Day OneLondon, England

I should start by saying that my right hand is still cramped and hard to use from my Lyrik test, so I'm writing slowly... Last night when my plane got in and I took the Stansted Express to Liverpool St., the underground was closed. A really nice man there explained how to use the buses to get to Holborn. Unfortunately, I didn't know the area well enough to recognize where to get off, so instead of bugging the driver more, I made a guess... And got off a bit east of Holburn Circus, which was not very close to my hotel. I walked the rest of the way and arrived at about 1:30 am. Shower and bed followed.

Jules called at around 8 am, but I was too tired to talk. I ended up getting up at around 10:30 and walked down towards the Thames. I followed it to St. Paul's and then to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge before crossing at London Bridge and walking back along the southern bank. I got a snack (lamb and mint spring roll) at a market just southwest of London Bridge (by Southwark Cathedral) - it was delicious. I'm now sitting in a cafe a few blocks from the hotel, and just finished an amazing hot chocolate - it had unsweetened cocoa powder on top of the whipped cream, which added a nice bitter complement to the sweet drink. It's about 15:15 and I'm not sure when my dad's going to arrive, so I'm just hanging out here and reading/writing. The music here reminds me of Maggie's and of Home (I like how I just unintentionally capitalized "home")... Norah Jones, jazz, slowish latin music...

I'm really excited to see Jim. I'm also excited to check out the pictures I took today. Okay, back to Oryx and Crake.

PlaneOn the Way to London, England

Okay...what?! EasyJet is crazy. Boarding by group translated into "everyone shove a lot", then there was a problem so we all waited in the hallway of the departure gate, then lo - not a plane, but a bus. What, we're going to drive? What the point of priority boarding is, if you make group A stuck at the edges of the bus so that when it drops everyone off at the plane the first people to board are the members of group D... No one knows. These crazy people who were sitting across from me in the airport lobby - a guy who seems surgically attached to his cell phone and a woman apparently formed from melting plastic and sequins - are sitting next to me, it seems. Oh man. Nap or travel plans... hm, we shall see.

Age, Opportunities, Time, AccomplishmentsMünchen, Deutschland

I just turned 21 in Germany. I watched the clock change. Should I feel different? Should I be at a bar? I'm in my room, curled up in the corner on pillows and blankets, feeling reflective. I do feel old; often, in fact. Mainly I feel old when I pause to consider it. When I'm in motion, I'm not really old... Nor young, I suppose - more ageless. Time doesn't effect you unless you sit still and let it. Or rather, you only notice it when you are still. But time passes, regardless of your state of motion --opportunities come and go; have I made use of the ones that have come my way? What have I accomplished, what have I done, effected? How well have I matured myself thus far? How well have I expanded?

I don't want to doubt myself, my actions, the outcomes -- I want to be able to look at myself and at where I am and what I am doing and believe, wholeheartedly, that I'm on the right track. I suppose that's the idea behind fate -- making oneself irresponsible for how he/she turns out. I want to excel, to push myself further, and yet, at the same time, I want to allow myself some more slack. I want to let myself relax, take a break, and have it be perfectly okay. A constant contentment with myself, no matter whether I'm pushing limits or taking it easy. I'll have to work on that, I suppose.

Happy birthday, Jessie.

Dangers of IceMünchen, Deutschland

So, on my way to linguistics, I slipped on the ice and fell on my ass. It was apparently a pretty impressive crash, as all four limbs and my bag went in different directions and my hat literally flew off my head. I don't really care about the many Germans that witnessed this impressive display of grace, but my back, wrists, and knees hurt a lot from the fall. I'm old. And wahrscheinlich quite uncoordinated.

On top of this, I'm stressed. I'm suffering headaches, loss of vision (when standing up quickly), and my nose is all stuffy. I'm betting on dehydration for all of these. Besides which, I'm just kind of burned out, and I'm blaming most of this on stress. Finals, projects, RA applications, worrying about money, worrying about my living situation next year, worrying about learning this darn language... At least that graceful moment of flying through the air provided a break (albeit a tiny one) from everything else.

DreamMünchen, Deutschland

I had a dream last night about languages. I was in my Germanistic linguistics class, and someone asked the teacher (in English) if she was Chilean, as she had said "po" at some point. She replied she was and asked if anyone had been to Chile and, if so, for how long. I explained (in very poor German) that I was a double major and therefor studied for a semester there. People in the class laughed at my German and the teacher asked my neighbor to say something in Spanish. He tried and couldn't say anything understandable, and I wanted to say "See! That's how speaking German is for me!" in Spanish, but it came out choppy, jarbled and incomprehensible and I realized that my Spanish was gone.

This dream could mean a variety of things, most clearly it shows my rapidly declining confidence in the Spanish language, and my fear that I'll lose it. What would that mean? That my 6 months in Chile were a waste? They weren't. Or does it suggest that the same thing will happen to my German after this year? All the frustration and embarrassment... For nothing? I'm terrified of that possibiliy. And why was the class speaking English? Because I'm stuck in English or because German's becoming more natural and easily understandable... I don't know.

Regardless, I'm frustrated with my German. I'm understanding more, writing better, and speaking better. I'm getting a sense of intuition on how the language works, and yet I feel so far apart from native German speakers.