stressed interestingness

Alright. The task ahead of me is daunting.
Back in the day I used to have a Livejournal, which was my blog through high school and basically my journal through those years as well, because I have a total of about 5 written entries for my entire junior year. For awhile I got upset with myself about this, because obviously writing for an Internet audience isn't the best way to voice your innermost thoughts. But then I realized that by keeping my journal that way, I was really expressing myself in the best way possible because it fit that period of my life. I was 16 and no one understood me and my parents were obviously out to ruin my life, so venting it all out in a blog was much better than, I don't know, spray painting things and doing drugs. And, all of my best friends at Livejournal, and then we'd all talk about each others entries at the lunch table the next day. This, my friends, is how my generation communicates.
I actually copied my entire LJ into a Word document once. I put it in 10 pt. font with half inch margins and it was still somewhere around 600-700 pages. I originally wanted to print it all out, bind it, and then erase it from the Internet entirely. Of course, a week after I got done copying and pasting my life away, Best Buy viciously murdered my harddrive.
All last summer Sarah and I used to sit in the living room before we'd go to work. She'd watch the Food Network, and I'd sit there copying. pasting, and re-reading all my old LJ entries. We also did all of this in our underwear while eating Meijer brand mac & cheese, because we had no AC and were dirt poor. Ah, good times.
Anyway, the point I was getting at, was that I did get a lot of compliments about my LiveJournal from people whom I really didn't know that well. For example, Laura's camp friends. And when people said nice things to me, they'd usually say something to the effect of "Your life is just SO interesting". I honestly heard that way more than I ever thought I would, which was cool, but just confused me. I was just your average choir geek growing up in the 'burbs of Detroit. Sure, I did some outrageous things in high school. But so does everyone, right? I will now attempt to divide up the "interestingness" of my life, as I see it...
50% of it is how I write about it (If you know how to write, you can make going to the grocery store sound amazing)
20% my being dramatic (the intensity goes up a few notches)
20% my parents instilling the idea of EXPERIENCES > MATERIAL THINGS into me (This is why I am now running around Europe in $12 TJMaxx jeans)
10% my being impulsive (However, I am pleased with the vast majority of my impulsive decisions. Like hacking off all my hair and going to Oktoberfest. Quality decisions, I say.)

So whenever anyone said that to me, I'd say "No. Not true. Your life is interesting too, you just need to write it down."
I actually mean these things, too.
Anyway, all of that was to make the point that right now, I feel that I am limited when it comes to interesting things to write about. So, I am forced to make mundane activities sound exciting. However, they are mundane activities in Germany, and I continue to be dramatic and impulsive. I have a few things going for me.

Lately I've just been stressing, sleeping, or being productive. The stress actually encompasses all things. So, I've been stress-sleeping and going to the library stressed. Stressed teeth brushing. Stressed coffee making. It's rough.
Germany is a procrastinators worst nightmare, considering all the work comes at the end. But, I feel that the stress level is equivalent to that of finals at U of M. Yes, all of this is auf Deutch, but I have a dumb foreigner bonus here. I am entirely ok with this. The overachiever in me has vanished and I want to make it abundanly clear to all my professors that I only partially have an idea of what's going on. I don't want to turn in crap, but I'm not aiming too high. I figure the accomplishmen in itself will be enough. And these grades don't go into my GPA. If you all hadn't notice, this is me trying to talk myself into being less stressed.
I've already started doing research and I went to a workshop on how to do Hausarbeits
Hausarbeit - gigantic big formal paper
The format is a big huge deal over here. You're a lot more likely to be graded down if you cite something wrong than if you mess up one of your ideas. Also, you must never, ever be subjective. And no one cares about your own opinion. I really don't mind this, considering I'm not terribly passionate about anything I'm writing about. But it's so very German, of course. In America my entire childhood was filled with writing about my personal thoughts. Now, I like this and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I was hardly taught any decent grammar because of this. The only grammar I ever got was when I tutored it myself, completely independent of public schooling.
Exhibit A:
"How are you today?"
"Oh I'm good"
NO YOU ARE NOT GOOD. YOU ARE WELL. Saying your good means you're a good person, which you are not because you obviously don't have respect for the English language.
Alright I can't get too upset. I'm not perfect. I still have no idea when one is supposed to use a hyphen or parentheses. So I just throw them around poorly. I apologize for this, especially-to-my-step-mom.
So, that's my message to America. Teach more grammar. And make my little brother learn the difference between 'your' and 'you're'.

Other than learning to be more Socialist, I've been buying tickets to places and looking forward to my break. Natalie and I found 29 Euro tickets from Munich-Budapest, which is amazing. Also after talking to John about what he wants to do when he's here, we decided on a quick jump over to Rome for two nights because I found 60 Euro tickets. I told him we're not allowed to ever sleep and that I'll translate for him when we go hang out with the Pope.
Speaking of John, I miss him and think about him a lot, which of course makes me think about a whole bunch of things. And then I listen to Ella Fitzgerald, which doesn't help anything. I think basically right now I'm doing my best to just live in the moment and enjoy my time here without fixating too much on people at home. But sometimes, that's a lot easier said than done. Especially when you're me.
My other activities: trying to like tomatoes, getting colds, and cleaning my room daily. It's really exciting. I know. I figure a month of hell is alright, considering I haven't been doing anything productive for the past 5 months straight. And I get rewarded with 7 weeks of travel and people visiting me.
Shucks.
Alex and Adam are in Egypt right now, which just makes me a lot more aware of where I am in the world. It's not THAT outrageous to take off for Egypt for the weekend. Or Morocco. Or Istanbul.
The more time I'm here, the more I think that 11 months really isn't that long. A year ago the thought of 11 months terrified me. Deciding to come here scared me horribly but I knew it was just something I needed to do. I also kind of fell into it accidentally, because Julia mentioned it to me one day. Honestly. There wasn't in depth research or a lot of questions asked, which you think someone should do when it concerns a year of their life. I just went for it and then slowly fell more in love with the idea. And everyone yelled at me about leaving.
But now I'm here and I've hit the halfway mark and I'm kind of wondering what the hell happened. I feel like I got here yesterday. Everyone at home keeps going on about how August 3 is so far away but no, it's not. I disagree. It'll be on my doorstep all too soon and then I'll be a total mess when I have to leave Freiburg. I miss home, but right now, I am glad I am here.
I will also now refer to my wonderful grandmother. She and I were talking about my possibly doing Peace Corps and as she said, 2 years really isn't THAT long. And she's in her 80's. So her advice carries a lot of weight because she is definitely what I would call wise. And honestly, what scares me the most about PeaceCorps is how long it is. Well, and possibly not having running water or electricity.
Anyway, if any young children are out there heeding my invaluable advice, GO FOR THE LONG PROGRAM.

I feel that this entry has reached it's limit, so I will now bid you adieu, put on some Ella, and pick out the chunks of tomatoes in the marinara sauce I bought. I tell you, I'm really trying.