My life story in 2000 words? Impossible. A slight insight into my crazy life -  achievable.  :-)


When I was notified that I was to be the Mercator Face of the Month , I can honestly say that I was shocked out of my socks! After all, the seemingly “quiet, calm and boring” facade of Mercator College hardly seemed to match with the notoriously argumentative, CONTROVERSIAL, VERY VOCAL AND LOUD, feisty, childish, crazy and eccentric oddball that is me. Known widely as crazy childish Ari , “ Spam Queen” and hard-slapping actress ,and drowning in life experiences and culture shocks several times , I guess I can see why I was chosen though. My entire life was about change and risk. I adjusted myself constantly to new homes, friends and learned about all kinds of crazy, interesting things- always tried something new or bold because I am foolhardy J. It wasn’t easy and it made me a seriously confused individual with no permanent home- well ( no matter how cheesy that sounds) until I came to Jacobs that is; where everybody as I like to think is as “screwed up” ( or to word it better) unique and confused as I. :)

Factoid 1# :  I am a freshie. I study International Politics and History even though I hate politics and love history. I am currently tempted to switch to History and Theory of Art and Literature. :P  I can’t because IPH is my back-up plan in case my life’s dream does not work out.  After Uni, I wish to enrol in film school and become a film director - as acting and films are my loves and passions.
Factoid 2# : I get 4 hrs of sleep daily if I’m lucky.  This is not just because of the notorious killer workload of Jacobs, but also because there are so many great ways you can procrastinate at this place: whether it’s partying, chatting with random people you meet in the halls, chilling with friends, or playing games in the common room, or talking and joking around to no end in the servery. IPH = I PARTY HARD. The small amount of sleep is certainly not contributing to my sanity or helping me be in my best physical shape, which is important because I intend to audition as a model in Hamburg in the near future. J
Factoid 3# : I hate Bremen weather! RANDOMNESS PERSONIFIED! Raining, then sun, then wind, then hail, then snow, then sun, then rain and more wind, then more rain. YEESH!
Factoid 4# : I love spam and starting spam wars ;) hehe. I also love my roomie who puts up with me. :-)
Factoid 5#: I’m an Aries in the western zodiac and a dragon in the Chinese one: O.K.-  SELF=EXPLANATORY :D
Factoid 6# : O.K.- Enough with the factoids :P

I was born in Yugoslavia and I still insist it exists. The end. :P I am the only person to think so at Jacobs and known well for it :P ( here’s where the interesting Mercator servery debates begin.) Cultural punches and rude (Balkan) jokes are thrown skilfully here and there by my friends and blablabla, I inevitably end up somewhere between shouting/screaming wildly, my hands flaying the air around me as I dramatically fight for a minority view. If there is one thing I love it is the Mercator people with their wild jokes, debates, stories, actions! No offense to the CIII’s or kruppies, but there is a certain “Je ne sais quoi” to Mercator. If you need some peace and quiet or someone calm to talk to – or loud , crazy people to stir up fun– this is the place. The people, the atmosphere- WOW.  The super creative and helpful RA’s who decorate this place and organize creative events, are better than all the others- KUDOS AND WOW. The college masters who have helped clumsy old locked out me to get back in my room or have driven me to the doctors because I broke my back foolishly jumping off the wrong way from a swimming board are magnanimous and great- WOW. The nice Aramark ladies who open the servery when I’m late because I overslept are saviours- WOW.  Mercator is the Buddha’s middle- way, the yin and yang to perfection. If you want controversy or a different view or many wildly differing perspectives, then come to Jacobs but especially Mercator for them! Different cultures run amok here which makes this place so damn special and better to me than any other.                                                 

Moving on from the blatant Mercator endorsement/propaganda/sickening patriotism above… I was born and lived in my birthplace Prijedor, a beautiful little city close to Banja Luka ( in what is Bosnia today) until I was three years old, when my Mom and brother and I decided to visit my dad who worked in Germany. The war broke out after we arrived there and we were stuck in Germany unable to go home. So, I was raised in Germany, with a western outlook on things for 8 years, first in East Germany ( a place called Gotha) then West Germany ( Sprendlingen near Frankfurt and Neu-Isenburg where our beloved Aramark food comes from :P). I had a great family and a great childhood; where we played outside all day and were never indoors; jumping in leaf piles , or  playing tag or hide and go seek; exploring the little woods surrounding Sprendlingen; making fortresses out of branches, going to the playground, playing as witches and princesses, riding bikes, swimming, visiting  and climbing the local burg or “castle” ruins in Dreieichenhain. I still love nature to this day and am still abig kid at heart.  I had a simple , beautiful childhood.

I considered myself a German, until my parents decided to move to Canada due to some circumstances out of our control. So when I was 11, we moved to live in Quebec, the French part of Canada where I had a hell of a time trying to learn the complicated French language ( which is useful because now I can speak 4 languages and understand quite a lot of other onesJ).  Then we moved to Austria for two months , got tired of it , then moved back to Canada- this time to the English part Ontario and Canada’s beautiful grand capital and government city, Ottawa. In Canada my parents enrolled me in an elementary Catholic school called “St. Mary’s” because they had heard (falsely) bad things about the public schools. Turns out the Catholic schools were as bad if not worse :P After St.Mary’s, I continued to go to St. Joseph’s with their awful uniforms, until it closed down and I finally got to go to a Catholic High-School with no uniforms- which was actually more dangerous and “free” than any public school would have been, the notorious “Notre Dame”. Although the Canadian school system was a whole lot more easy-going than the European one I still insisted drowning on work because I was a perfectionist. I loved it when Canada’s insane snow forced the schools to close down at times :D  Eventually, though I gave up the bookworm stage to act and make short movies in high school, to lobby for animal rights, to become a hippy and ardent feminist, to write e-mails and letters to our Prime Minister or certain Senators in the states ( cough Hilary Clinton and the oil-drilling in the Arctic).

After high school I decided to take a year off to decide where I would go next and make some money. My mom made me get a job and pushed me out of all things to become a Security guard at a company called ‘Capital Security & Investigations” in Ottawa! Unbelievable is what most people think when they picture me as one! I used to guard.  Got paid to watch free rock /hip-hop concerts and shows and hockey games, to go to political conferences, wrestling matches and act tough. I got to meet or see V.I.P’s ( Canadian politicians, singers such as “the Deers” the most interesting places  and guard I used to tell people what they could and could not do. I got paid to do my homework, or read or talk with the most interesting of people of all walks of life, or daydream or observe human nature and reflect or stare off into space or be yelled at by people. I wore a uniform... and apparently it was hot. I went to government functions, I even got to guard the VIP/Press room in the FIFA U-21 World cup in Canada. I got to watch all the games and yell at unruly fans and best of  all I met and saw many of the young soccer players , some of who started hitting on me ( ie. The Argentinian team) as I kept the press away from them..:))))

I missed my family  who all lived in Europe, growing up in Canada in my teens, and I only had the chance to randomly see them ( I visited Yugoslavia only 4 times so far as I can count , after I left for germany at age 3) . Whenever I did I reconnected to my Balkan roots and was proud to come from such a country: where though all was devastated, people still laughed and clung to the simplicity and happiness and jokes of the old life, laughing at adversity. Ever since coming back to Jacobs I feel like I’ve reconnected to my old Balkan roots. But I still get sick of explaining to well-meaning people where I am from. :P

