Well after a 3 month hiatus, I have finally returned to write a blog. I can only send my sincerest apologies to the handful of people that follow my blog and to all the people on Facebook that take a look at what I wrote whenever I mention it on my profile. I realized the other day that I have been in Germany for 7 months now, which is the longest I have ever been away from home. Like everyone always says, time flies by and boy has it ever! I can hardly believe that it's been 7 months. Soon it will be October; I will be starting my third semester and starting to figure out my Master's thesis. My life will be dark, literally, since I am so far north that the I will have to sit under lamps during the day to prevent any possible onset of SAD. I can only hope that my "winter coat" can stand up to the task of keeping me warm during a Berlin winter and that I won't gain 30 pounds as I sit in my warm apartment, eating warm food, and refusing to go run outside with Julian. Until then, I can catch you up on what I have been doing for these past three months.
Now for my reason for this three month gap: I would like to say that my hiatus was the result of living in Europe. I was too busy traveling the continent to simply sit in front of my computer and write a thing. In my mind, the greatest excuse is that I have been on vacation, traveling Europe, relaxing on warm, Mediterranean beaches while looking at sexy, Mediterranean men, and just living a stereotypical European life. I am now so German that you would hardly think I was Asian (actually, that will never be true no matter what world I live in) and I can now speak German better than English. Berlin is my new home and I know it like the back of my hand.
Here is the reality: I haven't been on vacation in over 3 months. My life during the semester was actually more relaxing than my summer has been. I don't want this to turn into a blog where I make it sound like my life sucks. No, I am having a great time in Berlin and of course it's not like the first time I was in Europe and could travel every weekend, but that's okay. This summer has been far from that. Since the German system likes to have students work on their papers over the semester break, that is what I have been doing. On top of that though, I have been working at my internship full time. So, these past two months have involved me going to work at 8:30 in the morning, getting home around 6 and then trying to work on my papers. Of course this wasn't always a successful endeavor every night and the weekends were kind of hit and miss.
As to the warm, sunny beaches, I was not at the beach. I was in the lovely city of Berlin where the summertime heat never really took hold. We had a few warm days in the 80s in May, June, and July, but since then those days have pretty much ceased to exist. While everyone in the U.S. was sweating and dealing with terrible heat and humidity, I was most likely sitting in my sweat pants or if I was at Julian's house, sitting in front of a fire. Not what I usually expect to do in early August.
Even though this summer hasn't been the summer of major relaxation and European living, I can say that I have gotten a lot out of my internship. I was lucky in the sense that it is like a real job and I have always had plenty of work to do. My German vocabulary has really gotten better, especially in the area of demography. I can design websites and I can understand German much better. The bad thing, and probably most stereotypical thing, is that I don't really like my boss. This woman is very German and pretty testy. I would say she is what I would think of when I tried to think of someone that was just being a pill.
If I ask too many questions, she gets annoyed. If I don't ask enough questions, she gets annoyed. If I forget things, she will let me know and will do me the honor of doing it even though it was my job to do, which she reminds me of as she completes the unfinished task. If I say yes or okay too soon or just when she doesn't think it is appropriate, she lets me know. She will send me an email giving me a job to do, but that it doesn't have to be done right away. The next day I will receive another email asking me if I have done the aforementioned job yet. I would say about once a week I will receive some form of compliment/pat on the back. Usually though it's just a fight to not shed a tear at work for feeling like I can do nothing right.
I think if she wasn't in the picture, I would love my job even more. What I do wonder about though, is how in the world can these people really talk about demography every single day? I mean I guess I now understand the idea behind mid-life crises and why people just go back to school when they're 40. It's crazy to think about that the guy in charge at my office has been there since the beginning, so over 10 years, talking about population change. Wow.
Even though I didn't have the stereotypical European vacation where I spend my days on a Mediterranean beach and become super tan, I am glad I had this internship. I wasn't too pumped about writing those papers and I still don't appreciate that they took away the possibility of relaxing, summer evenings and weekends. At least they're done now and in 3 weeks my internship will be over too.
There is always next summer for that dreamlike summer vacation...
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