It’s all a question of wanting I guess. No no not of wanting, of waiting. Like of wanting or waiting to leave and come back and remembering who you were while remaining who you are. Your self will never leave you, so why should you worry? Well you do worry. You worry because you always leave something behind, and yet you’re going somewhere new. Somewhere new and appealing, but will you not miss the old? The old memories and miseries and clashes and get togethers and waitings. Each flight is like full of hope and past and future and dellusion. Dellusion.

You thought about staying next to my shoulder. Yesterday.

IT

All those things which you left behind. You had already lost them before forgetting them, remember?
Airports then, airports are like the space of no time. The in-between space of your ear, the very only and exclusive space where the present is not perceived, rare species. Otherwise, mind you, otherwise I’m a believer. A believer in the present and a skeptic, per extension, since I’m extreme, as far as the past and the future are concerned. The past and the future only exist if one thinks about them, their existence being completely dependant upon thinking. Thinking, then, thinking needs to take place at a certain moment, now, at present, so I assume that the present is the only thing that exists, the only human construct which is close enough to reality as to be an independent entity and whose ability to change, what defines it, makes it appear almost real. I refuse to believe that the past and the future exist if one does not perceive or think about them. And perception, once again, is present-bound. So, no present? Then no past, no future. Relativity lover.

You’ll think about staying within my temple. Tomorrow.

IS

All those things that you are getting now, you feel them? Too late to perceive them. On your toes.
But airports. Airports are the exception. They’re like the line in the middle, the fine thread where you stand without knowing whether you’ll fall to the left or to the right, upward or backward. Like the unique piece of land where the present does not count. No wonder that airports are human-made, artificial. The present then, the present moment might as well go on strike there, so unwelcome that it is. It is precisely for this reason, because the present at airports is no wanted guest, that decisions are best made there. Because they constitute the only reachable isle where your decisions are not biased or minuciously guided by your present perception of things but rather by past events or future opportunities. Wanna be rational? Then go to an airport and decide there. And yet, I am convinced of it. I am telling you, don’t you dare not think present.

Because I am leaving you. Today.

NOW

One usually falls backwards.
A shame.

Maybe, you know, maybe I do believe in destiny. In destiny as in something huge and great and powerful and non-existant that merely exists because it gives me hope. It was all a question of waiting you know? Time’s over, space does not exist any more. Maybe I was actually supposed to care about it, to cry without it, to go away. I am tired of people who go away, even worse if the end’s a begining, always the same story. I only looked back once.

Always the same story. I think it’s a protection strategy see? Like I go away before anyone else has the opportunity to do so leaving me here, suitcase on the floor, straight up, ears waiting, mouth shut. Always trying to pretend, that I don’t care. That I didn’t care about the ones that went away, that I am ok with myself for myself and within and without and at myself and so on. Well I do care.

Well I do care. I do care that you, and you, and you, and you go away. Tired of having to start from scratch and even feeling the need to pretend that it is all fine cos, you know, feeling the need to pretend to be happy is all we do. Oh yes, I’m happy, everything alright with me, what kind of today’s world citizen would I be if I were not happy, or pretended to be so?

I pretend to be happy. And, in doing so, I might convince myself that I am. A static hole in the middle of chaos, of people running, coming and leaving and not even looking at me cos, oh well, I was not that important in the end, and they didn’t have time. Time. To look into space and see the chaos I had organized, in my inner self, cos other’s won’t notize. She’s strong they’ll say, she knows how to deal with it. She’s used to everyone leaving and to having to make the effort once and again.
She doesn’t care. She’s strong.

She’s strong. Well I’m not. I’m not and I feel like I need to go away anytime someone does. I mean someone that matters, not that many anyway. Like it makes no more sense to stay because, you know, a certain place is not the same without the people who founded it, when you first arrived here. Staying, mind you, is not that easy. But I’ve learned my lesson. You leaving? Well then line up, don’t you dare come too close or I’ll bite you, I’m not interested in you and you should know. Stupid strategy.

If you build up a crystal wall between you and those in front of you, remember not to look too often mesmerized at the sight of it, not that it turns into a mirror and you end up seeing nothing but yourself. There will always be someone coming from behind to touch you on your left elbow.

And you know.

