Friday, October 23, 2009

Thieves!! (and news update)

Its been a very busy October and I haven't posted much. I've started a part-time nanny job after school (I feel like I'm 16, I just go to school and babysit!), I entered a short story contest (if I lose I'll post it here), and I took the B2 German test yesterday. If I pass then I'll move on to the final level of German!

We have been preparing for the test for a few weeks now, and we took several practice tests, which were very helpful. The test consists of 4 reading comprehension exercises, 2 listening comprehension exercises, 1 essay, and 1 proof-reading exercise. What amused me were the topics of the reading comprehension sections. Its as if the Goethe Institute is trying to indoctrinate us with German values as we read. There were articles on eating organic, riding bicycles, and putting your children in Kindergarten. But the best was about preventing theft in your apartment.

I can be a bit paranoid about thieves/rapists/murderers entering my apartment, especially when Ryan is gone, as he was when we read this article about theft prevention. I stop myself from taking ridiculous precautions like sleeping by my cell phone or hiding the butcher block, because that's what crazy people do, and I try really hard not to be crazy. I lock my door and tell myself that criminals probably choose apartments belonging to rich people, or at least apartments without so many stairs.

This article recommended that when you are gone you should have your neighbor raise and lower your Rollladen every night. (For those of you who've never had the pleasure, Rollladen are strange metal blinds that fortify your window.) I NEVER raise or lower the Rollladen. I live on the 3rd floor (4th in American parlance) and so I don't really think that someone would scale the front of my building and break through the window. And we only have them on our living room window, so they don't provide convenient darkness while we're sleeping in.

But then I started wondering: are thieves spying on my Rollladen? Do they think I'm on vacation? Once or twice since then I have put down my Rollladen at night. But I realized that if they are spying on me and I don't put the Rollladen down, maybe I won't have to have a neighbor do it when I go on vacation. Which is good, because I've tried introducing myself to my neighbors and they are very unfriendly. (Case in point: I said to my neighbor "Hi, I'm Katy, I'm your neighbor." She looked at me, said "Yes." and closed the door!)

So I've decided to ignore that advice. If only we would read an article about finding friendly neighbors, I'd be set.

1 comment:

Bonnie Jean said...

HAH on your classes instilling German values; I saw some brochures at the library about classes to help if you're studying for British citizenship - I wonder what "values" those classes would instill... (If you start seeing pictures of me half-dressed and horrifically drunk outside a pub on this blog, I guess you'll know...) ;)
And a double hah to that eternal worry of being burgled... until you remember that your perpetrator would have to have a vendetta against you personally, or be Spiderman. I was nervous about leaving here whilst my doorknob was broken, even while knowing perfectly well that the door was locked twice, was inside a locked hallway that only four flats could access, and they'd have to get past the lonely, gossipy old lady downstairs and the militant, tough-guy across from me. Even still...
In any case, I *have* already fixed my toilet, but you're still more than welcome to come over - we'll make those oven biscuits and do some strippercize, whilst complaining about the bullshit in the theatre department. Good times. ;)