Lunario's words between the lines of youth

New Blog!

2010-03-24T08:45:00.000+01:00

Alright, here is the link to my new blog. Everything of note about me I'm going to publish there, from now on. :)

Lunario

Greek | Visit

2010-03-21T19:46:00.001+01:00

Today we went to a Greek restaurant for lunch. (No, we are not one of those Germans who boycott the Greeks just because some Greeks do that with German goods on account of some Germans' reaction to their financial and political crises. :P)

Most Greek food includes meat, so there weren't too many vegetarian plates. I had some Feta, a salad and "caviar bread" au gratin with cheese and nice condiments. :)

Afterwards, we had family visit from my uncle with his wife and my three cousin(e)s (11, 12 and 15 year old).
I, my bro and two of my cousins decided to play Monopoly. I noticed that the game reveals a lot about somebody's real character. For example, my brother is a typical "Id"-Person (see Freud's "Id, ego and super-ego" theory to learn more about that, it's very interesting!) who gives plenty of rope to human or his own desires and instincts regardless to the disadvantages they may cause to others.
Therefore, at the beginning of the game, he tried to gain as many streets as possible in order to get rent from us.

...Anyway. On the long term, I would have probably won the game because I didn't spend too much money on buying streets. So, after a while, one of the others would have miscalculated their capital and be forced to sell his streets to me. :D However, we had to stop playing in the middle of the game because my cousins had to leave.

In the evening then, I went running. Running has become sort of a habit of mine over the past couple of weeks, and I'm getting better and better. :)

Apart from that, there isn't much to tell you about... Life is currently taking a calm pace, yielding a lot of leisure for me. :) (Remember, I already have spring break :D)
In the next two weeks, I'm going to start spring-cleaning in the garden like digging over and making bigger my two little fields, washing the bicycles and so on. :)

---

This is probably the last post on this blog. :P My next one, on Wednesday, will just be a link to my new blog (which is almost ready by now!).

When I have changed places, my uncreative phase will hopefully be over as well... I feel like it's time to blog about something else than my everyday's life, all the time. By the way, if you have any ideas or wishes concerning a topic to blog about, feel free to e-mail me!

Bye,
Lunario

Facile

2010-03-17T19:51:00.002+01:00

Hello :)

Today was a very nice day. :) It began with me waking up at 6.30 AM from one of my cats' meowing in front of the door to my room. Usually I would have already been up at that time (he must have sensed that :P), but the first four lessons were canceled, so I could sleep in. :)
I let the cat come into my room and she immediately crawled on my duvet - soo cute. :) Then I turned around and fell asleep again. :D
Two hours later, I finally got up - unlike the cat, who seems to be into sleeping all day anyway. :D

Well then, after breakfast, showering and the usual stuff, I rode my bicycle to school for the second time, this year. :) It isn't cold outside anymore, so I didn't even need gloves.

At school I had Spanish class where my teacher decided to use my new white zapatos deportivos for vocabulary questions, lol.

Over the course of the day, more and more wind came up, so my way back home was really arduous because I had headwind. :| At home I took a shower, ate something and then finished reading my favourite book (Pay It Forward, a great book!) for the second time. This week I also read Fahrenheit 451, which we had to read for English class. The idea of the book reminded me very much of Brave New World. Anyway, it's one of the few books that are good (in my opinion), even though they are obligatory at school.

----

Today I noticed that there are only six days left till I move to my new blog. :D It's not even ready yet (fine tuning is still to be done), but I'm confident that I can do it over the weekend. :P

Hmm, what else... Oh right. I'd love to share more pictures with you since many of you told me they liked those that I posted.
Currently I only have one picture worth mentioning. I took it yesterday evening. If you look close enough, you can see some birds among the branches of the trees. :)

Lunario

Abigarrado

2010-03-14T15:56:00.002+01:00

This weekend, the 2010 F1 season finally started. :D The first GP just ended and I think it's pretty obvious who's going to rule this season: The three best German drivers (who also were in the top ten, today) on the national side, and Ferrari on the constructor's side. At heart, I always stick by Ferrari. I love their racing car and their merit in the Formula 1 history. But on the other hand, I am also happy when a German driver (especially those from Mercedes) win.

