Merry Christmas to all...except the New York Jets

Just wanted to wish all of my friends and family back in the United States and here in Europe a merry Christmas. While this is the first time I won't be celebrating Christmas with my family in Michigan, I get to instead celebrate my first Christmas with my girlfriend here in Berlin. So a good trade off.

On another note, I hope every single member of the New York Jets got coal in their stockings for Christmas. After losing 13-3 to a joke of a Seattle Seahawks team, they now have to beat the division leading Miami Dolphins in their last game and pray to the football gods that a few other teams lose in order for them to have a shot at making the playoffs. For a team that started the season 8-3..and is now 9-6...this is a typical Jets collapse in the making. All I know is that I'm glad I'm not in the U.S. to witness this collapse and that I don't get as mad about the Jets losing as I used to (and certain former college roommates can attest to).

Good wishes to all of you and I hope you all have a great day. I know I am.

Cheers.

My Big Fat American Football Sunday

One thing that has absolutely sucked since I have been here has been my inability to keep up with, or even watch, American sports.  Baseball is in it's offseason, but the Detroit Red Wings and New York Jets are in the midst of their seasons (both my favorite teams), and it's been agonizing not being able to watch the both of them.

I've had the hardest time in particular keeping up with the Jets.  Last year, the Jets finished 4-12 and in last place in the AFC East.  Now, they are 9-5 and pushing for a playoff spot between the Dolphins and the Patriots who are both tied for the division lead.  Naturally, the Jets only end up being good when I am out of the country.  Go figure.  

There are a few places, mostly expat bars, where you can catch an American Football game here in Berlin.  The one I have usually been trying to go to the most is Belushi's, which is located near the Rosa-Luxemburg U-Bahn station.   A British (I think) run pub and hostel which shows all sorts of American sports games along with the usual Futbol, Cricket, and Rugby you'd expect to see in a British expat bar.  Nice place and the food is relatively cheap.  However, I have yet to see the Jets play here.  Being in Europe, one's choices for NFL games to watch are usually pretty limited.  The North American Sports Network will usually put on one game and then Belushi's usually gets one more game on their satellite.  Lately, this has meant having to watch one game at the bar at the time the Jets are supposed to be playing, so I don't get to watch the games.

The Jets have a pivotal game agains the Seahawks today, and I'd love to watch it.  The Jets pretty much have to win today to keep their division (and probably playoff) hopes alive, so hopefully they'll pull it off.   Let's just hope Belushi's carries the game today and I can relax..enjoy some American football and eat an American cheeseburger. ...mmmmmm...

Stanton...like Hasselhoff...big in Germany.

So when you dream about taking a trip to the old country, or perhaps taking a step further and trying to actually live there, you think about all the great stories your sure to have.  If your backpacking, you'll think about the crazy people you've encountered over the course of your trip, the drunken nights you've experienced in places like Prague getting drunk on what amounts to $3.27 worth of beer, the proverbial "I don't know how I made it out alive" story everyone seems to have, and the awesome places you've gotten to see along the way.   Most people wouldn't add "Starred in a German Burger King commercial" to their list of experiences in Europe, but that is precisely what has happened to me which has made this move to Europe all the more bizarre.  

Yes, you did read that right.  Your friend Josh, the tall, dorky red head kid with no muscle tone whatsoever, was in a Burger King commercial....in Germany no less.  Your probably asking yourself, "How the fuck did he manage to pull that off?" 

To politely respond. I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE.  In fact, I still don't know how it happened.

What did happen was that I got an email from my buddy Travis while I was in Nancy, France for Thanksgiving.  Travis and his girlfriend have a friend who does castings for tv and film productions and other such stuff, and he occassionally tries out for stuff to make some extra cash.  Anyways, so I get this email from him, which reads "hey they are shooting this burger king commercial and there is a part that you should try out for".  I look at the description of this "part" and it says "STUDENT TWO: Tall, dorky red head with freckles with the body 

of a long distance runner and no muscle tone whatsoever".  THAT"S ME! I thought to myself, "Holy Shit, someone has me figured out don't they?"  I didn't really take it seriously until I found out that they were paying up to 450 Euro for the part.  As a kid who's dirt poor and desperate to make some money to support himself, that's a gold mine right there.  So I thought what the hell.  I'll try out.

