21st June, 2012
Happy Summer Solstice everyone 🙂
It has been two weeks since I got back to Germany from India. All the trees grew back their leaves in the month I was gone so everything looks and feels alive! Another change I noticed was that there were German flags everywhere! For historical reasons many Germans usually refrain from showing/feeling any patriotism. In fact sometimes patriotism is seen as a bad thing here- a tendency towards nationalism! At best, they are neutral. So I was a little taken aback by the black-red-yellow on cars, on house windows, in front of office buildings. Turns out it was in preparation for the European Football Championship 🙂 The hype from game-1 has been high and I’ve enjoyed the spirit here, watching them with different groups of my friends.
Work has been going well and I’m making tangible progress with scripts and data analysis! It isn’t half as frustrating as it used to be because I did most of the work during data collection. I am only fixing up some loops so they run for all the datasets. While I wait for them to finish running, I read books, or browse the internet.
Social activity returned to 4th gear within the second day I was back. Let´s sing, let´s go out for dinner with the guest speaker, let´s watch the game/a movie together, let´s cook together, come over for dinner, etc etc. It´s fun! Today there is a birthday party by Wold See, a lake half an hour bike ride from Oldenburg. It is surrounded by trees and you get there by a small mud road. The birthday girl planned to decorate it with candles hanging from the branches of the surrounding trees. I think it will be very pretty! Tomorrow I have a singing session with a new group in a new-found band room and then a wedding anniversary party after that.
I do miss India but not in a tragic, weepy way. I am comfortable with the switches between worlds and feel like India isn’t really so far away.
In other news, I have a new niece, born in May 🙂 She´s so small and cute! And while I was in India I got a chance to skype with my youngest cousins, born last August and November. My family expects another baby in August this year, a boy this time, who will be my first nephew! 3-7 years ago everyone was getting married so everyone’s having kids now.
My blog is now at 28,500 ish views. 13,000 more than last time I emailed you all. Maybe that just means I don´t email often enough. Anyway, so there is new stuff up now, like the mega post God Flux (about my spiritual journey) which I broke down for easier reading
/2012/05/31/reflections-on-god-7-current-beliefs/
/2012/05/27/reflections-on-god-3-the-other-cheek-of-christianity/
/2012/05/26/reflections-on-god-2-deep-ecology-and-buddhism/
/2012/05/16/god-flux/.
Feel free to comment or write to me about them 🙂
I will leave you with the Piano Guys.
Eat healthy and enjoy life 🙂