California Blue Fox

I believe I've already gone on at sufficient length about this dormitory I'm staying in, and how glad I am to leave, so I won't rehash that. But if I restate the obvious, it's because some things can't be said enough. In this case, the wisdom is this: A bad situation is always going to try to take a bite out of you as you're walking out the door. Fortunately there hasn't been any huge problem, but I definitely haven't changed my mind about this place. There were two things, and they both happened yesterday, as I was packing and cleaning.
The first was pretty shocking. I got a telephone call from my bank, saying that the account I had closed two days before now had a negative balance. It turns out the last half-month's rent had been withdrawn automatically (they don't let you pay in cash) yesterday, two days before I leave the country and two days after I had closed my bank account. It gave me quite a scare, but it looks like everything is going to work out--the rent was paid, and the bank people were very helpful and kind about it--I'll be heading down there today to give them back some of the money I withdrew on Friday. If it doesn't go so well, then... you'll hear about it soon enough. But it definitely could have been worse. Let me count the ways.
The most probable situation, I thought, would have been the same thing that happened when the rent was paid the first time after I got here, before I got my stipend. It was not paid, that is, and I received a letter from the bank and from the dorm saying that no money had changed hands and I had better have enough in the bank next month for two month's rent. Which was okay at the time, but if it had happened now I don't know what I would have done. I might have been able to pay in cash, but otherwise I would be up a creek with no bank account, and leaving the country in two days. And if they simply sent me a letter instead of calling, I might have never received the letter.
Another possibility is that I could have wired the money to my Bank of America account when I closed the account, instead of withdrawing it in cash. In that case there would have definitely been no way of getting the money back in two days, so I think my only recourse would be to transfer some back, and communicate by email with everyone involved, trying to get the money where it belonged. Not fun--and I don't even know if the bank tellers have my email address.
In either of these cases, I should note, my phone could very well not have worked at all. I have less than one Euro of credit on my phone, and a few stray text messages could have emptied that completely, and I might not have heard from the bank at all. As I said I don't know if they have my email address, and I don't think this dorm is going to be forwarding my mail, so as soon as I left I would be completely off the radar. Not scot free, I should add--they do have my passport number. I wonder what would have happened then...
Anyway, it should work out fine. I'd better be getting over to the bank pretty soon. But there was a second thing. I actually wasn't going to mention it, at first, because it could have been just me interpreting ambiguous stimuli in weird ways. But... it wasn't. :(
As I was doing my laundry yesterday, I had to keep walking up and down the four flights of stairs to the laundry room. I must have gone up and down six times (the dryer took way too long to finish, and didn't have any indications about the time, so I had to keep guessing). And each time, there was a janitor somewhere on the stairwell (the same janitor), and he would say hello every time, and stare at me without smiling, with his mouth open just a little bit. I took this as creepy, and questioned his mental faculties (not out loud), but as I said, I wasn't going to mention it, because this sentence on its own just makes me sound intolerant. But... then on the way up the stairs today, he said something more than hello. I'm not sure what he said, entirely, but one thing was unmistakable. "I won't bite." And then he finally smiled.

I think if I didn't have to get to the bank today, I would just stay in my room. But as it is I'm going to wait a little longer, and hopefully he won't be there cleaning the stairs when I go down. :(

I'm not going to get all sweetly sentimental about it... frankly I'm glad to leave. Three months was enough time to get a lot of work done, and do a fair amount of traveling, but not nearly enough to feel as if I really live here. I get the feeling (contrary to what I felt last time) that I could live here, if only I had time enough to actually integrate myself, know the place, and maybe meet some people. But if I'm going to be here for a short time, three months is better than five. And yet somehow I feel as if I've learned more in this three months than I did in last year's five.

This has been a wholly unexpected and educational trip. Half of what I did was completely unexpected, and the half that I expected didn't turn out like I thought. But... it's not all bad. I'm lucky enough to be able to learn from the unexpected things, while still being able to enjoy them. And there were very few unqualified failures. Even my living situation here isn't absolutely terrible. At least the kitchen ended up cleaned while I was gone. And as an extra bonus, every place I visit, whether I stay in a hotel, a hostel, or on someone's couch, is nicer than where I live. That's... actually, that's more depressing than anything.
I guess I could be less vague about things. Here's a short summary.

• The work I did here was largely based on hardware, instead of anything resembling artificial intelligence. I ended up designing the majority of the robot's physical layout, and even found myself in the workshop for a few days sawing, filing, and drilling some aluminum brackets.  Definitely not what I had expected, but so far outside my range of expertise as to be a very educational experience.
• My visit to Amsterdam was wonderful and crazy, but even just a few weeks before I left I had no idea that it was going to happen.
• I ended up visiting Bremen, as I had wanted to, but I was only there for half a day, and I didn't see a single person I met last year. It was bittersweet.
• I still feel very conflicted about my visit to Vienna. Things didn't go how I thought they would, and it was... complicated... but I don't regret it. I still had some good times, but I think the last day sort of colored the whole experience. And when I returned, it was with less than two weeks remaining in Germany... so it may have colored my entire summer.

Sometimes it feels like my life is just a series of things that happen to me. I think if I learned anything from this summer, it's... something about making plans. I know it's impossible to be prepared for anything, but being completely unprepared is no picnic either. I'd like things to go the way I want them to a little more often than random chance.
At least I think that's it. I'm still trying to invent the moral to fit this story. I'll keep you posted.

And there I go, right after I said I wouldn't get sentimental. Damn.

The state of the kitchen has blown right past "dirty" and I feel it now qualifies for the term "rancid". The entirety of the counter space has been covered in dishes for a few days (thankfully one side of the sink is yet holding ground), it has been molding for about a day or two, and it has now begun to stink. I would be disappointed, if I was ever appointed to begin with, but frankly I'm not all that upset. There's a simple reason, though--I'm leaving tomorrow night, and I won't be back until Tuesday. The fact that a stench has appeared means that (and I really shouldn't be so confident here...) by the time I get back it will have long since become unbearable, and one way or another it would be cleaned.
Regardless, I'll be leaving Germany in less than two weeks. I've been quite satisfied with this summer, with the exception of the lodging, and yet I'll also be happy to be home. It's a nice equilibrium, and I hope it lasts. Fortunately I'll be moving from the So-Cal area back up to Humboldt about a week or two after returning, so that should provide an additional boost... I might be at peace like this for the next month! Good times...

Wow, I've been lazy about blogging lately. I've still been doing things, though, and I have more things yet to do in the short time left before I leave. I'd better clear out some backlog before it piles up over my head.
It's almost 1 am, though, so I'll keep it short. Here are some photos I promised you regarding the previous few posts. A lot of the photos could use some explanation, but that'll have to wait until I find a better way to share photos.
EDIT: I'm trying out Flickr. I detest Yahoo, for no good reason, but so far Flickr looks like a good option. Links will be changed as I can upload and tag the photos.

Christopher Street Day
Amsterdam
Heidelberg

So much has happened in the past week that I feel hardly even capable of documenting it. It's pretty cluttered in my mind, but hopefully the process of describing it can unclutter it. To that end, I'm cutting it up into a few different posts, with this one to centralize it.

Christopher Street Day in Cologne
Seeing Crosby, Stills and Nash in Amsterdam
RISE Meeting in Heidelberg

