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This post is to say I’m still here. It’s the last week of the quarter, and that means a lot of work. I feel like I’ve been “almost done” for weeks now. I finally want to be done, finished, over. I want to grab some Glühwein (German christmas market in Chicago!) ride the holiday train, go ice skating and buy Christmas presents.

Three projects are finished – no wait, make that four. I wrote a book report about “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid. Highly recommended, if not the easiest reading in the world. I spoke with members of the Afghan community and wrote a paper about them.

I finished an in-depth story with reporter friend Lauren on Iraqi refugees in the Chicago-area. They’re the largest refugee group and hit particularly hard by the lack of funding for refugee resettlement programs. Also, many of them are well-educated and come from a middle-class background, making the transition to starting from the bottom that much harder.

With Abby and Grant, we made a website about the Red Line, Chicago’s longest and most travelled train line. It was fun – sort of. Grant did some very cool artsy photos and Abby made a great video on street musicians on the train stops.

Now, all that’s left to do is my own website (extension of deadline, you’re calling my name).

Also, I need to finish up my reporting project on the 2010 census. And by finish up, of course I mean that not one word of the story is written yet. The video isn’t done either. But I have three very cool maps. And about 30 pages of interviews, and three hours of video that I somehow need to condense into 1,200 words and 90 seconds.

So keep your fingers crossed. Have a Glühwein for me. It’ll be over Thursday. No, Friday. But soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunglasses in November

This Chicago winter everyone’s talking about doesn’t seem so bad – at least not this week. We’ve had sunny weather at around 12º Celsius (around 50 Farenheit). Today, it’s so warm I don’t need a coat or anything!

I’ve been dressed way too warm all this week, and now I’ve finally put together a little farenheit-celsius conversion chart for myself so I will be able to tell whether to put on an extra layer. This November really is beautiful!

It was slightly weird when I stepped out of a shoe store, having just bought warm winter boots, and had to take off my coat because it was so warm and sunny (17º Celsius/ 62 Farenheit – can you believe it??).

Oh and the shoes: I’m very pleased with myself. I was afraid I’d have to spend a lot of money on a warm, waterproof and extremely ugly pair, but I now have two very warm and cute pairs of boots to sport!

We originally started our shopping spree at H&M, which today opened sales for their Jimmy Choo collection. Yes, Jimmy Choo-designed shoes starting around $70 instead of the brand retail price of upwards of $350. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who got wind of that. The line to get into the H&M store went halfway around the block. So we decided to call that off and buy shoes somewhere else. Quite successfully!

Now I can spend the rest of my day outside on the back deck putting together audio slideshows in the sun.

Tell me about the fall of the wall

"Where the pieces have fallen" - Our package on the homepage of Medill Reports on Nov 10, 2009

This week, Jacqui and I put together a full package on the fall of the Berlin wall.

An article looked at what we, 20 years later, can take from the events of 1989. One thing is sure: The meaning of the wall’s fall continues to change.

In a personal essay, I wrote about what my own connection is with those events. Growing up in Berlin, it’s a personal crossing for me, and my family as well.

Jacqui tracked down the guy who had the exclusive contract to sell pieces of the Berlin wall in the U.S. Quite amazingly, he told her his story even though he usually doesn’t speak with reporters or even scholars.

It was great to be able to do those stories – to take a closer look at my own feelings about the fall of the wall as well as to learn more about what was going on in the background.

In the course of research, I also came across some amazing footage from 1989. For once, there’s the video of Hans-Dietrich Genscher announcing to East Germans gathered at the West German embassy in Prague that they will be able to leave for West Germany. This sends chills up my spine.

The New York Times had some amazing coverage of the event, with multimedia and stories written in 1989. When you read them, you can feel the astonishment and suprise of the reporter. Same is true for this news report from ABC from Nov. 9, 1989.

I’m so happy with what we were able to put together – big ups to my awesome partner Jacqui! Our web producers helped pull the articles together into one big package. Let me know what you think!

Two Berlins are one

On November 9, 1989 the world changed. When the Berlin wall was opened that night, a city divided for almost 30 years became one again.

When we look back on that date now, it seems as if it was bound to happen. But nothing about that night was inevitable. Many small events led up to that ultimate one. Opening the broder didn’t automatically come about.

The leaders of the time could have made different decisions, but they kept walking down the road to eventually tear a hole in a wall that had divided Berlin, Germany and Europe for a generation.

The Berlin wall, finally open

On that night, Günther Schabowski announced at a press conference that travel to the West would be allowed without restrictions. He didn’t make himself quite clear, saying that travel restrictions would be lifted “immediately,” even though the offical policy was that you still needed to get a visa if you wanted to come back.

In the months before, East Germans had been flooding the GDR’s embassies in Hungary and Czechoslovakia to leave via Austria, where the iron curtain had been lifted. By some accounts, around 200,000 people left East Germany that summer.

At the same time, demonstrations and prayer vigils were held starting in Leipzig’s St. Nikolai Church. No one knew if the police would shoot at the demonstrators, as it had before. But they didn’t.

They didn’t shoot on November 9, either. Instead, broder guards such as this one opened the gates and the way to that joyous night.

Even though I’m too young to remember, thinking of the events of that day makes me very emotional. It’s incredible what the German people achieved that night, and in the tumultous weeks and months afterwards.

I grew up in a united Europe. When I first consciously started to think about Europe, it was through the EU. This far-away, bureaucratic body of now 27 states is part of my understanding of this continent – a shared space, a shared struggle and a shared future.

