just john

So I've made it to Wednesday this week with no major issues except the realization that I can't quite recover from exercise like I did when I was 20. I think I've even managed to contribute some at work and my comprehension of German is slowly but surely improving. By no means fluent but it seems to get better bit by bit.

According to the statistics, most expats head into a major emotional crash around month number three. While I would prefer to be an exception, I can see it coming like a train wreck in slow motion. The cars are starting to buckle so nothing left to do but wait and watch. One of the bigger problems, I would say, is that I don't speak the language well enough to go out and make friends yet. There are certainly enough Americans around but not apparently ones I share interests with. Even so, relying on an English-speaking social circle feels like cheating. I came here to learn the language and culture, Americans can only get you so far in that respect. Still, the occasional email from the U.S. wouldn"t hurt my feelings. They're a little more important these days.

On the up side, for me, is that once I get over the language hump, politics are usually fodder for a lively discussion here. I just heard someone at lunch the other day bashing the U.S. for going to war and comparing our ...leader to one of Germany's more notable, notorious figures, who was Austrian. I wouldn't take the comparison quite that far but he did have a point. Almost no one here is positive about the mess we've made in Iraq. In the name of deterring the use of chemical weapons, and later realizing we were actually just removing a dictator, we've actually killed 30,000 - 75,000 civilians depending on whose statics you believe. I'm really failing to see how removing the dictator has contributed to the health and welfare of the common people. Sadly, we're stuck with a giant mess to clean up, spending money that we really don't have.

Slowly digging out of the time-card deficit. If I can manage the rest of the month disaster free, I'll actually have over-time to spend.