To finish off the week, I had a three-day trip to Heidelberg that was actually planned from the start (the other two trips just happened to be on the same week, and it's a good thing they didn't overlap). This was the great big meeting of all the RISE students in Germany, and after being the only American in town for two months, being surrounded by 300 of them (students, no less) was a little overwhelming. It also didn't help that most of them seemed to be younger than me, something I was not really prepared for. It wasn't a big difference, really, just a year or two... but it happened to matter quite a bit, when I realized that most of them were probably less than 21, and in Germany for the first time. You might think that I wouldn't make much of that, since last year I was in Germany for the first time, and just barely 21... but I think it's already been established that it's a mistake to consider me representative of my age group (or, I would say, of humanity in general... but that's a different matter). So I was actually surprised at the way they acted. I'm sure you can guess what I'm talking about, but I'll lay it out for you--they really enjoyed alcohol. Not merely as a drink, or even as an activity--as a state of being. It was all they were interested in doing, and all they had to talk about. They talked about how drunk they were last night, how hungover they are this morning, how drunk they're going to get tonight, where they can get drunk for the least amount of money, where everyone else is drunk, and how hungover they're going to be the next morning. On Thursday, just as a short example, we had a reception and talks from representatives of various universities, which lasted until about 8:30 pm. The next day we were to visit various companies in neighboring towns, for which we had to wake up around 6 am. On the bus back to the hostel, I was thinking about whether it would be possible to get a full night's rest, and maybe also get some dinner and/or wake up in time for breakfast. Everyone else in the bus was talking about where the bars were, and where all the rest of the students would be going to drink. Needless to say I was quite surprised when all but a single member of our group (only about 30 students, but the earliest group to leave) showed up on time the next morning (and the group leader promptly went off to wake up the last guy and bring him along).
But I'm getting distracted. Despite all of the other students, I did my best to pay attention and get the most I could out of the experience. Day one was interesting, and I got a lot of useful information about scholarship programs. The end of day one was also very relaxing. I wasn't terribly hungry, but dinner had been small, and I knew that waking up at 6 am the next day might make breakfast an impossibility. So, in the interests of getting to sleep easier and getting some calories in me before bed, I ordered a beer and sat in the bistro for a while with my laptop, drinking and chatting with friends online. Very pleasant.
I didn't know what to expect at first, so I can't say I was disappointed, but I did end up awfully bored on days two and three. Day two was taken up entirely by the company visits. As a "software engineer", a rare sight in this program, I was lumped in with the engineers and we went to visit Bosch and the Porsche museum. The engineers seemed to be enjoying themselves, but I was extremely bored. It seemed like this was going to be a stereotype-filled three days, because the way the other students talked about cars was just so masculine I could hardly breathe. "Yeah, how 'bout those... cars?"
The third day ended with a whimper... there wasn't much planned, just a city tour and a group photo. The "city tour" ended up being a tour of the castle overlooking Heidelberg, which basically meant it was two hours of standing still and listening to a history lesson punctuated by a few seconds of walking every 15 minutes. It managed, somehow, to be even more boring than the second day. After that, the group photo took a surprisingly short time. Perhaps this was a direct result of the number of people--normally photos with several people take a long time to organize and get "just right", but maybe with 300 students the expectations are lowered significantly, so it's enough that everyone is in the frame. So after two hours of touring, two minutes of herding, and a short burst of applause, it was suddenly over, and 300 students dispersed into the city like rock candy into rye whiskey (but with less class).
I wandered around for a while with the other students, but my heart wasn't in it. I decided to head off on my own and visit the zoo, which was right next to the youth hostel. It was pretty nice, and I'll probably post some pictures soon... but it wasn't long before I felt entirely ready to leave. After a week of vacation, I was ready to get home and rest. The journey back to Koblenz was a somber one, and it was very nice to be alone again.

Just a few weeks ago, I got an email from someone who reads my blog anonymously. (And to keep it that way, let's just call him "Hal".) It was surprising enough to me that someone actually reads this, but not as unbelievable as what was in the email. He said that he had notice I was in Germany, and that I enjoyed the music of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He just happened to be traveling through Europe with them, he said, being an old friend of theirs, and would I like to come see a concert in Amsterdam?
That about says it all, and you can imagine what my reaction must have been like. But to make a long story short, and to heap one more surprise onto the already-mountainous pile, he turned out to be legitimate.
So after a bit of trepidation, I went to Amsterdam, and had a blast. When I first arrived it was hustling and bustling like Cancun, and had about the same amount of sleazy tourist material for sleazy tourists. The only difference was that in Amsterdam, every other street was a canal, and you couldn't look up without seeing some great old stone building (all of which lent a certain classy air to the city). I deliberately held off on the judgements, which turned out to be a good thing, as I turned out to have wandered straight into the red light district on my way to the hotel.
We met at the hotel and went out for some lunch. On the way to the cafe, we passed by the hotel where CSN were staying, and they happened to still be there having breakfast, instead of packed up already. So we stopped in and said 'hi'. Now... I've never actually met anyone I've heard of, if you understand what I mean, so I really wasn't sure what I should do or say. But as it turned out, I did have something to say, and that was the biggest surprise of all. I was introduced as an exchange intern in Germany who was "working with robots". Evidently David Crosby is an avid futurist, because we got into a long discussion on the future of humanity, Ray Kurzweil, science fiction, and good novels. It was quite fun, and he recommended a few good books which I will have to look up once I'm back in California (as there isn't a whole lot of science fiction in Germany, for some reason).
After that Hal and I got some lunch, and walked and talked for several hours, as well as taking a canal tour of the city. We stopped and laughed at many of the sights (a shop selling psychedelic mushrooms, with descriptions in the store window that read like ad copy from the Martha Stewart catalogue; an "American-style" hamburger featuring gouda, chives, and a fried egg; a panhandler in the park playing Stairway to Heaven... rather well, actually), and had a grand old time just being American tourists. I even found a shop selling root beer, which I bought in order to force the deliciousness of root beer floats onto the stubborn German palates of my friends.
What's more, after just a few hours I realized what it was that Hal saw in me, and why he felt it would be a good idea to approach me out of the blue with such an outlandish offer. I'm going to sound sentimental here, and it's always possible that this feeling was just a side effect of the whole "out-of-body experience" of the whole trip... but this is how it seems to me even now, looking back on it. When we talked, we were able to just talk. We often agreed, but it wasn't just that--it was the feeling of being on the same wavelength, to the extent that we would occasionally complete each other's sentences. It was almost like talking with my brother, and I didn't realize until then what a rare thing that was to find. It was like meeting a dear old friend for the first time. And if that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to you, then you'll have some inkling of what it was like for me to try to understand it.
The concert, by the way, was quite fun. I really enjoyed myself, although the Dutch were quite reserved that evening, which evidently didn't please the band. Afterwards Crosby invited me to come see a "good" show when I was back in California, presumably with all the other rambunctious Americans. I only mention this because of the feeling I got from it--not just me, but many of the people meeting the band. It felt like we were meeting royalty. I mean, it wasn't a stuffy affair, and they weren't acting particularly pompous... but we, the fans, were acting like... well, subjects. It was a very odd experience, and I wonder if anyone else noticed it, or if they simply felt at home in the roles they occupied. Not to say that I felt out of place, either. I do enjoy a nice pat on the head every now and then. :P

