Random Raves X: Success Tactics

[choxorn]

Speaking of birthdays, it's mine now.

 

[Mirc]

I did it!!!! I finally did it! I "got together" with a gril (so to say ) while only speaking German!!!!! Oh yeah, all those German courses are paying off!!! I`ve been waiting so long for this moment! Oh yeahhhhh!!!!!!!! Also, the carnival begins at 9 tomorrow!!! Yay for Frühstücksbier!!!!!!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

A grill? That's...interesting.

Oh yeah, got the week off. So nice I have to rave about it twice.

 

[Ansar]

Caught up in Java programming

Yep: first semester done with an A

 

[West 36]

I have returned from the capital, where I saw the capitol, many museums, where Lincoln dun got shot, monuments, houses, gigantic government complexes, and a frozen over reflecting pool which I slid around on for a while. Fun times.

 

[_random_]

It's a snow day!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I have today off from my regular schedule because of good old-fasioned American Holidays(tm).

 

[really]

Also, the carnival begins at 9 tomorrow!!! Yay for Frühstücksbier!!!!!!

Breakfast beer?

 

[_random_]

I have today off from my regular schedule because of good old-fasioned American Holidays(tm).

Damn, is today President's Day? I was wondering why nobody else was listed as closed. Private schools really should observe federal holidays like everyone else. Ah well, a day off school is a day off school.

 

[Karalysia]

I go to a public college and this is the first I'm hearing of any president's day.

 

[Zack]

Obama would be ashamed of you.

 

[West 36]

Cute girl!
She likes me!
Good times!

 

[Shekwan]

Excellent day today.

Got my government handout cheque today, always makes my day. That will be safely hoarded for the summer. Its pretty absurd that I'm getting these cheques to be honest - half the people who do shouldn't be getting them. They've been throwing money at people to go to college for years and its resulted in a far too educated public, the average graduate has to compete with 89 other people for graduate jobs here. Which means that a lot of people will have to leave the country to work after graduation - so much for the investment in education.

Got a solid B+ in my Political Terrorism assignment. I was expecting it to be quite a bad result, because after submitting my abstract my professor recommended some changes to it so that I would avoid it being a literature review. I, being a lazy smartass student who knows better, decided to ignore that and leave it to two days before the deadline to work on the essay and do what I originally intended to do. So it turned out to be pretty much a literature review. This could be a good thing for my work ethic problem - if I can get this result with minimal effort and an almost complete lack of critical thought, then how well will I do if I actually put some effort in?

Optimistic times.

 

[Ansar]

Not doing anything tomorrow at school thanks to Senior activities (though that interview is still looming around the corner ;_; )

 

[Mirc]

Breakfast beer?

Yeah, that's the "tradition" here in Rhineland - on Altweiber and Rosenmontag (the first and last days of the carnival), people dress up in colorful costumes, meet up at 9 AM and start drinking the first beer of the day. Then they go out, meet other people, watch the parade, talk, laugh, eat, drink some more, come back exhausted after 10 hours outside of dancing, watching the parade and trying to catch sweets, come back home, drink some more, and then call it a day after 12-13 hours or so, when you become so tired that you're basically a zombie anyway.

Most people in the streets are completely wasted at 2 PM already. But it's cool that you get to sleep the whole night. That's what the Frühstücksbier is about! Helau*!



_____________________________________
* = typical greeting from Düsseldorf, as opposed to Alaaf or All Rheydt, from Köln and Mönchengladbach, respectively.

 

[Yeekim]

snip

I was beginning to worry your name was added to the long list of people who have fallen victim to medical advice received from internet forums.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

My new monitor came yesterday!

 

[RedRalph]

I just got what feels like a massive weight off my chest.

an anvil?

My new monitor came yesterday!

I just got one last Saturday. all I'[m waiting for new is a new graphics card and power supply, and I'm all set for Hoi3 1.4

 

[Shekwan]

Yeah, that's the "tradition" here in Rhineland - on Altweiber and Rosenmontag (the first and last days of the carnival), people dress up in colorful costumes, meet up at 9 AM and start drinking the first beer of the day. Then they go out, meet other people, watch the parade, talk, laugh, eat, drink some more, come back exhausted after 10 hours outside of dancing, watching the parade and trying to catch sweets, come back home, drink some more, and then call it a day after 12-13 hours or so, when you become so tired that you're basically a zombie anyway.

