Travelling

I love to travel. It has become my favorite hobby and thinking about it, it might even be my favorite activity of all. I started early, getting familiar with the feel of other places under my parents guidance and for some time now I have been travelling on my own or with friends.

I have been so lucky to be able to spend some months living in Spain, where I met some of my best friends. Most of them share my passion for other countries and cultures and I have learned so much only by talking to them. I know that seeing the world today can be expensive, even if you are a backpacker or a pilgrim, because at least you should be able to afford leaving your home for some time, along with family, friends and a well-known environment. It is this cost that makes it hard and also very promising to spend time in other countries. So everybody should have the chance to go abroad at some point in his life. It does not matter much, how far you go, just that you are open to the differences that start beyond your personal horizon.

What I have learned is more than I could ever have experienced in a lifetime if I had spent it in one place. My life is rich because of the people I met and languages I have been able to practice, because of the lifestyles I adopted and opinions I have heard.

Travelling has rooted my credo deeply that openness is the key to a happy life. I will be leaving again for Spain tomorrow and see new places and people I have been missing. I am travelling with my companions to share experiences that are so important to friendship.

I will leave you with these two videos made by ex-videogame-programmer Matt Harding who took all his spared money to travel the world and became an internet legend that warms my heart :)



At least as good: the outtakes made after his second video, which was sponsored by a chewing gum company :)

Summer

I have not been writing for some time and I have had good reasons (mostly). It is summertime and I have been living it up with good friends from far and near. I spent some time in Leiden in the Netherlands with walks on the beach and rain showers in the marsh. I met up with old friends from highschool for barbecue and enjoyed days by the lake around here. I went canoeing and biking. I got to sing along to my grandpa playing the keyboard. I helped my uncle's family move into their new house. I got to throw my dad to the ground in martial arts training. My brother is happy and we are soon to take off on another adventure together, driving to Spain in my car. I also got a new laptop which has increased my quality of life enormously (speed, webcam and a lot more mobility).

I have been reading quite a bit and am currently writing a paper about communication and leadership in project groups. It is a topic within organizational sociology and a pretty interesting one especially for me, because I feel the relevance it is going to have in my future career. Did you know that the German Industrial Norming Institution (DIN) does not work with a category for leadership or social competencies within the project when deciding over its quality certification?!
Although the topic is nice, work is going a bit slow, mainly for the above mentioned reasons.

Never mind that, everybody keeps telling me. Just let it go and this too shall pass... I know, I can feel now, what I have been thinking for a long time. Just having the experience of those unfortunate phases passing and coming up again does not make you immune to them. Emotions can get in the way just as your diet or lack of sleep can. Whatever it feels like when you are stuck, eventually you will rise again and all those fears and the self-reproach will be forgotten, because you have not lost anything, only gained. Knowing that will not stop you from feeling that way, but it will help you to get to the other side! So, just relax :)




And if you are still not relaxed, consider this ;-)

A webcomic selection

In an effort to make your procrastination more efficient I would like to offer you my longtime experience and some pretty awesome little helpers for the many hours you, as I well know, spend NOT doing what you think you should be doing at that moment.

I will have Sinfest's genius artist Tatsuya Ishida have the first word:



Next up is Jorge Cham, creator of phdcomics, where at least every academic gradstudent finds a lot of his own life funnily portrayed (or so accurately that it hurts). See here one of the very wise insights into the life of my part of population:



And with all this new life that everyone leads on the internet you should also see the significance that little changes in your online profile can have (here shown from the angle of xkcd, A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language):


Facebook defines relationships. 'Yeah, we would have broken up last night, but the net connection was down.'

Every now and then webcomics can really make you think. They are some kind of philosophy light, the kind that could just let you drift off and spend some time relaxing inside your mind, because it reminded you of thoughts you had but never finished. Now is the time you can use for it! This example is by the Perry Bible Fellowship:



In other words, as you may well have guessed, I spent the time since my last post studying and procrastinating. Will you guess what took up more time? FYI: My exam in German constitutional law went well and my presentation got good feedback. No worries!