Newsletter

To everyone who lovingly chimed in with e-mails and letters in the last few months, thank you! It brightens me up and gives me energy to hear from you. In hopes of answering adequately and perhaps reaching a few others as well, I've decieded to neatly clump every pending response into one grand, disproportionately overwhelming and daunting blogpost.

My job as of September 2015 is based fundamentally on me seeing the world from the perspective of others and acting accordingly in a supporting and nurturing way. This post reflects this in no way... I simply don't feel comfortable butting into my blog so unannounced, without the slightest acknowledgement of the past 2 years. For my own sake of reflexion, here's more than anyone ever wants to hear in one, two, or three sittings:

Winter, Spring and Summer 2014 were seasons of master-thesis writing book-ended by lovely visits, first of US family and friends

 in New Hampshire,

 Madison,

Boston and Pennsylvania for the first full Morrs family reunion in many years...

and then of Marina's German family at a reunion on Lake Constance:

My dad even flew over to join and ran the Berlin marathon just for kicks:

See all those people in the background still running? Yeah, they got nuttin on Tom.

That was October. Two months later in December 2014 I handed in my thesis:

Eine Untersuchung zur Sprachhandlung 'Kritik' im Lehr-Lernkontext Trompeteneinzelunterricht an deutschen Musikhochschulen: Impulse für die Gesprächsanalyse und den DaF-Unterricht.

I investigated on a socio-lingustical level patterns of excercising and receiving critisicm in a one-on-one teacher-student setting, specifically between trumpet students and professors at German conservatories. It was thrilling work (seriously). It was fascinating to get a close-up look (but a mere glimpse nonetheless) at the linguistical efforts we exert to save face, ours and others'. We (of course an entirely inappropiate generalization from my very context-specific study) have built into our structures of interaction many intricate and fine-tuned patterns for upholding our individual (and social) necessities of independence and autonomy and simultaneously of recognition, approval and belonging. What fun it was to watch people put these tools to work while performing an action that is potentially very dangerous for these needs: criticism!

Despite its fun, my thesis was a short year of highly concentrated brain work. Pure brain work, too little of anything else. In light of this I decided to celebrate by doing something for my body; I took an intensive dance workshop in the spring at TIP: School for Dance, Improvisation and Performance in Freiburg. For two months, six hours a day Monday through Friday I became an active explorer of movement and physicality, discovering the softenness of the floor, the strength of my bones, the turning of my joints, how to interact with space and objects, the playfulness of feet... It was a terrific balance for me and showed me an entirely new world, the world of improvised dance. I learned so much about my body and a motivation inside of me was awakened to continue exploring how I can use body and movement as ways of expression, art, self-discovery and strengthening, as a source of health.

The next months were full of incredible freedom and time to pursue my interests. After three and a half years, I moved out of my appartment at the beginning of May to spend my summer traveling and move into a appartment with Marina in September. I hitchhiked across Germany, meeting up with Marina in Dresden for a Lindy-Hop Workshop, heading up to the Baltic-Sea to see a new part of Deutschland and fish a bit, spending a couple weeks in Potsdam attending intensive dance workshops...

We decided to pitch a tent for two weeks instead of sleeping in the studios, it was a great idea. Beautiful weather, right on a lake (that I would be looking at if I looked up)... we asked a coffee shop nearby (like 30m away) if we could have a bench and table for the time we were there and they happily agreed. We even got our own keys to the dance studios so we could go the bathroom. Whenever we wanted!

Yes, to dance and to fish a bit! During our first hike in the Pyrenees a couple years ago, I ate a freshly caught mountain river trout. Because I felt like it. I was then confronted with the fact that I hadn't eaten fish or meat in over eight years, how was I to respond to my physical desire for fish? To explore it. But ideally in a way that seemed ethically comfortable and fitting for me... I landed at the following ideology; I'll eat fish, but only if I catch it and kill it myself, so as to be as involved as possible in the process of eating a once living creature. Back in Germany I took a fishing class and got my licence. And I've fished a decent amount. I do also buy fish from time to time and feel fine about it, knowing I have a personal understanding of what it means to eat an animal. Catch, kill, prepare, enjoy. This is a bass I caught under that bridge, about a five minute walk away from our tent in Potsdam. I walked there often in the evening and tried to catch fish for dinner.

:)

After Potsdam it was back to the black forest to look for a new appartment.