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.