I am going to start posting a piece of writing every Thursday. You don't have to read it. Just pretend it's not there. But I need to write something.

Oh my god I'm in love with David Foster Wallace. Mostly because of this New Yorker article. Too bad he killed himself two years ago.

I just had a fifteen year old boy tell me I have nice facebook pictures and wink and me. The worst part is that he is not very good at English so all he managed to say was "Facebook...pictures..." and then had one of his friends translate.

Things I have liked about today:
Only 4 people showed up to my first class and we had a productive talk about nuclear power plants and a productive talk about drinking games and they made me happy enough so I no longer felt like crying for the rest of the day.
I saw two of my students in the grocery store. They said hi and were so nice. It makes me so happy when people say hi to me when they see me outside of school and not because they feel obligated.
I showed up at school in the afternoon to help with a class about serving in resturants and first the teacher tells me to go use the computer for half an hour and after that the class is going to practice on me by serving me brownies.
Being sad is so bad for me.

Today being like the one day ever I am not at all upset about boys, here is a nice flash fiction about boys. By nice of course, I mean one where they are being mean.

I keep thinking about last year when I went to Monica's office and started crying because Teach for America didn't want me, Austria didn't want me (yet), and most importantly, my boyfriend dumped me, and in a month and a half I would no longer be able to use homework as an emotional crutch. She told me to go have fun. To go to parties. To enjoy myself. At this point I started crying more and talking about how I WAS drinking, I WAS going to parties, and if I wasn't happy drinking and going to parties, what WOULD I be happy doing?

My brother informed me this morning that my mom bought a duplex in the hood which means that she for sure is losing her house and then repeatedly asked if he could throw the "junk" in my room away. I then proceeded to cry for an hour and a half and realized repeatedly no matter how hard I cried no one was going to come comfort me and my house is gone. I am not doing very well right now.

How is it that I'm tired everyday?

I have nothing to say today. I've been sort of unhappy the last few days. I don't know why.

Saturday night I went to a fire brigade competition. This is where fire fighters have competitions to see who can put the hose together fastest. Then they shout to two liters of beer. I was not expecting much from the event, but I had so much fun and got way too drunk and then fell on my face, which was sort of embarrassing, except I was drunk enough not to care about being embarrassed. I have a little bruise on my face. It looks like this:

Can you see my injuries? I also cut open my lip on my teeth when I fell so my mouth was bloody, which probably made it look worse than it actually was. And my nose hurts a little. Injuries are embarrassing. 

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, knowing that in my head it was 3:30 and that it was only daylight savings that made it 4:30. I couldn't get back to sleep. I lay around and was homesick and bought the Minneapolis Star Tribune on my kindle and read about things in the Twin Cities and felt more homesick. 80 days. It is all very bittersweet. Part of me wants to stay here forever and part of me desperately wants to go home. 

Can't sleep. Being alone and awake in the early morning is the worst.

One time someone told me that at the end of it all I would go back to "just being Tasha" and I made the snide comment "I hate being just myself."

"It’s beautiful yet sad, when I see — or imagine — a woman in front of the mirror applying rouge to her cheeks, or eyeshadow to her eyes, as if she wasn’t really a person until the porn saturated men believed her to be so, half driven by alcohol and balls. I hate going to bars. I hate the incomplete genome of my aimless dick. I hate the red bull-vodka alpha male cock blocks; the high shriek of an adderall-infused brainmess of a woman; the stupid songs which people try to fuck to, thinking they lubed up the drum machine just for them. And all this the night before the next day, the searing blandness of daylight as god’s confession on a face saying sorry you are just you, you smiling there with a latte meant for a calf saying do you love me, I will smile all day until it hurts."

"It’s commonly accepted by neurologists that once you fuck someone, a chemical stays in your brain for about 2-3 years which makes you think they are more beautiful than they are."

What? Really? Why didn't anyone tell me? Clearly I should never have sex again. This is probably why I find so few people attractive right now, because I have not had sex since ----- (you don't need to know).

I am reading this article right now and I find the writer utterly attractive. What is wrong with me?

"So poetry is more than poems, it is also a form of attraction."

One of the teachers just saw me posting in my blog and then told me all about his time in Minnesota when he was 15 or 16. It was really great.

I clearly have spent too much time in college workshops.

This list of the worst analogies by high school students is really great. I want to use all of them.

I have no idea how to gauge how old people are. I look around the teachers room and I have no idea how old any of these peopel are. No wonder people mistake me for a student, ask if I am under 21 on the bus. I think I am confused and regressing. Becoming nineteen again.

I don't want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy who can't get no love from me, hanging out the passengers side of his best friend's ride, trying to holler at me.

Watching TLC "No Scrubs."

I always feel a particular infinity for this 90's group because they have my initials.

I want a boyfriend.

My skirt rode up and I flashed a lot of people in Mcdo's. Really good.

Nobody reads my blog when I do not post in it.

Too much work. I just want to hang out with Julia. And other people. I like to think if the situation were different I wouldn't be a sissy. But the situation is not different and being a sissy is actually the better choice.

Also Julia is coming to Freistadt! Not Julia former roommate Julia, but the other Julia from Seattle. I am very excited. Maybe she can come and help teach my lessons. Also I went on a Sound of Music tour yesterday. Also Becca is coming today! My life is too good to talk about right now. I am jinxing things. Yes I am.

All of the HAK English teachers are leaving next week and want me to take over their classes. This would be fine and wonderful except some of their classes overlap and the ones that overlap are some of my favorite classes. What do I do? I want to teach all my favorite students at the sametime. Life is so hard!

I really like when I see students outside of class. However, I don't like it when they point and giggle at me.

