itchy veins
I am officially done with my third year of college.
I don't know if it's the different perspective one is thrown into by leaving or just bad luck, but it always seems that things seem to happen right before you leave a place, that would make you want to stay. Just meeting cool people, and wishing that I had met them months ago so I could have formed something instead of just being like, well, it was nice talking to you.
I haven't figured out exactly what that is supposed to mean, if one should take life entirely less seriously (and onself in the process), or if certain things happen before big changes to just... remind you of something.
The past couple of weeks have been quite chameleonic. I've passed through completely different mindsets, and I'm finally at a place of acceptance. Awhile ago I didn't want to leave Goettingen, Germany, Europe at all. Things were amazing, and it felt so unfair that I had to know it was all going to be ripped apart. But then as others started to prepare for leaving, things for me started to follow suit, and through a couple weeks of intense studying/writing for finals and projects, it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to stay if I wanted things to stay the same. Californians are starting to leave Goettingen as early as tomorrow, and by leaving on the 5th of August I am the third to last person to leave, as far as I know. I am afraid of the city feeling empty once a lot of my friends are gone. I am going to try to do a couple of day trips to some german cities, but so far this is hard planning, because I'd like to go with other people, and everyone is in the mess of packing and cleaning and figuring out all they need to go home. I have a week until I move out of my place here into Andi's tiny attic apartment. So far I haven't touched a thing, being as that I just finished the semester yesterday. I need to send letters to the railway company and to my cell phone provider, telling them to cancel my contract. I have to go to city hall to turn in a form saying I'll no longer be a resident of this city. I need to pack up boxes to ship by sea so that I can have them in America four months from now. I've got to see how much a rather large suitcase, a traveling backpack and a school backpack can hold. I need to figure out if there is any way I'll be able to use the two duffel bags Mom sent with Kim and Jen for me, because as far as I know I am allowed two items for the plane's cargo hold and one to carry on. I am hoping I could use one of the duffel bags as a "personal item," ie purse. I need to return this huge stack of library books I checked out for various papers and tests.
Week before this last one I had two written finals and a presentation. This past week I had a paper I turned in on Wednesday, and an oral test with my professor yesterday (Friday) morning. It was... alright, though nerve-racking and sort of comicial in the fact that the test was comprised not solely of questions on the topics he gave us to study, but rather on topics from the whole class. I generally came to lecture, but... yeah. The good part of the 20 minute sit-in with Professor Hildermeier was at the end when he told/asked me that for sure my ancestors had come from Germany, with a last name like Brock-ree-dah. I said yeah, that I'd always been told it was German but sort of was disappointed here when no one I asked was able to provide me with any information, save that the 'Brock' was an old word for brook. But Hildermeier (who apparently has written tons of books, knows tons of UC history professors, and is pretty high up in his field) told me that he grew up a few kilometers away, and he had known some Brockriede's there. He nodded when I said, well, then it's a North German name? So that was sort of the meaning of the day, that I finally got some information from a German on that. It pleases me because it's fitting, that I'd live in the region where my name supposedly originates.
It's been strange, that since I finally accepted my leaving, I had trouble of thinking of anything else the past week or two. It's amazing how all of our 'real lives' have become so much more real, knowing that we are so close to returning to them. The past weeks have brought to mind things I hadn't allowed into my head for months. This entire year I've resisted the notion that this is just 'vacation' or a 'a break from our real lives,' as so many kids here on the program have described it. Then two weeks ago I was lying on a grassy hill by the Dorf, at night with Lee and Sarah, and we looked up into the black beyond the green leaves of the trees. That was the first time that I felt like the past year of my life was the one pepperoni slice of the cheese pizza. I don't know yet if the other slices from here on out will require some meat as well.
It's difficult saying the year was a vacation from real life, because if so then it was one of those vacations where you hike up into the Himalyans in the depths of winter, and don't come out until the passes have cleared long after. I am wondering how long I'll be back home before I can shake the cryogenic thaw.
I want to write more, but it's time to start packing.
I don't know if it's the different perspective one is thrown into by leaving or just bad luck, but it always seems that things seem to happen right before you leave a place, that would make you want to stay. Just meeting cool people, and wishing that I had met them months ago so I could have formed something instead of just being like, well, it was nice talking to you.
I haven't figured out exactly what that is supposed to mean, if one should take life entirely less seriously (and onself in the process), or if certain things happen before big changes to just... remind you of something.
The past couple of weeks have been quite chameleonic. I've passed through completely different mindsets, and I'm finally at a place of acceptance. Awhile ago I didn't want to leave Goettingen, Germany, Europe at all. Things were amazing, and it felt so unfair that I had to know it was all going to be ripped apart. But then as others started to prepare for leaving, things for me started to follow suit, and through a couple weeks of intense studying/writing for finals and projects, it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to stay if I wanted things to stay the same. Californians are starting to leave Goettingen as early as tomorrow, and by leaving on the 5th of August I am the third to last person to leave, as far as I know. I am afraid of the city feeling empty once a lot of my friends are gone. I am going to try to do a couple of day trips to some german cities, but so far this is hard planning, because I'd like to go with other people, and everyone is in the mess of packing and cleaning and figuring out all they need to go home. I have a week until I move out of my place here into Andi's tiny attic apartment. So far I haven't touched a thing, being as that I just finished the semester yesterday. I need to send letters to the railway company and to my cell phone provider, telling them to cancel my contract. I have to go to city hall to turn in a form saying I'll no longer be a resident of this city. I need to pack up boxes to ship by sea so that I can have them in America four months from now. I've got to see how much a rather large suitcase, a traveling backpack and a school backpack can hold. I need to figure out if there is any way I'll be able to use the two duffel bags Mom sent with Kim and Jen for me, because as far as I know I am allowed two items for the plane's cargo hold and one to carry on. I am hoping I could use one of the duffel bags as a "personal item," ie purse. I need to return this huge stack of library books I checked out for various papers and tests.
Week before this last one I had two written finals and a presentation. This past week I had a paper I turned in on Wednesday, and an oral test with my professor yesterday (Friday) morning. It was... alright, though nerve-racking and sort of comicial in the fact that the test was comprised not solely of questions on the topics he gave us to study, but rather on topics from the whole class. I generally came to lecture, but... yeah. The good part of the 20 minute sit-in with Professor Hildermeier was at the end when he told/asked me that for sure my ancestors had come from Germany, with a last name like Brock-ree-dah. I said yeah, that I'd always been told it was German but sort of was disappointed here when no one I asked was able to provide me with any information, save that the 'Brock' was an old word for brook. But Hildermeier (who apparently has written tons of books, knows tons of UC history professors, and is pretty high up in his field) told me that he grew up a few kilometers away, and he had known some Brockriede's there. He nodded when I said, well, then it's a North German name? So that was sort of the meaning of the day, that I finally got some information from a German on that. It pleases me because it's fitting, that I'd live in the region where my name supposedly originates.
It's been strange, that since I finally accepted my leaving, I had trouble of thinking of anything else the past week or two. It's amazing how all of our 'real lives' have become so much more real, knowing that we are so close to returning to them. The past weeks have brought to mind things I hadn't allowed into my head for months. This entire year I've resisted the notion that this is just 'vacation' or a 'a break from our real lives,' as so many kids here on the program have described it. Then two weeks ago I was lying on a grassy hill by the Dorf, at night with Lee and Sarah, and we looked up into the black beyond the green leaves of the trees. That was the first time that I felt like the past year of my life was the one pepperoni slice of the cheese pizza. I don't know yet if the other slices from here on out will require some meat as well.
It's difficult saying the year was a vacation from real life, because if so then it was one of those vacations where you hike up into the Himalyans in the depths of winter, and don't come out until the passes have cleared long after. I am wondering how long I'll be back home before I can shake the cryogenic thaw.
I want to write more, but it's time to start packing.
posted by Meredesu at 2:13 PM
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