Kultur 9_ Jake Colling

Bureaucracy Gone Awry
My gypsy bloodline melts in terror. Stacks of paper, order, and a piece of paper proving knowledge. This sounds like a more corrupt college. Needing a certificate to paint or to professionally input numbers in excel is ridiculous. I'm not going to lie here. Maybe I should get a certificate to breath, and to show others that I am capable of walking straight. If being alive has taught me anything it is that a piece of paper means nothing, even a college degree. Its all stepping stones and connections. Everything is about who you know and the directions to the back door. Sometimes who you know means going to Harvard, and sometimes who you know means a friend of a friend. Maybe its different in Germany, or maybe I am just naive. Redonculous!

Love Thy Neighbor
This reminds me of living in a city. Everyone is stacked on each other and even though everyone tries to be respectful, some people are just idiots. For instance, my previous roommate whom I met on craigslist was the worst disrespectful person I have ever met. He would play trumpet with three dudes and about two or more hysterically laughing women no earlier than two at night. This would happen about once a week. The neighbors, including myself and Duncan resented his ignorance, and no matter how many complaints he received he continued blowing. This was one of many awful things this kid would do. If this were Germany, he would have probably been arrested. In the end, this article makes living in Germany (assuming this is rural) sound like anxiety, stress, and early heart attacks are a given. Living in the industrial area/warehouse would probably be the best bet.

Germany's Patriotism Problem
My good friend was the first person in her family to be born away from Poland. I had a brief conversation with her about Germany. She hates knowing that I am taking German, and it wasn't really clear why. She said that when she lived with her other family in Poland she noticed a very extreme subtle and passive hate towards Germany. People in Poland are not over what happened, and it obviously is something being passed down through the generations. What happened can take no words, and for americans its hard to notice because we're an entire ocean away, which is plenty of space to dissociate. As someone once told me, Europe has a finer grasp on government, and individual maturity because Europe has gone through the worst of two wars including a history that dates back further than the Americas. Its also important to recognize that Americans have never had to worry about the daily terrors that went on in Europe during these wars or the rebuilding of bombed cities. It's scary, and I can see why raising the German flag is something that still burns.

Wien
Vienna would be an interesting place to visit due to the history of it being part of what is now ten different countries.

Careers in German Speaking Countries
The education seems more intense and fine tuned. It reminds me of marriages that are decided at birth. If this were in the case for me, I probably would be an engineer, architect, or builder. When I was in the fourth grade I used to construct massive buildings, and structures out of legos, and I would draw made up vehicles. I probably would have liked that path, but hated the schooling involved. It seems pretty early to be picking a pathway, but sometimes having only one choice is better than having infinite.

Austria
Cool.