Our generation has different defining moments. Our 9/11 is not November 9, it’s September 11. But as we face new challenges, it’s important to remember this moment. It was not meant to happen, but it happened because all these people wanted freedom. Their push for freedom was so strong that, eventually, it brought down the Berlin wall.

Can I haz CSS coding?

Here’s an excerpt of what I did today in my interactive class:

• chatted with three friends simultaneously
• posted on a classmate’s facebook wall
• looked up books on CSS and working with Adobe’s Dreamweaver on Amazon (the irony of that is not lost one me: I was looking up how to teach myself what I’m supposed to be learning in that exact class)
• researched some events to cover for this week
• learned that the founder of “Can I Haz Cheeseburger?” graduated from Medill

Twitter-interaction to keep the spirits up

You get it: That class is really awful. The only good part of it tonight was that I had to try really hard to not laugh out loud with all the twitter/facebook/chatting flurry going on. But really, it’s not that funny.

For once, it doesn’t teach me something essential to my future in journalism. It doesn’t even teach me something nonessential that would still look nice on my resume (such as CSS coding).

I want to be a reporter. I want to tell stories, not code web pages. If I want to learn how to code web pages, then only to tell stories better. I definitely don’t want to sit around every Monday night watching someone paste things into a document.

It comes back to that old problem Medill seems to have with its current transition to teaching “21st-century journalism.”

It’s not about learning how to use programs. It’s about telling stories. The program are only tools to do that.

A couple of years from now, we will probably use completely different tools to convey information – but the reporting, the basic understanding and techniques, will remain. That’s what should be taught. Not which shortcuts to use, or where to paste this code or that.

I wish this class was different.

Just a thought

By the end of this year, I expect I’ll be able to tell you which Chicago neighborhood has what percentage of immigrant groups, where these people come from originally, how high the undercount in the 2000 census was and which Alderman represents the area (and I’ll probably have spoken with a good percentage of them).

Chicago's neighborhoods

I won’t be able to tell you of a single decent bar, leave alone club.

“And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”

Yes, I do.

Chicago police officers end training, join force

The crop of officers that finished their training eralier this month and joined the Chicago Police Department were the first to receive a hate-crime sensitivity training. The Holocaust Museum in Skokie hosted the two-day training, which Sofia and I reported on.

The group of new officers will be working with field training officer for three months, CBS2 writes. What I found interesting – and hopeful – is what one of the new officers tells them. CBS2 quotes Michelle Tannehill as saying:

“I think it’s really important to get the community involved. Us knowing exactly what’s going on in the community and the community and police working together, we can help solve the problems in the different districts that we’re going to.”

David Rak and Paul Mieszala look at exhibits at the Holocaust Museum in Skokie during their two-day hate crime training session.

Another quote caught my eye – CBS apparently caught up with Paul Mieszala, who we spoke with for our article, too! Glad to see he finished successfully.

Police officers-in-training look over material at the workshop.

“Put on a little lipstick…”

“… you’ll feel better,” it says on a little placard in our bathroom. And that’s exactly what happened.

Last week was a rough one. A lot of work, a lot of things happened, worrying about friends, moving, getting settled into the new quarter which is even more fast-paced than the last one. I tought that wasn’t possible but Q1 already feels like a walk in the park in hindsight. I’m beginning to realize there will be very little sleep for most of the coming months.

I still feel a little anxious about my beat and don’t think I am quite on top of things yet. Both religion and immigration encompass such a variety of groups and issues that it’s hard to get your foot on the ground.

But also, I moved last weekend, and that changed so much. I live at a wonderful apartment now, and I already feel more at home here after a couple days than I did the whole last three months. Much of this is thanks to my roommate Joellen. I couldn’t describe her in a few words, but she’s great.

There are all these wonderful little decorative things around the apartment, which also has a beautiful dining room and a back deck where we can sit outside (Joellen has plants there, something I could never come close to accomplishing. Kein grüner Daumen hier.)

We’re in the route toward O’Hare International Airport, so there are lots of planes flying overhead – which means lots of plane watching for me. I love seeing airplanes. I always wonder where they’re headed, who’s on board and what these people want to do, who they are flying to see. It’s not that loud either, it almost feels comforting. I also have churchbells on Sundays and right now, raindrops against my window and wind howling outside.

My room is smells like vanilla candles. It has a great walk-in closet with room for all my shoes.

Oh, and the kitchen would make my mom proud. Joellen even has a waffle maker! I’ll be sending out sunday brunch invites.

Three courses of homemade food. I'll be so much healthier here!

To calm myself after this whirlwind week I made a therapeutic German potato salad – Binsch family recipe!! It was great. Yes, it’s about the only thing I can manage in the kitchen, but that I can do well!

Sonja came over later and took care of dessert, baking cookie bars. Which means I had a three course meal tonight.

As I left the newsroom earlier today and walked toward the train, I wandered into the Barnes & Nobles bookstore at Jackson and State. I was just looking for a map of Chicago’s neighborhoods. But books get me.

New and old reading material.

Every time. I can’t walk away. I spent an hour at the store just looking around and ended up buying four new books to read. Only four because I’m trying to find two more on Amazon (thanks to the iPhone I took pictures of them so I would remember the titles).

I could have stayed much longer but then I wouldn’t have been able to carry my new treasures home. It started raining slightly when I was on the train. As I walked the little bit from the train station home (and this really feels like home now), I was carrying my new books, thinking about tomorrow… and a plane crossed the sky over my head. It flew pretty low and the lights showed up brightly against the dark evening sky. That moment made me so happy that I almost cried.