Today was a third long day. Thank God tomorrow all I have is German. So today for my blog entry I am gonna explain the courses I am now taking through the use of fruit. If you are one of my friends who A) does not like word pictures, or B) attempts to track with me but ends up getting lost somewhere between the analogies and the extended metaphors, feel free to skip this entry. A headache benefits neither you nor me, so save yourself the 5 cents in aspirin (.5 cents if you buy in bulk) and move on.
That said, here is my best attempt at explaining the many phases that I went through that led up to me attending 5 different content courses this week, even though I am only taking two. First, let me give you a key for quick reference.
Strawberry=European Business Cultures
Orange=Berlin: History, Memory, Literature
Pear=Themes and Issues in Transatlantic Relations
Grape=Contemporary Germany in European Context
Apricot=Architecture in Berlin
Placing a fruit on the counter=adding a course
Sampling a fruit=Attending a course
For our purposes, I am not including the German class I am in (Pineapple) in my fruit example. Assume the Pineapple is sitting on the counter the whole time.
1. So in the very beginning when we applied for this study abroad program, they had us number our classes we wanted from 1-10, and had us mark how many classes we wanted to take. I wanted two fruit, and I chose Strawberry as first, Orange as second. As a backup for strawberry, I chose Pear, seeing it as a similar course to strawberry. I put some other fruit as a backup for Orange. What I tried to explain to them was that if I did not get Strawberry, to move down and give me Pear instead, and in the case of not getting Orange, for them to give me whatever fruit #4 was. What I didn’t want is for them to give me Strawberry and Pear, or to give me Orange and its backup. Fruit on counter: Desiring a strawberry and a pear.
2. While waiting for them to get back with me, I decide, for strategic reasons, I want to take a third fruit. Fruit on counter: Desiring a strawberry and a pear and one more fruit.
3. They get back to me, and tell me I have Strawberry and Pear. Orange wasn’t available and so they moved right down the line and gave me Pear, even though it was the backup for Strawberry, which I got. Fruit on counter: A strawberry and a pear.
4. I am told by the director that I should wait until I get to Berlin to straiten it out. I head out to Berlin planning on dropping Pear, since I saw it as a backup for Strawberry, which I got, and adding two more other courses so that I could have my three fruit. Fruit on counter: Still a strawberry and a pear (that I plan on removing for another fruit)
5. I get to Berlin and, from doing research, find out that Pear is not at all the same category, and wouldn’t be a repeat of Strawberry at all. Fruit on counter: a strawberry and a pear (looking much more desirable at this point)
6. However, I see that Orange has opened up, and decide to drop Pear and pick up Orange. Fruit on counter: a strawberry, a pear (soon to be removed) and an orange
7. I am encouraged to still sample the pear before removing it from the table, and upon sampling, really enjoy it, yet keep my decision of Strawberry and Orange. Fruit on counter: a strawberry and an orange
8. I sample the strawberry and find it to taste way better than I expected it to. I love my sweet strawberry. Fruit on counter: a very sweet strawberry and an orange
9. I decide on an apricot for my third fruit, and even though I won’t be able to sample it until Wednesday, I go ahead and add it to the counter as my third fruit. Fruit on the counter: a strawberry, an orange, and an apricot
10. I sample the orange with much anticipation, expecting it to be a certain sweet flavor, but find out it is actually not a orange at all, but in fact a sour grapefruit. Fruit on counter: a strawberry, an apricot and a newly discovered grapefruit.
11. I wrestle with the fact that I fought so hard to get the camouflaged grapefruit onto the counter, and am thus reticent to take it back off the counter. Fruit on counter: See 10
12. I decide to add a grape to the counter, so that I can see if the grape is any better than the grapefruit. Soon after placing the grape on the counter, I sample the grape and find it really good, even having a hint of orange in it. Fruit on the counter: a strawberry, an orange/grapefruit, a grape, and an apricot.
13. I sample the apricot, and while finding it hard to swallow, find it fully nutritious, tangy, and also holding a hint of orange within its taste. Fruit on the counter: See 12
14. I make the decision to ignore sunk costs, and end up removing the orange/grapefruit from the table. Fruit on counter: a strawberry, an apricot, and a grape.
15. I happily make the realization that the grape and the apricot compliment each other, and sort of each cover a different aspect of the originally expected orange flavor. Fruit on counter: See 14
Turns out the counter ends up having on it a sweeter than expected strawberry, a complimentary and orangesque grape and apricot, and a lack of grapefruit or pear.
