in a room full of German students who have probably not been to America yet. We all laughed when it first started—mostly out of awkwardness, but more importantly to let the kids know that we thought it was a little redicuclous. Also, I got real uncomfortable at one point when the British narrator was telling about the nazis and what was going on in Europe at the time. Oh well. Now we only have to come to small critique groups every other week so no more of that.. Our project is to choose a designed object (such as the Eames Lounge Chair) or we can
choose a Person/Artist and then design a logo for them using a typeface that we design. From those few letters used in their logo, we will design the rest of the alphabet for an almost complete Typeface! The two idea I’m going to start sketching with are the classic high wheel bicycles, and then Jose Fernando Borges, a Brazilian printmaker. I’ll start sketching and then see which one I think has more potential, but I love the contrast of the bicycle with the thin and thick of lines, and the contrast in sizes seen with the wheels, and with Borges his wood block prints are very bold and playful, with lost of different textures and fun characters. We’ll see…

Last night the neighbors from upstairs came over for a dinner party, an older couple in their 40s or so and I think perhaps the landlords. I had already known this woman as the “wine lady” who had frequently trapped my roommates upstairs drinking wine with her for hours so I was prepared when they walked in with 4 bottles for dinner. Vera once again cooked an awesome meal from her hometown in Bavaria, Ulm. She made Bubenspaetzle (meaning little boy penis haha, but they were inch long skinny gnocci that she shallow fried), Sauerkraut with pieces of ham (vegetarian-style for me!) and Apfelstrizie for dessert. And before dessert, the husband instructed me that a real German meal has to have schnapps in between the courses in order to be able to finish the meal. So after the group finished the 3 bottles of red wine, we all took a shot of pear schnapps (gross) and then followed it up with some apfelstrizie and white wine. I followed the group to tanja’s room where the smokers could smoke, and we just talked and hung out until midnight. Or at least that’s when I couldn’t stand the smoke anymore..

It was fun to see people come out of their shell with their english speaking for me. It feels like it’s getting easier for people when they start getting to know me and I guess begin caring about me and wanting me to actually take part in the conversations. More and more times in the night someone would turn to me to help translate what was just said, and at the end of the night much of the conversation was in english. It was so much fun trying to listen to funny stories, and traditions, and listen to old German bands, and even talk serious about religions for a bit. I may have lost a year from second hand smoke, but definitely worth it haha.

PANIC club





Last night was sooo fun! I made pizza with all Anja’s roommates and danced the night away at Panic Club! When we first got to Trier we went to a restaurant called Astarix, and saw these “fetzig” (retro german way to say awesome) flyers for Panic Club, and picked one up to save. I saw them again when we dropped Jenn off with her 2 new guy roommates, Thomas and Beautiful Phillip, and it turns out that Panic Club was the next party that Phillip was DJing at. So last night was Panic Club, and before we went, Anja me and Jenn went to visit the next house Jenn will live in with 4 other guys, and talked and learned retro-German words like fetzig, souß and zouf boen!/ tanze boen!—all phonetic spelling of course. We just had to walk a block or so to get to panic club from her new flat, so we went, got our schtampe, checked out coats, and walked into the dance floor to a shout out louds song! It was so fun because I knew almost every song they played and even rocked out with jenn to “Love me love me! Say that youll love me fool me fool me! Go on and fool meee…” Awesome. We left around 5:15ish in the morning, and stopped at a kebab place before dropping Jenn off at her place.


When Anja and I got home, we went to the kitchen to eat some, and Timo—one of her roommates—came in shortly after and slightly intoxicated, and we ended up just talkin until about 6. My feet hurt soo bad, but I had such a good time, and learned a lot of german, and danced my feet off. The end.
Copyright Kim Koelling 2015. All Rights Reserved