8.30.2006

there's no place that I could be without you

Honesty: What a thing. It is so specific and hard to completely carry out. Sometimes complete honesty surprises me. Yesterday, someone came and told me something. I was surprised at the honesty. The thing that they told me was miniscule. It didn't get them in trouble and they had to go out of their way to tell me. It was more of a hassle to tell me than not to.

That is what I mean by complete honesty. It was refreshing and showed that the person was a true person of integrity. I need to work on that. I think that I am a pretty honest person. Some would even say blunt, but I don't know if I would have gone that far.

Props to anyone who can identify the song lyric of a title without using the internet.

8.29.2006

What is your comfort level

I recently talked about how nice rain was. That was Saturday evening. Well, the rain hasn't stopped since then. Oh well. It has to sometime. The sun will come out...

People like to be comfortable. We act so much differently when we are comfortable. If we have been to a place we feel more at ease. I have seen a lot of this recently. Between people that have been here in Germany and others.

I only hope that everyone learns to be comfortable. It could be a bad year for them if they don't. Somehow this has started to become a comfortable place for me. I guess because I have been here almost a month. So what makes us comfortable? Hmm. I wonder if it is home.

What is home...(I think I asked that question before)

8.26.2006

Rain, Rain on my Face

It is raining. It rains a lot in Germany. Or maybe this is just an odd weather pattern. Anyway, sometimes the rain is annoying and sometimes it is nice. Tonight is one of those nice times. You can just hear it fall calmly against the roof. It is a very soothing sound.

It has really chilled me out. As I write this, I got a bit of Norah Jones playing. Ah, so relaxing. There is something nice about the rain. If it was earlier, I may go for a walk, but some other time. Right now I will just enjoy the soft sounds. And a bit of Donald Miller reading.

What are some things that cause you to chill? Is it a warm drink? Nice music? A soft woman? Or man? Is it a location? I think that it is important to have places that we can just chill. It heals our soul.
Oh, and Waking Ned Devine is an awesome movie…one of my favorites.

8.22.2006

How do you respond?

This past weekend I went to Ikea in Germany. It was a very hard experience. Something that I did not expect. The store was under construction and not all of the areas were open. Plus everything was in German and all the workers spoke German. Add on top of that the need I had to get things to allow me to live like sheets and a pillow.

All this put together made for a very difficult and stressful experience. How did I react? I just wanted to get out of there. I needed help, but didn't know how to get it. I decided that it was useless and I gave up in a way. I didn't want to get annoyed further so I just stopped.

Interesting reaction, huh. So how do you react in a hard circumstance?

8.20.2006

How is it different?

I had the privilege of being able to go to an amusement park on this past Thursday. It is called Europa Park. There are some definite differences between how it was run and how parks are run in the states. First off, the lines. They stop the lines periodically at different points in the waiting so that the ride queues don't back up as far. I don't see why they do it, but they do.

One thing they do that is awesome is to quickly load the ride. I would say that at most, 30 seconds passes from when a train arrives to when it leaves. No corny announcements. Just people getting off and on the ride. The food is better than at most American parks...and cheaper.

It is a nice park although not many huge rides. There was more food stuff than ride stuff it seemed. It did have one huge ride called Silver Star and that was completely awesome. What a thrill.

I had another post coming, but forgot it. It has been pretty busy, but I will try to stop by here as much as possible.

8.14.2006

The Pressure

Have you ever felt like you have to feel a certain way for the people around you? Recently I moved to Germany and was told about how amazing a time I would have. Everybody is so excited about the wonderful time I will have.

Well, there are always ups and downs that we experience in our lives no matter where we are. So what do I tell people. Do I tell them that I sometimes am not doing incredibly or do I just keep it back? The funny thing about this is that I know they want to hear anything that it going on, good or bad. They want to hear honesty. But I have built things up in my mind.

It is amazing how other people's expectations affect us. I have talked about expectations from our side, but never really thought about it from the other way. It is something different to be under other's expectations.

8.08.2006

Who's Better

How often do you compare yourself to others? I find that I do it often. The latest has been in the area of contact with the homeland. :-) Also known as the USA. Since I have been in Germany for almost the last week, I get to hear about who talked to the friends or folks or people everywhere back home.

Now I had a fair amount of contacts back there and I guess I have wanted them to miss me more than they are. It seems to be a ridiculous thought because all that is involved in this thought process is comparing myself to others.

I just need to be happy with what I am been given. I am very blessed. There are people that are contacting me and they are very very important to me and that should be enough. I need to be happy with what I have been given and not be disappointed with what I don't have.

8.05.2006

Why can't I just show me?

As I mentioned before, I have met many people this week. And even thought I am a fairly honest and blunt person, I have still found myself to be accentuating the parts of me that I think to be good and hiding the rest. I don't get it. I come off sounding prideful or self-deprecating.

Why do I do such things? Why am I not comfortable enough to just show myself? I would bet that others do the same. Why? Most likely has to do with what I mentioned before. That we make snap judgments about people before we meet them.

I wish I could be more honest, but I just put out all this crap. It is amazing how we disappoint ourselves sometime.

8.04.2006

People Everywhere

I have met somewhere around 40 people in the last two days. This is crazy. I see somebody and worry about whether or not I have already met them. But oh well, I'll just make a fool out of myself. I am pretty good at doing that anyway.

It's funny how we immediately have first impressions. Actually I shouldn't call them that. I should call it the first judging. I even try not to do it, but I do. I group people into groups before I even know them. Shame on me.

I shouldn't do that. People's quirks are not what define them. It's their heart.

8.02.2006

I'm an otter

So I went to the movie by myself this past weekend. I went to see Lady in the Water. It was a very enjoyable movie. Different from M Night's normal movies, but still had the quality of story telling and character development. I have always enjoyed his movies and this was no different.

It was odd seeing a movie by myself. I had no one to talk with about the movie. I guess part of the oddness is because I am so social. I love being around people and thought it was odd to be all by myself. Even though during the movie was no problem, before and after, the silence is incredible.

I will just have to always catch a movie with other peeps. But do they have movies in Germany? :-) I'm flying tomorrow. Yippee.