In Between Times

On: a film project, turning points, the search for focus and "how to live"

While everyone is back home enjoying their holidays, I'm still here.

I'm working on a film project, first a 2-week (post-/production) course and later our own little 5-min-or-so-movie for university. It's fun and exhausting at the same time. 

I've never really realized how much work you have to put into just one tiny scene of a movie, containing 3-8 different shots (e.g. detail, panorama, close-up). Everytime you move the camera around (which can be quite tricky with its tripod, the mirophone, the lights...), you have to change or adjust all your settings again: The white balance (depends on indoor/outdoor shooting), the shutter dissolve to make sure you have decent lighting but no overexposure, the tone (which microphone type do you use? Are the background noises too strong? All voices audible?) and last but not least the focus.

If you're trying to film a person, always zoom in on the eyes and focus there (automatic peaking helps so much).

I learned what the golden ratio is and that you need a 3-point-light-system to make a person look sympathetic and well in your takes. Superficially, I learned how to cut scenes, cross-cut soundtracks and so on. The fun times we had when we shot our little Katy Perry parody (me and my bestie) in 2010, really helped me out with this. Because although we use Adobe Premiere now and used some shitty trial program back then, if you did cutting once, it's easy to get back into it later. It's no sorcery. 

All in all, I've put more effort in this course than in any other of the first and now past semester. Everyday 9 to 5 is not my usual uni schedule ;) . When I look around and see some of my fellow students and some friends that are studying, too, I get the feeling that I am quite okay with the balance of the work I do, with my stress level (all time low) and my free time, and especially "me-time". I used to set up too many appointments, join too many clubs and things; now I am trying to do a lot, but not too much. This semester, I finally retook karate as a long-missed hobby of mine. I still play the guitar (mostly at home though; here I only have my ukulele - But that's fine at least I'm working on it). I am in the "Fachschaft" which is a student council but in our little field of studies rather a coffee-drinking bunch of nice girls and one guy. Not so much about university politics, rather about planning a MKW blog (guess who's in for it?) and the christmas party. 

Recently, I noticed a relatively blank paper note in front of the cafeteria, saying "actors/actresses for student theater group wanted".

So I've joined a theater group. It's led by a philosophy Master student, Felix. Or better: Not led, but managed, because leading would sound too much like a hierarchy which we are clearly not (in his words). 

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We're playing scenes from the play we want to get on stage, "Eleutheria" by Beckett, we're doing a bunch of funny impro theater games and practises or we discuss the great mysteries of our society like the gender trouble by a beer, a red wine, a whiskey coke and an apple juice (literally in this order at our table). They're all interesting, fun and creative new people. 

While collecting and brainstorming ideas for our own movie in the film project, I couldn't let go of that one vision of a film based on the butterfly effect. One little thing changed can be a great turning point in your life and can literally change everything. As an example we want to use a lovestory, okay, that was kind of obvious, two people meeting and falling in love, caused by one tiny decision by the girl. She chose M&Ms, not Snickers leading to her finding the man she will marry. We will put in some drama and the idea that going back and changing that candy decision could be possible. And that's it ;). 

These film ideas, not yet realized and haunting my mind, brought me the back a thought I had a while ago. About my own life, my own decisions and especially the one going abroad to Paris and how that changed everything and influenced everything. And how the choice of going to Freiburg for my studies influenced who I met and who I will going to meet here, how it excluded all the alternative routes my life could have taken. I could be in Düsseldorf, studying social sciences, in Cologne doing the same major but a different minor, in Stuttgart doing rather design than theoretical studies on media. 

I would have never met my current boyfriend. Or the new friends that I found here. Probably, no, certainly I would have found others. That would have changed me differently, affected me in another way than the people here are doing it now. I once said, and I still say it, that I don't want to go back. (#noregrets)

I believe that every decision we make out of feelings and reflection (Trust your guts!) is right at the moment and for our lives, even if it turns out to be shitty later on. The good thing is: Noone is punished for taking a turn, for following a new track or breaking off something you don't like doing. Life holds opportunities for anyone at any time. A gap in your CV might have been the best thing you have ever done. I know it's hard sometimes to keep it all in mind: The past, the future, the now. Keeping your shit together. Because in our studies, our work and our daily life we're often too concerned about what's going to happen: Tomorrow, next week, in 10 years. "When will we schedule the meeting? When will the exams take place? What will I do after I finished school? What do I want to do for a living? I have to save for my holiday plans..."

