My life is a movie. Wait, no.

On cold and rainy nights, there is nothing better than staying in and watching a movie. Since Munich has been cold and rainy recently, I've done a lot of movie watching. The only English channels I get are CNNinternational and MTV Deutschland - neither of which are very interesting. There are only so many german-subtitled "Rock of Love" episodes or awful "CNN iReports" you can watch before your brain melts out your ears. So I've watched the same 10 movies on my laptop over and over again. Funny side effect- if you watch any movie enough times, you start to think it's an elaborate analogy for your life.

Example #1: The Little Mermaid (I didn't say they were cool movies.) Aside from the whole living underwater thing, I really am Ariel. I have wanted my whole life to be part of a different world - Europe - against the wishes of my parents. King Triton would be my dad, and we never meet Ariel's mother. Triton and Papa Schneider are strangely alike: silver-haired, rulers of their own domain, caring and snuggly- but if you break one of their rules you're in trouble. Big, big trouble. Anyway, I sold my soul to the Sea Witch (Wharton) and in return, I bargained passage to my dream world (Germany.) Ariel could only stay as a human for three days, I can only stay in Germany for three months. Ariel had to win Prince Eric's love without the use of her voice, and I try to get people to like me without the use of English. She embarrassed herself around humans - using a fork to comb her hair, wearing the wrong clothes, etc - and I definitely have had my share of cultural faux pas here in Germany.The only thing that's missing to make this analogy complete is Prince Eric... and the fact that Ariel stayed in the human world forever, and I'm still undecided as to where I want to live. I'm leaning towards Germany, but you never know.

Example #2: Shakespeare in Love. It's not quite as good of a comparison, but it's the same idea. Two people from different worlds have a limited time frame together before she moves to another country... do they live in the moment, knowing the separation will be harder, or do they give up and wonder what could have been?

Example #3: Good Will Hunting. After talking with my sister, we agreed that I am officially Morgan. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, Morgan is the idiot, tag-a-long friend who embarrasses himself in front of other people, doesn't like getting into trouble, and has a smartass retort for everyone.

Tonight looks like it's going to be another rainy night, so I'll probably end up watching a movie....again. My life is so unbelievably interesting right now, I know. There is an opera tonight at the theater down the street, so maybe I'll break my pattern and go to that instead. MAGGIE IS COMING IN LESS THAN A WEEK! I'm a little bit excited. Just a little bit. We're heading to Salzburg for a couple of days, then back to München to go out with my friends on the weekend. Another boring tidbit from my life - I really need to get my hair cut but am terrified of German hairdressers. If you saw some of the girls' hair in Munich, you would understand. Yikes. Maybe I'll just wear a hat for a month instead.


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