If you are a close friend and followed that, thank you. If you are an eligible female between the ages of 19 and 29 and followed that, call me.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
13.1.09
Today was a long one as well, but went significantly better than yesterday. I went into German and worked hard to be humble, working within the station where I was placed. As it turns out, a girl who just finished semester 5 (I’d only had 3) of German back in the states is only in intermediate II, so that shows me that the level system differs between here and in the U.S. I got through the 2 ½ hours of German, and ate a quick lunch in the Mensa (Cafeteria), adding quick trips from FU-BEST (where our classes are held) to FU’s main campus to my repertoire. This is useful for lunch, as the Mensa is very cheap for students. They have the closest thing to those government subsidized meals for $1.40 that you can still vaguely remember from 5th grade. “Tray lunch” they used to call it. The difference is that, even with the cultural differences, the food in the Mensa actually resembles food. Not at all like 5th grade, where you weeded through the brown muck slopped onto your tray before deciding only the chilled chocolate milk was salvageable, very much in the same way rescue workers pick through the rubble of a collapsed building before calling off the search. Today we had some sort of friend potato cakes with a side of potatoes, but it wasn’t half bad. For less than 2 Euro, 3 items on a tray is a very good deal. I fought so hard to get into the ‘Berlin: History, Literature, Memory’ course, and now that I am in I am wondering what I am getting myself into. Starting next week, each week a student has to present a 15 minute presentation on that week’s history subject, and it comprises 30% of their final grade. Being that the midterm exam AND the final exam TOGETHER add up only to that same number, I’d say it’s pretty important. I have decided to stick it out and soak up all I can in that class, insane workload or not. Maybe I can take the extra energy I would have spent in intermediate German II and apply it here. I got to talk to a few people on skype today, and that was really nice. I felt out of it though, and I think it is a sort of headtrip to be able to finally talk to and even see (in Dad’s case) loved ones again, yet not be with them. I am better with black and white, and sort of ‘half getting my loved ones back with me’ was difficult. So after evening classes (my Berlin course was in the afternoon ((1:30-4)) but I hung out till evening class got out ((4:30-7)) so that I could use the internet) I took the initiative and formed a potluck dinner at my place. 5 people came and we pooled what food, drinks, and silverware we had. We’ve even made plans to do this multiple nights a week, continuing on tomorrow night at another’s place. I very much appreciate God teaching me how to assertively take/form what I need to take care of myself, and tonight, Death Cab, Helen Keller jokes, and three different types of lukewarm pasta were exactly what I needed.
12.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
12.1.09 What a day. Exhausting. This entry isn’t for my readers, it’s for me. I need to process all that went on today. So if humorless, forgive me. I finally fell asleep about 3 hours before having to get up, and had to run off that. I got to BrentanostraBe about an hour early, hoping to get a few things done before starting class. I realized the night prior that I felt very nervous and hesitant about the following beginning of classes and my placement in German class. I got there early and was able to take the last open spot in the architecture in Berlin class, one of the two I was trying to decide between for my third class. ( I chose it over the art history course). This gave me my business class, my transatlantic relations class, and architecture. What was cool was, later in the day I saw that two people had dropped the ‘Berlin; history, literature, memory’ course, and only one person had picked up the vacated seat, so I hopped in just in time! This means I ended up with my original first pick (business), my original second pick (Berlin), and my newly added architecture class. I chose to drop the transatlantic relations course, but was advised to attend the session just in case the transfer did not go through (the kids dropping the course I wanted to get into hadn’t actually dropped it, etc.), so I attended the already dropped class anyway. It was very fascinating and taught by a very experienced retired German diplomat who has been assigned all over the world, including Tel Aviv, Ireland, other places, and lastly Las Angeles. I enjoyed his first lecture, and was half sad to have to leave a class that would have taught me so much. I was not, though, willing to take 18 credits, and so chose the Berlin course over that one. I get ahead of myself though, that class, like all the other content courses, was held in the afternoon (and also the evening, the content courses that is). At a later time I will write about my amazing business class that I had this evening. At the moment, I will back up to the morning. That was the really difficult part. As I expected, we were given an examination for placement within German. I just finished German Intermediate I and was really hoping to do well enough to be placed in Intermediate II. They started us off by asking us to write an open essay in German, and while we were writing that they called us out one by one to do interviews. During my interview I felt rusty, foggy, and