Man, I keep on thinking things are going to slow down, but they never do. I’m always just sort of busy. Not too busy that I don’t have a little extra time to myself, but busy enough. To the point where I don’t really get much sleep during the week, but that’s normal. Reminds me a little of high school, in fact. Getting up at 5:30, going to work, coming back at about 5 or so, and then having something else in the evening to do. So is life.
Band
In high school, however, I was usually busy because of band. So, now that my brain is currently dwelling on the subject I’m going to explain to you just how much my thoughts have turned to high school music in the past few months. Maybe it’s music withdrawal, but I find myself really missing practice. For me, band practice was a time where I could unwind. No matter how awful I felt after school, going to practice and focusing on relatively insignificant matters such as keeping a good tone, matching my color, and playing in tune. It gave my brain a break from all the stressful thinking that I would be doing otherwise. On Monday I found myself really getting stressed out. As silly as it sounds I spent the whole day watching the sheep eat. I needed to count their bites and their steps as they grazed, timing each activity. Not exactly the most intensive activity, so I started thinking about things, worrying mostly. On top of that I was getting frustrated because the sheep were so darn lazy in the morning, and the ones that I needed to be observing were always standing around chewing cud, or just stared at me until the end of time. To make matters worse, I discovered when I came back to the office that I shouldn’t be leaving before 4:30 because of insurance reasons. I had a half hour to kill, so I asked to be put to work collecting root samples. But the problem was that my bus leaves at 4:37, and 7 minutes is not enough time to walk to the bus station. So I missed my bus, and had to wait another hour before I could get home. By the time I got home, I was so upset, stressed, and frustrated that I didn’t know what to do with myself besides hole up in my room. I wanted so bad to just be able to head on over to orchestra practice and get lost in someone else’s emotions for a while, play someone else’s music. Music to me was like a drug free way to escape. It was a means to escape whatever I was feeling earlier that day or escape whatever homework that I had hanging over my head that evening (haha). It forced me to get into the head of whatever the composer was thinking and out of my own personal mind, and every time practice was over my mind was no longer stressing out about the problems that arose during the day and I could think about them more clearly.
So if your reading this now and you’re still in high school, then I’ll say this to you: really enjoy the performing arts program we have there, because it’s something special. You’re never going to have the same experiences again, because they don’t exist anywhere else. I can tell you right now that I want to play music for the rest of my life, but I don’t want a career with music. I don’t think it’s ever going to be so fun and relaxed, but so good at the same time, like in high school. I might get to play in fun bands or orchestras still, but they will not be as good as our band or orchestra programs. And if I would want to be in bands or orchestras that are better, and get paid for it, then I don’t think I would have as fun. When I played along side the Indianapolis Symphony in the Side-by-Side program, I decided that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I’m going to stick with it. Every practice was really so stressful, and if I didn’t play something right I got pointed out and the director demanded perfection to the point where it really wasn’t fun anymore. Plus they practice a piece very few times and didn’t really get to know it like we did in high school band or orchestra, which was the best part. If I were to become a teacher I don’t know if I would enjoy myself either. I don’t think I’m very good with kids and don’t think I would teach unless I knew that I could teach well. Since I can’t, what’s the point? Would I really be making an impact in the world or even on these hypothetical kids for that matter? I don’t think so. But it does cross my mind a lot whether I’m making the right decision.
Career?
Right now, or at least before I came to Germany it seemed that everything was working out well for the path in Biotech/food science or something similar. I got this scholarship where I can test the waters a bit, plus I’ll be able to go to IU on a scholarship afterwards to do research (what I believe I want to do as a career). I honestly think it’s the right choice for me. The work kinda seems boring in the field of Graslandwissenshaft, and I like to make fun of it, but somehow I’m not really unhappy doing the work. Sometimes it’s just not engaging enough, but I have a lot of time to think, for better or for worse. Plus, for days like today (I’m typing this now on the Monday that I posted it), that are sunny and beautiful, I really enjoy my time outside. I really should be thankful that I work outside. There’s not a better place I could call my office than the beautiful Solling region, and I’m going to miss it, but I think I want to still do something more chemistry related or with food products. Honestly that interests me a lot more, although I found that identifying grasshoppers was actually really interesting. The rest, however, is not as good. I don’t think it could keep me going as a career. So basically I still have no idea what I want to do, but I'm a little closer. I start in a couple weeks doing more lab work, so we’ll see how that goes, but I had a long time to think about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while counting grass, so I felt the need to get this little rant out of me. It’s over now.
