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.

The Seeker and The Sought

Hello everyone. It has, once again, been a short while since my last post. Maybe I am afraid that if I post too frequently, my posts will go unread.

In any case, what is new. I am still on Permanent Vacation. Well, it is not entirely permanent. I am putting the finishing touches on my application to Humboldt Universität Berlin. The deadline is actually up next Wednesday, and I'm just waiting on my transcript to get here from FSU. I won't find out if I was accepted or not until August. If accepted, I must retake a German proficiency exam called the DSH in September, because my TestDaF scores were not high enough. I am not at all excited about re-taking a language exam.

In preparation for this test, I will probably be taking the C2 level course for 8 weeks, in August and September, at the same school that I completed the C1 level course in January and February. I am a little nervous about that possibility, because C2 is the last level. I should theoretically be able to do "anything" after that.

If I do not get accepted to Humboldt, then I will end up getting a job and then re-applying for the Spring Semester. This is obviously the lesser of the 2 possible options.

Other than that, not much is new in Germany. It is getting very warm. Since Europeans do not believe in A/C, I bought myself an oscillating fan. It has been worth every penny thus far.


So I've been thinking about writing a blog post about a certain topic for a while. It has to do with the dynamic between two people. This applies (to some extent) to platonic friendships, but moreso to intimate relationships. Since relationships seem to be a hot blog topic, I figured it was about time to throw this out there. I have talked about this with some of you in the past, and it has been a theory of mine for quite some time.

I believe that in every relationship between two people, one person plays the role of the "Seeker," which means that he or she actively spends more time "pursuing" the other person, who takes the role of the "Sought." When I talk about "pursuit," I do not necessarily mean when one tries to make the other into their significant other (although that certainly counts too) but I also just mean when one person seems to try harder than the other to hang out, to get in touch, etc. I would actually say that this dynamic applies to every relationship. And most certainly to every significant other-relationship.

The healthiest couples are usually (of course not always) those that have the smallest "gap" in between the Seeker and the Sought. If it is either so small that it cannot be noticed, or even small enough that the two people change roles back and forth, that usually makes for a relationship that can last for a while.

One must also watch out at the beginning of a courtship (or even a new friendship). If you meet someone, exchange phone numbers and/or add them to your Facebook, you would do well to not send them 10 unanswered text messages a day. If they are replying to your 10 messages, obviously the gap between you is small and you are on the right track. This may sound like common sense, but it's amazing how often people ruin potentially good relations because they fail to exercise restraint.

I have been on both ends of this before. When you are the Seeker, you feel that if you do not put in 60% or more of the total "work" required to maintain a relationship, that it will fall apart. Most often, the Sought KNOWS full well that the Seeker feels this way, and may use it to their advantage.

At the beginning, the distinction between the two can be blurred by mutual enthusiasm for one another. In these instances I would say that both parties are Seekers and thus are both Sought. But, inevitably an imbalance will evolve. In the best of scenarios, this imbalance is negligible or practically non-existent.

Sometimes the imbalance grows exponentially, like a cancer. The Sought becomes annoyed with the Seeker's constant attempts for more affection/attention and then pulls away. The increased distance makes the Seeker panic, and consequently they will Seek even harder. This cyclical downward spiral situation is amongst the worst of cases.

Of course, human relationships can be incredibly complicated. Not every relationship can be boiled down to these 2 categories. But it provides a useful model when one contemplates their relationships with others.

Eurotrip

Today I am trying something new. Blogger has an option where you can email posts, thus enabling one to update via mobile devices. So forgive me if this post is not too lengthy, because I'm typing it out on a BlackBerry.

I am on a train to Lutherstadt Wittenberg, my home away from home. I spent New Years Eve (Silvester) there to bring in both 2008 and 2009. I have a couple of good friends there. They have a son, who will be turning 3 soon.

Children confuse me. They are so trusting and accepting. Maybe that is why people have babies, so that they can be reminded what innocence was like. (That, and we must propagate our species, I suppose)

So a week ago, 3 friends and I split a rental car and drove from Berlin to Vienna. We stopped in Dresden for a few hours, and in Prague for 1 night before continuing on to Austria. We stayed in Vienna for 2 nights.

Traveling within Europe is very cheap. It CAN be very expensive, but that is only if you insist on nice hotels and high speed trains. So, for a 4-day, 3-night trip through Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, the prices were not bad.

My share of the rental car: 40€
Three nights in hostels: 55€
Plus food and stuff like that, it was just over 100€.

Now, that may seem like a lot. In some contexts, it is. But compared, say, with my trip to Sweden... it is absurdly cheap. (Just my plane ticket to Stockholm was 100+€)

The point that I'm trying to make here, is that Europe can be affordable if you know what you're doing and plan a little. Hostels (even the non-grimy/horror movie sort) are between 15-25€ per night. The biggest cost, for those who do not live in continental Europe, is GETTING HERE. That transatlantic flight is a bitch, and can run between $700-$1400 depending on the airline, time of year and how far in advance you book your ticket.

The moral is, you should take your next vacation here. If you want to stop in Berlin, you should. I make a good tour guide.

Permanent Vacation & Stockholm Syndrome

Man, I should stop waiting weeks in between entries. I really am sorry to those of you who have been actually asking for updates. I am notoriously bad about frequent updating. But hey, doesn't that mean that when I do update, it is a little more special?

Important news: I passed the TestDaF! I did not do perfectly, though. So, I have to retake another German language test in September before my classes would theoretically start in October. The Freie Universität Berlin, where I HAD wanted to go is no longer an option for me, as I basically missed the application deadline due to serious misinformation. So now I am applying for a Master's program at Humboldt Universität, the alma mater of: Einstein, Bismarck, Engels, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Heisenberg, W.E.B. DuBois and The Brother's Grimm.

Cross your fingers for me, my friends. I really want to get in to this Universität. I am tired of not being in school anymore. My life has very little structure. I basically stay up late, and sleep in every single day. I have dubbed this my "permanent vacation," which is much less relaxing than one would imagine after weeks go by. One becomes a little stir crazy. I am only allowed to work 3 days a week on my current visa, so that has made me balk at job hunting. I miss feeling like I have a purpose or reason to get up in the morning, beyond a distant "Fall 09" semester. I want to feel like I am accomplishing something.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Stockholm, Sweden. It was a truly amazing place. The sun shines for like 20 hours a day during the summer. The language is totally beautiful. But, I would never bother to learn it because only 10 million people live in Sweden, and they ALL speak perfect English anyway. Some highlights of the trip include:

- Räksmörgås - These are open-faced sandwiches (pictured above) with mayo, egg, and a giant pile of tiny shrimp. I don't even like shrimp that much, but these sandwiches are amazing. Actually, I loved all the Swedish food I tried. I'd go so far as to say that I'm a fan for life. Which is odd, because you never hear much about Swedish food. It's always "Asian, Italian, Mexican..." Where's the Swedish?

- The Stockholm Absolut Ice Bar - This is a bar that was made entirely out of ice. Even the glasses were made of ice. They gave us all "warmth capes" and gloves because the whole room is kept at -5 Celsius to prevent the tables, couches and whatnot from melting. They had several varieties of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. I just liked it because one's shoes would freeze to the metal floor so with every step you'd have to kind of un-stick yourself.

- The People Watching - Scandanavians have somehow hit the genetic jackpot. The girls are all amazingly gorgeous and everyone is quite tall. I am also tall, but the people are noticeably taller than in Germany or in the U.S.

- The High School Graduation - There were dozens of dumptrucks rolling around the streets of Stockholm with the graduation high school classes of 2009. They were playing loud techno, "hootin and hollerin," drinking and just generally waving at the citizens and tourists in Stockholm. I raised my hand in a thumbs up to one truck, and was met with a roar of applause. I could not help but to laugh out loud. The government took care of all this, as well. Workers were driving the trucks, and guiding the traffic. If we did something like this in America, we would have 100% graduation rates.

I really want to go back to Stockholm someday, and spend some more time there. Though, I can imagine that it is rather insane during the winters, as it was very cold there in June. So, I can only imagine that the freezing cold of the Nordic winter combined with almost complete darkness all day long would make me a little down.

Traveling has been very helpful in dealing with my permanent vacation. The constant distraction it provides is good for my mind. Less than a week after returning from Sweden, I went on a road trip to Austria, but I am saving that for another entry. (...I won't wait 3 weeks to post again, either.)

German Goths

I'm writing this entry, so soon after the last one, in an attempt to do this more often. I have ideas of things that I want to write about, like I said, and I just let them fade away. But if I write more often, I should be able to capture more of them.

Also, this is the last day of the month and if I don't write today, May 2009 will only have one, very lonely, angst-ridden post.

Berlin is full of goth kids. Not just kids... People. Now, for the record, I want to state that I have absolutely nothing against "goths," or people who identify themselves as "goth." It just seems to me, at least in the U.S., that goths are generally made fun of in the most brutal way. Like, almost as part of a self-identification, they choose to express that they are "different" than "mainstream" society, and therefore don't CARE what the rest of society thinks about their dyed black hair or their Hot Topic choke coller.

But here in Deutschland, while there certainly must be that element of anti-social/anti-society trend as well... it is much less so. And as for piercings and tattoos, while these are of course popular in the U.S., only a minority of people (especially under 35) are free of body modification.

These people, who would just as easily describe themselves as "punks" loiter all over the place. But one of their favorite places in Berlin is the area around the Fernsehturm (TV tower: "fern" = far; "sehen" = to see; turm = tower) at Alexanderplatz, a center of transportation and shopping in the east part of the central district of Berlin, "Mitte," where I live. The Soviets built it back in the DDR days of East/West as a symbol of their superior technology. It's the tallest free standing structure in Germany. Makes sense that there'd be punks/goths at the bottom. There is one kid I've seen a few times in the train station. He has long hair, a huge black coat, huge black baggy jeans, and he draws eyeliner from his eyes in these lines down the sides of his face in straight lines and deliberate angles like a character from a comic book.

In response to Liz's last comment and also somewhat to Billy's recent podcast, I will now say my last piece on this subject for the time being. Not because I don't think it's interesting or important... Just because I don't want it to be the only topic that repeats throughout my writing!
I don't think that nihilism (or any -ism, for that matter) is a common topic of conversation or even consideration by people who may be "less intellectual." Not that we're all geniuses. But that line of thinking is far too abstract for most people. We "smart" people like words. We like waxing philosophical about concepts using our written or spoken words. We like to exchange words with other smart people, so that we can use our impressive vocabularies to prove how lettered we are to each other. Hmm... i started by writing about nihilism and now I'm starting to sound like a narcissist.

In regards to my own nihilistic thinking, I don't think it's necessarily always as depressing and bleak as I may have made it sound before. It's not like I don't feel anything. I went to see the band Telefon Tel Aviv on Friday night and it was a truly awesome and emotional experience. It meant something to me. The friendships that I have with people also mean a lot to me, of course. I think the problem is that I don't always want to care about things. I tend to invest a lot of my energy into the few things that I really care about, and perhaps my nihilistic leanings are simply a defense mechanism because I don't want to commit to anything, or be disappointed by loss or let-downs.

I think I just need a healthy, useless distraction. I really wish I could play Metal Gear Solid 4, or Resident Evil 5. If I think about it too much, I start to feel disappointed. Then I just tell myself, "Oh well..." and stop thinking about it. See how easy that was?

Lebensmüde & The Apocalypse

Lebensmüde = tired or weary of life.

I rather enjoy starting my posts with a fun vocabulary word. This "lebensmüde" adjective makes me giggle a little inside. Leave it to the Germans to have this word. Although, I can say that I have certainly felt lebensmüde before. Some of you out there must be aware of this. Another great word that I recently put somewhere on Liz's blog was Existenzangst. This word means "existential angst" and also sort of something like "fear of existence." I promise, these people over here have been philosophizing for quite some time... and some pretty dark and awesome themes have emerged. But I'll leave that for a philosopher-king to explain, sometime.

I realize that I have been very lax in posting. Today marks one full month since my last post. In the past week or so, I've had plenty of requests/demands for new posts... from people who are not in my "following," which gives me some hope that this is being read by a significant enough number of people to give me the motivation to write. Thank you, to any of you who complained to me that it had been too long. Really.

Sadly, not much has really changed in the past month. I am still awaiting the results of my TestDaF examination, which should arrive in the next week or two. Afterward I must begin my applications to the Universität that I want to go to. I'll keep you posted.

In my last post, I briefly discussed my descent from casual nihilism to critical nihilism. If it wasn't "critical" last month, it probably is now. By "critical," I mean that it has (possibly) reached a sort of critical mass, and I cannot bring myself to care about most things in the same way that I ever did before. I approach many situations with total disinterest. Even the most serious of things fail to stir a proper emotional response. I still do not know if this makes me a callous asshole, or a strong person capable of accepting things that most people have trouble with. I almost feel disassociated with the world around me, relying on fictional narratives and a handful of human connections to keep me somewhat "grounded."

Talking about things like this is difficult for me. Writing about them, for a public audience, is yet a bit more difficult. But then I realize that if you're reading this, you probably at least kind of care about me, and won't judge me too harshly. And if you ARE judging me... well, the beauty of the nihilism is that I just don't care. I will end this rant now, and say that I am looking forward to William's podcast on the subject this weekend, where he will likely bring up other German philosophers who are also bad-ass.

That all sounds very depressing. Almost aggressive... I don't mean it that way. I just want to get my feelings out into words before they escape me, or before I lose the motivation to even do so.

I have been living in Germany for five months now. Unbelievable. It seems like such a short time. I think I have written about my "deutsch-esteem" before. I have gotten to the point where I can comprehend basically everything I hear and can communicate my opinions... just not as articulately as a native speaker. I doubt I'll ever get to that point. But, I am sure that being in an academic setting is vital to this. For the past month, as I've been on what I call "permanent vacation," I have felt the german-speaking part of myself start to shrink ever so slightly. Luckily I had it built up pretty far, and I still make efforts to hear, read and write it every day. I guess my problem is that, in our world of skills, talents, degrees and accreditation.... my being able to understand one foreign language really isn't all that special. So I had better make it count.

As I wander around Berlin, I often come up with subjects for this blog, which I subsequently either discard or forget. I've thought about doing an entry entirely in German, but that would be more of a practice exercise for me than something most of you would want to read. I'll do one in German if Billy does one in Japanese, how about that? At least they have decent internet translators for German <-> English...

Switching subjects, I have always been pre-occupied with the Apocalypse. Not necessarily the DragonRealms "Cataclysm," nor the biblical "Revelations." Just the concept in general. For this reason, I have an strong affinity for Resident Evil, Terminator, Mad Max, I Am Legend, Stephen King's The Stand and Battlestar Galactica. The list goes on and on, but it does not include the Left Behind series with Kirk Cameron.

I think the reason that I am so interested in eschatology is not because I want the world to end. I really don't. I just wonder what would happen if every single infrastructure in the world failed, and only 5% of the human race remained alive. Would we climb back to our former positions? Somehow... I don't think so. Whether it's nuclear war, a zombie invasion, or an army of sentient and murderous machines... we'd need to figure something out if we want to survive. It would give us a genuine purpose to live, beyond just living. We would not be concerned with Starbucks, iPods or luxury cars. Maybe, in wanting the apocalypse, I actually just want something more for the human race.

Badass

Well, I'm still alive.

I took the TestDaF last week. It was quite difficult. I feel like I can never accurately gauge my performance on any kind of exam. I could have done quite well, or poorly. I will get my results in about 6 weeks, which is an excruciating amount of time to wait. Oh well.

I had my 27th birthday last Saturday. A small group of friends and I gathered for the occasion. They brought pointy party hats and extending paper kazoos. I'll put pictures up on facebook eventually... Though I am mildly indifferent towards the idea of birthdays anymore. I cannot believe I am 27 years old. Everyone always complains about "feeling old," so I'll keep it to a minimum. In fact, I won't complain at all. I just have trouble grasping the reality of my age, and how much time has passed since I learned to drive a car, since I played Final Fantasy VII, or graduated from Pine View. [12 years, 12 years, and 9 years respectively...]

On a somewhat personal note, and a different topic entirely, I have been feeling very nihilistic lately. That is not to say that certain things do not matter to me... But on the average, my perceptions of a great many things have changed over the past year or two. It is harder for me to laugh and harder for me to cry about anything. (But when I do, it's really great...) I find myself pulling away from human relationships. Almost nothing surprises me anymore. When confronted with something tragic or astonishing, I just kind of nod and give a cursory sigh. This may be one of the most personal things I've ever written on here, but it feels good to put my feelings to words. I am not necessarily worried about this change in myself, but I do worry that the trend will continue, further diminishing the value I have for anything.

Now I'd like to talk about one of my favorite words: "Badass."

Almost as ubiquitous as the F-word, Badass has so many wonderful applications.

As an adjective, it can simply act as a colorful synonym for "cool," "amazing," or "impressive."

That movie was BADASS!

As a noun, it refers more to somebody who is intimidating, powerful, or tough.

Sephiroth is such a badass...

I find myself using it all the time. I'll say it when someone tells me something that pleases me. Emphasis can make the word even stronger by inserting a pause in the middle and stretching out the vowels: "Baad Aass!" with a tone of sincerity or reverence.

And all of this from a word that, interpreted literally, means "butt cheeks of poor quality" or "a rear end up to no good." English is a crazy, crazy language.

Schadenfreude

according to German dictionary = "malicious joy"

according to English dictionary = satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.


Sorry I take so long to update this...

So the other day I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant enjoying a nice lunch. As entertainment I was treated to the chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between an American woman and her British boyfriend. They were having a very public, very awkward, relationship-ruining blowout conversation. She was, of course, louder... so I mostly heard her side of the fight, as did the rest of the bystanders who were sitting and occasionally making side-long glances of horror for literally 30 minutes. The things she was saying were so stereotypical I literally had to force myself from laughing out loud. But I did chuckle quietly to myself as she uttered a few classic phrases:

"How about you try living my life for 1 day!"

"Oh your life is SOO hard, poor you!"

"You have such an EGO problem. Eeeego! Eeeego!"

"I'm glad I kept part of myself back from you because I KNEW this would happen!"

"Don't TELL me to calm down!"

"Don't TELL ME TO LOWER MY VOICE!"

"You're doing this to me Here so I'm gonna throw it in your face in front of all these people."

"I don't CARE if I'm making a scene!"

"I can't believe I trusted you!"

At one point she got up from their table and came over to the kitchen/staff area and was asked, "Can I break this bill?" Meanwhile this poor Asian server lady was struggling to make sense of her frenzied, emotionally distraught English. She did not understand that by "break" our heroine meant "separate checks." Eventually an understanding was achieved. As the server went down to deliver the checks, she shot me a "knowing" glance to indicate how uncomfortable she was with the situation. I almost choked on my meal.

It is probably wrong of me to derive SO MUCH pleasure from the suffering of others (Schadenfreude) but I can't help it and I had to share it. So I figured I'd write a post about it. It was epic.


In other news... I have recently moved into a new apartment. It is much larger, cheaper, and more comfortable than my last apartment. I have only been here for a few days, but I am working on making it feel "home"-ish. My last place was far too sterile. This place is at least customizable, albeit not as posh as my previous abode. Whatever. I'm really happy with the change, and I feel like I'm finally beginning to settle in here.

My new pad also came with a bicycle! I have been riding it around and slowly remember how fun it is to ride a bike. I am also glad that it isn't one of those things that one can never forget how to do. It is great exercise and it allows me to travel much farther than my petty human legs alone could.

I also recently got an iPod, which I cannot believe I have been without for so long. Having music playing all the time is really a tremendous luxury.

Absolute Magnitude

I know I haven't written in a few weeks. While I am not sure if my three followers noticed my absence, I missed my own absence. I am actually writing this as a text file because I am currently somewhere over Canada, about to cross from Quebec airspace into Ontario airspace on my way in to Chicago O'Hare airport. More on this epic journey in a moment.

Last night, I spent a sleepless night in the InterCityHotel at the Frankfurt Airport. I stayed up all night (not really by choice) thinking of things that I wanted to write about. I have probably forgotten most of it by now since I've been awake for over 30 hours so far. But there are a few items that I do remember.

Billy's blog, especially when it involves people that I've known for almost 20 years, reminds me of things that would normally be filed neatly away in the memory banks. I want to talk a little bit about my senior year Government/Economics class taught by (1) Mrs. Salzman (or Mrs. Mosckowitz, as we first knew her). This all occured 9-10 years ago, so a lot of my memories sometimes feel as though they may as well be dreams that I had once, and tend to blur together. So instead of giving a narrative, I will just cover a few awesome highlights. I will not be includinig any last names to protect the innocent.

This class had an all-star cast of characters. In the U-shaped horseshoe of our classroom desk-configuration, one side was occupied by the following people, in a row: David, Jeremiah, Mike, myself, Cameron. If you know/knew any of these people, one could actually start to feel sorry for Mrs. Salzman.

I do not have the penchant for giving 20 nicknames to people. But this is about the time of the year that Jeremiah and Mike (and Matt J, right?) called each other "Bruce" just because it was ridiculous. So Bruce and Bruce were the best at pissing off our J-dating teacher. I wasn't bad either. But she knew that I actually liked her (true story, she really wasn't bad at all considering who she had to put up with daily. The name of the game was to see just how much one could get away with before getting a referral, or at least a good head-cocked, wide-eyed scolding from Suzy.

I never really paid attention, which is funny because I got the highest grade the Economics portion of the class and the subsequently useless "Honors" award. One day I was daydreaming and playing a game where I write the number of minutes until school was over (it was my last class of the day) on a piece of notebook paper and try to see if I can go 1 full minute without looking at my watch. Anyway, Suzy was lecturing and it was something about governmental authority. Her voice went like this in my head: "blablablabla blabla's Power is absolute." Upon hearing the word, I pumped my fist in the air and yelled at an inappropriate volume: "Absolut Vodka, Yeah!" The class waited about 1 full second before the laughter starting, earning the aforementioned look of death from Jared and Eric's Mom (Hell, one of them might have been there too, it was often the case...) Another time she openly mentioned her frustration with my behavior, to which I jumped up on a desk, jumped down to the floor and walked over and gave her a hug to diffuse her anger. She actually hugged me back, earning a wave of "Awwww"s and (as I like to think in my dream-like, exaggerated recollection) a few scattered bits of clapping.

Jeremiah was pretty good too. He earned my life-long respect by using the then-antiquated Apple LCIII classroom computer to "hack" into websites and would turn some off and on. Jeremiah and Mike fed off each other, mostly in trying to make David laugh (definitely a worthwhile endeavor though). One of my favorite memories is when Mike was "seperated" from the rest of us because of his shenanigens, which I believe followed a referral. Suzy and Mike definitely had a love/hate relationship. Anyway, one time Mike got in trouble without saying any words. In fact, it was Because he didn't say anything. He just stared at her with an slack-jawed guffaw on his face, unquivering. Smiling because it was part of the joke, but never laughing despite how much his peers were failing at trying not to chuckle. Upon being asked to stop making the face and to respond to her, Mike continued to stare until she blew her top. It was the most passive-aggressive thing I have ever seen in my life. He sat across the room for a week or more, trying desperate to get my attention (or David's) so he could perpetrate the same "I'm going to stare at you with this dumb grin until you crack" ploy against us. I think it ended with Mike coming back and sitting on our side and nobody ever saying anything about it. Maybe Mrs. Salzman was just tired of fighting when she knew she couldn't win. But then, both she and Mike had been known to make Katie F. cry (admittedly not a hard thing to do. Katie, if you ever read this, you know we love you but I am not lying).

But going back to Absolut Vodka... I also had Mr. Percival for astronomy that year. Considering that was my first major/real hobby/career path, I took it very seriously. I still remember some stars and the constellations and the rest is just a smattering of factoids. I think whenever we had a "constellation quiz" basically 2 tables of people would cheat blatantly off of me in front of Chap. Man, Chap and I deserve a seperate blog post. I'll try to remember.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Absolute Magnitude. You see, every star has both an Apparent and an Absolute Magnitude, ranging from -1 (the brightest star) all the way up into the 20s, with each number representing a difference of a power of ten (like the Richter-scale) to indicate how bright the star is. The Apparent magnitude is how bright a star "seems" to us here on Earth, simply. The Absolute magnitude is what the same star would be look if it were 10 light-years away from us. Therefore, a star that is really bright to us, and still much farther away than 10LY (as most stars are) would have a huge Absolute Magnitude.

I realize this is all probably pretty boring, so I guess I'll get to my point. I guess I have always hung on to this knowledge because I feel like it applies to more than just stars. I think one of the reasons that I always loved science was because it allows one to put things into order, whereas the rest of life is relatively disorderly. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to meet someone and be able to determine their intelligence, charisma or other character traits in both a subjective (apparent) and objective (absolute) frame of reference? You'd be able to size up people instantly. You'd be the best person at the party in terms of calling people on bullshit. Like that douchbag in Good Will Hunting, at the beginning, who was trying to impress Minnie Driver by spewing facts he had learned from a textbook. Then Matt Damon shows up and gives the biggest and most heroic intellectual smack-down ever, like we all wish we could do (whether or not we ever act on that wish) more than we get to.

Having crossed into United States (Michigan) airspace, I will start to wrap this up. I am currently on my way to my cousin's wedding in Kentucky. Before I get there, I will have taken 1 train, 3 flights (the one I am now is the trans-atlantic 9-hour hell), and I'll have spent the night in 3 hotels, obtained 1 rental car, and physically been in 4 States (Illinois, Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky) JUST to see my family for a couple of nights before heading back to Germany next Sunday. I am so tired. I cannot sleep on planes, something I always wish I could change about myself. I've been awake for so long, and don't get to Atlanta (my resting stop for the night) until around 4:45pm EST (five hours from now).

Remember now, everything has both an absolute and apparent magnitude, even if you yourself can't tell the difference.

Sexual War Stories

I decided that the title "Sexual War Stories" makes a catchy headline for a post. Thanks go to Billy Bauer for the suggestion. ("Bauer" = "Farmer" in German... seriously!)

Even those who have never watched 24 have heard of Jack Bauer, the ruthless counter-terrorism super agent. And no one is more American than Jack Bauer, except for maybe Billy Bauer. Think of them like the Baldwin brothers. Alec gets all the exposure, but you still see the others once and a while.

So, on to the Sexual War Stories. Actually, I am not going to write about my personal stories. It's not only crude and embarrassing, but also something that I find difficult to write about, least of all for an internet audience.

Instead, I will take a moment to dissect the sadly understated role that I believe sex plays in society. I'm definitely not the "free love" type of guy, having been (mostly) a serial monogamist in the history of my sexually-aware adult life. I've probably got more hang-ups than the average American guy. Some would say that I'm "picky," but it's more like "careful." Sex, or sexual attraction, is a vitally important spark to the beginnings of a relationship. It's something that no adult can adequately explain without the child being immediately grossed out and/or embarrassed because they find themselves in the middle of the archetypal "sex-talk" with their parents. It's something that we all wonder about from childhood until puberty. Then after we figure out the "point" during puberty, it's an awkward, fumbling race to find the real thing. And then after the first time, you're screwed (zing!), because now it's damn near impossible to imagine life without it.

Still, an impressive spectrum emerges from there. Some people only sleep with one person for their entire lives [and I kind of cry for you people] and some people are always bouncing around from one monogamous relationship to the next. Some people are swingers and others are in "open relationships." These last groups intrigue me, because it seems to me that a lot of (if not most) people are very sexually possessive of their partner. Why? Good question. Maybe it's genetic, maybe we just don't like to share... or maybe both? I don't know. Perhaps many people feel that it is the ultimate form of acceptance by another human being, and thus feel validated in themselves for having been so accepted. Of course... similar to food, drugs, and working out, it can also become an addiction. Maybe some of the lure of monogamy is that it provides the promise of regular sex (along with all the emotional stuff too, of course). That could be the motive for swingers too, but they prefer a wider selection as their vehicle for sexual self-validation.

Really, it's a fascinating part of humanity that most people are too shy to talk about. What a shame, because if we could understand it better, we might not all act so stupid in search of it.

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.

Tired?

So I was thinking about how we perceive the concept of being tired, exhausted, sleep-deprived, and so forth.

When you see someone in the morning (be it at school or work) and you ask how they are doing, they are invariably going to either say "I'm fine, how are you?" or "Oh, I'm just tired" if they cannot muster themselves to smile.

But what does that mean? To be honest, I really do not know that many people who would ever answer, "Oh, I am feeling very well-rested and ready to face this new day!" or anything even resembling those words.

And really, who is well-rested? I know many people who can sleep for 10-12+ hours and wake up and feel "tired."

So what does this mean? Well, I posit that it has several meanings. Having done this myself, I know there arise occasions when one cannot pretend to be happy when they are feeling down and "Oh, I'm just tired" becomes a rather strong yet subtle way of saying "I'm feeling bad, but I don't want to talk about it."

Or it can mean the person has been burning the candle at both ends and sleeping like 2 hours a night for a few days in a row.

Or it can imply that one is currently fed-up with something/someone/some situation. "I'm so tired of this/you/that." This can either be a sudden, frustrated exclamation "I'm tired of this movie," or a mental weariness that builds over time... like someone who stays in a bad relationship longer than they should "I'm sick and tired of how you ____."

Fuck, I'm almost always tired. When I was a little kid, the saddest part of my day was bed-time. I didn't want to stop whatever it was that I was doing. It's funny how things change as we grow older.

Fatigue is a vital part of our society. I am one of the only people I know that doesn't drink coffee or energy drinks. Sometimes I think that planes would fall out of the sky, power outages would ravage the world's power grids and governments would collapse without stimulants. There are 22 Starbucks in Berlin. Coffee is like cigarettes or alcohol, both the cause and solution of a self-contained problem... though certainly drinking a cup of coffee is far less self-destructive than smoking a cigarette or doing a shot of vodka. ...Right?

Fremdsprachen

(foreign languages)

As of today, I have been in Germany for 1 month. Though truthfully it feels like less than that. I want to write about languages in this post.

I wish that I had been a better student in elementary/middle/high school. I always just did the bare minimum to scrape by. I never paid attention in classes (with a few exceptions, like Mr. Percival's Astronomy class...) I didn't do homework, and put off projects and papers until the last minute. In my defense, I read a lot of books. But they were mostly science fiction or fantasy books, which somehow is less "legit" than reading Shakespeare or Dickens or Tolstoy. [Though I will never apologize for reading every single Piers Anthony book.]

I wish that I had taken Latin. If I had, I feel like learning German would be a lot easier. I think it is more than a little bit sad that most Americans are monolingual. I have written in the past about my experiences with languages. Pine View tried really hard to get us into languages. I took French there for what must have been 5 years, but don't really remember it. I hear they offer Arabic and Mandarin now, though I have yet to confirm that. I took Japanese over the summer when I was 14, but don't remember that either.

The bottom line is, despite exposure to Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese... I never bothered to see the advantages of knowing foreign languages. I sometimes feel like it is "too late" for me. Considering I started German (which I am determined to master) at the age of 24, I feel like a 3 year old toddler here, who can understand the majority of what I hear but cannot respond in kind. It's getting better though, and I've learned a lot over the past month.

At the moment, I've got friends living in S. Korea, Japan, France, and Ukraine. I know at least one of these people reads this blog consistently. I just wonder how long it really takes to achieve fluency, if it is even possible. I am in class with some people who have been learning German for 7-9 years, and thus feel like I am at a huge disadvantage. I can communicate better than I have ever been able to, but still feel like I am mangling my sentences, or forgetting words that I've learned a thousand times before.

This tone of this entry is beginning to smack of self-pity.

So I've been reading Der Vorleser (a.k.a. The Reader, made into a film w/ Kate Winslet) and it is the first full book that I have attempted to read, and so far I'm understanding most of what is going on. If I stop to look up every unknown word, it takes me 15 minutes to read a page, so I just gloss over and try to glean the meaning from the context. It's pretty exciting to me, though the actual story isn't mind-blowing, that I am even able to read to the level that I can.

Speaking of Pine View, our 10 year reunion (if we're having one?) is next year. I often find myself wondering what has been going on for the past 9 years. I went to college [more than once], I've been in relationships, both serious and less-serious. I've made and lost friends, lived in a few different apartments, worked a few jobs. I wonder if my fellow Classmates of the year 2000 ever feel the same as I do. Though I have seen many of these people since 2000, there are those that I have not seen since the night we graduated. I wonder what those people look like now, and what they are doing.

And now I find myself here, in a city that is currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of a wall that divided the city (/country/continent) from 1961-1989. I am still beyond happy to be here. I have a future plan, which I am sure will continually change, but that's alright with me.

I wonder how many people actually read this... If you are a regular reader, you should "follow" this blog so I can know how large my audience truly is. I would probably be inclined to update more often if I knew that people are reading these ramblings.

Nebel der Zukunft

(Fog of the Future)

I really have been meaning to write an entry for some time. I am sorry that I haven't, because I've had a few good ideas that I wanted to write down... but they always fade before I get back to my computer.

I arrived safely in Berlin on Friday the 2nd. With the help of a friend who happened to be in Berlin that weekend, I managed to find my apartment. For those of you who know Berlin at all, I am staying in Mitte. Fischerinsel to be precise. The closest U-Bahn station is Märkisches Museum on the U2-line (2 stops away [or 10 minutes by foot] from Alexanderplatz). There is an Edeka grocery store directly beneath me, in the same building... which is absurdly convenient. Except, of course, on Sundays... when basically everything is closed. I am not sure I will ever fully adjust to this aspect of German society. At least most items can be obtained at kiosks and in major stations, though.

My course began last Tuesday. They placed me into the C1 level, which is where I want to be. The classes are fun, sometimes difficult (if not very difficult) sometimes not. It is a very different experience than the summer program I went to last year. New students come and go each week. And instead of 1 teacher, we have 3 that rotate depending on the day of the week and time of day.

On the first day, they were showing a PowerPoint presentation showing certain highlights of Berlin. Unfortunately, I had already seen all of these things before. It gave me a certain feeling of snobbery, like I was better than those 28 kids who were visiting from Nebraska (no offense Nebraskaners!) even though I have the advantage of being here for the 5th time, as well as 2.5ish years of relatively intense Deutsch in classrooms, both in Florida and here in Germany...

But the Nebraskans stick to themselves. As do the french-speaking kids from Switzerland. It's all very clannish. It kind of reminds me of prison gangs, where everyone keeps with their own kind. So here I am, the miscellanious American from Florida. The only one who has actually finished my college degree, my purpose here is totally different. I am not pursuing credits, I simply need to improve my skills so that I might do well on the all-important TestDaF. I have been informed that the test consists of 4 parts: speaking, listening, reading and writing-- with heavy emphasis placed on the speaking portion. This could prove to be a problem if my German doesn't exponentially improve over the next few months. The test is graded on a 1-5 scale. I need to get a 4 or a 5 to get into the Universität I want to go to (Actually, I haven't decided which of the 2 major Berliner Unis I'd prefer to attend... Needless to say I'm going to apply to them both).

So, I am without a clique or circle of friends, or even a partner in crime or a wingman. I wish that were not the case, but in a way I am also glad. I am getting to know myself [so cliché, i know] pretty well... as is often the case when one is alone most of the time. And more importantly, I am attempting to be okay with being alone. I just prefer surrounding myself with constant mental stimuli, and have found that conversation is the best form of this stimilation.

It does not help that the sun goes down at 3:30pm every day. That is, if it even comes out. Sometimes we just have 6 hours of "graylight" [coined that myself!] per day and no sun. I guess this is just some form of climate-shock... having come from Florida. I am learning to think in metric and other european systems of measure. For example, it warmed up to 0 degrees Celsius this past weekend, up from about -7 during the days.

Even the river is frozen. I took a picture because I couldn't believe it. It was just so hot here last summer. I suppose my problem is that I am not accustomed to seasons. But, I'm glad to be experiencing them now. I think that my appetite has tripled since I got here. I think my body is trying to hibernate. Seriously. I get tired very early.

All in all, I am adjusting well... but still have a ways to go. I still cannot quite believe that I live here. I have not yet obtained my visa, so I hope that I motivate myself to deal with that soon.

I have seen a whole host of very good movies lately: Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Towelhead and Seven Lives... to name a few.

I miss home in a very abstract way. People will send me messages talking about how they were driving past my old apartment and it made them miss me. Or I will think about my cat and how he is doing. But, these thoughts fade quickly in a fast-paced city like this one.

I think the best advice I can give to myself is to stop seeking self-validation through the approval and affections of others, but instead to seek it within myself. That way, the approval/affection of others would just be an added buttress to my psyche.

Guten Rutsch!

I am in the town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg, in Germany. Today is New Year's Eve, known to the Germans as "Silvester." I've been here since Sunday, and have had a great time so far. I must admit, I still feel as though I am on vacation and not actually living here. I suppose it will take some weeks for that reality to sink in.

On Friday I am taking the train an hour north to Berlin, and moving into my new place. This will have the advantages of internet, privacy and not being forced to live out of my backpack.

I can't get used to how the sun only really shines from 9:30 to 4pm, and even then it never gets very high in the sky. It's like living in Alaska or something. Maybe I am too equatorial from living in Florida too long.

Tonight should be fun. Germans are only allowed to purchase and use fireworks and other pyrotechnics on December 30th & 31st. So, naturally they make the most of it. At least that's how it was last year.

I still haven't established a good sleep schedule, though it's only been a few days. I'm guessing it will take a few more days. I keep waking up at 2, 4 & 5am. This will serve me somewhat well when language classes begin next Monday at 9am.

I've been following the Israel/Gaza madness. I wonder if they will ever stop slaughtering each other. So far it's been 4-5 days and almost 400 Palestinians are dead. Probably more based on how many are "missing."

I've been reading some mass-market spy-action-thriller book by a guy named Vince Flynn. It's really entertaining. Like "24," if it were a book. Picked it up for 50% off at the Sarasota airport before I left.

I've got to go grocery shopping before it closes (early, like noon) today and remains closed until Friday.

I will likely be updating this more often now that I am "abroad."

