Some Good News

It seems I'm always complaining on here, so I thought I would post something a little more uplifting for a change. (not that anyone reads this anyway;) So, I had an hour long meeting with a career advisor about a week ago. She gave me some resources, books and websites, to help me find employment in Europe, specifically, Germany. I'm slowly going through them, I don't really have that much time to browse since I have so much homework constantly to do, but, it's a step in the right direction. It's the difference between going to live/work in Europe being a good idea, and it being something that will be done. It's tangible now, it's possible to get what I want. =) It's a wonderful feeling to have. =) The surest job opportunities for me now are to go teach English, which really isn't my dream job, but hey, if it gets me where I want to be... that's fine by me. I'm going back in two weeks to meet with my Advisor to work on a legitimate resume. Then I'll turn it into international employment agencies, and we'll go from there. If nothing else, I'll be teaching English for a year or so until something else comes along. (I feel like teaching English is a cheap way to work. By that I mean I've not studied to teach English, it's just the language I speak best, so it's not like a real job that I've studied for and earned, so I think I would have a hard time taking great pride in my work unless I'm accomplishing something at the same time... like writing and getting published. But, maybe that will change after I do it for a while.) That's about all for now, guess I'll post something else in the future when I've more, bigger, or better news, maybe then someone will read it. Then again, maybe not.

To Buy a Bicycle

I lose her in the street market,

She slips silently away as I talk--

I find her at the hawker's table

Catatonic, she stares at the rarities,

“I'm sorry, I love old things.”

I am eager to leave, but walk over,

“Why?” She looks up,

but doesn't want to answer,

I wait, intrigued. “I like the stories.”

I wait, but she doesn't wish to speak,

She's busy with beautiful thoughts,

“Where these things come from,

How they came here -- who loved them....”

I regard the table, bicycle forgotten,

Her concepts cure my amnesia,

I remember I love the stories as well,

Blissful, I've left my purpose behind,

Content in remembrance and reverie,

Floating on the possibilities before me,

She cures my amnesia,

“Are we going to look at bicycles?”

Fair Warning; I will be posting my Poetry here.

Read it or ignore it as you wish. ;) I just request you don't troll.

My Travels

I have traveled far and abroad,
have seen the sun set at midnight to rise only two hours later,
watched the Hungarians wakeboard an underpass flooded by the river Danube in Budapest,
danced drunkenly with the Magyar tribes in a converted underground bunker,
been to a Soviet banned rock concert underneath the backyard garden in a secret bar in the hills of Prague,
seen the first railroad in the Austro-Hungarian Empire still operating,
been from the Adriatic to the North Seas in a single day by train,
bathed in thermal springs in caves within a mountain,
heard the unimaginable Finnish silence so complete the animals won’t disturb it,
had a Guinness for breakfast in Dublin,
raised my glass in more than 15 languages,
been stranded alone in countries whose language I did not speak,
been held in a German Federal Police holding cell for hours,
seen buildings from the dawn of civilization still in use,
walked Mediterranean beaches and mountains above the clouds in the same afternoon,
drunk drinks of orchid and cinnamon and eaten animals unknown to me,
floated across the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia,
stood within the great cathedral monoliths and felt their implacable certainty,
met the many races and counted them among my friends,
found myself and lost myself and found myself once more,
lost my heart in foreign lands—
I have seen these things, I have doen them, all of this as a boy from a farm near a town of 600 in the middle of nowhere living below the poverty line –
but I don’t know what it all means…
the significance of it eludes me still and my certitude has crumbled and faded;
I have less answers now than when I began --
I know only this -- to make the journey and not fall deeply in love, with all of the wonderful things in this world… well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try –
because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.

My head's full of thoughts and it feels like I should write something to get them out, but I don't know what. I think there are more questions in my head now than answers. Well, questions that I really want answered, I've always got questions aplenty. Amazing how the right (or wrong)mood brings out all of one's insecurities, isn't it? Oh well, c'est la vie.