I arrived at the tryout with Travis, who had already tried out earlier in the day.  Basically, I had to act like a nerdy red head for an audition, in which case they filmed me and would show the tape to the people who were making the commercial.  After acting like a complete fool (and doing my best caveman charlie chaplin impression) I went home thinking the whole thing was an absolute joke.  Then of course..I get the call.  "It's the production office, you've got the job."

You have got to be shitting me, right?

So I filmed the commercial two sundays ago.  To be honest, I don't know how much detail I am actually allowed to discuss as far as what the commercial is about specifically, so I will stop here.  The reason for this is,  I was made to sign a contract which basically forbids me to talk about the shoot and the specifics.  Yeah, crazy shit.  I can't even be seen in a McDonalds for christ's sake. Once the commercial comes out, I'll add another entry going into detail a bit further, and I will most definitely post the commercial on this blog, or at least provide the link.  All I will add, is that I had a somewhat prominent role in this commercial.  

Don't believe me?  That's your perogative.  But your talking to the guy who got drunk with an NFL Quarterback, had him crash at his house, and also drove him home the next morning and

 got free breakfast from said NFL Quarterback...which ironically.......was Burger King....

Stranger things have happened...

Finally...Found a Job

So I've been away for quite a few weeks from this blog.  Out of sheer laziness, I have been forgetting to update it.  I also realized thatI I had taken off the link to it on my facebook page, so I'm sure there was pretty much little to know way most of you saw it anyways.

I'm happy to report that I have finally found a job.   I can..for the first time since the beginning of November..relax.  Managed to secure a job at the Lichtenberger Sprachinstitut, which is in Westkreuz. (Berlin).  Seems like they were desperate for a teacher to fill a series of classes starting in January, and luckily I was their guy.

The job will be difficult, but in a lot of ways, pretty easy.  I will be teaching 16 classes to children ages 4-8 over the course of 3 days.  Each class is 45 minutes and I will be provided a car to drive to and from each school.  The other 4 days I will have off to either lesson plan or do god knows what.   16 classes might sound daunting, but spread over 3 days it isn't exactly that bad.  If  you think about what your..say..history teacher in high school taught...6 classes a day over 5 days a week...(that's 30 classes btw), then it's not that bad at all.  Probably the hardest part will be the language barrier.  The kids for the most part, speak German.  Their teachers speak German. My German as of now is still shit.  It will be shit by the time I start the job.  It probably would be a little better if it wasn't for the mess I've had to deal with both with my Rosetta Stone program and with my computer goin AWOL on me.  I almost didn't get the job precisely because my German was shit.  

This was probably the kind of job I least expected to work.  Me? Work with kids? I'm trained to teach adults.  So instead of explaining the use of infinitives of purpose in a sentence, I will now be explaining the use of the color red on a paint-by-colors activity sheet.  hmmmm. Fun. 

 I can totally see myself having some sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger-like breakdown in the middle of the class..yelling "EVERYBODY SHAT AP!!!!!! in a thick Austrian accent.  

I'm happy to finally be done with this job search.  It is stressful enough for anyone going a month without finding a job and watching your bank account dwindle in front of your eyes.  It only adds to the stress when you also have to deal with the fact that your 90 days in the continent expires the next month and you have to find a job or be kicked out.  The day before I got the job, I had breathed a minor sigh of relief when the German Auslanderbehorde (visa office) granted me an extension until March on the condition I couldn't work.  Now I have an appointment set up for the 22nd to complete the final process for my work visa, which includes getting a letter of intent from the school and health insurance, which shouldn't be a problem.

I still have another month to rely on my  finances, which isn't much.  At this point, I'm used to being dirt poor.  Working at the University of Michigan will do that to someone  ($5 billion endowment and they can't pay their employees more than $23,000 a year?) I won't get paid until the end of January so should be a pretty bare month in terms of travels, stories, etc.  That's alright.  There is plenty of Berlin left to be explored...