I like hanging out with my students a lot. I want to do it more. But I don't know how to approach this situation. I can't really say "Hey students, hang out with me."

"I just break hearts and get nothing." This is the new motto of my life. I want to get some. Just sayin'.

Talking to Krista is so fun:


[1:24:40 PM] Tasha: well yeah
[1:24:44 PM] Tasha: but that's why it's fun
[1:24:49 PM] Tasha: appropriate thigns are never fun
[1:25:06 PM] Krista: And in the grand scheme of innappropriate things, it's not so bad.
[1:25:10 PM] Tasha: I agree
[1:25:22 PM] Krista: Right? Yeah, we need fodder for our writing and all.

I may have deleted the sentence that showed what we were talking about.

I miss fewer and fewer things in the United States everyday and this worries me. Probably this will change as soon as I have a bad day or a bad moment.

Searching for recipes for one person will always make me feel slightly pathetic.

Dear boys at Mcdonalds: Please stop turning around to look at me.

I have a box of king sized condoms in my purse. They don't belong to me. I wish this were a sign of things to come in my future.

Monday is the quiet time after all the exciting times and I am trying to enjoy it. I'm feeling a little bit like the party is over and everyone has left and all I have to do is clean and think about everything that has happened. I am forgetting things quickly. I lose people, not in the sense that they leave, but in the sense that I stop thinking about them. I think I am only capable of thinking of one boy at a time and when I lose one I somewhat immediately start thinking about another. Of course, as usual, everyone I am thinking of right now is entirely ridiculous. I am tired and hungry. I want to have more fun. I want every week to be like last week.

I have not been writing. I have not been writing on my blog or writing letters or writing poems or anything. To be just fair I just sent about a million letters and have yet to receive a response. I don't know why I am not writing on my blog. I want to guess it's because I'm happy and when I'm happy I don't feel any need to write anything at all anywhere. This is okay for now. I will give myself this time.

I am not writing. I worry I am becoming separated from myself.

Fasching was really crazy and fun. I kind of wish everyday were like fasching.

Real bad Knoxtalgia today. I started looking at pictures I took of myself while trying to do homework and that made me miss Knox a lot. Particularly this picture:

Somehow I get jealous of all the people still in college taking finals. That lovely feeling of satisfaction when everything is done and you can tell everyone you know about the 10,000 pages you typed in five days. 

Nothing in my life can go bad (sober) if I just use Ke$ha as my guru.

I am really really broke and don't get paid for 8 days. But tomorrow is Fasching. I am going to dress up as a princess because buying a cute little crown was really cheap. I am taking advice from Ke$ha: ain't got no money in my pocket but I'm already here.

Worst case scenario I can down the bottle of prosecco in my appartment if I am feeling too sober. 

Sitting in Mcdo's. Considering opening that bottle of prosecco when I get home. This tiny little girl is looking over my shoulder at my computer screen and smiling at me. 

There are some people that you look at and can tell exactly how they will look 20 years from now, slightly heavier and withered. My mother always looks little to me. Maybe this is how I will look in 20 years: little and with bangs.

It is a beautiful day in Freistadt. I clearly watched Mr. Rogers too much as a small child. I think today is the day I walk around taking pictures like a tourist (surprisingly, there are tourists in Freistadt). Got wine drunk by myself last night. Realized how much safer wine drunk is when I cannot possibly call or message anyone and I simply lie in bed watching Gilmore Girls, romanticizing my entire life.

Watching the download meter again. Life is so fun!

I am so pleased and happy with life at this moment.

I now alternate between missing everyone and being homesick to not wanting to leave Austria every five minutes.  I suppose either way I am going home in 3 and 1/2 months.

I am now spying on Katie's prom pictures from 2006. This is what friends do for one another.

Katie and I have all the same turn-ons.  This is why we are sorority sisters.

My kindle is coming! My kindle is coming! It will be here on Monday.

Becca (not Becca I traveled with, different Becca) is coming to Freistadt this weekend. My kindle is coming. There is a blue sky. I'm going to go for a run. I'm going to mail letters and postcards. I'm going to make fajitas and drink Freistadter bier. Life is pretty good today.

Something my grandpa Rex and I had in common: both of us have names that are common pet names.

I think, I like myself, and then I think, of course I like myself, if I didn't I would make myself someone else. But that's not true really. When I was a child I thought it a terrible injustice that we were all stuck with the face and the body we were born with, not because I didn't like my face, but because I didn't understand why some people had nicer faces than other people.

A montage of my cat

This is Kirby, my cat, hanging out in my room at my mom's house (which will hopefully still be my mom's house when I go home).

This is Kirby and I hanging out together. You can see his little kitty face in the corner of the screen. 

This is Kirby looking really happy. 

Sometimes Kirby and I touch noses. I know it's weird. Shut up. 

Look how cute he looks. 

This is Kirby confused as to why I am in the fetal position and not petting him. 

The End!

A montage of Austrian school life

This is me at school, pretending that I am not taking pictures of myself on my computer, finishing a letter to Paige. 

This is my school planner. I used to have a pretentious moleskin planner, but decided a planner that said "Schulplaner" that was also an H&M advertisement was way more cool and pretentious.

See it says H&M on the cover. It also has discounts for H&M on the inside, but every month that they are good for I've been too broke to use them. Life is hard. 

I make really attractive faces when I am bored at school.

Kindle is broken. I can get a new one (for free) shipped immediately (here in two days) except since I am in Austria they have to charge me for it and then refund me for the first one. The refund hasn't arrived and I don't have enough money in my account to buy the new one now so I am stuck book-less and internet less for however long it takes the refund to enter my account. Motherfucker. Fucking Europe. Fucking Amazon. Fucking bank account. Fucking internet-less apartment. Fucking living alone.