we'll only hit the ground running

It's now July 29th and I'm back in Jersey. I probably should have updated a -bit- more in Germany. I mean, it's arguably the most interesting thing to ever happen to me and for once I could have written things that people wanted to read. Sofa somehow writes these fantastically interesting posts about seemingly minor events but I am not blessed with this skill. So Germany was my one chance to be really interesting. Ah well

A lot of people told me that studying abroad that I would 'find myself'. I don't really know if that's true. I've only been home for a week and a half (my god, it feels like so much longer. Two weeks ago I was noch im Deutschland mit Kinder Riegeln und die Altstadt und die Neckar und....) Perhaps I need some time to obtain the proper perspective. Maybe once the culture shock goes away. Seriously, why are the malls here SO big? Why is everyone so surprised when I walk to the store? And why can't I get from one place to another with public transportation?!

However, I have noticed two minor things about myself. First off, I feel more self conscious. Maybe this is because I only had myself to worry about in a country full of people I was terrified of upsetting. I wanted to fit in like a proper German. I constantly was self conscious, though, of my accent, my poor grammar and vocabulary, my possible lack of cultural understanding. It's not a paralyzing thing, but there (and here) I find myself even more concerned about what people think and say about me.

Second off, English grammar has become more and more elusive to me. I sometimes stare at the words I've written and literally have no idea if I make any sense at all or if the words are hopelessly out of order. I don't know why. I spoke English a lot in Germany. I typed in it to all my friends. I read the NYTimes. It's my mother language for fuck's sake. I should just know it! I usually write a sentence, do a double take, realize I have no idea if it's right or wrong, and just continue on and hope my implicit memory is better than my explicit memory.

Thus, I should stop writing now, as this is probably already hopelessly muddled, with run on sentences and sloppy punctuation mark usage.

However, I leave you with a semi-interesting fact: The human mind really only processes 4 clauses in a sentence at a time. After 4 commas / dashes / whatever, the mind goes FUCK YOU GODDAMNIT and stops connecting them. It confuses me why my German books still have sentences that take up half the page, but I suppose they're just an overachieving lot.

Also, I have decided to spread the knowledge of Paul the Psychic Octopus to the US. I find it disturbing how many people are not creeped out by this cephalopod's predictive powers. I am additionally finding it hard to communicate the awesomeness of German bachelor and bachelorette parties. It leaves out the fact that the bride/grooms sell these condoms and thongs to finance their drinking. Which is important.

If I have gained nothing else from Germany, it is this: a desire to one day have a bachelorette party sort of like that

That and the desire to bring the magic of Kinder Riegeln to the US. Mmmmmmm