Procrastination from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

Oh, and this.

Weird or just different?

Obviously I haven't been very active, blog-wise, in the last few weeks, so I am going to post twice today to make up for it :)

I just saw this great video. It's funny and at the same time makes a very important point which I think is relevant to all aspects of life.

So try out the lesson learned from the clip "The opposite may also be true" and then assess your political, ideological, religious or opinions about the right lifestyle.

If you are like me (and most other people in my experience) you probably think that you are quite right in what you assume about the world. In fact most of your knowledge is never ever questioned. As soon as you have made yourself an opinion, you regard that as the viewpoint from which all other opinions are to be judged.
But what if you're wrong? What if you dismiss a correct or equally (!) correct notion, just because you limited your mind - unconsciously or consciously - to what you hold to be possible.

Personally I take from this a reminder not to be judgemental and act from a position of not wanting to destroy others' opinions. Instead I try questioning all of them, first of all my own. The openness that comes with this approach hopefully makes me a lot less prone to conflict. (And what if the opposite of that is also true?)

With winter coming it feels cosier to be inside with friends

Now it's not that cold yet in Augsburg, but summer definitely feels like it's over. So while my weeks are pretty busy at the moment I am here today to share some of the things I experienced in the last weeks.

There was this great project by the very talented photographer and great human being Tyler Knott Gregson which I contributed to and which was meant to show the world some love :)

Hello World, I Love You from Tyler Knott Gregson on Vimeo.

The other day I went to a café to chat and study with a close friend. As often with her I learned a lot about myself, which is always a good thing :) We talked about our childhoods, about how we became the way we are. We talked about circles of friends and how we manage our friendships. We also talked about relationships and what our ideal partners are like. So many important things that I cannot go into detail about them right now (maybe some other time), but I will recommend this to you: Just go one of these days and call a friend to spend a relaxed afternoon in some café with them, just chatting about the important things in life :)

Not only free time holds great human episodes but my university life is also full of brilliant people and interesting stuff. I am currently immersed in an intensive Portuguese course of three weeks where Spanish speakers learn all one normally learns in the course of one whole year. So it's not only intensive, but an intense
experience and absolutely inspiring. Language is my thing anyway and here I get it in compact form and enjoyably presented free of charge!! It does not get much better than that for language learners :) The teacher rocks, too.

Oh and there is my buddy Sebastian in Rome who just now started an inofficial riddle group to solve some logical puzzles together, like this easy one here: You have a 3 liter jar and a 5 liter jar. Measure exactly 4 liters. I solved it, go have a try!

For now I will leave you, I want to see some family on this Saturday afternoon! Be happy everybody!

Weightlessness

I saw this and smiled :) Feeling a little stiff after training hard in my Aikido class yesterday, I would probably enjoy some weightlessness right now ;-) Have fun!

Information overflow

Once again I have been collecting stuff on the internet that I found funny, things that made me thoughtful and in general things that I would like to share. Come with me on a short tour and feel free to comment :) (btw the comic above is purely random *g*) To all images applies "click-to-enlarge".


This picture of worldwide airline connections by Mario Freese has impressed me greatly because I like to be reminded of the busy web that is the earth.



Lately in the cafeteria of my university I was asked once again if I wanted to test a newspaper without any charge for two weeks. I was half way through signing up for it, when I realized that I actually do read three newspapers on the internet per day ^^



This quite intelligent chart shows the respective probability of different consequences of a decision for accepting same sex marriage. It's pretty drastic ;-)


This comic here made me thoughtful about how we see people differently when they are close to us. And it makes me wonder how we would treat others if we felt they were all family and actually taking care of us...



If you did not catch the story in my recommendations box to the right, I suggest you read it here: FBI terrorist interrogator on the uselessness of torture and the efficacy of cookies. I find it a brilliant example of how kindness is a stronger weapon than aggression.


Let me end on a smiling note :) Be happy everybody!