Impossible.
You look out of the window and realize, after all, that it was not rain but snow. A higher degree of consistence, yet further. Rain into snow, snow into rain, rain into nothing. Rather cold than nothing. One can always stay cold if one wants to. A violent impulse. I want to taste the cold on my face.
Let us stay warm inside, apart from the outside world, warm and easy and happy and smiling. I need to change my habits. I need to feel the cold.
Improbable.
You know I thought the other day, I dont’t like windows. Like they are impossible yet necessary barriers between you and the outside world. I’ve just seen a stain upon my window, wait just a second. Or rather do not waste your time waiting. I’ll go get some soap to clean the crystal. Soap and crystal. Good combination mind you, flexible substance to clean the unbreakable, to let you see outside. And yet it’d rather stay dirty, I mean the crystal. I don’t want to feel the cold on my ears.
Let us leave the stains on the window the noise on the ground the rain on the surface the maybe in the case. For I need to go somewhere. I need to hear the cold.
Maybe.
If only. I don’t want to worry any more, to worry about the weather, to worry about people, about work, about feelings, about thoughts, about instincts, about knowledge, about snow. If the snow is meant to melt it will melt anyway, so why should I worry? Because I am going to do great things, I am going to discover a new law against freezing, I am. Just going to be.
Let us not stay in the waiting room but go gather some snow. Smash it and walk upon it and pamper it and mean it. For I need to smell it in my hands, so aseptic that they are. I need to smell the cold.
Probable.
Not that you blame me for it no no. It wasn’t my idea to look out of the window anyway. But I’m glad that I did, now that I knew, yesterday that I know, that it’s not cold any more. It’s freezing. Quiet, little, always, none.
Let us forget about rules, remain who we were believe that it is impose that it is not. I don’t care if people wear huge impossible shoes when it’s snowing. I want to feel the cold on my feet. So near that they are.
Possible.
It is not snowing any more, crystal clear.
Let us go outside on the ground do snow balls. Like when I was a kid, just for a little while.
Leave the jacket on the floor, gloves on the couch, lamp on.
Of course.

Last Friday marked the end of our first exams, and I am now looking forward to a round trip in Europe to celebrate my Christmas. However, I still have one more week of class work before I can finally take that well deserved break off the books.  It was one of the toughest weeks ever, waking up early to revise and prepare for four exams all done on the same day. This was a new experience to me as back home we could only sit for a maximum of two exams in one day; so sitting for four exams with only fifteen minutes break between the subsequent papers was more of a torture to me.

It is always a common practice among students to ask how the exams were right after sitting for the paper. I have never found the correct answer for that question as I imagine that, my performance will be determined by the final grade. Anyway, this week I have learnt that you can never be fully prepared for exams. No matter how well you prepare, you will always be nervous and I consider that a sign of having just the correct dose of confidence, you don’t want to walk in to an exams room feeling overconfident just for you to be frustrated by the exams.  Now its time to equate the term exams with xmass and the good thing is that you don’t have to revise for it but have to prepare your bags.

However, before I can pack my bags for a trip around Europe I still have to contend with one week’s course on marine monitoring and GiS coupled with a presentation on our respective country’s monitoring system. I would have expected that right after the exams we would have the break, but surprisingly enough we have to sit for one more. The positive thing about this course is that it’s a totally new field to me, and therefore I am very eager to learn more about it is as it’s a very critical part for my future career.  In addition, the course is being offered at Vechta University and that means commuting daily for the entire week, and you cannot afford to miss the 7:20 am train.

Finally, this week we are scheduled to have the DAAD meeting on the 15^th, this is going to be our second encounter but the first away from home.  I hope that it is going to be exciting meeting other students in Bremen and the officials, for apart from my colleagues in class I have not met other scholarship holders in Bremen. It is the final week before Christmas the season of giving and to be jolly I hope that it’s going to be a jolly week, don’t you?

Sehr verehrte Leserinnen und Leser,
Liebe Constipendiaten,
Am vergangenem Sonntag, bin ich eben in der Vandalen-Ausstellung im Badischen Landesmuseum zu Karlsruhe, quondam Residenz der Großherzöge des Landes, gewesen.
Es war wirklich schön und empfehlenswert. Eine gute Museographie, schöne Exponate und eine ruhige Atmosphäre. Es ist ja so unangenehm wenn man von kleinen „vandalischen“ Rentner oder Erstklässler überrumpelt wird. Oder noch schlimmer, wenn ein Faux-pas in Richtung des Meisterstückes (zum Ehren des Obligationenrechts lassen Sie uns „Eichen am Wasser“ von J. I. van Ruisdael als Beispiel nehmen) eine Legion Museumswächter in Bewegung setzt. Hier war das nicht der Fall. Die Cafeteria war zwar halbwegs gut, aber immerhin ein Mittagsessen wert. Schön fand ich, dass die Weihnachtsblumen,so mexikanisch wie diese „Lederblumen“ ( „Cuitlaxochitl“ ) sind, von der selben Farbe waren, wie die Wände der Ausstellung: dunkelrot.
Kaiserporträts, barbarische Waffen, römische Münzen, frühchristliche Stelen und nordafirkanische Mosiaken ermöglichen einen Einblick in diesem kurzlebenden Reich des Geisimer und seines Volkes auf karthaginesischem Gebiet. Eine schöne Völker- und Kulturgemenge.
Gerade, dass die ehemaligen Hirten und Krieger Pommerns, plötzlich auf der Heimat Tertullians landeten, war eigentlich schon merkwürdig. Kunst,-, Religions-, Zivil,- und Militärgeschichte fanden dort, in dieser Erdflecke in dieser Zeit mannigfaltige Angelpunkte. Aus rechtshistorischer Perpektive waren die Albertini Täfelchen natürlich die Kronexponate der Ausstellung. Es sind Zederntafälchen, die über die Rechtsgeschäfte einer verarmten Familie in einem Latifund am Rande der Wüste im 5. Jhr. berichten. Von daher, sind sie ein bißchen traurig im Vergleich zu anderen lateinischen Urkunden, wie etwa die Tafeln aus Herculaneum.
Arius, für den Gott der Sohn nicht genauso göttlich war wie Gott der Vater ist;der Bischof Wulfila, der die Bibel ins Gotische übersetzte; Belisarius, der treue Soldat Justinians, und viele andere Gestalten grüßten den Touristen.
So darf ich mich, von Ihnen und Euch allen für dieses Jahr verabschieden. Ich wünsche Sie und Euch allen frohe Weihnachten.

