Nuremblog

My insanity has been cured! I just went back and read over that other entry. How embarrassing. I guess that's what happens when you Blog under distress. And I was severely distressed because of my complete isolation. If any of you have ever played The Sims, it was like all of my bars were full: energy, hunger, fun, comfort, etc. but the social bar was completely empty. But yesterday it was filled again in a great way so I'm better now.

I went with four other people to the city of Nuremburg, the name of which you may recognise from your history books, if they mentioned the Nuremburg Trials, where a bunch of Nazis were tried for war crimes and most of them were sentenced to execution. I went with Justin, Jesse, and two other people. Rachel's younger sister Liz (who is much cooler than Rachel because she smoked weed regularly...haha), and another American student named Kristian, who is from Wisconsin and is one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Apparently Nuremburg was one of the most important cities to Hitler's Third Reich, and he held many Nazi Rallies (sort of like Republican conventions) and built or at least started to build many Nazi structures, including a Kongresshal (you can guess the meaning) which is unfinished but now a museum where you can learn all about the rise of Hitler and specifically the role of Nuremburg in all that madness. Apparently there were lots of hardcore Nazis there, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some around. There certainly aren't many Jews in that city. Anyway, we went to the museum and took English audio tours which lasted 3 hours and repeated itself a lot but it was still very interesting.

Then we walked around the city, drank some hot wine, made our way up to the castle where we had the most awesome fucking view of the city at sunset, then found a nearby restaurant and ate delicious Bavarian food and drank delicious Bavarian beer.

The last train left at 7:00 and got back to Frankfurt at 10:30, and we made the mistake of stopping off for one last wine before the train ride at 6:40. When we got to the train it was completely filled to the brim and we had to wait for an hour in a section between the cars in order for some seats to open up. That was the only bad part of the day.

By the time we got back to Frankfurt, all of the alcohol had worn off and we were feeling tired but completely sober. Then...like lightning...a miracle struck. Kristian invited us over to his dorm to smoke hash (auf Deutsch: kiffen)!!!! Having not smoked since my spoils from Amsterdam and always willing to get high, I enthusiastically agreed. So Justin, Jesse, and I went to Kristian's dorm and smoked a few spliffs and a few bowls and watched some Family Guy DVDs and the movie Tombstone. Man, it felt great. I couldn't remember the last time I've just gotten high with friends and sat around watching tv and movies. Scratch that, I can remember, it was August in Autumn lane. I had forgotten just how great that was. And to think that while it was going on I took it for granted and felt like I was wasting my life just sitting around, getting high, and staring at a tv screen. That's some serious luxury, people, and I hope you all appreciate it, 'cause when it's gone you're gonna fucking miss it.

But anyway, I went home at 3 in the morning, ate some delicious Swiss chocolate which was 10 times more delicious than normal, and went to sleep easier than I've done in weeks. Now I feel completely great, my "social bar" is filled, and I'm ready to spend the day all alone again, but in a much better state of mind than before.

Luke: thanks for the words of encouragement. I definitely agree with what you say...you've just got to keep it positive. But I don't think that's possible all the time. I think you need to sometimes descend into pessimism in order to refresh your optimism when it returns. Human emotions move in cycles. You can't just be happy or sad all the time. Without the opposite emotion to balance it out, happiness and sadness are meaningless. But what you can do is try to be positive more often than negative, and that's what I need to work on.
As far as your pyramid scheme goes, I must have seen too many tv shows where stuff like that turns out to be a big hoax and whoever goes into it ends up broke and feeling like they've been used and manipulated. I don't really have $500 to risk while I'm over here, as tempting as becoming a millionnaire sounds. What do I have to do? Recruit more people and get them to pay $500 to do the same thing? Because if that's the case, I'm out. No matter how motivational these people can be, I don't think I'd ever be able to convince enough people to join this thing.
But please let me know if it's not like that, and if it does work out for you. If I have eyewitness testimony from someone I know and trust that this works, you can definitely count me in.

So that's about it for now. Keep blogging, people. This doesn't just have to be a Luke / Kem dialogue. It can be a trialogue, or even a quadrupologue, quintupologue, sextoupologue, even a dodecoupologue (whatever that is). If I don't see more people blogging real soon, I'm going to come over there and use Nazi torture methods to make you blog.

Peace, bitches!
And Heil Hitler too!

Blogsanity

Kem's going insane, people. I've never been more isolated in my life. The other Americans here don't call me anymore. Justin the asshole found a new german friend. Rachel and David are too busy secretly dating to invite me to do anything. And Jesse has so many friends it's impossible to keep up with him. Meanwhile, Kem sits in his room, reads, mixes music with Cool Edit, watches Internet TV, drinks, and writes e-mails to his friend in Texas who is equally isolated from humanity. There are lots of Germans on the floor, but Kem can't understand what they're saying and it always seems like they're laughing at him anyway.

Ah, but soon it will be Christmas break, and I will be heading down to the Black Forest to spend a week with my big German family, get free home-cooked German meals, and free delicious beer, including Das Schwarze, the best beer known to man.

But as for right now I feel like I'm losing my mind. Last year was non-stop 20-hour-a-day socialization. This year, I get maybe 5 minutes a day of actual human contact like when I just bumped into Jesse in the stairwell on my way to the laundry room. I'm starting to develop split personalities just for someone to keep me company. Only the other personality hates me and just constantly yells at me for not being more out-going and whatnot. I've just got to go out and do things and make friends, right? It's easy enough. Everyone does it.

But it's never been easy for Kem. Notice how at Autumn while everyone had several friends over at least a few times a week, Kem had friends over TWICE in the entire YEAR. What the fuck? And now none of those friends keep in touch any more.

Ah, but I'm just whining. Fuck me and my pathetic loser self. Hey, fuck you! You don't know what it's like! What the fuck do you mean? I AM you, you miserable piece of shit. Of course I fucking know what it's like, and I also know you're acting like a fucking baby. Yeah, well, why don't you fuck off and die? Oh, well why don't you think of a better word than "fuck" you fucking fuckedellic fuckface? Fuck you.

Okay, enough of that.

Anyway, I'm doing just swell and I hope all of you who read this thing are doing even sweller. Luke, your words have been an inspiration, and Kem definitely appreciates the shout-outs. Both of him. It's totally awesome that you have this fresh perspective on life, and that drive to start accomplishing things. I was in a similar state of mind during the last few weeks in America and first few weeks of my time here. Unfortunately those delusions faded for me, but I've got problems. If you can keep it up, that's fucking fantastic.

Also, I'd be more than happy to live with you and Matt Fair in a 3-4 person house close to campus next year. That sounds perfect, and if the option stays open, keep me informed. I'll have to give someone power of attorney to sign a lease for me if necessary, but I definitely need somewhere to stay because I didn't make any preparations to reserve a room on-campus for me upon my return. If worse comes to worse I'll have to commute, but if there's an open room at Autumn or another house close by, that would be wunderbar.

Don't worry about the package being late. I really appreciate you going to the trouble, and I know how damned expensive it is. I sent a little something to Autumn Lane which you should be getting sometime next week, and the cost of shipping was more than the cost of the contents. By the way, I had to declare what items were inside the package, which will make opening the presents much less fun, so if you can somehow avoid looking at the label, or tell whoever looks at the label to rip it off and not tell anyone what's inside, that'd be great.

Anyway, Kem's gotta go now because his laundry is done. I'll try not to let him write something like this again.