I haven't yet had any saurkraut and if reports are to be believed it's a blöödy good thing too. Please excuse me if I bung in any spelling mistakes but such are the layouts of the german keyboard that the z and the y are backwardised and there are loads of fünny characters all over the place.
Frankly this latter statement is a fairly accurate summation of the trip, i am staying at a cousins house and there are certainly a stream of funny characters coming through. Further reports to follow but as yet I can report that I crossed the border to Strassbourg today and had a 4 course meal at 4 different restaurants with my cousin and his mates. I am surrounded by vietnamese people again, a la california, but this time the stark reality of my consistent slackassness has become lucidly evident.
For years I have neglected my eastern heritage, partly in an effort to keep up with the pasty white indigenous population, with their no-respect-for-their-ancestors. But obviously on the other hand I'm actually a fuckin lazy künst, generally quite assured in my abillity to "pick up the skillz later" a habit which has led to wholesale procrastination on the educational front.
One of the resultz of this habit is that I've let slip my own language and culture and haven't really bothered too much on the foreign language front. Like many English types I'm complacent in the learning of Modern Foreign Languages for the simple reason that modern foreign people know English. And Iäm too lazy to learn something that seems, while I'm on home soil, to be surplus to requirements.
As a result then, as I've been chilling with the super-intelligent tri-lingual crowd, I've realised how completely lacking in linguistical fluency I actually am. Itäs frightening to think that I'm actually capable of these things but have been too lazy to invest in the skillz. The skillz of my contemporaries and peers are a yardstick by which to measure my own achievements and as far as i have come on the academic and experiential ladder I realise that I am actuallly falling behind.
Although I can kick it with the physics and bust ass on the carnival front, it is an obligation of the global citizen, and especially the immigrant globall citizen to make an effort to successfully integrate with our neighbours. As a slackass I have little confidence to actually achieve this goal and feel that further effort is to be put in in this area.
Germany has been really relaxing and just what I need after the hell of last term. I really needed to disengage and perhaps to realign expectations for the next year and this has been therapy. Still working on rediscovering my sense of humour and if anyone sees it can you send it back as I'm kind of missing it.