Anyway, this season is definitely going to be gripping. :)

---

For the beginning of spring break (Friday), temperatures up to 15°C are forecasted for this region! :D That means the last snow survivals of this really strong and harsh winter are going to melt away for sure. :) The ditches here are still frozen and filled with snow, so it does not yet look like spring here, the more so since the nature hasn't greened yet either. But I'm definitely looking forward to warm spring holidays on which I can start gardening, cycling and just be outside more often. :)

---

This week is going to be just as nice as the previous ones. :) Tomorrow's P.E. class in the afternoon is going to be a big relief, as always. And it's also the last lesson in which we play basketball; after spring break we're going to play soccer, which I am good at. :)
On Tuesday, me and a friend want to cycle to school, if the weather plays along. The same goes for Wednesday and Thursday, when school starts later than normally.
On Friday, the first day off from school, I may cycle to the city again, get that delicious pita and other yummy things at the market and get some books.
As far as books are concerned, I really something to read for spring break because I'm done with all the books I bought in the past.
I'm not a fan of horror books with zombies, superstition and stuff, but Stephen King's "The Stand" seems to be different from typical horror books and worth reading.
I'm also thinking about reading some political books from old philosophers like Plato (Politeia) and Aristotle... It would be soo cool to read them in their original language: ancient Greek. Perhaps I'll learn it, one day. After I've learned Swedish and Italian, that is. :P

Anyway, I'm off for some running now. :)

First ride of the year | Law group

2010-03-11T15:28:00.000+01:00

Hey,

As I announced yesterday, I was planning to cycle to school, today. So I did. :)
The ride to school in the morning was easier than I thought it would be. I must admit that I didn't rush things because I am not used to those long distances (30 kilometer back and forth) anymore, the more so with the new bicycle.
However, the ride was quite easygoing... so were my four periods at school.
On my way back home, it was more windy and I guess my legs were a little exerted from the morning ride, so it took me more effort and time to get home.

However, I arrived here at lunch time and wasn't much later than normally. And above that, I've had enough physical activity for today. ;)

Maybe I'm going to cycle to school tomorrow, again. A friend of mine (the one who also accompanied me last year's summer) wants to come along. :)

---

There's something I forgot to tell you in my yesterday's post: law group. :)
It eventually took place on Tuesday for the first time (and will take place every Tuesday after spring break).
Some of you might remember that I eagerly wanted to join law group as soon as it takes place. The teacher is great, the small group of about ten (sound) students is great and I enjoy the subject matter very much, too.

On Tuesday we started talking about taxes, forms of governments and the Federal Constitutional Court (which similar to the American Supreme Court, I think).
All in all, it was highly interesting. I would love to have law group all day, instead of normal school.

So far for today... I noticed that I recently didn't comment on my other dear blogging-friends' blogs very much. I promise to do that again, soon. :)

Lunario

À propos

2010-03-10T21:31:00.002+01:00

First off, thanks for your positive feedback on the pictures I posted. :)

Today and the day before I got back my German and my Spanish test. I did not as good as I wanted to (was aiming at at least 13 of 15 points), but I am still above 10 points in both of them, so it's okay. :)

I just spent the whole afternoon and evening working on my skilled work for Politics class. It's due in April, so I have enough time to do it, but I don't like it when certain work is always in the back of my mind. So I finished it today and won't need to think about it anymore during spring break. :)

À propos.... there are some things that spring is looming:

1. I feel healthier, sportier and more vivid.
2. My room is warm from the sunlight, in the afternoon.
3. My skin gets warm when I go outside while the sun is shining.
4. The birds return from the south. Look at these nice pictures. :)

5. I'm going to cycle to school, tomorrow. :D

Talk to you soon,
Lunario

Day in Pictures

2010-03-07T21:19:00.009+01:00

Alright :) This afternoon, I made a bit of a cycle tour (20 km) along the sea. There are two perfectly tarred roads on both sides of the dike that extend to the whole coastline. They are inaccessible for cars, so it's a perfect place to cycle without any obstacles like injections, sharp turns or the like... and the view is quite pleasant, too. :)

Here are some pictures that I took over the course of the day, beginning with my cats having midday break and ending with the sunset. :)

The chubby cat enjoying the first sunrays on a carpet. :D

The lissom cat doing the same. :P In contrast to the chubby cat, this one always keeps an eye on the environs (in this case on the birds on the terrace)

Alert! :D

Salt meadows at the sea.