Most people in the streets are completely wasted at 2 PM already. But it's cool that you get to sleep the whole night. That's what the Frühstücksbier is about! Helau*!

Doesn't that become kind of antisocial? Here in Ireland we have days that become all day drinking fests, like St. Patricks day and the college RAG weeks (charity weeks that are used as an excuse to be drunk all day) and they get really messy. Especially in the smaller towns. I'm all for drinking, but not for idiots who can't hold it. For example in my hometown the college has stopped supporting RAG week because its become so antisocial. The drinking is confined to the a few streets of the small city centre and people are usually wasted by 2 -4pm as well - right when kids are going home from school. Now I'm not the type of person who usually goes hysterical with cries of "think of the children!", but consider some highlights that I witnessed last year:

A couple having sex in a doorway at 1pm.
A guy with his pants around his ankles in a stupor standing in the middle of a pavement pissing. Arms akimbo, ie. no hands pissing.
A guy taking a dump in a cardboard box in the middle of the street with a big crowd laughing and cheering him on.

These were only the highlights, people puking all over the place don't make the grade because its too common, same goes for vandalism.

However, as you're in Germany, I'm sure the drinking is handled in a far more social and non-destructive manner and its a very fun day out.

 

[Mirc]

Let me just say at first that the way the Germans are handling this boggles my mind, and has always done so, ever since I came here.

Doesn't that become kind of antisocial?

Well, it does sometimes, but then again it's not that hard to overdo anything. Me in particular, I started "excessively" slow (took me 2.5 hours to drink my first beer, but that was on purpose since I was out of food, and alcohol really doesn't work on an empty stomach - count me out, I'm not willing to sell my body to alcoholism by doing something like that).

Here in Ireland we have days that become all day drinking fests, like St. Patricks day and the college RAG weeks (charity weeks that are used as an excuse to be drunk all day) and they get really messy. Especially in the smaller towns. I'm all for drinking, but not for idiots who can't hold it.

Such idiots are everywhere, and they are indeed a sad view. They certainly exist though, and have probably existed around here since before the beginning of the carnival. Now that I think about it, I don't think I saw that many locals doing this, if any. Those who do such things are usually young people traveling from Holland (being 50 km away from the border gets you a lot of dumb people from all over the world, that are just there to smoke the weed, and make a quick trip towards the south-east to get their bellies full of German beer).

For example in my hometown the college has stopped supporting RAG week because its become so antisocial. The drinking is confined to the a few streets of the small city centre and people are usually wasted by 2 -4pm as well - right when kids are going home from school. Now I'm not the type of person who usually goes hysterical with cries of "think of the children!", but consider some highlights that I witnessed last year:

The Altstadt and Königsallee ("Old Town" and "King's Alley", the places where most of these celebrations take place), are fully guarded with all kinds of police, gendermes, and anything else you can think of, from ambulances to firemen, normal traffic police to horseback police and riot protection dudes. They have a veeery good experience here with this kind of events, from the football games. I have never seen football hooliganism taken to such an extreme level as here, and somehow they do manage to keep it in place - and at the beginning of the next day, it's all clean and shiny again!! Seriously, those people deal with groups of 3,000 people coming down to party and beat up supporters of the other team every two weeks, after football games. This carnival can just be viewed as a more widespread manifestation of the same kind, from their point of view. Somehow none of them seems to result in too many accidents - don't ask me how. Maybe the intensive guarding that I've seen and the immediate beginning of the cleaning process are the answer - don't know.

A couple having sex in a doorway at 1pm.
A guy with his pants around his ankles in a stupor standing in the middle of a pavement pissing. Arms akimbo, ie. no hands pissing.
A guy taking a dump in a cardboard box in the middle of the street with a big crowd laughing and cheering him on.

These were only the highlights, people puking all over the place don't make the grade because its too common, same goes for vandalism.

However, as you're in Germany, I'm sure the drinking is handled in a far more social and non-destructive manner and its a very fun day out.

As I said, I'm not exactly sure how it happens, but surprisingly, this city is one of the safest in Europe, although it has such celebrations during the summer, a carnival during the winter, and every 3-4 weeks an event of this kind. As I said, it does boggle my mind how they do it. Well, watch and learn, that's the only thing I can say. So far, Germany is a model for me of the way things should be done, in everything pertaining to organization.