And that's the story. I had to tell it, even if I don't quite know what to make of it myself. But it was definitely an experience. It's very rare when you can see one coming, even before it hits--and I suspect it'll be a long time yet before it fades.

And here are some pictures.

Before I left for Germany, I did the same thing I did last year: looked for furries. I didn't end up finding many, or meeting any at all, for two reasons. For the first, I'd already "been there" and "done that", and I didn't have the same enthusiasm for it. For the second, there simply aren't that many furries in Koblenz. The only ones I found were merely in the general area, which stretches halfway to Cologne and Frankfurt.
As well as looking for new furries, I also looked for the furries I met last year, with about the same success. That had a little bit more success, although I still haven't visited any of them so far. One of them suggested that I stop by the Christopher Street Day celebrations in Cologne, which is one of the largest gay pride parades in Europe, and goes on around the beginning of July. I had every reason to go: it was only an hour away by train, I had a five-day German rail pass, and I had never been to a pride parade before. So I went.
Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot to report, other than that it was exactly what I expected. There was a whole lot of flamboyance going on, including but not limited to oily sailors, bearded queens, and every now and then a female. It was very sunny that day, and I my entire forehead was pink or peeling for the rest of the week. I don't regret that (as far as sunburns go, I've had much worse), but I do somewhat regret that in my desperation, I (along with the rest of the crowd) would beg passing strangers on floats to squirt us in the face with their Super Soakers.
...
I think I'll end on that note. Here's some pictures, by the way.

I'm not sure where to begin. I talked a week ago about the flexibility of memory, and the way it can synchronize with external and internal sources. What I neglected to mention, because it didn't even occur to me, was the fact that it can be contradictory as well as complementary. I have about three gigabytes of photos from the last two days, and I finally sat down (for what seems like the first time today) and took a look at my snapshots from such a short time ago. What was instantly apparent to me was that this morning, less than 10 hours ago, I was in a completely different place. Naturally I'm not talking about my physical location, but my mental state. This visit to Amsterdam has been such a complete trip that I'm not exaggerating in the slightest by saying that smoking weed in a Dutch "coffee shop" at midnight was probably the most sane and sober episode of the entire journey. I'm not quite ready to process it all right now, so hopefully this will later be followed by a structured, relatively thorough, and maybe even comprehensible rundown of the experience. But for now I need time, and at the very least I need sleep. Right now it's only coming as fragments, which could just as well have been isolated experiences, separated by years and each one kept as a treasured memory. On the train here, my first half-hour in Amsterdam, discussing futurism with David Crosby, experiencing a concert from both before and behind the stage, walking alone in the rain in Amsterdam, visiting the Anne Frank house, wandering through the stores, streets, and parks of the city, visiting the Van Gogh museum, and finally sitting down to rest on the train back. And being guided through most of it by a complete stranger who wound up as a friend--and more than that, someone with whom I could just talk. It was thoroughly wonderful, and I can't recall another time when I left an experience without a single regret... but right now it's still just flashes. Even the photographs are more continuous.