Ducks. :D

Wildlife sanctuary at the sea - does anybody know what those cane-like plants are? Reed? Cane brake?

The plant whose name I don't know, in detail.

I like this one. :)

Geese and ducks in their habitat.
This is quite a heady place as far as nature and animals are concerned, isn't it? :P

A wonderful, almost mystic sunset taken from our backyard. It shows some trees from the adjacent village.

Another picture of the sunset, this time with a rotating windmill.

Lunario

Neuroses or something like that.

2010-03-07T13:23:00.001+01:00

I guess I should tell you a little about my brother...

As I already told you a while ago, he has neuroses since about two years by now. They occur from time to time, mostly when he is "stressed"...
In the past few weeks - approximately since the beginning of this year, it started again. And everytime he "relapses", his behaviour gets more disordered than the last time; He repeats most phrases at least two times, says sorry for trifling things, he even asks my mum if it's ok that he thought this or that...>.<

And then of course, he repeats certain actions like washing his hands five times, switching the light on and off 20 (!) times, ...

However, all this only happens when my brother is at home and when nobody except me or my mum is around.
As soon as we have a visitor here or if my brother's girlfriend is there, he behaves completely normal.

Talking to him about his mental defect does not work. He usually denies that he did a certain thing or just says sorry. He also goes to a psychologist for two years, but that didn't change anything concerning his disorder.

The worst part and the part that bothers me the most is that my mum doesn't really do anything against it. Apart from lunch and the evening when mum is back from work, I am usually the only one who notices his neuroses. His room is next to mine (and whenever my brother is at home, he spends all his time infront of the TV) while mum is at work or downstairs in the kitchen or living-room.

When I tell her about his stupid behaviour, all she does is go to his room and ask him why he did a certain thing five times or whatever... then my brother eather denies it, goes postal (yells around and accuses me or my mum of ganging up on him) or he says sorry and makes the promise to do it never again (which he neglects the next day, of course).

Meanwhile I try to avoid him or and any joint activities with him and my mum as much as possible. Whenever we visit relatives or get visit, I have to pretend that I get along well with my brother in order to save his (and mum's) face. And when I talk about it to my mum and insist on her doing something, she says that she is going to talk to him again - for the thousandth time...

I am really desperate about finding a way to do something against it. In my view, it is irresponsable of my mum not do tackle the problem, but I don't know how to make her do something (and what?) against it. She is always stressed because of work or other things and my brother is completely unreasonable.

Leeway

2010-03-06T16:40:00.000+01:00

Hello!

Sorry for the recent lack of posts - there simply isn't much to blog about. In the past two weeks I took a lot of tests (for which I had to learn, which is one of the most annoying things to me) and will have finished the first exam period of this term on Tuesday. One week later on Thursday, spring holidays finally start! :D
I'm soo looking forward to spring - the sun, warmth and the greening of nature. :)

Last week, as the temperatures rose above 0°C, I started jogging in the evening, which I enjoy. :)
On Thursday then, the city mags were delivered. Some of them I distributed right away and the rest I distributed today (I'm just back home... and my skin is still cold :/). Yesterday it snowed again (ugh!) but luckily the snow is almost melted, again. I can't see it anymore!

I'll go studying for Tuesday's German test now and afterwards do some reading... I didn't read very much, lately, so I need to make up leeway. :D
If you have any ideas or wishes of what I should blog about, please let me know. :)

Later,
Lunario

Hospitals, Design

2010-02-27T13:57:00.002+01:00

First off, I want to get back to my Thursday post.

