It’s Not Actually a Lot to Do With Uni Yet
On Thursday the 25th, there were no classes. That meant I could focus entirely on finding a room. I did the best I could and looked at a total of one (shabby) room in which I met a fellow interface design freshman, also looking for a room. He told the tennants he’d slept in his car for the last week. In the middle of the conversation, his girlfriend called and told him to tell everyone she makes good cake. I sensed he might have a better chance and let it be.
Friday the 26th I spend in Berlin (no classes either). Sadly, I had no time for the sights but had to rush from one flat to the next. None of them was particularly memorable. I learned one important lesson that day, though: if you’re looking at a room in an all-male flat and the competition is French and female, forget it. Just walk out of there and find a dark backyard to cry.
On Saturday the 27th, I did the same as every other day for the last one and a half weeks; looking at rooms. The first was in the German equivalent of a shabby British council estate. The door of the room I had a look at was ashambles—the previous tennant had left it locked when he moved out, so it had to be kicked in. I dutifully expressed my disgust about him (Man, what an asshole!
—Yeah… he’s my father.
).
Next I found myself in the living room, being interviewed by Charly McChaverton and his friend, Paul Pikey. The asked me about my drinking habits (My team manager said the main thing he knew about me was that I drank a lot!
), if I smoked (No… is that bad?
—Well, we don’t mean cigarettes…
), my history of drug abuse (‘Space cookies! Well. One. Once.’) and my taste in movies (Everything except horror movies! What do you guys watch?
—We love zombie movies!
).
On Sunday the 28th I woke up early, checked my email and saw a flat in a perfect location had been posted. After a lick and a promise, I got on my bike and went there. The guy living there had just finished his bachelor at the same uni in the communication design course. His bachelor project was about typography, so I mentioned my admiration for Lucas de Groot and talked sans soucies and sans serifs. Sadly, this proved to be ineffective and I did not get the room.
The next room was in Berlin, Prenzlauer Allee. A very ugly flat in a very ugly neighbourhood. Immediately available though, some girl just needed to get out of Berlin something fierce1. So finally, I could have had a flat! But I’m just too game for this sort of thing. It’s too easy. There always needs to be a risk involved. (And I was still dreaming of wooden floors and huge windows and the sweet sweet feeling of piano keys under my fingers.)
The last room for the day was in a much nicer part of Berlin, in spitting range of the residence of the German chancellor. Top floor, top flat, low rent. And my potential flatmate played the violin! She even told me she’d tolerate my non-skills on the piano/keyboard. How much better could it get?
On the train back, I sat opposite a lady. She was talking on her mobile the whole time (Nooo, I can’t next weekend, I’ll be in the big apple2 for two months!
). She had fancy clothes, a silk scarf and a bottle of vodka to keep her going. She probably was an ad person or a business developer or something like that—one of the people you think only exist to make your job worse3. They’re everywhere, even in Potsdam.
On Monday the 29th I finally had to go back to uni. We met at the eye-tracking lab in the morning. I was fashionably late but didn’t stand out because at uni, everyone always is. We were asked to split into groups and figure out what to track. I’m in a group examining where people look when playing Tetris now. (And make no mistake, we didn’t choose Tetris on a whim. We did extensive ‘research’ on that topic.)
Finally, the professors subjected us to some actual eye-tracking. We were shown a slideshow of ads, with a small device in the screen tracking our every gaze. Afterwards, the professors asked us a few questions and sent us home.
In the evening, I went looking for rooms again. One of them was particularly nice—completely furnished and with great flatmates I got along with well. Being the honest person I am, I told them there was this one room in Potsdam (with a piano) that I liked even more, though.
Then my phone rang. One of the then-almost-future-flatmates joked it was probably the guy from the room in Potsdam (with the piano). It turned out it really was the guy from the room in Potsdam, telling me to start looking for a piano teacher because I had the room.
My joy must have been very obvious, as my then-almost-future-flatmates spontaneously patted me on the back and were happy with me.
It rained all the time on the way back. But I didn’t care. At a particularly vicious traffic light that just wouldn’t turn green and left us exposed to the rain for quite a while, I even struck up a conversation with a random stranger. We both agreed the traffic planner who put it up should get laid more often.
On Tuesday the 30th, the first thing I did was to sleep as long as I could. And then a bit more. Well-rested, I got the keys for the flat and payed the deposit and first rent, maxing out my debit card for the day.
The afternoon I spent at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. On my way back to the trains, I walked past the Philharmonie and couldn’t resist a quick peep. I’d soon found a programme and was already planning my October evenings, when, suddenly, a member of staff asked me in all earnestness: Are you with the Berlin Philharmonic, sir?
—Well… no, not really?
—Then get out of here, we’re closed!
.
Back at the bed and breakfast, I had to do some more ‘research’ regarding games to test in the eye-tracking lab. To conclude the evening in a nice way, I also did some taste-tracking with a selection of long-missed German sweets: Zartbitter-Lebkuchen, Vollmilch-Lebkuchen and gefüllte Lebkuchenherzchen.
Wednesday, October the 1st marked the departure from my temporary home into my new place. I got up early and packed my two suitcases with dirty clothes (life without a washing machine). Off to uni, the professors presented their findings about Monday’s eye-tracking session: out of 30 ads, the average student managed to remember 2. With the help of heatmaps and paths and other things, we were shown why they work or fail and how they could be fixed. All very interesting. At some point in the future, I might actually write about the things I learn.
After all that stress, I went back to Bremen to meet family and friends and eat even more Lebkuchen.
Do you have any opinions on the notions conveyed in this text? Send me an e-mail and I’ll publish it here. I might censor it though. Because I can. Because I’m German.
© 2008 Julian Stahnke. or go back to the homepage.