"It's about how much you can take and keep moving forward."

Post 3- Week of 28/1/2019

Drei, Drei, Drei. What an eventful week. It all started when I went down to the basement to pick up my clothes. You see, I had washed my clothes previously and although Ina and the boys have both a washer and a dryer, I use the traditional hang-dry method to dry my clothes to save energy. For example, my favorite sweater, the black JCrew wool sweater which I purchased on cyber Monday. I don’t need to wear this masterpiece of a clothing item everyday so I don’t need to throw it in the machine dryer; I can easily hang it up and wait patiently for it to dry. Anyways, When this week started, I went downstairs to pick up the sweater and found a very, very similar black sweater hanging next to where I had hung my sweater. Indeed, it was a different sweater and indeed, I noticed immediately. “What kind of sick joke?” I thought, “Are one of [Ina and] the boys trying to pull a quick one on me?” I stood there, contemplating what to do. As a courteous and civilized human, I did not take the look-alike sweater as revenge; rather, I left it there. I decided to wait for Ina and the boys to return home that night to bring up this issue, this joke, this theft- call it what you want.

Fast-forward school, my 3.5 mile run along the Rhine (a phenomenal place to run), the 40 min weight training workout at B9Fitness, and the 30-minute bus commute to when I got home. Boy had I been waiting for this moment. I wanted to get to the bottom of this which had been bothering me all day. I just wanted my sweater back. I walk into the house fully prepared to fight for my sweater and instead I find the house empty. Of course, my first thoughts were that something was suspicious, or “sus” as the kids say. I went to sleep that night without my sweater. 

Suspense, angst, worry. It was constantly in the back of my mind for the next two days. Of course, I realized this was just a sweater…but was it? The fact that this was the first incidence at home marked a critical point in my relationship with Ina and the Boys as well as the remainder of my time here in Bonn. If I don’t fight for this sweater, why would I fight for the next one? I’d likely lose all of my sweaters then. I might as well put up a "Free Sweater" stand outside Bonn Hbf. Furthermore, I would be seen as weak, both in the eyes of my host family and my own. How do I fight for what I believe in in the most appropriate way?

Approximately 48 hours later, on Wednesday, I finally see Ina at home on the couch. First, of course, we made some great small talk about how her day was. it was tough, apparently- her kindergarten teacher co-workers all coincidentally called in sick). I actually forgot about my pressing missing-sweater issue because we engaged in a long conversation about the education system here in Germany. It’s really quite interesting. For example, some schools don’t start enrolling kids until they are 6; for comparison, I started when I was 4-5.

Anyways, I did ask her about my sweater and it turns out that one of the Boys, Jannik, had mistaken mine for his and he was gone the entire week. Ina helped me retrieve my sweater from the depths of Jannik’s closet and it is now safely folded and stored in my wardrobe. Mission Accomplished. Jannik had not stolen what was mine. He is really a great guy and has been extremely nice to me. It was a simple mistake. Ina was a great help and I am glad that I took Hilde's advice and spoke up in a straightforward manner about my problem. I named this post purposefully, as my challenge relates to Sylvester Stallone's inspiring speech in Rocky Balboa. A sort of life motto of mine, I have the video clip below: