Journals

So every day we are required to write journals. I just pounded these three out, because in my worry to try to finish my environmental paper I forgot to do these. These are pretty basic and probably incredibly poorly written, but in case you care....

I will post an update regarding the amazing couchsurfing party I went to last night, where I met a lot of cool Berliners. It was awesome.

Here is to procrastination!... and here are the journals.

5 Juni 2009
Heute werde ich mit einer Freundin von mir mich treffen. Sie ist ausgezeichnet. Sie hat mich zu dem Ball ihres Gymnasiums mitgebracht, so meine ich, dass man sagen kann, dass wir eine kleine Geschichte habe—aber es gab keine... wie sagt man das, Erfolge. Aber bisher ist sie eine gute Freundin von mir, die gerade in Paris studiert hat. Während des Jahrs, studiert sie bei USC (leider), aber sie ist sehr, sehr intelligent und freundlich. Dazu ist sie in Berghain, der größte Klub mindestens in Berlin ist, gegangen! Berghain ist sehr wählerisch, und ich glaube, dass weil ich noch nicht heiß genug bin, ich nicht betreten kann.

6 Juni 2009
Ich habe nicht so viel heute gemacht. Zum Beispiel habe ich um ein Uhr am Mittag aufgewacht, und dann habe ich geforscht um meine Umwelthausarbeiten morgen zu schreiben. Aber weil ich natürlich fast keine Motivation habe, habe ich so viel Zeit im Internet gedauert. Weil die Graduation meines Gymnasiums heute ist, habe ich ein guter Freund von mir graduieren gesehen. Es gab eine neue Livesendung im Internet, indem man diese Graduation sehen kann. Ich bin stolz auf ihn.

7 Juni 2009
Heute könnte besser gewesen sein. Obwohl ich früh aufgestanden habe um Frühstuckbuffet zu essen, bin ich nach dem unglaublich müde. Vielleicht ist der Grund, dass wenn ich normalerweise gerade fertig mit Essen bin, ich immer müde werde. Der internationale Designfestival ist in Berlin dieses Wochenende gewesen, und ich bin mit Becca und Brian Howald dahin gegangen. Wir haben schönsten Ausstellungen und spannenden Produkte, aber nach diesem Trip muss ich so viele Hausaufgaben machen. Diese Umwelthausarbeiten ist am schlechtesten....

Mein Geburtstag, und der nächste Tag

The big 20. My host-mother called me old. Jokingly, but damn I do feel old. Though I guess it is one pretty important thing I've learned here in Germany--that worry is waste.

It was a great day. Just a regular day, where I had two classes, hung out with some friends, made some phone calls, got a tasty Indian food dinner, and then finished the day at my home with my host family, with whom I indulged some cake. They also bought me a pretty amazing Berlin cap and pretty comfy sandals--you know, the kind that says BERLIN BERLIN BERLIN BERLIN BERLIN BERLIN all over it, with an off-colored berlin once in a while. Whoever came up with that design must be making bank right now.

Everything is winding down. In a week at 10:05 from Berlin Tegel, I am beginning an epic journey back to Chicago. And that will mark the end of this study abroad quarter. How it flew by. What the fcuk.

In about an hour and a half, the Bings are sponsoring a grill party, where all our host families are invited and we can have time and food to enjoy with each other! I plan on staying in tonight, working hard and finishing up a lot of my environmental paper... and then ready to plan my awesome weekend. There is an Umweltfestival, or Environmental Festival in the city this Sunday, and I really want to rent a bike and ride around with people. That should be sick. Also, there's a design festival going on... and a bunch of partying is to be had before I go (albeit temporarily).

Und für jetzt ist das alles!

AND... I didn't do anything wreckless

Today was fantastic. Class was... what it was, not too tough. We got out of German class 30 minutes early, and so I cooked my lunch of ramen (mushroom flavored) with a fried egg on top (delicious), folded my laundry, and headed out for an entire day in Berlin.

I started at a stop away from where my uncle lives (though he is currently in Indonesia) and walked... pretty damn far. I discovered this humongous park by his house which has a Freiluftkino, or Open air theatre which plays movies at 9:45 every night for the entire summer. Auf Deutsch. I'm actually really excited to go to these.... and yeah. Awesome.

There are an unbelievable number of tasty food joints, cheap ice cream cafes, and other unreasonably cool things around my Uncle's apartment. Kreuzberg really is pretty damn cool. I walked around for maybe three miles in my flippy-floppies today, causing some minor blisters... but the 50 cent investment in an apple and Brötchen totally made things way better.

I walked by several tasty Vietnamese restaurants, and have finally decided that there are really enough good Asian food places to keep me afloat. I love the Wurst, but I also love the rice--an affinity and habit I expect to stay with me the rest of my life.

I killed a lot of time walking in directions that I think I will eventually need to recognize given that I'm working around that area during the summer, and then killed some more time looking through souvenirs to get people for my kleine Pause (small break) in den USA (in the USA). I was mostly unsuccessful. So it went.

To my pleasant surprise I stumbled upon a brand new vietnamesische und japanische Restaurant, so everything had a 20% discount! And it was "SOOO GOOOD." Srsly.

I decided it was late enough to attempt to wait in line to get into the Reichstag, the Parliament of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany), on which a glass dome rests. People can walk up the glass dome and stare down into the Parliament chamber, where the government makes the rules, to symbolize the transparency of the German government. It's pretty fantastic. There is so much about the German system that I really find fascinating.

We learned in German class the other day about how the German vote for Parliament works. Every can vote for certain people running in their district, their so-called erste Stimme (first vote), and their zweite Stimme (second vote) goes NOT to a single person, but to a party. From every district, the candidate with the highest percentage gets a direct route to Parliament, but at the end of the day there is also a certain % distribution of the votes of the entire country.

From this percentage, the REST of the Parliament is filled. For example, if the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) gets 50% of the vote, but only has 20% of the Parliament filled with its candidates who got directly elected, that means that it can fill up the other 30% with its candidates from it's LIST. The list is a ranking of candidates' right to enter the party in order to fill up this extra percentage, and this list is available to the public while voting. In other words, the party can choose to put really smart people, not necessarily just smart talkers or smoozing politicians, in high places on this list, and then hope that these smart people can get in.

I was talking to my host-brother about this, and he said that a lot of TEACHERS and PROFESSORS actually enter politics--and that the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel used to be a Professor--as well as the Minister for the Environment, incidentally.

In all, it was a fantastic day which followed a fantastic weekend in Madrid. I learned so much about the Spanish lifestyle. Mealtimes are almost nonexistent breakfast, a 2PM brunch, and a 10PM dinner. Isn't that ridiculous? The Stanford students there are on a language pledge, and are more "immersed" in the "native culture" than we are--but I've decided that they are merely different programs to serve different purposes. The lessons I've learned--managing time, living alone, how to keep myself preoccupied, how to travel smart, how to cook for small groups of people, how to shop smart, how to live in a big city, and how to be myself OUTSIDE of the Stanford (in palo alto) bubble--these are priceless.

Oh, and what I did in Berlin? I ate a LOT. Patatas Bravas are my new favorite spanish snack--well, tortillas are pretty damn tasty too. What a great trip. An amazing way to top off my traveling ventures this quarter.

I look forward to couch surfing during the summer, and I really hope I get around to it!

Anywho, that is all for now. Thanks for reading all of this (that even includes you, person who calls me "baby boy" even though I deeply detest it.)

German, Environmental Paper, Reimbursements, transition, and fitting in the last tidbits of culture into this fantastic adventure.

Tomorrow night, the plan is to ride the Ring Bahn around, with iPods, silent dance parties, and some German beverages. It will be the night before our final German exam, which I'm not TOO worried about.

Today I stayed up and did my first whole day of work. I read a lot, wrote a lot, and honestly it was pretty nice. I felt good... being with myself, hanging out, doing what I wanted to do, reading what I wanted to read. It was fantastic. To think that last year around this time, I could barely stand being alone...

It's raining cats and dogs outside, quite loudly, and I hope that subsides by tomorrow. I plan on getting up in 7 hours or so to head to the Reichstag, the historic Parliament building, in which I can just wander around and go up to the glass dome up top. The glass dome symbolizes the transparency with which the German government wants to have, and this idea of transparency manifests itself in all the architecture in the so-called "governmental quarters," which includes buildings where the Chancellor works, where members of Congress work, etc.

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So I just woke up, and it appears that I stopped this post halfway... through. That's probably why it ends abruptly.

Warum--warum nicht?

It's early Sunday morning, after an otherwise fantastic day. After an amazing Birthday for the Republic of Germany, I had a fantastic dinner and an amazing night with some friends.

At this point of the quarter, I'm not sure how to feel. Incredibly happy, accomplished, relaxed, regretful, depressed: These are all of the feelings I've felt over the past two days, all of which I have tried to attempt to reconcile with my life plan. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one--except I do know that some way, somehow, I want to be happy. Viel Glück, as I would tell myself....

After some cards and some tasty dinner, tonight was relaxing. Some of my friends and I are going to the Spreewald tomorrow to go kayaking, which should be a ton of fun.

But even with that in mind, it's been an hour since I've been home and haven't even been close to finding a way to sleep. After making several bad decisions tonight, involving seeing how some of my friends were doing, I learned that perhaps that the decisions I have made over the past year and a half have in fact NOT maximized my happiness. That in fact, they have created unnecessary anxiety, needless angst, and unfortunate amounts of insecurity which is altogether just not very healthy, either for a student or anyone else.

I don't know what to feel or think. I do know that I wish that somehow, I could escape my negative cognitive schema during times like these to convince myself, like I do most of the time, that things are spectacular and all will be well.

As someone said very well on the episode of "This American Life" which I was listening to while I was on the U-Bahn today: Shit.

HERZLICHEN GLÜCKWUNSCH ZUM GEBURTSTAG, BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND

So... today is the birthday for the Federal Republic of Germany. Isn't that fantastic? Supposedly there's going to be a huge party extending down Unter den Linden, arguably the widest street in Berlin that passes through the Brandenburg Tor (Gate). I'm excited. I know the title of the post was misleading, but.. yes, I am pretty excited.

This place is fantastic. I love Berlin. Today, after going to a museum in which objects from the 1200s to the present were held and seeing more arm bones of Saints that I would've like to see in a lifetime, I had some quiche, ice cream, listened to some of "This American Life" (my new favorite podcast, now that I have time to kill while waiting for trains on the U-Bahn or S-Bahn), took a nap, and then watched the German Ballet "Schneewitchen," or "Snow White." It was absolutely fantastic. My favorite ballet for sure. The dancing was great, interesting set, fantastic costumes, and really... intense. It wasn't 'til recently that I remembered that the witch is actually given shoes which force her to dance herself to death....

Afterwards, we headed back toward a friend's house for some fun German Brettspielen (board games). We played Monopoly, IN GERMAN, with German street names... and man that was fantastic. I got the rush of all rolling dice, landing on property, playing with money, and negotiating properties--all of which I've learned from family board game nights, during which we spent probably at least a hundred hours playing Monopoly, dealing, rolling, and one game lasted a week. My sister and I would run into my parents bedroom at 9AM, wake them up, and force them to roll while they were half asleep. I would shove the dice into my dad's relaxed hand, let them fall out, and call that his "roll." Those were the days....

Anyway, I can't believe I'm only here for... less than three weeks. Time flies. Tempus fugit. Zeit fliegt.

Bis nächste mal,
Charton

Schon Woche Sieben?

Already Week Seven!? I can't believe how quickly my Berlin time is flying away. Tempus fugit. Zeit fliegen. Stimmt.

I'm at the center now, just waiting around for my two friends to get out of their language class so we can buy clothes for our "Special Dinner" on a boat in Berlin this Thursday. It is a holiday, so we have no classes, and instead we have planned a trip with dinner on a boat around the rivers in Berlin. It should be fantastic.

I'm a little bit sad that my German is still just OK after this long, but it's not surprising since I am not meeting as many Germans as I would like. Little over a week ago, my friend Ellen and I gave our former RA a surprise call, and he told us that he met lots of Germans via his German girlfriend whom he met in Germany. What a great idea.

My Sprachpartnerin unfortunately broke her leg, and it's, well, tough to get her to come out. I'd feel guilty, and otherwise we can just cook. Which is fine, but I really need to go out and see more of the city.

Recently I've been really getting excited for a) spending the last amazing couple weeks here, b) going home for a little bit, and c) seeing my Stanford friends for a day or so when I come visit during June. It's a healthy progression of things to look forward to.

This past weekend I went to London with two fellow Kairos-ites, and we ate a lot of delicious Indian food, saw the typical touristy things, and listened to some intense conversations around Speakers Corner in Hyde Park. People have some crazy ideas. I listened to some guy who believed that AIDS was concocted by "white people" to kill of "black people," citing how such a widespread virus could only be having devastating effects in Africa. Really? We lingered around, listening to religious fanatics discuss the credibility of their respective Holy books, and the dysfunctional political system of Africa and how that compares with the EU and the US.

I learned once again how little I know about everything, and realized how much of the day I spend not informing myself via readings and other things. I also learned that in order to fix all of these problems, I probably should learn something technical. I think I'm going to take 19/20 units in the fall to finally decide what I want to do with my life, and then narrow down my field of study. Hopefully among ME203, ECON50, and CS106X, I'll be able to determine what I want to do with my life. Aim high?

My good friend Patrick told me once, "Shoot for the stars. Even if you miss, you will land on the moon." I once thought that was a funny statement. Aim high, and even if you miss you'll land a slightly lower platform, given that platform exists and given that landing on the lower platform is desirable. I don't know. Come to think of it, he used to be one of the few people who used to read the blog that I wrote in my middle-age, pubescent youth. I guess what I'm trying to say is, perhaps the statement should be aiming anywhere at all will lead you somewhere, whether you expected or not.

These posts always degenerate from summary, to a brief lesson I learned, to random things that Charlton worries about.