This isn't the first time I've gotten this response, but I think this was the most pronounced. I expected it, of course. When you're visiting a foreign country, you can expect people to ask you where you're from. And when you're from California, USA, you can expect them to know where that is, and even what it's like there. You can expect them to convey this information by mentioning pretty girls, Beach Boys lyrics, surfing, or even pantomiming the surfing act. If you're lucky you can get all four at once. This happened just a short while ago, and in response I just smiled and nodded, and replied: "Yes. It is exactly like that, all of the time."
And it is, isn't it? :D

It's strange--after two days of hardly leaving my room, I thought getting out a bit would be the best thing for me. Maybe I'll look both ways this time.
It's not that I'm too tired (although I am), or suicidally depressed (I don't *think* I am, anyhow...). I thought it was a one-way street. Which it was. It just happens that I  looked the wrong way. When I was starting to cross, I saw a van turn into the street that I was crossing, then stop. I figured that he was backing up because he couldn't make the turn, so I started to cross. Then, halfway across the street, I looked the other way to find a car stopped a few feet from me, and I realized that the van had been backing up because he was turning the wrong way into a one-way street. As I was walking away I saw some passersby shake their heads at me. If I had been asked to explain myself, though, I wouldn't have been able to explain the situation in German. I don't know that an excuse is really helpful in the situation, but... I feel almost betrayed by my own senses. It's clear that my powers of observation and inference were insufficient, in the situation (but hey, who's perfect?)... what I'm wondering now is if it was nevertheless a correct inference. I mean, from the information I had, it seemed natural to assume that if a car was turning in a direction, that direction would indicate the flow of traffic. Does that mean that it was worth the few seconds of time I saved by not bothering to check the other direction first? I probably should have been more cautious... but even if I had checked, unless I actually saw another car driving through, I probably would not have spotted how traffic was supposed to flow. The "Einbahnstraße" sign was kind of hard to find, as well.
Oh fuck. Now there's a van driving across that very same street on the *crosswalk*! That settles it, I'm blaming the crazy German traffic system. Ordnung my ass. :P

It's happening again. And it doesn't make any sense.

The day I arrived here in Germany, I... well, I didn't sleep on the plane, so I was totally wiped out the whole day, and can't really remember half of it. But yesterday, and again this morning, I find myself feeling really lonely all the time. And why? I have no clue. It's not like I had a bunch of friends, or even left my room a whole lot, when I was living in California. I'm killing too much time on the internet, as always, which is location-independent (except that my Google results are all in German now...). Heck, I'm even living in a dormitory now, so there are people all around, if I just walk out the door. Sure the language barrier is there, but I can speak German pretty well now, and I don't think it's the biggest barrier. I've been laying in bed for a few hours now, and I don't really feel like leaving the room (although I have to shower soon). I don't even want to wake up--I'd like to sleep in, but the jet lag has just about forced me into a normal sleep schedule for the moment. I just... don't know. I guess it's an emotional thing, so I shouldn't expect it to make sense. I want to know why I'm so sad, though. I don't want to believe that so much of my day-to-day happiness is so fickle.
As always, my brain is giving me reasons for what seems to be an essentially unreasonable symptom. I keep getting sidetracked from feeling lonely into feeling like I ought to meet more people into bemoaning my lack of interpersonal skills. And I think they're all valid problems, but none of them are getting solved by bitching. I don't have another option, though. I've tried to get up and do something about it, but I think this is one personality trait that's going to stick with me for a long, long time. I've got to work with my strengths, instead of fighting my weaknesses. Hmm. What are my strengths...?