All this stuff is important, it's necessary in some ways. Keeps us going. And nobody is less attractive and convincing than someone who doesn't know what they want and in which direction they're headed. 

But on which field should we lay our focus on? There's also our past, producing and deleting memories every minute that goes by. We narrate it, it defines us, it makes us what we are today. And there's the NOW. Often celebrated, often over- and sometimes underestimated. You can't just live in the moment, because the moment passes too quickly. There will be always your memories, your stories connecting with the things you're doing now and the emotions you feel. Like the music my boyfriend put on this afternoon on his (vynil) record player (he's kind of a freak when it comes to music). It was Milky Chance, two german guys who make music you can dance or just dream to and who I discovered almost exactly a year ago in Paris. And saw them there, live.

Paris, La Défense, Festival Chorus, March 2014

Like you noticed, I immediately connected their voices, the soft tone of their chords and bass to the good times I had, riding my bicycle in Paris listening to their songs or the concert there at La Défense. I couldn't help myself, they made me smile, they took me back to moments long gone; I can't live without my past. Neither without my future, sneaking around in the back of my head where all the travel plans lie, the career goals. The house with the garden and the kids, in a golden fluffy dust of maybes. 

I can't live without your breath by my past, Babe                                                          I can't breathe without your life by my future                                                           I can't see clear without your teardrops in my eyes - Mando Diao

You can never live in any of those three states, those three times. You're not able to focus on one thing, like the camera does. You always mix up the three, they are like ropes, each pulling you towards another hole. Don't get caught up by one or you'll fall. You get lost. Maybe in dreams of how it could be, or in nostalgic memories, or in the moment, by doing drugs or loving someone you know there will be no future with. Fuck, it's harder to live than I thought it was.

What I wanted to say in the first place, was, that I think that I'm relatively good at managing the ropes and not letting me be pulled into a hole. Although I have a week of holidays in Paris planned and I am sooo up for falling in that hole, at least for a week ;). 

And we were bound to the citylife. Flashlights when we're falling into the night. Focused on what you feel; just when you were calling her love that day - Milky Chance

Everyhing is going well with my boyfriend, at least I'd say so. He's a big part of my present (and my near past, as you may recall). 

And maybe of my future... *dramatically romantic stare into infinity* 

Naaah, you guys know me. A little bit of hopeless romantic behaviour never killed nobody. 

I really like him. He's a good one. :) In contrast to former relationships or relations to guys I am sure that he likes me back, that he is honest and would never cheat on me - Umm, according to this list, he's almost perfect. I'm still making plans on travelling with my friend in summer, I have tickets for a festival, I dream of the next time being abroad longer, of doing language courses, of visiting people. Okay now enough with the shameless self-promotion by linking you to older posts. What I wanted to say is:

I'm holding the ropes, I'm keeping my balance.

Ok, done with this rope metaphor- I'm living my life.

In between different times and states of minds. But overall, I'm fine.

Where are you from?

On: My studies so far, Boyfriends moving houses and me producing an existential crisis out of it

I wrote my first and one out of only two exams this semester. I had a presentation about Harry Potter as a cultural phenonemon last week. I write the essay in my major about how social media and dating apps like tinder change social/romantic behaviour.

Sometimes I feel like my studies aren't even real.

Almost everything seems so interesting and cool. Therefore it's easy to bear some tiny things that annoy me. Overall, I'm happy. I get the feeling that many people, especially many of my fellow students, were disappointed when first arriving at Uni. I guess there are several reasons for this fact.

There exists a majority who hasn't really considered what to do and which studies to start and reflected on it – and just chose something that seemed roughly interesting.

