About thousands of high school students participated in an organized strike all over Germany a few days ago. The main reason for their concerted strike is to voice their protest against overfilled classrooms, to call for an overall better education system and…….against exams stress. WTF???!!!
Okay, I can very well understand the first two reasons. I agree that Germany’s education system still has plenty of room for improvement and it’s quite embarrassing to learn that Germany’s high school students fare rather poorly in subjects like Maths and Science if compared to its other European peers based on a study conducted in PISA. However, to strike against exam stress?? I mean, do these people even know that Asian countries like Japan or Singapore has a stricter education system and exam pressure in those countries is way more intense? Does this mean students in those countries should strike too?

I think I’ll get a slap on my face if I tell my mom I wanna go for a strike because I can’t handle the exam stress for my SPM. Back then, we didn’t even have the slightest inkling that we can organize a strike against too much exam stress. I think some students even took as many exam subjects as they were allowed so that the exam certificate will look good enough for scholarship/university applications later.

And these students here call for a strike because they can’t handle too much exam stress? You must be kidding me or I’m living in a completely different dimension. If you can’t handle stress in school, forget about the working world then.

Picture source: Spiegel Online

Each time I call home, my mom will sure update me with the happenings back home. It’s saddening to know that my once lovely hometown has turned into a place where one can’t completely feel safe anymore.

Snatch thieves on motorcycles are so common nowadays that almost everyone I know, either personally or his/her immediate relatives was unfortunate enough to experience it before. Even my mom almost got knocked down by those jerks.

The latest feat, car thefts are getting more rampant and some of her colleagues have fallen prey to these lowly thieves. Those cars aren’t even imported nor expensive.

I dread the days I return home to a place I won’t recognize anymore.

I don’t like to watch movies dubbed in German and what more German movies made in Germany. However the skeptical me will still give a movie a chance no matter in what language it is in or where its origin is as long as it is really worth watching.

One of those very good German movies is The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) which garnered an Oscar in 2007 as the Best Foreign Language Film. If you still remember your history class lessons well, you’ll recall that Germany has a battered past as a result of those world wars which left this country bitterly divided into East and West Germany.

The storyline is simple yet the portrayal and the meaning passed on is poignantly profound. The story takes place in East Germany back in 1984, where it was still ruled by the then socialist state GDR (German Democratic Republic), but the system operated more like a communist state. The suffering and desperation of its citizens living under the regime were deftly captured in the film.

Back in GDR, it was not a secret that the state often placed surveillance on individuals, usually businessmen, prominent writers and directors or anyone suspected to be pro-Western. The story unfolds from the viewpoint of this secret agent, who was assigned to spy on a playwright, suspected of dissidence.

Forget about dagger chase and fast-paced actions usually delivered by a conventional spy film. In fact, there aren’t any fast-paced action scenes at all. The most commendable feature of this film is the performance of its actors and the brilliant camerawork and setting which created a subdued, semi-black-and-white environment to emphasize the oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere behind the wall.

I love the ending of the film. Unexpected, bittersweet with a perfect touch of pensiveness. One of the best German film I’ve ever watched and notably a very outstanding one.

You know your mind is elsewhere when you reach for your toothpaste instead of your facial cream, squeeze it out on your palm and wondering suddenly why your facial cream suddenly has turned blue in color and has a minty smell, when you actually intend to wash your face in the first place.