I wonder if I am the only one who feels very uncomfortable in hospitals, retirement homes or the like. Being a doctor or a nurse like my mum would be impossible for me...
I realized this when I sat in the entrance lobby of the hospital on Thursday. Seeing all the sick (and mostly aged) people makes me think about diseases, death and seniority and therefore a little depressed. :(

Is that normal?

By the way, I was in the hospital only once, at the age of eleven. I passed out while we were in a very close hall on some event... never want to experience a night in the hospital again!

---

Yesterday I spent almost two hours working on a suitable design for my new blog (I'm going to stop blogging on this one at the end of March and then continue on my new one). The design I devised before didn't appear so nice to me anymore, so I revised it. :)
Do you, especially the bloggers among you, have any good ideas which new plug-ins I could embed into it? I already looked for some on other blogs and included them, but there is still pretty much free space in my two sidebars. ;)

Giornata no

2010-02-25T21:59:00.004+01:00

This whole day was funny. And the evening tipped the scales.

It started with me driving to school with my brother. We thought there would be ice on the roads because it unexpectedly snowed and freezed over the night.

So I thought it would be wise to drive with my brother instead of with the bus, since the bus is often late at those weather conditions.
Well then. We left home at 7 AM and arrived at school at 7.15 AM. >.< We could drive with the normal speed as the main streets were almost completely free of snow and ice...
So I had to wait 30 minutes in the empty corridors of my school. Not even the library scrat was there yet.

In my first two periods of the day - Math - I barely understand anything at all.
Vectors are such a nuisance. :(
During Politics class I felt confronted with a controversial difficulty that I am going to write about in another post.

In German we had to work on a text analysis in groups.
I basically don't mind group work, but often enough my groupmates are either unconcentrated or uninterested, so I prefer working alone or with mates who are more studious.
My group wasn't that bad, in fact. However, I need my time to focus on reading the text we have to deal with and to analyse it. However, groups always and immediately start talking about what certain lines in the text could mean, but they often mix up things or misunderstand them, for they don't see the context.
So I inwardly withdrew myself from the talks and wrote down my own results, instead.
When I explained them to my team members, they all thought it would be the best summary of our group and that we should use it for the presentation. I was fine with it. I would not have been, if they had just sat around there doing nothing else than waiting for me to finish the task (which some students actually do to those who don't object).

---

Now I come to the more interesting part of this day.
In the afternoon, I drove to the city with mum.
There was that "presentation about teaching" on the other Gymnasium of the city (it was for all students of the two Gymnasien though).
Anyway, before mum dropped me off there, we went to the mall to do some shopping... I dislike malls so much!
Those cathedrals of consumption are full of rushed men and women who don't seem to be happy at all while consuming - even though most people seem to think consumption is the nowadays' eldorado to find happiness... [By the way, I think the expression "cathedrals of consumption" fits perfectly, since excessive consumption obviously has become the new religion as well.]
Apart from that, there are lots of pubescent children in the mall, e.g. boys who allow full bent of their acted manliness and girls who sit on benches watching the passing crowd. >.>

After doing the errands, mum dropped me off at the Gymnasium.
It was 6.45 PM, so I was 15 minutes too early. I looked for the assembly hall where the presentation was supposed to take place. I was hoping to meet some people from my school there... which I did.
They were sitting there in a semi-circle with some teachers, who told them about the study of school subjects and the traineeship of teachers... I WAS TWO HOURS TOO LATE. >.<
At least I scored by getting the laughs from everybody for getting the time wrong. :P (it was not a condescending laugh, though).

The presentation ended a few minutes after I arrived, so I didn't get anything from it. But there was one of my classmates (I would have never thought that that person could be interested in teaching) and another guy who is one grade below me. They both told me what the teachers talked about, so it was not completely for nothing, after all.

The problem was just that mum went downtown again. She said she would wait in the car infront of the school building one hour after the presentation begun...

Thus I had to pass one hour somehow. :P The borough of the city was quite remote from the inner city or any shops, cafés or the mall (I would have even gone back there, in that case :P). The hospital was nearby, so I went into the lobby and read some tourist guides of the city, lol. After about 40 minutes, I went back to the school building and waited for mum to pick me up. When I told her that we were wrong at the time, she was not amused... :P Neither was I, but I guess those silly things happen to all of us from time to time.