Addendum

Talked to a friend of mine. One of the few people I can use as a sounding board for my ideas; wonderful people to have around, help to keep you on the straight and narrow path that is your sanity. Thanks to you guys.
It comes down to this, there are shop-boys and there are boys that work in shops. I'm not back home trapped, I'm here tying up lose ends, making my life ready for the next step. I've been in college for 8 years with the year I took off, and the year I spent overseas, and the 2 years or so where I only went part time; it makes sense then that I have to be here to make everything ready. Then, I'm free to live my life, I don't have to stay here and farm just because I grew up on the farm in the country. =) Different influences yield different results, ergo the me I am in Europe is necessarily different than the me on the farm; I'm not going to deflate or explode and find out I'm not who I think I am, I'm just here working in the shop so to speak. Then I'll find some way to go back to Europe. Almost all of my friends here and all of my friends from all over Europe have told me it's where I belong; I believe them and have thought the same myself for some time. So, that's that, I feel happy again to be me and life is worth living again. =)

Being back, I feel like an imposter in my own life. I've been gone for a year in Germany, been completely by myself, built relationships with new and good friends... alone without my home environment I knew finally where I ended and my environment began. I knew exactly who I was and why I did things, and I was satisfied with that. My friends there knew me as I was, as I presented myself, the complete me I finally felt comfortable expressing, and one new friend even had the uncanny ability to read me, my mind, my feelings, from the beginning, without having to study and know me for any amount of time... I can easily count on one hand the number of times that has happened in my life.
Now I'm back at home, where I grew up. For part of me it's like I never left, as if my year away were only a dream vividly remembered, chocked full of fantastic scenery and bizarre languages... the other part of me rails at being back, hate's it. I could list the many things that plague me, but it would solve nothing. It's as if there was a hole left in my home and life here when I departed, and returning, I find I don't fit into it neatly. I haven't changed so much, I'm very much the person that left, though I have become more completely me, myself, whilst away. It's like trying to sleep in a bed that's suddenly too small, I just can't seem to make my home life fit comfortably around me.
I'm worried that any minute someone is going to discover I'm not me. Actually, I'm more frightened I'm going to discover the person I thought I was, the person I was proud of being, the person that handled new and foreign with calm and poise, who relished the awkward situations, is a sham. I'm terrified of it. I fear the person I had finally decided I was and who I felt comfortable with was just an inflated form of me, inflated from the surroundings and culture I was absorbing, fake and bloated like a balloon and ever losing air now, or just ready to burst altogether. I don't know what I will/would do when/if that happens, when I'm finally deflated.
They tell us of Culture Shock, how it's hard to adjust being there, away, and how it's also difficult to readjust, to be at home when at home. I found the adjustment there quite easy, like slipping into a chair that's just the right size. Maybe it's the simple answer that everything I've studied, all the things I've learned about human civilization and from whence we come, was finally put into use... and being home now all this knowledge and the application of it is relegated to trivia and hypothetical situations once more. I don't feel the spark here, I don't feel daily like I'm succeeding in my life at something different and invigorating, that I'm unlocking secrets worth knowing as I go about my errands. Home feels like a trap, like I've been discovered somewhere I'm not supposed to be and have been deported back to my place of origin. I tell myself all the things that are supposed to comfort me, but they are daily less effective, a pain-pill I'm building a resistance to.

Trying this out

Here's the deal, for those of you who don't know, or those of you who have forgotten, I have a Writing Minor. I don't write much though. What I do, is write all the time in my head. I'm always trying to explain things in clear language, or I'm looking for the best combination of words to adequately express exactly what I'm thinking. Then I memorize it because usually I'm in class, or driving, or some such activity where I can't write down my thoughts. On top of that, my handwriting is beyond terrible, a byproduct of rural public school I'm sure, so even when I do have time, pen, and paper, I don't write anything down because I can't hardly read it afterwards. This really takes the splendor out of writing for me. I do type rather fast and well though, so I thought I would try my hand at this.

So - I'll write down thoughts and opinions I consider important, things I think deserve to be written either for posterity or, more often, thoughts that I need to pin so I can clear them from my head, and you, the reader, if you feel yourself so inclined, are welcome to comment, refute, or remark on what I've written. I'm open to and welcome discussion, but please realize these things are my opinions, not objective truths; my subjective perspectives.

All this being said, enjoy (soon as I actually post something worth reading)!