here i am tonight: staring at the screen at 1 am, waiting for something extraordinary to happen…

…and the longer i’m sitting here, the more obvious it gets that a german-speaking country is not where i’ll end up, eventually.

instead of uploading some long-overdue photos, i’ll share a quick thought:

this year, more than ever, i noticed the social aspect of holidays.
on all saints’ day, many austrians go to their ancestors’ gravestones for a “memorial mass”. however, what apparently counted to most of the people i saw, was greeting/meeting the other residents that they hadn’t met in …pretty much one year.
and i assume that going to the cafe afterwards is almost as profound of a tradition as going to the cemetaries itself.

up to now i thought that those kinds of days – church holidays, public holidays, even events like birthdays or fake anniversaries like “we haven’t seen each other in 3 months – lets get drunk” gettogethers – were just a plea to get together and celebrate.
today, i know that one of the most important things about these traditions is the “getting together” part.
if there is no other way to meet the set of acquaintances that i’ll call “the folks”, finding a reason to get together is totally appropriate. even if that means making one up.

 
having said that, i’m positive i’ll be in the mood to celebrate my birthday next year. it’ll be pretty hard to invite most of my friends this time, though ;-)
speaking of seattle – did i mention i’ll be in singapore next week? hehe. :-p

i don’t know how i came to think of it this way, but i recently realized that i’m currently in the process of making myself a resumé – from scratch.
i just have to ask myself “what else do i want my resumé to say?”, and -wazzooo- i have a new goal to achieve.

by the way: drinking a gallon of milk in 10 seconds is already on the resumé ;-) [?]

ringing cellphones are among the top 2 of the most annoying things when two friends come together after a long time. number 1 is people answering them.
you know what i mean if you’re meeting up with somebody, and right after they take a seat, they go outside and talk on the phone for 7 minutes! and from then, some regularly get called, and don’t show any interest in ending those phonecalls to resume the (face-to-face) conversation.
i usually activate silent mode at my phone when meeting friends, and if i need to answer a call, i try to keep it short.
oh well…

a major key to being a very profound xenophobe is, that you don’t even realize you’re xenophobic. the concerned people often like to start their discriminating statements like this: “i’m not against foreigners, but…”
(note to self: this is based on a happening a few days ago, when you know who said you know what again.)

i found a direct correlation to stupidity: in trevor strong’s guidebook “get stupid!”, he states that once you’ve reached the highest (or lowest) level of true stupidity, you won’t even know you’re there. because you’re stupid.

his theory is actually quite impressive and logical – i’ll explain it using his example of cows: while it’s generally agreed that cows are stupid, they don’t really seem sad. but if the cows knew that they only exist to be milked and slaughtered, they probably wouldn’t be so carefree.

that’s scaringly close to my age-old attitude that says “stupid people are lucky to be stupid, because they don’t even realize half of the stuff that’s bothering smart people.”

i think i just made the proof that xenophobes are among the dumbest people on earth – those lucky bastards.
then you-know-who must be their leader. :???: