My Road So Far

like, this is a genuine scene from an ep:

If you say “Guten Tag” while sitting down it’s either because you’re passive-aggressively shaming the person you’re talking to for not saying “Guten Tag” (which is of course highly respectable, but weird if they did say it) or worse: 

OK, to counter the interpretable cynicism that was my last post I am going to slightly elucidate:

One of the biggest things I miss about exchange is this invincibility you build for yourself while studying abroad. In the midst of the chaos that is a year abroad, your perception of challenges and feats becomes… well… different. You feel so invincible to whatever lies ahead. You conquered this year, you thrived in an environment completely foreign to you, you assimilated yourself into an unknown culture, your basic kitchen utensil vocabulary evolved to language mastery (or at least sort of almost mastery), you built a life for yourself… If you can do all that in a year, hell, you can do anything. 

I hate to say it, but being back can sort of start to weather on this built up behaviourism of “invincibility”. (In an attempt to avoid repetitive pessimism, I am not going to dwell so much on the slow deterioration of what used to be unlimited self-confidence/awesomeness/empowerment). 

The boy that used to want to play it safe studying sciences who changed his mind to wanting to pursue greater endeavours, aka the UN and International Law slowly corrodes to the boy wanting to take a more well-travelled road in being a general lawyer. The dream of studying abroad again for University becomes the plan of staying close to home. It’s sort of like the ambition I developed on my exchange is slowly back flopping on itself, trying to morph back into a version of what it once was.

so a given small dog could be 

a small dog = ein kleiner Hund,

or, roughly, a smol dog = ein Hündchen, 

OR if the dog is really just that small and cute: ein kleines Hündchen. 

The harsh German language