Back on the road

I am packing again. In the next three weeks there should be enough stories to tell from my roadtrip through Spain. I am travelling with a friend, visiting new and well-known places. People are always different though, so I am looking forward to a very interesting time. It's spring and temperatures are rising, so there will be oranges and cafés con leche and possibly some beaches to enjoy around Spain and Portugal. This is what I am expecting:

I Love People: 5,000 Miles, 930 People, 162 Seconds from Benjamin Jenks on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend!

Occupying banking

If someone had told me half a year ago that I would be working for a bank fulltime and loving it, I would have been completely incredulous. For all my principles of keeping an open mind and trying not to judge, banking was among the things I could hardly imagine myself doing. To have money as the content of my work, to worry about interest rates, capital, credit lines, wasn't a very romantic or fulfilling picture.

And it wasn't very likely either. Mind you that in my education I haven't put great emphasis on the kind of skills commonly associated with banks. Sure, I know a little bit about industrial accounting, have completed a two-year round in a big company as an apprentice, but first and foremost I have spent the last years of my life as a social science student at university doing scholarly things like reading, traveling, hearing lectures, and learning a bunch of languages. Also, sociologists around here have a reputation of being somewhat to the left of the political spectrum, while the future bankers - your clichée economics majors - are generally deemed a lot more conservative.

So if life were a straight line I would probably be protesting with the occupy movement now or writing about what is wrong with our financial and political system today (I still might, just wait *g*). Instead I am sitting at a desk 40 hours a week working for a financial institute associated with one of the biggest banks in Germany. And I'm happy with it!

A huge part of my fun at work is owed to my position in the company. I am a trainee in the business development department and thus the topics I am concerned with have a lot to do with societal, economic and technological trends. Yes, the angle is financial, and the products I constantly learn more about are deposits, exchange tradeable funds, and credit cards, but I enjoy the complexities of this new and unknown field. I am surrounded by intelligent and fun people who enjoy what they are doing. They do not comply with any of the stereotypes that the news proliferate, when they report about the debt crisis and wall street execs. Those people exist somewhere, I am sure, but my definition of banking and bankers has become a lot more concrete in the last three months and I have gained respect for the people making a living with it.

Of course understanding the financial industry is not the same as saying it is all good. There are a lot of things that need improvement. More transparency is probably the biggest change I would wish for and possibly also the one the financial industry is most afraid of, because money is earned every time customers do not fully understand a product. A lot of the revenue is justified however, because banks are in the risk management business and taking a risk off people's hands should be rewarded. But in the long run, we might all be better off, if kick-backs from selling expensive and complex products were replaced by annual fees for bank advisory services. My knowledge of the matter is still thin of course and tomorrow another piece of the puzzle might come to me that changes my outlook. But that's part of the beauty of a new job, so much to learn!

2012 will bring many new things to my life and I will keep shifting activities for a while to come. One of them is blogging and it remains something I truly enjoy. I modestly hope to contribute something to your life as well as my own. I hope you are all doing well and have started 2012 with good energy. Take this smile and have a great week :)

A New Year

I can't find better words than Neil Gaiman today. He says what I wish for everybody. I for one expect great things in this new stretch on the calendar and it feels like there is a lot to be discovered. The best from last year I will take with me, the rest I will leave there. Please enjoy your start into 2012 and share your joy and positive anticipation of what is to come with your loved ones!

Life after work

Wow, life has flown by for the past months. I was so busy that I hardly got time to reflect on all the changes my new job has brought with it. Life before was about family, studies, travel and friends far away. Now that I live in a big city and work full-time it's about work, housekeeping, shopping, and friends in my city.

Of course I miss some things from my old life. I have seen much less of my family, which sometimes makes me sad, because I got so used to having them around me regularly. All the happier I was when my granddad turned 90. Happy birthday again, Rudi! I miss my brother, who has been traveling for months all around the world and will be spending Christmas away from Germany this year. I don't miss my studies too much, but I have noticed that with the end of constant language practice some of my vocabulary is lost (mostly my Spanish, although some Portuguese is kept fresh thanks to doing capoeira). The time to travel will be very limited from now on, but I have already started to dream about where I might go and where to spend my precious free days next year. All that skill at travel planning I have amassed over the last years shouldn't go to waste, right?! Spain is high on the list and who knows, maybe I will be joined by another traveller from the other end of the world.

Mostly though I really have a lot of fun with my new lifestyle. For one, having money gives a nice feeling of freedom although I expected it to make even more of a difference than it does so far. A more noticeable change is that I now live in the same city as many of my oldest and dearest friends. We spend some hours every week to get together and do sports and eat. A week ago we were baking cookies for christmas at different homes on three days in a row. "Weihnachtsplätzchen backen" is a fine German tradition :) And with my new flat being 4 times as big as my old tiny room in Augsburg also comes the opportunity to invite more people to my home. I have already tried it on a few occasions and am quickly getting used to being a host. At the end of the year I will have people over to play videogames and just hang out at my place. I am happy to start a new year here and get an opportunity to build my new life with the people and activities I want in it. Before January I will take some quiet time and imagine what I want to achieve in 2012. Some things I might share here, others I will keep to myself. But you can expect another blog post soon, where I will tell you about my first experiences of what it is like to be a banker after being a sociology student for so long :) Take care and have a nice week!

On Work

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. ... And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. ... And what is it to work with love? ... It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit ... Work is love made visible.

I am starting my new job tomorrow. It is not only my new job, but also in most ways my first. I am not anxious or afraid, but tense, curious, and slightly uncertain. Will I like what I have to do for money? Will I be able to use my creativity in new ways to further goals other than ideals and my own good life? How can I bring my personality into my new environment to make it richer and not lose myself in work thus making everyone poorer? What new potentials will this unleash in me? What will I discover about myself that nothing up to this point has brought to the surface?

Maybe I have become idle and lost touch with the procession of the seasons. If so, I am going to make up for it now by bringing myself to a new task and breathing life and love into it.

The waiting has an end and the energy is starting to rise again. Here I come :)

And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

(Find the full text of Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" here. The last quote is from the "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters)