Writer Between Worlds

Soulful writing about humans and places

Category: Society

  • Advent, advent…

    Just when I was running out of ideas for posts, my son (not yet 6 years old) found out there is no Santa Claus. Their kindergarten teacher told them. Maybe the increasing commercialization of Christmas finally got to her, or maybe she was trying to explain the local traditions despite the onslaught of American popular…

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  • Discrimination, my love

    We’re in the process of moving to the Bavarian capital, and the rent is crushingly high, so I started to look for a second job. I was pretty happy when I actually got a few replies, but then it all ended the way it often does: the person on the other end looks at my…

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  • A fine and healthy debate

    Adam and Eve were living in a world of plenty. They were in the Garden of Eden and everything was taken care of. They could have: had long, revealing conversations with God deepened their love and understanding of each other lived in harmony with their environment while exercising a minimal self-restraint contemplated, cultivated and created…

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  • Knock-knock! Who’s there? Depression season!

    They’re here. The long, cold, damp winter months with their smothering darkness. So bring out those UV and infrared lamps and steer clear of depression. By the way, what is the deal with this depression epidemic nowadays? Is it the sensory deprivation of our virtual environment, the lack of true friends, the materialism, the stress,…

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  • Automotive darwinism

    I am naturally wary of any car that is either: a) big enough to flatten my house or b) fast enough to break the sound barrier. :-P Which is why I try to stay out of their way if I can help it. I (almost) always give Porsches, Hummers, and even some BMWs the right…

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  • Lessons to my 15-year-old self

    Yesterday was International Day of the Girl Child. A 14-year old gets shot in Pakistan for having the most normal of opinions; girls across parts of Africa and Asia  have their genitalia mutilated and are forced into abusive marriages. Lots of girls don’t even make it into the world, they get “terminated” before birth because…

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  • Mrs. T. is leaving the country

    I went back home for a few days, to the Romanian town where I was born, where I grew up, and where I spent the better part of my youth. I took a long nostalgic walk down memory lane, revisiting all those places that were the landmarks of my childhood years: the school, the school…

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  • All in a day’s work. A mother’s day

    Woke up at 6:46 a.m. from a bad dream. Stumbled into the bathroom, then into the kitchen to prepare my daughter’s baby formula. Did that, took care that it doesn’t get too cold. Then laid out the clothes I was going to wear for the day (clothes – what an euphemism for jeans and a…

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  • A society of egomaniacs?

    Some people think they’re unhappy because they don’t get to meet enough of their personal needs. I think we’re unhappy because we’re too damn focused on our personal needs. Focus on the other person for a change. Some people think they’re unhappy because they can’t satisfy their ego enough. I say we’re unhappy because we indulge…

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  • Just an inkling

    Maybe that’s why young people everywhere are lured by all sorts of fundamentalist ideologies: They feel the same nostalgia for a simpler, clearer, more honest past. A straightforward past of black and white. That seems authentic to them. It’s important to relativize in order to protect basic rights and freedoms, but too much relativity, in…

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  • Engines of the world

    I don’t know if this means I’m getting old or I have just been pushed into insanity by two sweet nagging children, but the world used to be so much quieter when I was little. The days seemed fuller, too, although I cannot imagine what we could have filled them with. No TV, no Internet,…

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  • Small town blues

    I used to be a big city girl, dynamic and fulfilled. But then I emigrated and became a shadow. First, I couldn’t speak a word of German. Yes, to the extent that I would bring home a jar of red cabbage thinking it was red beet. By the time I was einigermaßen able to communicate,…

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