All in all, this day was certainly weird.
Nonetheless, it taught me some things I am going to write about, soon.

Time is running out everywhere!

2010-02-24T20:55:00.002+01:00

My long-time readers may remember my thoughts about becoming a vegetarian last year, which I gave up because I thought it would be too difficult to live without meat, especially in this household. :P (mum often cooks things with meat)

Well, now I decided that I am going to stick to my original plans. I think vegetarianism is a very reasonable thing each of us can opt for if he wants to change something on his own... and after all, the massive (and growing) consumption of meat is a big problem - in many ways. It is unhealthy, incompatible to my moral values, and - an aspect that came up in the past years - non-environmental.

I think it is hypocratic to demand changes from anything that is beyond my control, when there is something I can do myself to make this world better place to live in.

Apart from that, there isn't much to tell you about, right now. Me and my brother were at my dad's for dinner, today. Yesterday, me and a school friend talked to the law teacher and asked him when law group is finally going to start... in two weeks, he said. :D I'm looking forward to that. :)

Oh, there is one thing that just came to my mind from today's History class... :P
The spontaneous answer from a girl in my class on the question why the Russians in the 19th century didn't have any home economics or sanitary fittings:
"They didn't have the time for that."

(The answer was sponatenous, but she meant it.)

Don't you think the answer reveals a lot about the nowadays's mindset of many people?

Semana

2010-02-22T17:57:00.002+01:00

Hello :)

Wow, it's already one week ago since I made my last post. Apart from my hiatus, this must be the longest time I haven't blogged.

There is no specific reason for it; I simply don't have anything worth telling you. :P
Right now, I'm having dinner on my desk (which I usually don't do) because I'm just back from a ten periods day. :)
As always, I enjoyed Monday very much. :D All my favourite subjects - Spanish, Politics, History and Ethics - were great and in the afternoon I could finally let off steam during P.E. class. :P

---

On Friday, me and my dad went to the bicycle shop where I bought my new bicycle in November. The man who runs the shop said that he offers a free inspection of the bicycle every quarter of the year, so I thought this was a good time to use that offer (the more so since bicycle season starts soon :D) This was my first real trip with the new bicycle this year (it was only about 20 kilometres, though).

On Saturday then, mum and I went to the city. She wanted to do some errands while I already looked for summer clothes (can't wait! :P). There is one store that I usually go to, but there wasn't much summer dress yet. Well, I'll come back next month. :D

---

As I told you last week, I decided to exhausten myself more on Sundays. So yesterday I cycled to the sea (while it was quite windy). The distance to the sea is not far - five kilometres - but afterwards I felt the exertion in my legs though.

Here are two pictures, on one you can see floes - a survival of the past two month's freezy weather (which takes leave, this week :D) - and one of the dike.

Très triste, huh? :/

Anyway, I'm going to visit my father now, together with my brother. It's his (my father's) birthday, so we'll make him a nice gift and will receive yummy pie slices in exchange. :P

Exhausting myself

2010-02-15T19:09:00.002+01:00

Okay, last night I promised myself that from now on I am going to exhaust myself more on Sundays.
Every Sunday night when I try to fall asleep, my mind turns into a stadium with lots of voices echoing in it. I simply can't calm down and start thinking about trifling things (most of them have to do with what's going to happen on the next day or week).

As soon as the temperatures rise above 5 Celsius, I am going to start jogging and cycling on a regular basis again, so I hopefully won't be that vivid at night anymore. :P

There's not much else to say, right now. :)
I'm quite happy with my life as it is at the time. :) I enjoy school very much and also feel comfortable around my classmates. Everything else in my life also makes me feel quite optimistic about the future.