Change I can believe in

So I am currently sitting on the couch in my mother's home in Sarasota, FL. I arrived here yesterday after days of packing up my apartment in Tallahassee, FL. I will keep this part of the rant short, but basically I feel the act of "moving" to be one of the most strenuous and difficult tasks to do. Partly this is because I am a notorious pack-rat, and had not thrown anything away since my first apartment when I was 19 years in 2001.

I ended up throwing away a great deal of detritus this time. Everything from college notebooks to my 2004 "Employee of the Month" certificate from when I worked at Blockbuster Video. Jesus. What the hell compelled me to keep such a thing? There's more, of course. Letters, notes, papers, pamphlets, movie ticket-stubs, the list goes on and on. Mainly, when all was said and done, I kept my books, my DVDs, some clothes (though I donated 6 garbage bags full of clothing to Goodwill, along with most of my other meaningless possessions [plates, towels, blankets... essentially everything I DIDN'T keep]). I sold all of my video games and systems for $222 cash, which was awesome. I gave away half of my furniture, my television, bookshelves, chairs.

Ridding oneself of most material items is marvelously liberating, to be quite honest.

Besides, I couldn't take it to Germany when I leave here [in FOUR days], and don't want to store it all somewhere. Just isn't worth it.

The hardest thing to do was to give up my cat, Merle. I had him for over six years, after rescuing him from a dumpster near my first apartment in 2002. It was particularly cold that year, and he was very young and thin. I gave him to a couple in Tallahassee who work for an international environmental law firm. When I left their apartment after saying farewell to my feline, I felt like someone had just shot my son in front of my eyes. I know that may sound ridiculous, but I had more trouble saying goodbye to Merle than to any human I've said goodbye to so far. I take comfort in the fact that he isn't dead, and will spend the latter half of his life in a loving home with people who have the means to take care of him. Plus, they promised to send pictures once and a while, which will help.

So, I am going to Germany on Saturday (landing Sunday the 28th) for an indeterminate amount of time. It could be a few months, or a few years (though much more likely to be the latter). I have written about this before, I know. I have been spinning my wheels, lost in a haze of boredom, apathy and loneliness for the past 5 months since I returned from Germany last time. A college graduate who is simply that. A 26-year old with a piece of paper saying that I'm smart enough to finish a four-year degree at a state university. Finally, I am moving abroad. To me this is the ultimate lifestyle change. I feel that this change is one that I need more than anything else since I moved to Tallahassee in 2006. Sure, there are plenty of things for me to be apprehensive about, but at this point I am just looking forward to believing in myself, in life, in my future once more.

For the very few of you who read this: Expect more frequent entries upon departure/arrival.

"For your Technology..."

I was born in 1982. Back in the late 80's, almost no one had cutting edge technology. Rich people had "car phones," an early car-based predecessor to the cell phone. Anybody remember those? What about cordless phones? Intercom systems in large houses? Projection-TVs? I mean, my first computer (in 2nd grade) had no hard drive, and amongst other hilarious specifications, ran at about 1 MHz and had 64 KILObytes of RAM.

I've seen technology improve, as has everyone else. Everyone is always talking about how crazy it is that little children have cell phones and iPods now. It's relative, though. I didn't have my own cell-phone until 2003, when I was 20 years old. I remember discovering what SMS even was, before it dominated the commercial/social/political zones of human interaction. Now I text people more often than I call them.

In the late 1990s, I had a Skytel pager because all the cool kids had pagers. It was like the precursor to the cell phone. My mom refused to buy me one for the longest time because she purported that only drug dealers and doctors used pagers. She still uses hers. I remember getting a "teen line"-landline installed in the house because between myself, my younger sister, and my mother's constant need for telephoning, our single landline wasn't enough. I am the oldest child, so the new phone/phoneline went in my room. I was so stoked. I was 13. (1995)

It got better in 1996, when, at age 14, we got AOL 3.0 for Windows 95. I had a 28.8 Kb/s modem and I was online all the damned time. It was novel and new, I was chatting with people across the country. These things are all absolutely commonplace to society now. But now I can video-call someone anywhere in the world for free, if we both have a webcam and an internet connection.

Before high school ended, cable modems began to enjoy popularity/affordability in homes, and suddenly surfing the web was like watching television. Dial-up modems have become relics in less than a decade. My point with all of this ranting is... what's next?

Touch-screen, wireless internet PDA/MP3 player/digital-camera phones are the now the NORM. Bluetooth headsets still make people look like douche-bags, but they aren't as surprising as they were a year or two ago. I guess I'm just saying, that the technological growth curve has been like that of the human population explosion. Is there a ceiling?

Artificial hearts and bionic prosthetics and stem-cell research... Science and technology will continue to move forward, and I am excited to see what new toys emerge for all of society's business, educational and status symbolic needs.

By 2020, you won't be cool amongst your peers unless you have the Playstation 5 and implants in your corneas to both read email and project your presentations. Is there a point where it becomes ridiculous? Maybe. Personally, I can't wait for affordable space tourism and massive robot armies for wealthy, technologically developed nations.

Deutschland und ich...

So, in 2005, I obtained my A.A. degree from Manatee Community College in Bradenton, FL. In celebration, my current girlfriend & I went to Europe in celebration. I saw 10 countries in 5 weeks. In retrospect, it was probably too ambitious... With only a few days in each country, most of the trip was spent on trains (countless), planes (3), ferries (2) and a Chunnel. The upside is that I can say that I saw, in slightly more than 1 month:

Anne Frank's House
Amsterdam's Red Light District
The Van Gogh Museum
what remains of the Berlin Wall
The Brandenburg Gate
Checkpoint Charlie
The St. Vitus Cathedral in the Prague Castle
The Concentration Camp "Theresienstadt"
Heroes Square in Budapest
The Buda Castle on the Danube
The Acropolis and corresponding Parthenon
The Greek Islands while crossing the Ionian Sea by ferry to Italy
The Colloseum
The Vatican
The Trevi Fountain
St. Mark's Square and the nearby canals of Venice.
The world's biggest Toblerone bar (4.5 kg) in a chocolate shop in Bern, Switzerland, and the surrounding Alps
The Eiffel Tower
The Louvre
The Arc De Triomphe
Big Ben
Buckingham Palace
and Dublin.

By Dublin, I was too tired and travel-weary to do much of anything, which is a shame. That is one of the reasons I am making Ireland a top spot on my "List of Countries to Re-visit."

But this post is not going to be about my European adventures in the summer of 2005.

It's about the 2nd destination of my trip: Berlin, and Germany.