Also, there are people who realize they're different than their former opinion of themselves. It's harder to be one of them because you have to understand that what you always assumed to be true and matching your personality and interests, is instead something very different and doesn't satisfy your wishes and expectations.

In my opinion, stop it! Turn around, take another route! Changing your mind is okay, especially when it comes to life's big choices. Noone expects you to do something you don't love and support. So you shouldn't either.

But don't make this a too easy decision. Think about it wisely and consider your options. But on the other hand – Don't wait too long. In just letting time flow by you avoid deciding altogether and let time make it for you.

In the end, it's comfortable for you to argue, if someone may ask: „Naaah, man it was too late to change, anyway – i was in the fifth semester...“

I hate this kind of attitude. Don't do things out of habitude. I know it can be comforting and agreable and it is part of getting to know a new place, a new city – habitulizing it. A few months ago this place wasn't on my imaginary map at all, now I'm seeing this bus stop almost every day. The church, the stream, the facades of the houses lining along it in late January sunlight.

A friend of mine has been fascinated by first and last times since forever. Seldomly, I'm struck by this, too. When do we ever realize that this is the last, the very last time we see this person or we are at the dinner table in this constellation. When my boyfriend moved houses this weekend - wait what? You have a boyfriend?!! [For anyone with requests like this one, you can read about how it all started here.]

(and shame on me I was hiding in my hometown due to my little bro's birthday and not helping out – insert *monkey hides his eyes emoji* here), was one time when I thought about this again. 

Not only that we change constantly and that our perspective shapes and changes our environment and our perception of it. But also that my ways will completely change. New bike routes to discover, not the habitualized one through beautiful alleys and along the Dreisam. New stations to remember: their timetables, lines and names.

A new appartment, new flat mates. A real living room, a smaller bedroom. Moving can be exhausting and when you are finally there, arrived and lying on your mew bed in your new room, you feel a bit lost and you may text your girlfriend "I could do with a hug now..."

And it occurred to me that I am going to move again, too. That nothing in a student's life is really fixed. That home isn't really home here – nope, rather a place for the next 6 months if I'm lucky (because my landlords are kind of snobby and I reaaaally want to move in a flat share, too).

I guess I'm lucky that I have a place to go that I can truly call „home“. Where my family is, where I've spent 17 years of my life. As I broaden my horizont and meet people that don't have this fixed spot to go back to, I don't know if I should pity or envy them.

If your family expatriates to live in Canada, maybe you just shift home to be there, where your parents and most siblings are. 
And if you don't really have a „real home“, because you moved over 17 times in your 18 years (like a very lovely new person I know) and your parents live seperated in different cities, you just choose one and maybe you convince yourself that it's not that important to have one.

Home, where my thought’s escaping

Home, where my music's playing

Home, where my love lies waiting

Silently for me – Paul Simon

If home is where you loved ones are, home can be spread around in many different places, different countries.

If home is, where the heart is, I'd call Paris my home, at least partly. I never felt such freedom and happiness in another place.

If home can be many places, there is not home in a singular, but homes in a plural.

But somehow we need „a place to start from“ when we start telling our stories, when we emplot our lives to build our identity (*puts on nerd glasses* that's called your „narrative identity“ and is a cultural concept). That's why the question „Where are you from?“ is so important to people. Almost as important as „Where are you going?“

Round my hometown

memories are fresh

round my hometown

ooh the people I've met

are the wonders in my world - Adele

Often, we underestimate the power our „first home“, our hometown, the place we come from, the place or places we were born and raised. We'd say: It's my past. We may neglect our connection to it (never want to come back to it), or on the contrary we will show it and embrace it with pride.

A german musician put into words what I feel about my hometown and my home village, a small place with a popultion of roughly 5000 souls. Because however it is a dumb and lame „Kuhkaff“ as we say here, I still met my best and closest friends there. I still passed a lucky childhood there, found good places, magic places there.

I still kinda hate-love this place. Leaving it behind was a liberation. Going out into the Great Wide World. Moving to a big city, being young (,wild and free).

But in my inner mind I know somehow, I will always come back.

May it be forever or just for a day.