The rest of the evening I will spend studying for tomorrow's German test; Analysing Kleist's short novels. ;)
I'll probably be back online at the end of this week. By then I want to be finished with the Politics composition, too. :)

Bye,
Lunario

This week

2010-02-13T18:18:00.001+01:00

This week went over really fast - I can't believe it's already Saturday!
Well... at least February is halfway over now as well. :D

Monday was a great schoolday - We had all the subjects I like (Spanish, Politics, History and Ethics) and I think I covered about 75 percent of oral participation in all classes. :P
Hopefully I can keep up that level for the next months. :)

After school only took place on one day of last week, this week it was not canceled at all. Some people here complain about that because it would be too dangerous, but I think that's exaggerated. The week before we had black ice, so canceled school was justified. But this week it was only snow. ;)

---

On Wednesday I was at the city library to look for some books for my composition in Politics.
When I went through the aisles in the history section, I thought it would be a good idea to do a sort-of journey through the past 2500 years of European (and later also American) history, beginning with the Roman Empire. So I'm going get some books from the school library or city library about it and improve my history knowledge. I'm very interested in history and I'm sure it is helpful and important in order to understand the world we have now.

Hmm... there's not much left to tell you...
This afternoon I did some errands for mum and noticed there are a lot of tourists here.
Probably they're all city slickers who are irritated by the carnival parties in West and South Germany. :P

Reason and Tolerance

2010-02-10T18:26:00.004+01:00

First of all, I did not expect my post about Iran to trigger such a discussion. In fact, I did not expect to get more than two or three comments at all. :P

-

In connection to that, I thought about another topic that is definitely worth discussing and concerns everybody: How this world can be made more tolerant, respectful and reasonable when it comes to varieties.
What I have in mind when I say "varieties" are all types of superordinate "generic values", especially the cohabit of cultures and people.

To cite an example that we all know about, let's take homosexuality.
Gay people are stared at and ridiculed because of their supposed "otherness".

We all know that this "otherness" only exists in the sense of sexual preferences and a sometimes more female appearance (I am not sure if that is just a stereotype that many gays hew to, or if it really is a "thing" that many gays are by nature).

What most of us seem to forget is that we do not need to clear up others about this, for 95 percent know that anyway. They know that gays are not generally flamboyant, children rapists and all the other generalizations and stereotypes there are.

It's all far more obvious when it comes to drugs:
Everybody knows that drugs are harmful, but that does not seem to figure much.
Every teenager knows that alcohol kills your brain cells and aids impotence. Nonetheless, there are so many teenagers who drink alcohol (excessively!).

The same goes for cigarettes: Everyone who smokes knows about the dangers of smoking (and they do not know it from those notes on the cigarette packing, which tell you that smoking causes cancer or harms people around you through passive smoking).
Nonetheless, there is abundant demand for cigarettes from millions of people - in this rich and "enlightened" Western World.

At the risk of being alone with my point-of-view here, I have a divided opinion on possible countermeasures.

Prevention is fine, of course, and it is very important to teach children about tolerance, the dangers of drugs and comparable issues.

But apart from that, I absolutely dislike most of what is done against those problems, which is always this:
A person wants to demonstrate that he does not "hate" gays, does not want people to drink alcohol, or does not like fascism... things like that.
That person demonstrates his opinion by indicating that he or she does not tolerate intolerance of a certain nature or does not like drugs for certain reasons. So he or she has a few possibilities to stand his ground: For example he or she could put anti-fascism stickers on public toilets or street lights, or start an information campaign together with like-minded people.
In case of gay people, they often wear a rainbow bangle in order to solidarize with gays.
Or let's go back to drugs again: A while ago, interest groups (and some politicians) wanted a law that forced the tobacco industry to put those aforementioned notes on the packing that advise people on the dangers again (this law was passed a few years ago in Germany; I don't know how it is done in other countries, though).

To say it short: All measures are aimed at preventing people from succumbing to temptations like hating a group of people, consuming drugs, dangerous political ideologies or whatsoever.

Now let's look at history.
There has always been discrimination and whenever there was discontent about something, people needed a scapegoat to put the blame on. Further, people were always consumed by temptations like drugs, gamble, arrogance or whatever may effectuate a "boost" of your ego or self-conscience.
It happened everywhere in this world and it still does.

