Type here something deep and meaningful

While I upload some pics, I thought I'd say hello. What is sad is that I think that the only people who hear me are my mom, Sam, my grandmother, and me. Who really has time to check a blog? How did these things become so popular? Really they are just the diaries of the 21st century. Which is ironic since diaries were originally supposed to be private. But in the internet age, everything online is so impersonal that it doesn't even feel violating for someone to read this. Plus, no one reads this thing anyway, so what's the danger?

Nothing really new to report. In a few days there will be an pic post number 8, so check back soon. They are all good pics, really nice ones of me and Janine all over Germany, me in France, and beautiful pics of Aachen during Christmas. Jersey is boring, but eventful. I am getting some work done. Hurt my foot running.

I've been doing some thinking recently too. I really have many friends, even what you would consider close ones. However, they are all spread out, mostly throughout the US, many now in Europe. Because of that, I hardly ever see any of them. Now that I have been back in the US for almost 2 weeks, I've seen one, only one, friend. It's pathetic. The problem is both life today and my own interests. Today, people are very mobile and very ambitious. We can eat breakfast in New York and dinner in Germany. We go to schools in different states, sometimes on different coasts, to get our 1st, 2nd or even third degree. And all the while, we are making friends, passionately and intensely, people we spend most of our waking time with. Then, suddenly, following a graduation or visit to JFK, these friends dissappear and the only contact you have for years is the occasional phone call or email, apologizing for not keeping in touch and promising to call soon. In the meantime, you form new relationships with new friends that you will soon also abandon.

Plus, I love to learn about things and really can't sit still. I just get bored when things get easy. And everytime I learn something new, I find 10 new questions or curiousities. Or everytime I overcome a challenge, like learning German, I find that without a new challenge, life just isn't engaging. So I bounce from place to place, job to job, friend to friend, and never really stay close with one group of people or settle in one place, because deep down I don't want to. And then I complain about it. Actually, this isn't really complaining, but it's more of rationalizing my boredom and lonliness.

In the end, I feel like a drifter. I have no home anymore, I have no core set of friends. The place I live today and the close friends I have now, will most likely be foreign and separated from me in less than a year. And the cycle repeats. The only real constant things I have in my life are my family and my best friend, and of course the attempt at holding on to relationships that are faded versions of what they once were. I guess the other constant in my life is this knawing dissatisfaction. I don't think I can ever really be happy or content. I'll be an asshole and quote Einstein, "Happiness and ease are not ends in themselves; they are the ingredients of a pigsty." I may not agree with the pigsty part, but I agree with the idea in general. And I wonder if that's an American thing or just something that comes with being told to succeed so many times that they can't stop. I always want to learn something new, or do something better, or different.... Basically, I am never content with what I have, and never want to be, cause then I won't ever do something different than what I am doing right now.

I don't blame you for not reading this. I'm not sure if the rantings of a friend turned acquaintance who is complaining about the relationship with you is interesting. A little pretentious, no? My little cousin the other day said that I say "no?" or "yeah?" at the end of my sentences a lot. Bad habit I picked up when I first started speaking German. I couldn't tell if what I just said made sense or was grammatically correct, so I always needed confirmation. Just another thing that I feel compelled to overcome. I guess I could just let it go and accept that I will speak like that for the rest of my life, and maybe I do for a week. But in the end, I simply can't let it go. Sad really. Don't forget the pics.

Nini, ich habe dich so unglaublich Lieb und du bist sehr wichtig in meinem Leben geworden. Ich freue mich auf meine Rueckkehr und will dich nicht verlassen. Aber du weisst schon, was wird im Sommer passieren. Ich werde traurig, wenn ich darueber denken, und ich weiss immer noch nicht was wir tun muessen. Trotzdem bist du immer in meinen Gendanken, und ich hoffe, dass ich immer nah dir bin.