misrepresentative of my skill level. Since I was called out of the room halfway through writing my essay, I returned once my interview was over and wrote about how I feared that my interview hadn’t gone as well as I would have liked, and how I feared being placed back in Intermediate I again. Kenny, a fellow Gator and friend of mine, reassured me that I was much better than he, surely at least 2 levels above, and that since he was most likely going into beginning III, he was fairly positive I would get into Intermediate II. I got into Intermediate I. So did Kenny. Logic time. My undergrad advisor already told me if this were to happen I would most likely still get credit for the “repeated” Intermediate course, on account of the different and more rigorous program in Germany. Logic. I can use this to get a firm grasp of the first half of the semester before testing up and moving on to Intermediate II (double course German semester, remember?). Logic. The course surely is different than the one I took, and I won’t be stuck relearning all the same things. Emotion. Failure. Emotion. Goal set, worked towards, mark missed. I could not explain away or rationalize myself out of feeling despondent. I had to listen to and comfort the part of me that was hearing I didn’t do good enough. No, that’s not quite it. My voices line up with “I was not good enough.” Identity mixed in rather than objective action. I will take the appropriate action tomorrow morning. I will go in tomorrow and start Intermediate I with my head held high. I will take the appropriate action for tonight as well. I will remind myself of the truth, that nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.
1.10.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
I am pretty sure that when people want to use an analogy for some action totally not fitting the context, they would refer to my actions on this first Saturday. After sleeping in and getting a slow start, I went out with Sonya to explore. It was a lot of fun, kind of making our own tracks. We came to this vast expanse, a whole square city block’s size, and it was covered with these boxlike pillars of varying shapes. Being in a playful mood, I tap Sonya’s shoulder and say the magical words. “Tag, you’re it!” and I’m off into the grid-like maze. I’m not saying you have to be depressed and glum when seeing memorials, but maybe next time I’ll have enough wherewithal to realize playing tag in the Holocaust Memorial isn’t such a good idea.
9.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
09.01.09 One of our first ‘visits’ was to the underground bunker system in Berlin. It was really cool we were each allowed one photo, which I included above, but the real adventure began a good bit earlier that day. We had a tour of the school, for which I had to leave the apartment at 8:30. Too bad I got back from the Gator game at 7:30 that morning…Ridiculous. Meticulous. Defibrillous? When we were riding back from Upper Berlin, people were riding the S-Bahn to work, and when we were nearing CelciusstraBe, shops were opening up for the day. I set my alarm for one half hour later, but had not had the ‘it may not be a good thing to have my alarm clock right next to my bed’ epiphany yet, and so woke up at noon with a vague memory of waking up and pressing some button on the clock, and an anything but vague sinking feeling in my stomach that I was very late for our first tour. The night prior I had asked God to help me accomplish my goal of getting a handle on the public transportation system, as the prior days I had just been following the lead of others. Well here was my golden opportunity. I hurriedly dressed and rushed to the bus stop. I had to catch a bus, make one bus change, and figure out how to get to Freie Universitaat. I had noticed that the Germans had been, without exception, very nice to me when I stopped and did my best to strike up a small conversation. Even the times that I initiated for a silly reason, like “what does that word on that sign mean to you?” in German. This morning I was so rushed and in a panic that my brain was not in translation mode. To give background information, we’d just been given a talk on attendance, and how crucial it is to be there, how detrimental it is to be absent. I did NOT want to burn one of my absences already the second day. When I stopped off for my bus change, I was not so sure what bus I needed to take, and my brain was a tad fuzzy still, and so I wasn’t able to fill in the gaps in my understanding as I usually do. I saw both a girl my age and an elderly man who looked sort of like a washed up Ron Jeremy. As to not look like I was merely asking her to get the chance to talk to her (wouldn’t really be ALL that untrue but whatever), I turned and went to go talk to Ron Jeremy. First fail: waking up late. Second fail: choosing Ron Jeremy. As I struggled to ask him which specific bus I needed to board to get to a specific place, I debated on just walking away. It went THAT bad. He had this way of just staring at me in a way that dripped of “Are you natural or are you trying to be this dense?” which he gave me every time I asked for clarification. He continued to try to help me, but not without many scowls. In the back of my head I was thinking, “so long to my perfect record!” and then he says it. He looks at me as if pondering some great complexity, and says, in English, “Do you have an education?” I answer that I do. He responds with, “We call it ‘Abitur’ here…It makes you special”
I am 4 hours late for a program that just had its talk on prompt attendance.