I miss Germany. Actually, I miss a lot of things. I was just browsing Google Earth, and checking out how updated the imagery is since I last browsed through it. New Street View in a lot of places, too. Still none in Bremen.
Anyway, I was looking through Google Earth and generally feeling pretty nostalgic. It's no surprise to me that staying up quite late, then realizing that I'm going to graduate in a little more than a year, is going to bring on feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness. It's convenient that I started doing it today, though, and that I wandered over to Bremen to browse. If I had done it a few days earlier, I might have drawn a different conclusion. But as it is, I found myself thinking "I miss Germany". But I realized, as I was saying this, that I'll be going back. Not to Bremen, although I may visit some people there if I get the chance. But I realized that I'll be back in Germany soon enough, for another three months, and I realized that as soon as I get there, the very first night I stay up late, I'm going to catch myself saying "I miss America". Then it occurred to me that I started looking at imagery of my hometown before I even got to Germany, and I'll be visiting there next weekend. And the conclusion that I reached was that it's all very silly. Or I'm very silly. Or both. :P
I miss a lot of things. I missed America when I was in Germany, and I predicted even then that I would start to miss Germany as soon as I came back. It's not so much the place, really, it's the attitude. If I go around missing things--typically an idealized memory of things, no less!--then I'm going to miss out on so much. It's hard to change one's nature, but I've got to quit doing this nostalgia thing. I'm 22, for crying out loud. Maybe when I'm 200 and starting to get old, I can sit down, rest, and look at the past. But right now I've got a whole lot of future, and precious little past, and I've got to organize my priorities around that fact.

I woke up this morning (at noon) and immediately checked my email, as usual. I was somewhat surprised to see that I had received an email with the subject line "Congratulations from RISE"! And then...
"We are delighted to inform you that you have been matched for a research internship in Germany this summer, due to a late withdrawal."

Naturally I attempted to be skeptical--they already told me that I was matched, I just didn't get a stipend. I didn't want to get all excited if this happened to be a form letter that was sent to everyone matched. But I read further, very carefully, and I can no longer convince myself that this isn't something worth getting excited about. Looks like I'm going to Germany. :D

Oh, and it was my second choice placement, by the way. No soccer-playing robots for me. This is the one with the pathfinding robot. But it should be a blast.
See also: http://robots.uni-koblenz.de/

Dear loyal readers, for the last few weeks I've been assembling an application for an internship program in Germany. I don't know why I didn't post about it before--it's so exciting! I can apply for up to three, and these are the three that I've chosen, in that order of priority. I'm hoping to get accepted to any of them, really--it's a paid position, so I can afford to do it, and it means I'll have something to do for the summer, I'll get to be in Germany for another few months, and I'll be doing research in fascinating, exciting areas related to AI. Originally I simply heard about this opportunity, and I thought it would be a great chance to visit Germany again, and maybe earn a little money. But recently I've been thinking about graduate school, and/or life after my Bachelor's degree, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't know whether graduate school is right for me, because I don't know what is meant by "research"--i.e., what I'd be doing for four more years if I go to graduate school. My idea of research comes mostly from a research class I took for my psychology major, and I hated that class... but it never occurred to me until recently that "research" in the field of computers might not be surveys and questionnaires and statistics. So in addition to all that cool stuff, if I get accepted to an internship this summer, it will provide a vital opportunity for me to both find out if graduate school is where I want to go, and have some real experience to show off if I decide to apply to graduate school.
So, fun times on the whole. I'll be sending in the application on or before Tuesday, I think, and I'll be writing a lot of it today. Resumes are hard. Then after that, it's just a matter of waiting to hear back from them--and I could be waiting until March.

I was entirely healthy during the ride back up, which was a huge relief. I had to wake up early, so I was feeling pretty nauseous, and unsure if I was going to manage it. But as soon as I was on the bus, I felt much better, and soon afterward I was able to eat something.

Unfortunately I still have this strange things where my sinuses get all dry and itchy at around 11 pm every night, like clockwork. But otherwise I'm healthier than I've been in a week or so. :D

I'm tired of traveling...
I want to be somewhere.


Funny... I said that a long time ago--around March of this year, and then again a few times throughout my stay in Germany. I felt almost ready to settle down, somehow. And yet I was traveling, and I had the time of my life. And now? I'm feeling ready to travel again. I'm even looking forward to the 12-hour bus ride back home. I have a laptop and iPod now, so I think I can handle a few more hours in Hanford. I want to go places again. I want to set aside the responsibilities for a week, pack a towel into my backpack, and head off alone into new, interesting places. Even if Atascadero isn't exactly a new place... at least for twelve hours, my only responsibility will be to listen to music, look at the scenery, and keep myself comfortable. That sounds alright to me.

