First entry rambles

Hi everyone,

now I am finding myself creating my own blog. I never thought I would do this, as I never really thought someone would read it anyway. However, after following a couple of blogs myself, I came to the conclusion that blogging is not merely an activity to let people know what you think/feel/experience but also to come to terms with these experiences and emotions yourself, while hoping that someone out there will read it - kind of like a psychiatric diary.

So, but why am I writing (and just now my playlist decides to play "Daughtry - Home". To put this event into Sheldon's words: "this would be one of those circumstances that people unfamiliar with the law of large numbers would call a coincidence."). Well, yes I am home again. But home seems strange - not in a negative sense, just less familiar than it did before. During the last 4 years I have always been seen as a 'typical German' - apparently, all Germans are like I am. This was because apart from Anita and I our friends hardly knew any Germans. The thing that nobody (not even I) realised, was how much I have assimilated to the Australian culture. In my last semester at Murdoch University I took part in an elective unit called 'Teaching Languages other than English'. In this unit we learned about language acquisition, theories of how people learn foreign languages and how teachers can aid children to learn them. I loved, ♥♥♥, LOVED this unit. In 2,5 years at uni I did do a better unit! One of the aspects in this unit was about "finding your third place" between the foreign language and your own language. Language does not only bring a set of new words into your life but is THE gateway to learning about a culture - even before this unit I had long philosophical talks about the cultural differences between English and German language (my favourites: "I love you", 'thank you' and directness will be explained in a later entry). While studying the 'third place' I was sure I understood exactly, what it was about. After all, I have experienced it for the last 4 years - of course I knew its value! However, while the 'third place' in Australia seemed like a natural space to be in for me, it hit me hard, when I realised, I again have to find another 'third place' - this time in the country and culture that I grew up in. And this is pretty much what my blog is going to be about - my new 'third place'.

Where shell I start? There is so much, very many little things. (And I have just deleted a whole bunch of examples, because suddenly they seem weird to point out; some things you just have to experience to see how weird they are, e.g. when u walk down the road and you have to stop for a chat every 2 Minutes because u meet people who lived in the same street as your parents for at least the last 30 years and feel like they should take part in your life. Or having to pay for public toilets, or not being upset that u missed ur bus because u know there is another one coming in 10 min or just experiencing how extremely direct (but friendly) Germans are). Moreover, in three day I already found myself a few times looking out of the window to "see what the neighbours are doing" and pointing it out to someone else - you can't be more German than this ;)

But there is the question, what is German? 82 million people certainly can't be all the same, and still there are things embedded in us that make us tick similar. Take my parents, how German are they? They kind of went through the same process as I did - maybe even worse (I must ask them and find out how they experienced the change). You see, my parents grew up as Germans in Romania. I can imagine that they grew up thinking they were brought up with the German culture but when they actually came over to Germany in their 20'ies there were probably a lot of things different to what they expected. I don't know this for sure, I never talked to them about this, but now I am going through something similar myself and it seems like this should be the case.

On a high note: Having come home in summer, I find our garden just magical. I go outside and dance, there are all kinds of berries - everywhere!!! Blackberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, elderberries, strawberries, raspberries!!! And if you feel like something else but berries u go and pick tomatoes, capsicums, chives, peas or whatever vegetable u can think of. Germans love their gardens, but a garden like ours is unusual, it has been kept up for almost 25 years with lots of hard work and love. Things taste better, when you know how much hard work went into creating them - my brother and I knew this even as babies, when we used to spit out bought baby food and couldn't get enough of self made puree that was made of the veggies in our garden :) I would love to say that when I am grown up (like in >30 years), I will have a garden like this, but I already know I won't - tooooooo much work. Let's hope my parents will never loose their passion for this garden and I will never loose the magical feeling, when stepping into it - it is truly beautiful and I feel blessed to have been able to grow up here - even if, when I was younger, I never knew how special this place is.

I have many things to say, but I do not want to over-fill my first entry, don't want to scare you guys of coming back (if anyone even bothers to read this :) ). I know that in a very short time I will forget about the strangeness of this place and start taking things for granted once again. Eventually, I will change my laptop and watch time to German time and will tell my mum it is 3 PM instead of 9 PM. Soon this moment again will be another memory of a great life that my parents enable me to live with all the support and encouragement you can think of - which I actually have never really appropriately thanked them for! Got to do that soon :)

To conclude my first entry, I do not want to forget how I am feeling currently and I do want to share this blog with you guys to let you take part of my life even if u r not on my facebook ;)

Have a nice day everyone.
Love you,
blub

P.S.: I promise following entries will be shorter :D