I am running off of little sleep.
I have just been insulted by a guy who makes scowling Simon from American Idol look like Mister Rogers putting on his coat and asking you to be his neighbor.
What’s my fitting retort? The first thing that comes to my mind, “Danke.”
8.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
Ticket to the 2009 NCAA National Championship Game- $175
Ticket for a flight to Berlin- $487
Randomly finding a fellow American who was willing to spend over 3 hours trekking all over Berlin so that we could eventually watch the game on a laptop with a 3X5 window-Priceless
After class on Thursday, Kenny, Layne and I all went out to SchloBstraBe, the shopping district, desperate to figure out a way to watch the game. We’d been looking into different leads since we arrived in Berlin, but everything was turning out to be a dead end. Our first direction was to find out a place that would broadcast the game via television. We found a few leads, American sports bars mostly, but none of them were open from 2 AM to 6 AM, the time in Germany the game would be airing. This was a long drawn out process in itself. We then turned our eyes to trying to find someway we could watch it via the internet. We tried all sorts of internet bars, such as the special Dunkin Donuts upstairs room (closes well before midnight) and even considered sitting outside one of the hotspots after it’s closed (couldn’t confirm the internet would keep flowing when they shut off the lights…and it was REAL cold that night). Fast-forward to me sitting in the internet considering buying an O2 internet stick (way overpriced, and just didn’t feel good about buying it without researching other places first) and asking a student aged girl in German if she was done using the in-store laptop (I was gonna use it for internet to try and FIND a place WITH internet) and she responded to me in English! As it turned out, her name’s Mimi and she’s going for her doctorate here in Berlin, at the Technical Institute in North Berlin. She offered to us to use her O2 stick, which was extremely trusting on her part since she just met us. She went with us to get my laptop (First trek across Berlin) and then to her apartment to get the O2 stick (Second trek across Berlin), only to find out that the stick doesn’t pick up internet fast enough to watch streaming live video. We were about to make the trek back to a 24 hour internet bar we passed on the way to her apartment (not an ideal place to watch the game) when Mimi realized that we could go watch it at her school, where they have an internet lab, to which she has a key for. Enter our third trek. After hiking through the C O L D for a very long time, we get to the Institute. This was close to our sixth hour of searching and trekking. Mimi, the one who speaks close to the least German out of all of us, had to convince the security guard that she was there, at 2 in the morning, with three random Americans, for official business. The two six packs Kenny held under his arm didn’t really help our case. Anyway, we finally got in, and got the loaded the game on a computer, only to find out the computers lacked sound! AGGGHHHH! Now realize, for every obstacle I detail, there were probably two or three that I left out. Luckily Mimi had access to her own laptop, and we were able to pull that up. Now as you may or may not know, Mac’s have horrible maximum sound, so we realized we wouldn’t be able to cheer after the plays without missing what the announcer said, and the screen being so small, we wouldn’t be able to jump up and down without missing the replay. Well, we got a cure to both these problems, in a way… Apparently Fox had this “Enhanced” way of watching the game, where one can watch 4 or 5 different camera angles at once. This seems like it would have been a pretty cool experience, if we could have gotten more than one camera view, and if that view was anything but the quarterback camera angle. No replays, no commentary, no sound but the sound on the field. Not even any commercial breaks. We got to see what it looks like for the players during these breaks. They often just stand around waiting for that guy with the red hat to get back off the field so they can resume. So, with no replays and with no commentary, our problem of “missing it” due to celebration was, in a way, fixed. We got around this next problem by loading the Itunes broadcast of the game and listening to that, only about 90 seconds delayed from our visual. We eventually fixed that too by delaying our visual by roughly the 90 seconds, to where it was within maybe 5 seconds. Other than the inconveniences of a micro screen and trying to stay awake with jetlag and the fact that we were staying up all night for a second time that week, the most difficult obstacle to overcome/accept was that the camera angle was…unique. If Tebow bombed it down the field for an amazing catch by #1 Percy Harvin, we would get the pleasure of seeing…Tim Tebow’s facial reaction to the play. The camera angle was such that it wouldn’t attempt to follow the ball more than 10 yards from the place of the snap. So watching the game was…less than we thought it would be. Honestly it was really hard to get into it at 5 in the morning with only one other person awake (sorry Kenny, the world has to know). Layne and I would attempt going crazy after a play, but it felt lackluster. So, what are my conclusions? What are my main thesis points?