Back to the stuff that may or may not interest you. . .
Yeah, so this past week was mostly about counting grass sprouts that are from a water stress experiment. Our department deals a lot with water stress (aka how plants react to a lack of water) and the resulting environment caused by a lack of water. This test asked the question: When grasses undergo stressed caused by dehydration is it possible for it to grow back to where it would be had it not been lacking water? In other words there was a control group and a variable group. The control group was watered normally and the variable group was not watered enough for a period of time, and then they were both watered properly for another set amount of days. It looked like the variable group was mostly able to grow back to where the control group had been, but in some types of grass the difference was greater than in others. I think they need to repeat the experiment though, because there was a great difference in temperature and light as the summer turned to fall.
As I said, I also observed the animals on two different days during the week, and today I counted and identified grasshoppers, or what was left of them. Some species had already died off for the year, which made for a smaller population of specifically a few species that would normally be there. Those assignments were a part of the bio diversity project with the cows and sheep that I talked about earlier.
Stuff that hopefully interests you if the previous sections did not. . .
Last Monday I also went to the movies with my host mom and her friends (it was ladies night, haha. No really, the kino provides cheaper movies and complimentary sekt when you go on ladies night, so why not?) We watched the American with George Clooney. Quite the odd movie, I expected it to be a little more actiony, but it was interesting enough without it. It was all in German, so I was just glad that I understood what was going on. Funny, it said that it was for people 13 years of age and up, so I thought “ok, that’s like a PG-13 movie right?” Yeah, I should have known better. (face palm) I mean it was no big deal, it’s just that I for some reason thought that the rating systems would be the same, and I was really wrong. That was definitely rated R in the states, and I felt really stupid when I realized the mistake in my thinking during the movie. Anyway, good movie if you’re into artsy ones. In my opinion it was artsy, meaning the ending was depressing and made you think a little bit as to why they ended it that way. But then again, I watched it in German.
Tuesday was Blasmusik Probe. We played a lot of jazz that day, and that’s when it hit me that I missed playing in high school. They really are not very good at playing jazz and need a few tips. I think if I mention just a few things they could sound a lot better, like playing the style correctly, or this one goes for any type of music, but just thinking about playing in tune maybe once or twice in the piece (actually not terrible, it’s just sometimes) or balancing voices. Anyway, I was less than impressed, but to be fair they were just sight reading. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid of offending someone, but I say something next time.
The next few days were fairly uneventful. . .
Weekend visit!
My brother, as you may or may not know, lives in Bonn with his wife, and my dad works for a German company, and therefore is often in Berlin for a couple weeks at a time. So, since it was the weekend between my and my brother’s birthday, we met in the middle here in Ebergötzen and I got to hang out with them for the weekend. We had a great time. My brother had his camera with, so he took some good pictures of the area that I just can’t take. We talked and I showed them my little town and we walked through the Fußgängerzone in Göttingen. It was quite lovely, I had a good time. Plus I got all sorts of goodies from the states, like Peanut Butter M&Ms and soft caramel chews for making cookies. Mmm . . . Oh and we went to see the Seeburger See nearby. It was a perfect day for doing that and I saw this cool looking diving bird that I didn’t see on the other visit. Its a bird that dives down in the water for quite some time and then resurfaces some random other place. It’s rather fun to watch.
I don’t think I mentioned this, but occasionally there is a guy or gal walking his or her goat around the town. I’ve seen it quite often and have gotten used to it by now, but when I was showing my family Ebergötzen, I realized “hey, that is kinda strange isn’t it. . . the goat doesn’t have a leash.” Well, if you ever visit the place don’t be startled, goats are harmless and can, when properly trained, behave properly in public without the need of a leash. Although I would walk my goat around with a leash despite that fact, just because it’s a little annoying when the goat wanders off to munch on somebody’s flower garden and I would have to keep it from doing so.
Ende
So, yeah. Not much new, just a lot of thinking, made me very stressed out during the week, but I had such a wonderful day at work today, that I feel ten thousand times better. I feel refreshed and ready to take the worst that life can give me at this point. Although if life is listening, I would rather it stay the way it is if you don’t mind.
Shout out do my fam. Thanks for the birthday cards and gifts and the visit by Dad, Matt and Talina, I love you guys and miss you, but not enough to come back home ;)
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