Long story short, growing up in all these countries I went through many weird and ( now I say) hilarious stages. In Germany I was a skinny, sensitive , quiet girly-girl who cried at everything. Then In Canada I went through a huge competitive tomboy stage, being into sports and anime and swords, baggy male sports clothes and “boy things”  wishing wildly to become a WNBA basketball player . I chopped off pretty much all my long hair and exercised like a maniac, becoming a tough girl. Needless to say I then became very good at sports which I love passionately to this day ( come to the Jacobs Olympix and you will see just how much spirit Mercator can have and how competitive a Mercatorian like me is). We may not win but we have the most fun and  the best overall spirit ( oh yeah and we’re the only ones with  A REAL MASCOT):P J. Anywho, then I went through my holy saint stage where I dressed like an 80 year old  mormon and did about just as much: Just reading, painting, drawing, philosophizing and hanging out at the library with no social life: in other words my quiet “ doormat geek stage”. Then I went through a “ Lord of the rings stage” where I insisted I was some sort of knight/ half elf ( Lord of the rings remains one of my all-time favourite books and I am still a closet-case “Lord of the Rings” geek.) Soon followed the punk/rock chick/rebel stage with the hippy/environmentalist/feminist/artist/actress/moviemaker stage soon following. At the end, what was left after all these stages was a weird sort of amalgam of all these things and I like to think a stronger person with a surer view of herself.  Harassed and bullied at school and living and suffering in what was the Canadian ghetto, in relative poverty from Grade 6-10 also challenged me. And despite all the adverisity and hardship in Canada, well I led a relatively happy , interesting life. Tobogganing on the great Canadian snow-ridden hills, or throwing snow down my brother’s back and tackling him and my mom into the snow and trying in vain to do the same to my giant bear dad was one of the highlights. In the summer , it was roasting in the sun, chasing after my brother with a water gun ,  playing soccer or fishing and swimming in the many great Canadian rivers with  my family or just camping out and being bitten to death by the hundreds of mosquitoes.

It wasn’t an easy life, moving around all the time. In Canada alone I moved 8 times in 8 years -no joke.That meant moving once every year- which would explain why I’m about as stable as Radium :P But if I had to I would repeat it all over again , because I learned that a life without suffering is well, sorta boring. And after 8 years of living in Canada, and learning besides more than just how I can drown in snow as soon as I step foot outside the house , about how I had to survive in the streets ridden with unmentionable things and being far away from any family I had in Europe , well I felt that Jacobs was just the right place and challenge for me. I could not have been more right. I mean, after all , it was an International University and I was a seriously creative , crazy wack but nevertheless confused individual who did not know where she belonged to. Was I a Balkan Yugoslavian, a German, or a Canadian? All three of these or none? Well- Jacobs was just perfect.  It is my home. Here everybody is as  ‘screwed – up’ ( or to word it nicer) “unique” and confused as I.

Even after my gruelling first day of trying to hunt down cleaning supplies and cleaning what seemed an unholy sin against nature and nearly suffering heart-failure (from the horrendously dirty dorm room with my nightmare of ghoulish spiders all over the ceiling) – I could not help but love this place if only for one thing: the people. There were so many friendly, new faces wishing to help and introducing themselves and being so nice in the first week that that at first I found it creepy  (had to get used to it) :P. There is always somebody who can help you out here, no matter what sort of help you may need- and they do it gladly too!:D

Now my hobbies- well: they are anything related to art,  acting, film, dancing, sports and working out, reading ( not readers of course but leisure reading:P) , partying , spamming, joking, debating and fighting at the servery table or pulling crazy stunts. Acting is my love-child though. Many may know me here from  I a play  I acted in called “the Bear” by Chekhov where I got to slap a good friend of mine in the face ( which is quite therapeutic actually :P) and then got to kiss the same friend in a quite unfriendly way;). I love the environment and nature and poetry and painting and writing, my awesome roomie, photography, dancing, singing, being loud, fighting, all kinds of music – eclectic taste ( especially rock, hip-hop/rap , classical, soul and even pop, house and techno). I love learning about different cultures- I love the eccentric and the strange and the unusual. I love weirdos and I am glad to be back in Germany, but most of all here.

“Better to live one year as a tiger, than a hundred years as a sheep”  ( - Madonna- no comment:P)