CRYSTAL BALL

Always breaking. You cry out loud and realize, after all, that it was not a question of volume. Nothing that you didn’t know. Arms up, you move in circles, dizzy, weren’t you supposed to go on the other direction? Maybe it is not you the one that is moving but the crystal ball around you. The ball protecting you and yet preventing you from growing, from moving. That ball that keeps you up and down and apart from the outside world and that prevents those words from coming out. A strong and resistant barrier mind you, those things that you had to say, remember? They’d rather stay well inside, we don’t want the ball to break and have pieces of glass all over. On the clean floor.
There’s this words that are said, and yet they get back to you after rebounding on your sphere. Altered.
Speak it, pretend it, lie it. I don’t believe you.

CRYSTAL ISLES

Always communicating. You cry out loud and realize, after all, that it was not a question of space. We are, after all, communication isles. The more you know about language, the less you communicate. A finely-woben world of your own. The threads, your words. Or were they mine? Little funny crystal balls one after the other, very near, trying to convey meaning through words and rarely being succesful in doing so. Put two crystal balls together, two crystal balls like two people talking, and see that the first ball’s words will not reach the second ball, good quality crystal. Each ball, mind you, each ball has ist own world, a world of meaning and relevance and dreams and mind of its own. Use a word many times and you’ll see how it loses ist common meaning and acquires a brand new refreshing one. One of your own. Noone can steal it from you and yet you cannot make youself understood through it, so yours that it is. And yet you know I am talking to you, so it might also be mine, this world of yours.
There’s this wordy world of your own that is preventing me from reading your mind. On the crystal.
Speak it, mean it, pamper it. Mouth shut. Those meanings are only yours.

CRYSTAL BUBBLE

Always meaning. Trying to convey sense. You cry out loud and realize, after all, that it was not a question of time. Of tempo. But of saying. The meant and the said. All what you didn’t know, now in a crystal bubble. Don’t you dare remove it too much, not that the content spills all over and you need to face it. Wanting to say and not being able to, all the things that you were looking for, now in a new appealing format. Magic touch. I refuse to believe that there’s a difference between the said and the meant, what kind of an economic language would it be if one had to waste time guessing? Guessing, my dear, is the meaning of words, meaning within space, the meaning of time, so far away that it is. Don’t say it if you mean it, just cry out loud.
There’s these things that I meant to say, remember? All those things that I didn’t mean in your world of mine in the speechless mindless wordless meaningless unheard.
Speak it, mean it, pamper it. For it makes sense:

Six forty-five.

Hallo,
heute werde ich ein paar Fotos von Marburg, meiner deutschen Heimatstadt , kommentieren.
Bild 1 zeigt den Eingang zur Oberstadt: die Gutenbergstraße. Sie ist vermutlich eine der Orte in Marburg, die am meisten befahren werden. Ganz normal. Drum herum stehen viel Geschäften und Supermärkte. Ab von diesem Ort kann man auch leicht Kirchen, Sporthallen, Kneipen erreichen.

Bild 2 zeigt das Marburger Rathaus mit Weihnachtsmarkt. Jede volle Stunde kräht der Rathausgockel hinunter.