• It is much easier to be a Gator when it is convenient. The whole “Gator Pride” thing only extends so far. I hate to be the downer on all those who would like to see themselves as die hard Gator fans, but a large amount of this fervor comes from the ease of being a fan. Now, some would argue that they were Gator fans even before Florida was a powerhouse, but I’d argue that this point actually makes my case. When “oh man my team isn’t that good but I’m gonna stick by them” is all it takes to be “hardcore”, being a Gator is still largely ruled by convenience. Let’s take Kenny for example. He’s pretty die hard. Painting your room orange and blue would qualify as “hard core” behavior to me. Kenny gave up trying to find a place after just two or three hours of searching. I started to get really frustrated with him because his actions were so not matching up with his “oh, I’m the most hardcore fan” attitude. I’m not bashing Kenny, because I must admit getting stopped every time we thought we had a viable option was SO disheartening. I realized that Gator fans’ excitement is largely based on things like pack mentality and access to background details of the game. We lacked both in Berlin, and thus I was able to see this. I found myself fighting to get into the excitement of our win since I wasn’t able to access info on the specific details, something that I always enjoyed at UF. Most of my fellow Gators can relate to the enjoyment of a good copy of The Alligator after our victories on the football field.
• My sense of accomplishment came not from seeing the game (it wasn’t much of a game to be honest. It came from, as my mother put it, finding success in an endeavor in a foreign city. After being successful in such an undertaking, I feel I can take on other tasks that involve both a complicated problem and a complicated solution.
• God is in control of things, even down to the relatively small things, like a football game. If we hadn’t have gotten to see it, He would still be just as much in control, but our getting to see the game against all odds confirmed that WHEN God wants something done, He gets it done. Now to just learn to rest in HIS control and HIS decision making on what He wants done and what He wants left undone.
Monday, January 12, 2009
7.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
First breast sighting, right off the bat. I’m sitting at my gate waiting to board my second flight, and I notice the back of the paper of the man across the aisle from me. Apparently, “Anne loves the Nature” and is showing it with a fully topless half page photograph article. Looking away gave rise to the realization that this was not some adult subscription, but the common daily newspaper. With everyone around me reading the frontside, the paper’s backside (and Anne’s FRONTside) was multiplied and right in my face. In the States, often my plan of action was merely to get away from the objectionable material, forgetting to take it to God and failing to surrender the matter to Him. This half method ‘seemingly worked enough’ that I wasn’t forced to take it to the next level, surrendering my circumstances over to God. What I realize is that there will be some situations in Europe where the objectionable material is not fully avoidable, and I will be thus forced to first and foremost take the matter to God and seek His guidance for how to navigate. Wait, what’s it Linda is always telling me? “Hooray, another chance to grow!”
So listen, Jesus, if this whole savior of the world thing doesn't work out...
So listen, Jesus, if this whole savior of the world thing doesn't work out...
6 1/2.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
"We flyin' first class, up in the sky. Drinkin' champagne, livin' the life”
-Fergie, Glamorous.
Okay, so I wasn’t in first class, but I was in the sky. I wasn’t drinking champaigne, but I was living the life! Before I boarded my plane to fly to
The remote, the chair, and the appetizer course of my dinner!
6.1.09 (dated this way until I catch up)
So I’m sitting here in the airport, just got through the security check point. Right before that I saw my mom onto a bus to take her home, my brother and dad having taken the car home hours earlier. It was really nice to have her there with me for support and interaction before she headed home and I headed on.
I don’t like transitions.
Why? Mostly because transitions are a combination of known and unknown. The known is what is being left behind. The unknown is what is ahead. This causes me to fear that I will make the necessary jump from my current circumstances, and find out what I was hoping for or expecting lay ahead actually doesn’t exist, or isn’t as I thought it would be. This is where faith comes in, trusting that God actually cares and is watching out for me. Yeah, I’m still working on that part.