    When I was in Austria visiting Toumal, we passed by an aquarium built in an old bunker/watchtower thing. We started talking about dolphins, and I mentioned how I had seen a dolphin in Heide Park with a very small enclosure--no more than a swimming pool, really. It was kind of sad. Then I mentioned something I had thought of when I was watching the dolphin swim in small circles over and over. That sort of situation is generally considered inhumane, right? It is considered more humane to give captive creatures an area with more room to explore, and/or one that more closely mimics their original environment. But... what if you gave a dolphin a space not much larger than a bathtub, and hooked him up to a VR setup which provided him with a perfect replica of his home environment, in the open ocean. Assuming he also had his exercise needs met, who could argue that that wouldn't be the most humane environment possible without actually releasing him? Yet from the outside all you would see was a dolphin with some fancy headgear flopping around in a small tub, and everyone who saw that would be sad. It's an interesting contrast, don't you think?
    It was at this point that I got one of the beloved strange stares which I tend to provoke so often. :D I thought it was an interesting idea, anyway. But of course I knew deep inside that I wasn't the only one to think of it.


Also this:

 

    I suppose I shouldn't leave it so long without any word. I survived the 21-hour trip back to America, and I'm doing fine here. At a risk of slacking off on my remaining responsibilities this semester, but getting things worked out. And getting a train ticket to get back to Humboldt. Right now I'm still back at home with my family, which is really nice, actually... it's nice to be back here again, and I'm surprised how easily I slipped back into things. It's almost like I never left. Suddenly I've realized that while everything here stayed nice and similar, I have changed, just slightly, and I like myself a bit more now. But I still can't wait to finally get back to Humboldt, the place I've actually been missing this whole time. No offense, family. But I'm more free up there. And there are friends, and furries, and video games, and my computer, and no curfew, and... and everything. I can settle down in a place I want to be, at least for two more semesters. After that it's all up in the air, but this coming school year is going to be fun. Not fun... that's the wrong word. Fulfilling? I can only hope. But if I've learned one thing from going to Germany for a semester, it's what I truly want, and what I can do without. So I guess I found what I was looking for.
    Later, hopefully, I will post more on what I thought about the trip, and learned, and what I'm going to do now. But at the moment I'm not so clear on that myself. But I need to be clear, before too long. Before I forget. :P Maybe I could re-read the blog and remember details that I've already forgotten. But this isn't over yet.

    I'm finally back in Bremen, and it's a weird feeling. After being away for a week, it was almost like coming home. Except of course that it's not home, and I'll be actually coming home in just four days. Which is also a weird feeling. When I was coming to Germany, I knew that I would be caught off guard by it. I knew that I didn't know what to expect. That much I expected. But I never realized that when the time came to leave, I would have already forgotten what I was going back to. Now I'm going back home, and I should know what to expect there--particularly given that I've been so homesick lately, I really ought to know what it is that I'm sick for. But most of it I can't remember. A few details, yes, but I think it's the general feeling that I miss. And I'm only hoping that I'll recognize it when I find it... and that I'll find it at all, without knowing what to look for.
    But whether I like it or not, it's finally time to go back to America. Not that I'll be putting any of this behind me. So far it's just been me. For four months, all alone... well, I've made some friends, and kept in touch with those back home, and sent a king's ransom in postcards... but I've been just about entirely in control of my own destiny this whole semester. Once I get back, I'm guessing I'll find out the reason I went in the first place--people will be excited, and want to hear stories, and remind me how special of an experience it was. That's something that's easy to forget. Because it was an experience--now I have a lot of stories, I have much better command of the German language, and I'm better at communicating with people. I don't have a tattoo or a neat scar or anything (I knew I forgot to get something!), but I have a lot of knowlege, and a great job reference, from the programming work thing I did here. So while at this point I think I've gotten tired of Germany, and ready to go back, I think a bit of time spent back home will tie the whole experience up into a neat little bundle, so I can appreciate it properly.
    In the meantime, I have just four days to pack up everything... well, not everything. Some things are staying here, like the TV set I borrowed, and also this laptop. What this means is that I will have no working computer between sometime Tuesday, and Thursday morning after I get back. :( But on the plus side, when I get back to Humboldt, I'll have my old desktop machine again. That will be quite a relief.
    Now that I've started packing, I'm realizing just how much stuff I've done. I could have done more, of course--I didn't even visit the north sea. :( But I really have experienced quite a lot. I'm almost feeling a bit proud of myself, even. :)