Vonfuse(d) Me

It is with mixed feelings I embark on yet another journey, albeit a short one. Three days New York with a short trip to Princeton, two days Boston and a night in Amherst. I can't wait to get away, to travel again, to see different life. To take new pictures, to walk different roads, to breathe fresh air.

If only right now I didn't wish I could do all that without the travelling between places. I wish I was in Amherst already.

Then again - tomorrow night - New York, The Beach Boys in concert. Woohoo!

I just really don't know what is good for me.

Current Music: Bjørn Svin - Mer Strøm #2

Vonfusion is, and should be, a temporary state.

Let's see where we shall go from here.

Current Music: Porcupine Tree - She's Moved On

It has been way too long since I last posted here. I don't know what has kept me. I have even been back to Germany in the meantime.

I realised last night that I haven't properly let myself be troubled for a long. I prefer the word troubled to being upset because it is more precise in saying that there is a worry, but it may not be pressing. That doesn't make it go away, though. It was Saturday that I suddenly had the feeling that nothing I will ever do will be as grandios as two years in Flekke, and for whatever reason, even my last summer.


Sometimes I wish I could just simply break down over all of these things. In five days I will be leaving this town again, for 15 months this time. Another goodbye to be said as I won't see many of these people again when I come back. Yet, what maybe scares me more, is having to say yet another goodbye at the end of next year when I leave Virginia. I am not afraid of change, not at all, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to stay in one place.

Whenever I travel by bus and journey through all the small villages along the way here, I wish I had grown up in one. Maybe gone to University nearby, or in the same country. Somewhere where I wouldn't have to worry about packing everything that is my independent existence away from home into boxes or suitcases at the end of an academic year. Somewhere where I could "live".

This way, this dream of mine will have to be deferred by at least one more year. And who knows what I will do after St Andrews? A friend asked me whether I will go back to Germany afterwards. Maybe, possibly - I really want to go somewhere else, see the world. But do another degree? Go into acadaemia? Or settle down, get a job? I wish "father" from Cat Stevens' song Father and Son would come over here and sing to me...

Its not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
Youre still young, thats your fault,
Theres so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but Im happy.

I feel like I am speeding through life on the fast lane at the moment. It brings me close to many fantastic moments. But maybe sometimes I wish some of them would stay.

Current Music: The Scorpions - Always Somewhere

I just want to feel something really strongly. I want to feel a negative emotion really strongly.

The negative emotion I want to feel is anger or disappointment towards myself for not feeling stronger about daily life situations at the moment. Those are the feelings I need to guide me through those situations, but they are not with me. But then I cannot even feel that one negative emotion.

When things appear circular, what is most difficult is finding out where to start. And then this is not even properly circular.

Current Music: The Polyphonic Spree - Hold Me Now

At a party tonight, we mixed a weird powerade drink first with Vodka, then with Vermouth (Martini of sorts), and then with the two together. The result, which was quite alcoholic but very drinkable, we named "Blue Poison", after its content and the vicious blue colour it had...

I won a year's supply of organic vegan soap, shampoo and washing up liquid last week. Right now I have twelve gorgeous soap bars in my room, together with five litres each of dark orange washing up liquid and a very plain-looking shampoo, each in those big canisters.

On Wednesday I will be back to Germany, if BA manages to book me onto a flight I will actually be able to take. This is after cancelling the flight I was meant to be on because they sold part of their service to budget airline flybe, who decided to cancel half the flights as a result... Oh the joy of being (mostly) dependent on some form of air travel to go home...

Current Music: Shakira - Underneath Your Clothes

My going leftie project is not overly successfull at the moment. By now I have become used to looking at my right arm when checking for the time, so it is about time I start a new project - but as of now, I am unsure of what it might be. I will see tomorrow. Most likely I will start using my left hand to pick up things, throw things etc...

Blogs I find increasingly intrigueing. This is a very quiet blog, yet it is a deep one - not many people read it, but there is quite some honesty in there, even if hidden behind a lot of language. I want to be more open - yet I have realised that I can hurt so many people if I am just plain honest. While hurting people is bad enough, doing so over the internet would be disastrous.

These days I sometimes feel a little lonely. Not lonely in the sense that there is nobody whom I could go to - but lonely as in that there isn't anyone there just then. A lot of that has to do with security. Can objects be friends? So often I think of my green coat as a source of comfort when I need it, maybe like a friend. Sometimes my schedule is my friend because it tells me what I should do, something many of my friends here could never do. Maybe right now the beer I am drinking is my friend, for it keeps me company. I don't expect anyone else to - but I would like it, in a way. (Although I have to be careful here, for saying that an alcoholic drink is a friend is putting me quite close to alcoholism ;) ) I wish the essay I should write would become my friend, too...