The first thing I noticed about it was how clean it was. I have been to NYC and Boston and other huge cities... but Berlin was/is the cleanest I've experienced. The language intrigued me too, though I couldn't understand any of it. I had never been very good with languages, despite the machinations of my mother (who sent me to a language summer camp at Duke when I was 14 years old to study Japanese). I took the minimum requirements at my high school in French, (ending in 9th grade with French II). I took 1 semester of Spanish at MCC and got an A, but didn't care.

When I got to FSU, I was told that I would have to take 3 levels of a language to get my B.A. degree. My advisor advised me to sign up for Spanish II, as I had already started studying Spanish at MCC. But I said, "What if I want to take a different language, instead?" He was baffled. "Why would you want to start over?," he asked. Why? Fuck Spanish, that's why! I hold no grudge against Hispanics, Latinos, Mexicans, Spaniards, Central Americans, Puerto Ricans, or the team of underpaid non-English speaking immigrants with whom I work. But, I have been to Mexico, and I don't really want to go back. The place is depressing. And the parts of Mexico that aren't depressing, drip with the venom of consumer luxury tourism.

Spain, however, is on my "List of Countries to Visit."

Thus, I began my career in FSU's German Department. The head of the department actually wrote the book that we used in German I and II. Her last name is Adolph. {insert remark on coincidence or irony here} She is an American national who got her PhD in German and married a German dude a long time ago (he was also one of my teachers, a computer geek whose class consisted of me creating this website).

Because of the lack of spots in the meager amount of Elementary German 1 classes offered, I could not start until my 2nd semester at FSU, in the summer of 2006. Elementary German II followed in Fall of '06, and German III in the Spring of '07. Finally, the language barrier in my mind had been torn down. Despite finishing the University's requirement of 3rd level competency, I decided to push it a step further and make German my Minor. (Behind History as my Major, with which I focused mostly on German studies -- even in my "U.S. Civil War" class, for which I wrote my major research paper for the class on 'the effects of German Immigrants from the failed Revolutions of 1848 in Europe' had on the war.)

The Minor required 12 credits (4 courses) BEYOND the first three levels. I took the website/computer class in the summer of 2007.

During the 3 weeks in between Summer07 - Fall07 semesters, I went back to Europe for the 2nd time. I was in a quaint little town called Lutherstadt Wittenberg where the Protestant Reformation began almost 500 years ago (9 years until 2017, when it will have been 500 years since Luther nailed his '95 Theses' to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.)

That was the first time I had traveled alone, and it was 3 weeks in 1 place instead of 10 places in 5 weeks. Obviously, a completely different experience. I was in class all day Monday-Friday. I made friends, both native Germans and other foreigners like myself. I never spoke English, because nobody really knew much of it. I revisited Berlin for a day, unaware that I would be staying over twice as long in the following summer (this summer, 2008) in most bad-ass capital I've ever been to.

Nevertheless, that is when I fell in love with the place.

I applied for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, which was -in itself- a worthwhile endeavor, and ultimately I was named as "an alternate," which really meant "Sorry, you're on the standby list buddy." I did not get the fellowship, but I did not let that stop me from going back.

After 7 courses, and over 2 full years of study (including my study abroad experience in August of '07, for which I received no college credit), I signed up for a 6 week semi-Intensive course at the Freie Universität Berlin. Aside from having the best summer of my lifetime thus far, I also realized that at this point, it was no longer a choice. Germany was in my future, no matter what.

I've heard inspirational sayings to the effect of: "If you want something badly enough, you can make it happen."

Well, it's happening... in 42 days.

I am leaving America (in good hands) for an indeterminate amount of time, with plans to eventually return. I hope to take the TestDAF (Deutsch als Fremdsprache or "German as a foreign language") on April 22nd, 2009. Between the beginning of January through the test date, I will be in intense language classes to prepare myself for study at a German University (hopefully one in Berlin!) with the eventual goal of obtaining a Master's Degree.

Sadly, now that we are talking about the future, I cannot say what will happen. But, I'm optimistic.

Lastly, I will say that the past 4 months following my return to America have -for the most part- sucked. I appreciate and love my family and friends but...

...the idea of giving up/temporarily leaving everything I own, including my cat, car, friends, family and culture, seems like the best thing that I can do for myself. I am elated. I am excited, and I am terrified.

Weighing In

I realize that I have not updated this in a few years. The initial purpose of this blog was to be more of a journal + movie review site. The new theme may be different to former readers. And with that, my first new post:


I'm not a socialist, per se. I have studied the history of the USSR, and I know it doesn't work. We will not become a communist state. It just won't happen.

Germany, however, IS a social welfare state, tuition is free, as is a trip to the hospital. They compensate by paying higher taxes. They also get like 6 weeks of vacation per year.

But despite the fact that capitalism may have "made this country great," it comes with a heavy price. The wall street corruption/collapse is a direct by-product of overzealous capitalists. Maybe we should try something else, this time. America's problem is that we all spend what we don't have. I think we owe China like $1,000,000,000. That's what... $1000 for every Chinese citizen?

John McCain keeps talking about the middle class. And I ask myself... WHAT middle class? Everyone I know is either well-to-do, or very poor and drowning in debt from student loans and credit cards and NOW are unable to find a job with the education they borrowed so much money to pay for. It's disgusting.

The "liberal elite media" is The Media. The hardcore right has to hide under the least popular news network (Fox) and the AM radio waves. And forget national newspapers. The notion of "change" is something that people can hold on to, and journalists reflect the voices of the people, and themselves. Right, Olbermann? Right, Limbaugh?

I know Obama won't save the world. But McCain/Palin would further ostracize America from an increasingly globalized international community. We are still a very powerful nation, of course, but it's time that we learned our real place in the world. It depresses me that European children who are half my age can speak 4 or more languages, and I'm struggling with two.

I don't delude myself into thinking my words will change your mind. Rather, I just want you to see my perspectives. My op-ed, if you will.

"Feelin' a bit betrayed, Black Sunday still burns you in my thoughts"

...i love COLD's lyrics

It's been over a month since i've updated? Jesus. I'm sure nobody really read this anyway... But,

I'M GOING TO SEE THE DEFTONES AUGUST 1st AT FLOYD'S! FUCK YEAH! i have never seen them live before, and $25 aint bad. Thanks go to James B (aka Urzu8).

It's been a long month... saw my entire KY family, which was incredible, as usual.

James M (aka Griffith) is returning to us on August 7th. Can't wait.
I have 3 weeks off of school in August. Thank fucking god.

Summer full of memories had, and memories yet to be created. *wistful sigh* fun time to be alive, i say...

Fall will be easier. German is a hard language, dammit.

*commence Sammy v2.0*