Und schließlich eine der berühmsten Straße von Marburg: die Biegenstraße. An dieser Straße befinden sich das Hörsaalgebäude der Uni, ein Museum, der Kunstverein und noch andere.
Schöne Adventszeit,
Hery

Es muss erstmal gesagt werden, dass ich mich in diesem Blogeintrag auf jeden Fall nicht beschweren möchte! (mich stört das komische “nicht-winterliche” Wetter nicht so sehr
Anders aber einige andere in Freiburg. Die warmen Temperaturen, die es dem Regen nicht erlauben, endlich zu Schnee zu werden und die heißbegehrten Pisten mit ihrem weißen Teppich zu überziehen (das verrichtet derzeit ja meist diese “Schneepustemaschine”) bereitet so manchen Sorgen, ob der geplante Skiurlaub überhaupt noch stattfinden soll und falls ja WANN?
Ich bin neulich mal auf ein altes Foto gestoßen, dass ich zufällig ganz genau vor einem Jahr gemacht hatte und zwar von einem Schneesturm vor meinem Fenster! Das Foto, das ich heute morgen gemacht habe, sieht im Gegensatz dazu aus, als hätte ich es zu einer ganz anderen Saison gemacht.
Das Schlimmste scheint aber glaube ich zu sein, dass die Chancen auf weiße Weihnachten immer geringer werden. Die Festtage nähern sich erschreckend schnell, aber die Temepraturen liegen immer noch bei um die 10 Grad. Das Bild eines gemütlichen Heilig Abends im warmen Wohnzimmer während es draußen leise weiter vor sich hin schneit, sieht dieses Mal eher etwas nässer aus Und das finde auch ich sehr schade, denn wenn es etwas Positives am Frieren gibt, dann doch vor allem den schönen Schnee!

The merry go-round

Its funny how life can turn out at times, just when you think, that you are very busy and cannot afford to waste time, you end up indulging in some activities which are not only time consuming but fun. This week marked our last lecture and the beginning of revision for exams scheduled for Friday on the 11^th of December, the first real exams. So despite the expectations of being busy bodies in preparation for the exams, a sample of the class (me included) decided to clear off our heads by visiting the Christmas market. December is a great month in the sense that as it ushers the Christmas celebration, however it also marks the beginning of real winter with temperatures plunging below 10 degrees, which may not be fun. Despite that, I was excited at the prospect of waking up to a snowy morning, but was disappointed to wake up to showers.

This was my first visit to the fair having missed on the previous fair held in early November. The running theme at the market was the medieval era, it was therefore fun to watch the stalls with owners dressed in the old traditional attires reminiscent of that age. There were several delicacies appealing to the eyes and the taste buds but pocket unfriendly, such as pommes, sweets, chocolates not forgetting the wurst. Several activities ranging from magical tricks to merry go-rounds were also part of the occasion. Perhaps the most common activity observed that we also participated in was the consumption of the frothy liquid glühwein to get rid of the biting cold. The only problem was that I had taken the wrong shoes with thin soles; hence the drink did not help much as my feet were growing numb and the only activity that could keep them warm was constant feet movement.

part of the class consuming gluhwein

One of the striking stalls that we visited was the one dealing in potions, there were whole range of potions but the most common one, which had lots of buyers, was the love potion, the question is do they really work? Well the answer to that question was to try out the potions, which I did not, so the question remains unanswered. The fun part of the whole exercise was to see the true personalities expressed, giving an indication of just how pressure can modify personality. We took some fun pictures that will forever remain etched in our minds as moments that really count. I cannot honestly trade the time we spent at the market with studying time for in those few hours we spent together my mind was truly relaxed and refreshed synonymous with the saying all work and no play. I cannot wait for Christmas to come and despite the biting cold I would really like to experience some real snowy weather, which would be my first encounter with snow.

The christmas markets in Germany are a great sight to see and a major attraction. They start off well 1 month before Christmas and hence they make a wonderful option to go out on a weekend to relax and have fun in an otherwise cold and dull winter..

The market in Erlangen has been put up near the old university building in the Innenstadt. The usual shops are all there serving würstchen and Glühwein. The Glühwein is something really funny, served hot, in cups resembling tea cups and tastes too sweet to be called wine. There are also shops selling interesting chocolate or vanilla dipped fruits. Then you have many shops selling interesting small articles like toys, dolls, gift sets, ceramic figures etc . all related to the Christmas theme like santa claus (who is everywhere in all sorts of shapes and sizes), angels, elves, etc. and even witches ! There are also special shops selling small Christmas trees.

There are fun rides for the kids and sometimes I even see very small kids (as young as maybe 2 years) enjoying the rides without any fear or crying. There are interesting people on the roads playing superb music and requesting alms. When you pay them a coin, they stop the music, say ‘danke’ to you and continue to play again, but do the whole thing so masterfully that neither the song, or the beat or the continuity of the rhythm is spoilt.

Some people say that Christmas has been too much commercialized these days, and the season has been used by businessmen to urge on the common people to spend more, but I find these markets very beautiful and relaxing, especially to take a beautiful stroll and visit the shops in the weekend and maybe buy something what you like to eat or to gift someone.. that wouldn’t be too bad!