Uli's Life after Theatre...

Since we had performances of my two theatre plays this year, I've had four things to do:

1. Relax and get my energy levels back up. You wouldn't think rehearsing two plays at the same time, with performances of one overlapping the final rehearsal phase of the others would be stressful, but it is. Of course, it's also buckets full of fun, so I'm not complaining. But yeah, took me a while to feel normal again.
    
2. Work. I'm still doing my internship at Byte XXL. Web programming isn't as much fun as Mac applications, but it's a programming job, and it's a great company. Nice colleagues, flexible work hours (part-time), great atmosphere. And we even have a fan to keep us alive during hot days like these. Great job until I can find something full-time.
    
3. Learn. I have exams coming up right after WWDC. My learning buddy isn't really 100% there health-wise (he's had surgery), so it's even harder than usual.
    
4. Prepare for the flight to SF and WWDC. Stuff like making sure I have a valid passport, organizing the flight, lodging, getting US money, thinking of what I want to take with me for that week, and what bag will be best, and generally not running around like a headless chicken being afraid that customs will be as annoying as they were last time I went to the US.

In addition to that, recent weeks have seen an increase in the number of parties I go to, as many people from both drama groups were having celebrations and reunions and stuff. First was a nice little sit-together at Matthias's place for the Tig7 group, where we sadly determined that we won't be having a reunion simply because our schedules don't agree much and the majority would like a new play. Since I simply can't commit to the amount of work needed for a new play right now, I'm probably going to sit this one out.

The second party-like thing was that some of the ATG folks (Rene, Mike, Nina and me) went to see Julia's play at the Zollhof in Ludwigshafen. It's a great and innovative idea, with a great setting. It's a tad confusing because it's more of a collection of momentary snapshots than a story with a real plot, but it's a pretty novel approach. So, what's so great about it? It's a play set in a house at the harbour in Ludwigshafen. So, you start out outside, about a street over, and then characters from the play lead you from one place to the next. First over to the house, then in front of a shop there, where the audience outside is in front of the shop windows while the actual action is (inaudible) inside, then seamen lead you to the elevators, you meet people in corridors, in the cellar... It's good fun. There's even a little music, and the closest thing akin to a plot is a story where some people in this 21-story house want to turn it into a ship and sail the seven seas... If you live in Mannheim or Ludwigshafen, you may wanna try catching a few of their performances. Of course, we stayed a little afterwards and talked to Julia about it some more, I had a few glasses of water (it was blinking hot...).

The third thing was tonight, where Mike, our resident ATG-Canadian gave a nice BBQ before he leaves for home. Everyone chipped in with ... err ... chips, and meat and sausages and stuff, and we all sat together talking. Later Mike brought his guitar and played some songs, we sang along as best we could... As is typical for the most fun parties, there's not really much I could describe about it that would sound as fun as it was.

I gave Mike a farewell gift, a copy of my favorite book, Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler which is available as an incredibly good deal at Amazon right now. It's a German crime novel (originally German, not just translated) from the 1920s, and Fritz Lang even did a movie about it. I hope he'll enjoy it. I bought a couple additional copies and I'll probably give them away as well. Time to make sure that book becomes more popular. If anyone knows some big-shot German movie producers looking for some good material to film, I'd be willing to donate copies of the book...

There's still a fourth party coming up at Nina's, because she's leaving for a term (to SF, I think), so I'll have time to meet a good bunch of the ATG folks one more time. This'll be interesting.

So, that's it about me for now. Back to our regular programming.

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