Friendship

When thinking of a good photo to use for this post, I instantly thought of Mortal Kombat. I know that Billy used an "Animality" picture in a recent post of his. This is not an attempt to rip him off. I like to think of it as a collective homage to one of the best fighting games ever.


Hello readership. I am writing this en route from Amsterdam back home to Berlin. Writing blog posts while traveling seems to be a reoccuring theme of mine.

First, I'd like to express to you all how glad I am that my last post concerning relationships was answered by or commented on by many of you. Such a bustle of activity has never graced this blog of mine, and I'm really glad to have heard all of your opinions or comments.

Aside from some rain, Amsterdam was fantastic. It is a very interesting place. I must say that Dutch people are incredibly friendly and forthcoming. That being said, Amsterdam is one of the most culturally diverse cities I've ever been to. All major European capitals will demonstrate 5 or more languages on a walk through a crowded transit area... But Amsterdam really seems to have even more groups of people, at least to me.

There was this gigantic chess board where people would play chess with huge pieces. I watched a handful of games, which was great.

So, what now? Now I wait to hear back from Uni-Assist (the 3rd party that German universities outsource their applicants to) to see if I can begin studies in October. I am being encouraged to take the C2 class, the hardest level of German. It would probably be beneficial... And we all know that this vacation of mine cannot be permanent after all.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Friendship. About how our friendships shape us over the years, and how when one looks back over their life, the various "episodes" have distinct and important casts of characters. For everyone who is reading this, I can recall so many different memories from throughout my life.

I tend to care very much about the people closest to me, putting them in places in my perception that are just as close or important as family. This leads to phenomenal friendships but also sometimes to situations where I am confused. I notice that, as humans grow older, they tend to put distance between themselves and "other people," perhaps retaining a small handful of close friends.

Why do people do that? Does having many friends, "close" friends, or "best" friends mean that they all matter less to me than if I only had 1 or 2 real friends?

I don't think so, personally. Maybe we try to surround ourselves with different types of people. That way, we can admire the qualities about them that are interesting to us, confide in people with whom we feel we can relate, or people who reinforce our opinions and beliefs.

In any case, I consider myself a very lucky person to have the friends that I do have. Many of them won't ever read this blog but my sentiment remains the same. Of course, not even the power of friendship can make us feel completely validated. Maybe we require a mix of being comfortable alone with ourselves as well as maintaining other close human relationships in order to feel balanced and socially adjusted.

Maybe I'll write a blog post about solitude next time.

If you're reading this, and I know you, I am glad that we are friends.

Gregor the Polish Newspaper Salesman

So every day, I either walk home after school (30-35 minutes) or I take the U-Bahn (subway; 10-12 minutes). If I take the U-Bahn, I have to change lines once. This involves a 1-2 minute walk through an underground tunnel walkway. Every day, a man is there peddling the Berliner Zeitung, one of the major newspapers here. He is very aggressive in his sales technique, and has gotten in my face more than once. His name is Gregor.

Finally I decided to humor the fellow... After all, I have no problem talking with strangers. I spent about a half hour talking to him last Friday. The conversation took place in German, but I could tell by his accent that he was not German. I asked him where he was from, and he told me that he came from Poland. Having also detected the non-German twist in my accent, he began to try to talk to me with broken English. I told him that I could understand German too, and he seemed relieved as he is far more comfortable with German.

So, after exchanging some small talk, he began to inquire about some of the strange nuances of the English language. [I have told this story a few times already, but it never gets old.] He got out a pen and wrote out three phrases on one of his newspapers.

"Look out"
"Look up"
"Stand down"

I had to explain to him that to "look out" had both an objective and subjective meaning. One can look out the window, or look out for danger/suspicious individuals. Likewise, one can look up at the ceiling, or "look up to their grandfather as a role model." He really liked that one. The hardest to explain was to "stand down," which he assumed meant something like kneeling or sitting down. I had to explain it using a metaphor involving the military or police and how a person of authority would theoretically tell his subordinates to "stand down" and halt their impending action. He kept asking me, "Why?" and I had no answer for him.

All of this was conducted in German, which led me to chuckle a bit as I walked away with a gratis copy of the paper as my reward for the mini English lesson. An American explaining a few complexities of the English language, in German, to a Polish man selling newspapers in a subway station.

I guess the whole experience made me realize how absurdly complicated languages are, especially English, and how I guess I'm glad to have that as my first language.

Speaking of language, I had a five hour long Prüfung (test) today, from 9:00am to 2:00pm. It was the first time that I'd had such a long test since the SATs, I think. The test consisted of the listening, reading and writing comprehension to the C1 level of German (C2 being the highest of 6 levels from A1-C2*). Tomorrow I have to do the speaking section, which is only 45 minutes altogether. But I'm not worried about tomorrow. Today was the real deal. I cannot say if I "passed" or not, but I'll find out on Friday. Honestly, it does not really matter all that much. Especially compared to the all-important TestDaF on April 22nd to determine my eligibility for University study here. Still, I'd prefer to pass it. This is my 8th, and final, week of C1 class at the d.i.d. institut. I'm actually going to miss it a lot. But, I'll be back in less than a month, for the TestDaF prep course.

[* I wanted to comment on how interesting it is to me how countries organize their proficiency-levels. Billy was recently writing about the language levels in Japan (1-5?), and I wanted to take this opportunity to see if he'd be willing to further elaborate on these levels, either here or in his own blog.]

I have been wanting to update this more regularly, and often come up with ideas of things to write about... But I always end up scrapping the ideas. I haven't decided exactly which direction I want this blog to go in. Some people handle their blogs like diaries, updating daily (or more than once a day) with details of all the trivium of their everyday lives. (i.e. "today i woke up and brushed my teeth and then went to school/work and then met up with my friend so we could go shopping for shoes," etc.) Not that there is anything wrong with that. One of my favorite things about the Internet is the freedom of speech it provides. (Unless you are in an oppressive country like Myanmar, where the regime simply unplugs themselves from the Internet when the monks/students start protesting not just on the streets, but online.)

Or some people write primarily about how they've been feeling... using the blog as a direct conduit to tell their audience about their emotional/personal ups and downs. There is nothing wrong with this either, in my opinion. It's just that... personally, I sometimes struggle with the idea of publishing my emotional struggles on such an accessible forum. I mean, hell, my Facebook page links directly here. And everyone knows that just because I have 200+ Facebook "friends," doesn't mean they are all "real" friends... or at least not people I'd want reading super personal things about myself. I guess there is an intrinsic degree of exhibitionism in ANY blog... but still.