Bloggerific

I want to thank everyone for your comments to my last entry. It sounded extremely...something bad. And it was. I get quite upset on certain days. Other certain days are quite nice. For example, my trip to eastern europe was pretty kick-ass. We saw two of our plants there, which were pretty neat, actually. It still amazes me sometimes how complex tires are. There is so much shit that goes into them. On the way back to Vienna from our second one, a few of my friends and I stopped in Brataslava. It was pretty awesome. Most of it you could tell was part of the communist bloc. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures to represent that. When you got to the city center, to the historic downtown, things looked much nicer. It was a pretty good trip. I loaded more photos to my sharing place. I am not sure who got invited to that cause it is both ridiculous and fabulous that you have to get invited, but anyway, if you want to be invited, let me know and I will make it happen and you can look at the pictures I have been taking. Or some of them, anyway.

I also put up some pics of my new apartment and some from a hike I went on with a colleague in the "mountains" (they're really just kind of large hills) in the area and some pics from when Alex and I went to Rome and a few random pics from around Hannover that I either really liked or liked just a tiny bit or that I thought were funny (like the one with the picture that says 'Live') or maybe I guess just the photos that I wanted to put into it. I'll call it Random Crap from Hannover or something, I guess.

I am ready to go home. I am ready to go home from work and enjoy my new apartment, but I am also ready for Christmas with my family. I think I will enjoy it very much.

Life is good (at the moment. It fluctuates, as you have undoubtedly noticed.) I really am starting to feel comfortable here. And what that means is really quite basic. I can feed myself and purchase necessities like shampoo and toilet paper and laundry detergent with little more thought than was necessary when I was in the states. That is an incredible feeling after you have experienced otherwise. When you barely know where to go to get groceries, its complicated. But now, I know where to go for groceries, I know where to go when I want to dance, I know where to go when I want to have a nice, fresh beer, I know where to go to the bathroom, I know how to get around the city, all of those things that I really took for granted in the states, I am feeling quite comfortable with. It's fabulous.

Social life still sometimes lacks a bit because I obviously don't know people here near as well as I do at home (whom I have a very difficult time communicating with because of time differences, limited access to internet, etc).

Life is good.

Some days are hard, but I still think that being here is the right thing. And I guess, that's what makes it the right thing. I discussed this with another trainee who is considering not coming back from Christmas vacation. We decided that the correctness of such actions depends a lot on what you want/can have from life. I think we both decided that our fathers would tell us the same thing. You have to weigh the consequenses and make a decision. I hope coming to Europe is the right decision given the drastic consequences.

Anyway, I wish I would have had the opportunity to work with more international students at Rose. I wrote to one of my professors today because I feel so much ahead of a lot of the people here regarding feedback and a little bit ahead (at the very least, quite competent) regarding teamwork. Sometimes it is so foriegn to me that someone has never had feedback before. But then I go to an intercultural training and I learn from my colleagues that in China, they don't give feedback unless it is from the boss to the employee. And then, it is very high context. To a lot of Americans, the message would probably be lost because they use different ways to communicate the feedback. And to communicate in general. We heard a story in the intercultural training that one guy saw a girl in public or somewhere that he was interested in and so he had his parents contact the girl's parents. He went to her house for tea and the girls mother let him in. He was seated in the garden and the mother brought him some tea and bananas. He drank a bit of tea, then got up and left, very sad. Every one of the Westerners said "Waht the fcuk?" One guy from Malaysia understood exactly. See, tea and fruit do not go together, so the guy was to understand that he and the girl are equally compatible.

Once again, let me know what you think of the pictures (since only one of you did last time). I am particularly proud of the one of the colloseum with the moon behind and also of one from Kronsberg with the stars and the trees and...I think there was one more that I really liked. (I keep going back to this because I am undergoing the extremely time consuming task of uploading the pictures while I type.)

Anyway homies, I send you my love. I am sorry for delays in replying to emails. Being busy is not an excuse because I know everyone and their mother is busy. (As long as they're not gettin' busy together.) I would also like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy Hannuka and a glorious Kwanza and a chilling Chinese New Year and a happy calendar New Year and whatever. Hell, if you're not celebrating any holidays, I still wish you a merry unholiday.

Oh, I just was reviewing the pictures and I am also happy with the picture of the plane's wing with the clouds in the background. The spiraling staircase in the Vatican Museum ain't bad and neither are any of the pictures from the Harz Mountain Hike. Have a look. (I think the one of the moon looks a bit like it was created by that one program that makes those fake landscapes for desktop backgrounds, but I swear, its a photo and I took it.

Peace out