Greetings Again!

Dear Constant Readers,

Doubtless I still make the mistake of writing down the year 2006, and will continue (perhaps not unlike many of you) to do so for the next few weeks to month and a half, give or take. Thankfully this is all automatic here.

I have posted a few more photo-albums on Facebook, so if you have not seen them, I invite you to do so, if you have access to them. I actually have two or three more left to post, ones that I took around Christmas and New Years, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. To those of you who have already seen the photos, I hope you have liked them. I don't know how many albums I'll create by the end of the year, it just depends. Regarding Trier I always find something that I think is beautiful, something small, usually, or fleeting, like how the clouds look, and they'll never look that way again, but I don't take very many photos because most of the time I don't have my camera. For those of you wondering why I posted so many pictures of the moon, or of a wall with vines growing on it, it's simply because that's how I see the world. I try to look at the small things, puddles when I'm jogging, the reflection on the window of people sitting in the bus, the way the light is shining somehow. A lot of them are just personal things, usually it's the colors I fall in love with, or somehow a sense of life there, to hopefully not sound too pretensious. What I wrote last time, about not being able to capture the world with words, I also try to do so with imagery, or, in the words of a dearly respected friend, Amanda, create a window to how I see it and feel about it.

Well, it looks like the moon just disappeared. I saw it and was going to take another photo (half moon tilted, the bottom half gone) but I guess a cloud ate it, so I'll continue with this.

Earlier this week I was out with the regular group of folk that I normally see and spend time with and I saw a red Lambourghini drive down the street near where we are. Dylon was impressed with the car; I thought it looked like a squashed red box. I knew by name that Lambourghinis were famous, but I couldn't see really what was so great about it. It didn't look very curvy or suave, and the noise sounded more hurtful than sexy. Dylon pointed out some the subtlier details about Lambourghinis and similar famous car makes that make them so prestigious. I was impressed, and feel a bit inspired to do some research of my own. I admit I have a misunderstanding (and sometimes a bit of apathy) about cars and other things as well (such as sports, certain music and literature, and mathematics, to name a few ) that I would perhaps find much satisfaction in in pursuing the study of, if only on an amature level. Generally I try to be respectful of something I don't understand, for that very reason. I try to give it the benefit of the doubt, that if I better understood it, maybe I still wouldn't be enraptured by it, but I could see why some people are. But I still feel I should be entitled to my own opinions. James Bond drives an Aston Martin DB5 in "Casino Royale"? (First off, what is it?) Could be great, but without learning Greek, Plato is just a blubbering fool. And even then, after learning "Well, that was the first car that was designed by such and such, or the first car featured in a James Bond film, or has an engine powerful enough to pull the Alps to Russia while being fueled solely on corn syrup," and with all that appreciation, it is still possible to say, "I appreciate it, and can clearly see it's more than a heap; quite the contrary, it's art on wheels, but it still doesn't turn me on"? I think it is. You can't like everything, you can't please everybody, but you can certainly respect it. We are all guilty of this, though. Somethings, despite their obvious world importance, I sometimes couldn't care less about. I only recently became interested in mathematics; sports I almost unfailingly ignore completely, I'm pretty equalitarian about that. Ignorance is supposedly bliss. Perhaps, but I'm not sure it's ever something to be proud of. Sometimes though, it's hard to really care enough otherwise. Maybe it's just a matter of self-control. If you have the opportunity to become enlightened about something, why choose to remain in the dark? Life is a constanst learning lesson, and perhaps, someday, I'll completely change my tune about sports and math. Maybe the sports and math gods will break my heart of stone, so to speak.

I've already noticed that my English is failing. My spelling has gone downhill, and on a very slight level, with only a few words, my vocabulary is leaving me. My way of expressing myself has also become a bit less fluid, although part of that is also me just experiementing with a new "voice" of writing/speaking. Having decided for the time being to focus only on German and not on a couple of other languages I was thinking of working on my spare time has taken a bit of the stress off. After it all becomes more fluid maybe I'll go back to one of them (Esperanto, well within my personal resolution), but that wouldn't be for quite a while yet anyway.

School has begun for me already. So far so good. I'm trying to think of ways to save money, namely by not eating in the cafeteria. I have a few bits of homework I have to do, and today I was a bit exasperated when I walked down to the bus stop, rode to the university, and then discovered that class had been cancelled. On the other hand, despite me doing all that, it was good, because I would have been an hour late anyway...Over the break I had forgotten that it was a two-hour long lecture and would have shown up for just the latter one.

I think things are going OK with the German people I know here in Cushanushaus, although sometimes they are hard to read. Sometimes I ask myself if I did something to make them ill towards me, or even just wanting to be more distant from me. Living in the same proximity that's always a possibility, but generally they strike me as kind-hearted and forgiving types, so if I did do something, hopefully in time we'd be cool again. I'm thinking of one example in particular where I stuck my foot firmly in my mouth with a friend here who I actually do very much respect and enjoy her company, but due to string of unfortunate mishaps for me, not to mention a bit of a hard time concentrating on what she was saying, due to just that, and also to the fact it was in German, I put myself in a rather awkward position. But in any case, that is life, and sometimes life goes *kerplunk* but it never stays there.

So. I hope all is going fine in the states. May this entry find everyone well.

Yours,
Tristan