Weeknotes 2024 W30: Traumatic response

July 22​–​28, 2024
1400 words

Quick bits:

I took the MRI results from a few weeks ago to a neurologist, who did not see anything out of the ordinary on the images. My brain is fine. No bleeding, swelling, infection, or anything else that shouldn’t be there. A CT scan earlier did not reveal anything unusual either.

My extraordinarily painful stabbing headaches, my neurologist says, are most likely migraines. Then, what I thought was my first migraine is then clearly not actually my first.

From now on, I’ll be keeping track of these headaches with a dedicated migraine-tracking app to collect information, so that I can work on an appropriate treatment plan with my neurologist.

Luckily, these headaches are rare; I get them less than once a month.

After the week of plentiful traffic accidents, I have, unsurprisingly, developed a bit of a trauma response. Even just seeing cars drive, cyclists ride, and pedestrians walk is enough as a trigger. I feel my heart go into overdrive at unpredictable moments; I feel at random moments that my legs start shaking and go weak.

I am not letting it define me, though, or preventing me from going out and about, either by bike or on foot.

But it is tough. The traffic in Berlin is busy, chaotic, and dangerous. There are copious amounts of traffic infractions.

Cyclists especially are badly behaved in traffic in Berlin. The other day, a cyclist behind me swerved from the bicycle path onto the road to avoid me as I was waiting in front of the red traffic light. Earlier that day, I nearly got rammed in the side by a bicycle coming from my right who ran a red light. A few days before that, I walked down a pedestrian crossing at a green light, and I narrowly avoided a bicycle, again having ran the red light, coming at me at high speed. Later, I saw a bicyclist going diagonally across an intersection that cars were driving through.

Yesterday, as I was waiting at a red light, an annoyed cyclist behind me told me that I am wrong to stop. I pointed out to her that the traffic light is red. She said that there is a sign behind me that says that cyclists should not stop at the red traffic light and instead go straight through. This person is patently wrong.2

It is my strong believe that if you break rules and thereby endanger the well-being of others, there need to be consequences. Laws exist so that society can function smoothly;3 a law-less society would be a hellish nightmare. Rules without consequences might as well not exist.4

The consequences for cyclists are few and far between.

A cyclist who breaks the rules does not just endanger others, but also obviously put themselves at risk. The other day, I walked past the scene of an accident, with a tram stopped at an intersection, surrounded by plenty of ambulances and police, and a bike crushed underneath the front of the tram. I could barely sleep the evening after having seen that horrific scene.5

Ride safe, folks — safe for yourself and for others.

As I was idly browsing Wikipedia — as one does — I found this striking painting, The Rooftops of Notre Dame:6

1910 painting by French artist Georges Redon showing the gallery of chimeras at Notre-Dame de Paris.

Look at these colors! The light! What a magnificent piece.

I attended a trial lesson (Probestunde) for a German-language acting class. After this Probestunde, I’ve decided that I unfortunately won’t be continuing with this long-term course.

Firstly, I think my German is not up to the task. I can understand German rather well, but speaking it is tough. While the teacher repeatedly said my German is fine, I don’t think it is at the level required for an acting course. Most problematically, my ability to speak and understand German decreases drastically as I get more tired, and the class runs until 10 PM.

Secondly, I think this class is below my level. I am not a complete beginner at acting; I need something more advanced. I need classes that are more intense. This class was slow. I want to be continuously near the edge of my abilities. This class wasn’t it.

The low intensity of this course shows in the skill level of my classmates: one of my fellow students told me that they’d been taking this class for half a year,7 yet they struggled to perform an exercise to put a basic scene on the stage. The exercise was not well explained,8 and I even felt that I could’ve done a better job at running this particular exercise as a teacher.

At least I still have the acting course scheduled for September, which should be a much better fit for me.

Entertainment:

Links:

Tech links:

  1. To be perfectly honest, I’m rather glad that it was raining. It meant that I didn’t have to come up with more elaborate excuses. ↩︎

  2. In Germany, a red traffic light means: do not continue. There is one, and only one, exception: a right turn is permitted if a green arrow (Grünpfeil, not to be confused with Grüner Pfeil) is mounted next to the red traffic light. That exception is extraordinarily rare, though; I have never seen this in Berlin myself. ↩︎

  3. This is a naïve and optimistic take, but I believe it is still true at its core. ↩︎

  4. There is a similar situation with codes of conduct. If your event/space/community has a code of conduct, but it is not being enforced (i.e. there are no consequences), then that code of conduct might as well not exist at all. ↩︎

  5. I need to clarify that I don’t know who was at fault here, but given the reckless rule-breaking behavior of cyclists, I can make an educated guess. ↩︎

  6. Georges Redon, The Rooftops of Notre Dame, 1910. ↩︎

  7. The web site of this acting course states that you can’t become a film actor in seven months. While I agree, I also think that seven months of intensive training would do wonders for my skill level. ↩︎

  8. Coincidentally, I got that exact same exercise in a previous course as well (in English rather than in German). When I got this exercise last time, though, it was in lesson 2 or 3, rather than after 6 months, and it was run in a much more structured way. ↩︎

  9. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Ubisoft Quebec, 2018), published by Ubisoft. ↩︎

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Incoming links: Weeknotes 2024 W33: Banana equivalent doses, Weeknotes 2024 W37: Finding problems.