And not to avoid the topic, a word on emotions - I wish I could tell myself to feel what I should feel, rather than what I do feel. Maybe I just feel too much. Maybe I think of feelings the same way I think of many objects - I am afraid to lose them, for they *might* be handy again one day. But of course that creates more conflicts than it solves and makes up all that baggage that I can take only if it is all that I can't leave behind.

Finally, a picture: Last Friday was election day. I campaigned for an "opinion poll" on ethical investment and bounced about one day as the "green fairy"/"ethical superhero". Can't say I didn't enjoy it, although it is a bit freaky meeting people now for whom their first impression of me was as that green thing...



Current Music: The Arcade Fire - My Body is a Cage

I've always wondered what it is like to be left handed. From this week on, I will try to become left handed. (Or rather, double handed, since I am already right handed ?!)

I have started by putting my watch on my other arm. Once I feel comfortable with that, I'll try and grab things with my other hand, wear my bag over my shoulder the other way, put my computer mouse on the other side and eventually start writing with my left hand.

This may take me a long while, but I want to give it a try! Any ideas and support from the lefties out there would be highly appreciated ;) ! I'll update my status on here as well...

Current Music: Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man

PS: This song is one you all have to listen to :D ! One of the happiest and bounciest songs I know. Yeah!

...since I have last posted here. And there haven't even been that many news in the meantime.

I've been to London and come back. I've had the results for my exams back, all without any major excitements. The new term started and is looking very interesting so far, although it'll be a lot of work.

This last week, and this is maybe the most interesting bit, I've lived off one pound a day. The One World society that I am quite active in organised this. From Monday on, fourteen of us spent no money and "accepted no charity" - which involved not eating any food we had stored before, not taking any free food from anyone and essentially not eating anything that was not bought from our seven pounds for the week. We cooked together and ate together, and while we never ran short of food, we did have an awful lot of chickpeas, beans and lentils, and porridge every morning. The idea behind all this is to raise awareness of poverty in the world; half the world lives on less than a pound.

How successful we are is of course debatable. We are still having fresh, clean water for free. We are also still living in houses and sleep in proper beds, and don't take any of this into account. At the end of the day, I hope we managed to raise awareness even just a bit this week by walking around town in our brown hoodies with our message clearly on the back. We also raised a fair amount of money for charity, I hope - but then how much it'll be in total we'll know in the next few weeks, when people have collected the money from their sponsors. If you want to read a little more about it, we have a webpage up at onepoundaday.com as well.

Once I turn my laptop back on again after a week of having it off, I will try to get some of the pictures from London and the days around it onto my computer, and then to upload some. For the moment, I can't wait to have chips and cheese just after midnight and then go drinking for the one hour that pubs will still be open...

Current Music:Wicked (the musical) - Defying Gravity (although I'm only humming it, using my iPod is another thing I gave up for this week...)

Things are falling apart, things are falling into place. Next year I will be at the University of Virginia in the USA for a year abroad. I don't know any details right now, those will come once I have confirmed my place - but I shall post more about the exchange once I know it and I will be a little less tired.

On Monday I will be off to Edinburgh for a conference on nuclear weapons and the British Trident system, and then to London to see Cirque du Soleil's Alegria. Quite excited - it will be a good break before the new term will start Monday in a week.

A big hug to everybody reading this - I'll let you know if you appear in my dreams tonight ;) .

Current Music: R.E.M - Man on the Moon

Verbindlichkeit is a mysterious german word. It can mean something so precise in german, yet there is no proper english translation for it. One could say that it is a problem I suffer from.

For me, it is important to have a sense of this Verbindlichkeit with anyone close to me. That involves knowing you can trust one another, but also that you have certain obligations to value that trust. Verbindlichkeit means letting the other person know that there is an understanding of terms, that if both have agreed on something, they can value this agreement - and this agreement can be anything at all. I call it Verbindlichkeit that I would always call my grandma if I have been at her place and come back the 300km, just to let her know that I am safe because I told her I would call.

If I want to find Verbindlichkeit where I expect it and cannot find it, it often upsets me. Maybe that is my problem for seeking it in the first place. But often I feel this world could do with a little more of it between all of us, it would make many things a little easier.

Current Music: Patrice - Soulstorm