Life is Strange

Jul 13, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts

When I was a child, I liked to play ‘dead’ man at the pool. You just float face down on the surface and leave yourself be without moving.
Up to the moment when the oxygen runs out, you are freed of any duty and responsibility, you just don’t have to do anything. For a brief time you are all detached from the things happening around you. Afterwards, you just move on, you come to the air, take a breath and swim on…

I think I have played ‘dead blog’ long enough, now. Back in the day, when I read many blogs in preparation for the great journey and got inspired by those, I had to notice that many blogs ended abruptly with the end of the stay abroad.
I didn’t want that to happen. I still don’t want that to happen.

There are not many things I deem worth mentioning happening on each day. But there is something happening, indeed: My life is happening. It goes on.

When my past everyday life was a chewy chaos, now it is but a furious stream. And this river leads to a vast waterfall. This waterfall marks a change in my life: The beginning of something new!

I will begin a second apprenticeship! Back then, as I started this blog, I just had finished my first apprenticeship. Only I didn’t know, what the next two and a half years would lead me to. In the time up to this moment I did hardly know where I would find myself after a few months from then. Now it is all under a seal with signatures, shaking hands and words of welcome, where I will spend my future 3 years: In my apprenticeship business, here in my home town, an apprentice to become an IT specialist for software development!

Some might think my life has been ‘set back’ to a previous state. Again an apprenticeship, again at a point from 6 years before, when my original apprenticeship began.
But I don’t look at it this way. My past cannot be told using the lone words secondary school. Not at all, as some things were added. Some things that have majorly defined my very self.

I ask myself if I will be able the start this apprenticeship as simply and carefree as back in time. Back then my life was of simple structure. Nowadays, that is not the case anymore as many new elements have been introduced: New friends (many abroad), new personal experiences/ ways of thinking and a refurbished mindset, new tasks and new objectives.
All is nice and fair, but how do you tend to all these elements of old friends, mindsets and tasks at home at the same time??
There is work to do in that department. You don’t want to lose sight for both…

My past has been written down in this blog neatly and my future I want to share with you, also. As I don’t want to raise the impression, my life after the stay abroad has become boring! 😉

A Business Interim Report

Jun 13, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Updates

My blog shall be about my life now, as the great journey is complete.

The important and worth writing about parts I will gladly put down for you. This raises a question: What is important enough?

This takes us back to a topic of old, before my journey, which was central in my life: The apprenticeship.

A major point on the agenda of the ‘reintroduction’ is a job.
As many know, I have finished an apprenticeship as an electronics technician and wanted to freely look around the job market when I come home.

As my interest in computers of all kinds has been ever-present and the only thing holding me off turning passion into profession is further education, I looked in that very direction.
And behold, the best thinkable career path is a local IT company, which has some more apprenticeship openings to fill this year.
So I was offered an internship, to have the chance to decide between the different kinds of apprenticeships. I am looking forward to it, a unique opportunity!!

I am all content with the idea to start growing into a blossoming company as a twice graded IT guy one day.

That’s all about my career plans. Let’s see, maybe something worth mentioning might happen in the next days? 🙂

Week 3

May 31, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I made it a little cosy for myself. Instead of the ceiling lights, my spherical lamp on the floor makes for some subdued light. My thermos stands by my side and I put on some music. Quietly, it is late already…
Rain pelts against the windows, the night is ripped apart by lighting and thunder…

My head is spinning a little. So many things I go through and so many are coming at me and many more I push tend to push into the future. From meeting with dear friends from home and those you met in New Zealand, car formalities, birthday parties, job search, technical doings on my computer and domestic duties to my beloved theatre rehearsals.

From one of those I just came home. And that was where it struck me. It has all stayed the same. Not much changes. And under this old light you seem as if you never left. You walk the more or less well known streets and into the more or less well known corners and you don’t have the urge to think about it. About the 17 months you spent abroad. About the time my family and friends, who are now around as ever, missed me.

You easily fall back into the old habits you were happy to lay off ‘over there’. It works just the same now. It works just as ever.
What is left? Is is the souvenirs you put on your shelf? Is it the pictures you safe on your hard drive? Is it the clothes you bought ‘over there’?
It is the countless memories. It is the many new contacts you never would have dreamed of taking care of one day. It is the friends you can call yours. It is the steps you had to take, towards self-reliance and self-knowledge. It is the lessons you learned for life.

And that was it all. It is behind me. It is in the room and it is my turn to make something out of it. What did I learn? What do I apply? How does this long time of my life influence my living?

You see, I have time for deeper thoughts, too…
I think therefore I am.

 

 

Homecoming

May 23, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I just mowed the lawn and swept in front of the house.

Every move I carried out as if I did it yesterday for the last time. Then upstairs to my room again and turn on music. My old computer is running again and in the browser I encounter a folder of bookmarks.
Here I read about travel advice, packing lists and New Zealand… Never this collection of information was less important to me than today.

Because I was there. Now I have been everywhere.
You accumulate the information, you plan, you go there, experience and…think back. That is the flow.

But before I attempt highly philosophical statements, at this point I wanted to tell you about the moments of my homecoming. To Germany. Home.

After a pleasant flight, where people talked too much German to my taste (due to the airline) and some little time waiting I took my luggage on the last way.

Before my journey was completed in the arms of my family, I took one last shot:

Before I could even grasp it all, I sat next to the as if naturally placed there grand piano, I listened to the familiar tunes of my brothers hands and held a little child in my arm.
To my surprise Vincent was part of the welcome committee alongside his parents! I just went with them all and just like that we were on the Autobahn.

My loved ones made a long before proclaimed wish come true and indeed, we made halt at a rest stop and took in some exquisit meal.

Gratinated bread rolls with mum’s guacamole. 🙂

And thus, I was home. All the known and still, all new…

Back again

May 19, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I have plenty of time now.

Time to settle. Time to correspond more. Time to comprehend the past 17 months. Time to see all the people again.

Time… It went by like nothing else!

Now I am sitting in paradise. Mum is cooking mind-blowing meals again, my dearly missed speakers do their job and the parts to upgrade my computer are arriving one by one.

Even with this post I have waited several days too many.
Didn’t I promise you to continue writing? Well, most of my readers can just talk to my just like that again, but I don’t want to become lazy!

That is why I use this post, to break the blogger-ice. More thorough reports about my homecoming itself and about the impressions of the days to follow will follow. For first impressions don’t cease even after a week!

In the soft pillows of the Hotel Mama you can fall into a deep sleep very quickly.
But it would be a shame to miss all the things to experience and to discover!

My journey goes on, stay tuned!

Every day is one of the past eventually…