I think one big area that I am afraid of transitioning is relationships. I am afraid to branch out relationally in going to Berlin, afraid my friends here will go on without me, afraid I won’t make friends over there…
So I’m in the security line, having freshly bid farewell to my mother, realizing I am truly off on my grand adventure into the new, the unknown. In front of me there is an elderly lady who is hard of hearing and keeps ducking her head and talking to me about allergies and Florida palm fronds. Asmall Indian man behind me leans in and starts muttering about how slow the line is going, how he only has a few minutes to catch his plane, how there should not be only one person checking passports since there are three or four more just standing around. I listen to his complaints and do my best to sympathize with him, offering him my spot in line, which he turns down. He continues to go on about how everything with the security is ‘screwed’ and it is all ‘spit’ and on and on. We eventually get up to the podium, which is such a bummer because moments before he had attempted to tell his woes to the lady in front of me, and since he refused to speak up, choosing to respond to her “WHAT”s with leaning further and further in, I was really curious to see if he’d end up nuzzling her neck. With my money belt, actual belt, boots, laptop and 1 ounce bag of potentially flammable toothpaste, it takes me quite a bit off time to get through security, and I decide to tease the attendant who is me down. “Favorite part of your day huh?” He smiles, shrugs and says something indicating that favorite part of his day or not, its part of his very LONG day. After redressing, I walk to my gate. I notice the people I am passing. The newly hired newsstand employee getting chewed out by her manager, the man looking around embarrassed after spilling his water, the new parents making absolute fools of themselves repetitively while attempting to get their infant’s bright eyed reaction on film. I realize, they’re all just people. Whether they’re patting me down and this is their job, or they’re travelers just trying to get to their destination like me, they’re just people.
A large part of my fear is that the fellow students in my program won’t like me, that they won’t be compatible, that they won’t be accepting of my decision not to drink alcohol while overseas, that they’ll not want to be my friend. Then it clicks. They’re just people. Just like me. Just people.
This is when the commandment, “Fear Not” flashes through my brain. I think God made that statement because He’s able to back it up. If we choose not to give in to fear, He CAN and WILL take care of us. He won’t leave me friendless over in Berlin. Somewhere in between the tired janitor, the geeky money belt that I’m wearing as a fanny pack, and the fellow students I have yet to even meet, I get the sense that God’s taking care of me, and maybe, just maybe, I’m gonna be alright.
I don’t like transitions.
Why? Mostly because transitions are a combination of known and unknown. The known is what is being left behind. The unknown is what is ahead. This causes me to fear that I will make the necessary jump from my current circumstances, and find out what I was hoping for or expecting lay ahead actually doesn’t exist, or isn’t as I thought it would be. This is where faith comes in, trusting that God actually cares and is watching out for me. Yeah, I’m still working on that part.
I think one big area that I am afraid of transitioning is relationships. I am afraid to branch out relationally in going to Berlin, afraid my friends here will go on without me, afraid I won’t make friends over there…
So I’m in the security line, having freshly bid farewell to my mother, realizing I am truly off on my grand adventure into the new, the unknown. In front of me there is an elderly lady who is hard of hearing and keeps ducking her head and talking to me about allergies and Florida palm fronds. Asmall Indian man behind me leans in and starts muttering about how slow the line is going, how he only has a few minutes to catch his plane, how there should not be only one person checking passports since there are three or four more just standing around. I listen to his complaints and do my best to sympathize with him, offering him my spot in line, which he turns down. He continues to go on about how everything with the security is ‘screwed’ and it is all ‘spit’ and on and on. We eventually get up to the podium, which is such a bummer because moments before he had attempted to tell his woes to the lady in front of me, and since he refused to speak up, choosing to respond to her “WHAT”s with leaning further and further in, I was really curious to see if he’d end up nuzzling her neck. With my money belt, actual belt, boots, laptop and 1 ounce bag of potentially flammable toothpaste, it takes me quite a bit off time to get through security, and I decide to tease the attendant who is me down. “Favorite part of your day huh?” He smiles, shrugs and says something indicating that favorite part of his day or not, its part of his very LONG day. After redressing, I walk to my gate. I notice the people I am passing. The newly hired newsstand employee getting chewed out by her manager, the man looking around embarrassed after spilling his water, the new parents making absolute fools of themselves repetitively while attempting to get their infant’s bright eyed reaction on film. I realize, they’re all just people. Whether they’re patting me down and this is their job, or they’re travelers just trying to get to their destination like me, they’re just people.
A large part of my fear is that the fellow students in my program won’t like me, that they won’t be compatible, that they won’t be accepting of my decision not to drink alcohol while overseas, that they’ll not want to be my friend. Then it clicks. They’re just people. Just like me. Just people.
This is when the commandment, “Fear Not” flashes through my brain. I think God made that statement because He’s able to back it up. If we choose not to give in to fear, He CAN and WILL take care of us. He won’t leave me friendless over in Berlin. Somewhere in between the tired janitor, the geeky money belt that I’m wearing as a fanny pack, and the fellow students I have yet to even meet, I get the sense that God’s taking care of me, and maybe, just maybe, I’m gonna be alright.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Entry Numer Eins
Hello all,
Starting off with giving credit, I did get the name for this blog from my well traveled and even more well documented roommate, Will. He, an English major, wrote his first blog about his adventures in China, and continued blogging about his college experience. Very witty, and always grammatically correct. That was his blog, and this is mine. I'll be focusing on actually getting around to writing on here, and less on exactitudeness of grammaticalness and stubbornity of using actual real words. However, I will do my reader's a huge facor and do my best to avoid the 'lol's and the 'like's that permiate chat speach. Anyways (my favorite nonword), I'm in the season now of American football and European preparation. My time is split between the Rose Bowl and preparing online banking connections for when I get over there. I have Wachovia but I recently found out that they would charge me 2% of every transaction AND an exorbitant 5 DOLLARS per ATM transaction. Instead of getting washed for the cost of a subway footlong sub every time I need to withdraw money, I opened up a Michigan State Credit Union account and they only charge me 1% and a 1$ fee for ATMs. I'm learning that it costs more money to use your own money. With Wachovia, they charge me three dollars every time I want to transfer money out of my account into another account. Nuts to that, I found a way to get around that and have my MSUCU account 'take' those funds and avoid that fee. I would kill to find a bank that would just use my money on the market in an advantagious manner for their own profit and not charge me every time I want to use MY money; a bank where I take out $5 and it only takes out $5, all of which I RECEIVE. You'd THINK that since Wachovia just got bought out and is going down the tubes, they'd realize they're not in a position to live up to their nickname, "Walkalloverya". Apparently their precarious position only makes them not give a crap, kind of the way soon-to-be-former presidents seem to act towards their responsibilities the last few months of office. Now that that vent is over, I am switching as much of my funds to a better institution, and moving on.
Before I go, I would be amiss to close out without welcoming a very special lady into the world!
Starting off with giving credit, I did get the name for this blog from my well traveled and even more well documented roommate, Will. He, an English major, wrote his first blog about his adventures in China, and continued blogging about his college experience. Very witty, and always grammatically correct. That was his blog, and this is mine. I'll be focusing on actually getting around to writing on here, and less on exactitudeness of grammaticalness and stubbornity of using actual real words. However, I will do my reader's a huge facor and do my best to avoid the 'lol's and the 'like's that permiate chat speach. Anyways (my favorite nonword), I'm in the season now of American football and European preparation. My time is split between the Rose Bowl and preparing online banking connections for when I get over there. I have Wachovia but I recently found out that they would charge me 2% of every transaction AND an exorbitant 5 DOLLARS per ATM transaction. Instead of getting washed for the cost of a subway footlong sub every time I need to withdraw money, I opened up a Michigan State Credit Union account and they only charge me 1% and a 1$ fee for ATMs. I'm learning that it costs more money to use your own money. With Wachovia, they charge me three dollars every time I want to transfer money out of my account into another account. Nuts to that, I found a way to get around that and have my MSUCU account 'take' those funds and avoid that fee. I would kill to find a bank that would just use my money on the market in an advantagious manner for their own profit and not charge me every time I want to use MY money; a bank where I take out $5 and it only takes out $5, all of which I RECEIVE. You'd THINK that since Wachovia just got bought out and is going down the tubes, they'd realize they're not in a position to live up to their nickname, "Walkalloverya". Apparently their precarious position only makes them not give a crap, kind of the way soon-to-be-former presidents seem to act towards their responsibilities the last few months of office. Now that that vent is over, I am switching as much of my funds to a better institution, and moving on.
Before I go, I would be amiss to close out without welcoming a very special lady into the world!
Genevieve Noel - Born Dec 30, 2008 at 8:15pm. 9 lbs 6 oz and 21.75 inches long!
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