I believe that the effort that is put into pseudo-enlightenment as described above, or effort that is put into discouraging people from doing things by repeating the dangers over and over again, is absolutely futile. For those measures simply do not work.

Why is there still xenophobia, homophobia, alcoholism and the like?
That is what needs to be fathomed above all. When that is done, one will perhaps see further possibilities to really change something in the minds people, so that they are not prone to those idiocies anymore.

Now, feel free to let me know what you think about this. And perhaps you have ideas of how to investigate the "Why"-question.

Lunario

Iran

2010-02-08T19:28:00.002+01:00

Lately, there has been a lot of coverage about Ahmadinejad's plan to enrich uranium. Of course, Israel, Europe and the US fear that they intent to get nuclear weapons as well.

No matter if that is true or not, what possibilities do the Western countries have to restrain Iran from their plans?

First of all, the West can impose sanctions on the country, as it already does and wants to intensify.
But does anybody really believe that those sanctions change anything about it?
Ahmadinejad is right when he says that the West is more depending on Iran than Iran on the West, for, on the long-term, Iran will find a purchaser of their oil in the East: China.
So if the West wants sanctions or even diplomacy to work out, it also needs to talk to China (and perhaps Russia).
For the time being, Europe's and the US' calls for stronger sanctions appear almost ridiculous.

So which further possible scenarios concerning Iran's future are there?

When I think about it and look at the history, I consider the following five options to be possible.

1. Iran gets nuclear weapons and behaves peacefully at least in the foreseeable future.

2. The US and Europe realize that diplomacy and sanctions do not work and instead go over to military acts - an invasion.
On the one hand, this may end like Iraq, thus in a total ignominy for the West (especially the US).
Or it may also end like Afghanistan, a still destabilized country which we allegedly are compelled to "build up" (how that is supposed to work out is another story).

3. Ahmadinejad gets nuclear weapons, forms a stronger army and attacks Israel. If it comes to the crunch, he undoubtedly would not shy away from doing so.
Without much doubt, the West would take sides with Israel and probably attack Iran as well.

4. There already is an opposition in Iran and, even though it is not clear how strong that opposition is, the protests in June 2009 and at the end of last year have proven that the regime has problems keeping the society together.
With respect to foregone actions of the US' (and perhaps other country's) intelligence services, they may support opposing groups financially or logistically.
The US already availed itself of covert actions in the past (e.g. against communistic countries, Central America etc.) and I see no reason why they wouldn't do that in Iran just the same.

5. In my view, this one is the most probable scenario: Israel, having the best intelligence service in the world (the Mossad), currently sees Iran as an arch-enemy and Ahmadinejad also bears hatred towards Israel as it is a Jewish country and strongly supported by the US.
In the Eighties, Israel already destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq for the same reason, and nowadays' Israel is still the strongest military power in that region of the world. The Israelis won't risk their existence.
However, if Israel really attacked Iran, Iran would start counter-attacks; so would the Hisbollah in the North, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and perhaps other Arabic countries nearby.
Eventually, there would be an even more destabilized Middle East with a defeated Iran or Israel.

What remains to be discussed is the role of Europe and the US, thus the NATO and most likely the UN on the one side, and China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia and other strong powers on the other side.

Extended holidays

2010-02-04T16:13:00.000+01:00

Hello guys :)

What did you think of my last post?

I just liked the picture (and the song too). To me, the germ bud on the twig and the setting winter sun indicate that spring is on the horizon. :)

Anyway... :) I'm currently having extended winter holidays. :P School has been canceled yesterday and today because of snow and ice. On top of that, the winter services don't have any more de-icing salt, which means the roads and sidewalks are as smooth as glass. :|

Under normal circumstances that wouldn't bother me so much, but this week I had to distribut the city mag, so I had to walk about 20 km through all the streets in a snail's pace. >.<
My limbs, especially my feet are really sore now, as you can imagine. :P
I hope that school will be canceled tomorrow as well because I'm not sure if I'll be able to get up at all. :P

I don't have anything else to tell you right now, but I will try to think of something more interesting to blog about. :)

Later,
Lunario

Spring to Kingdom come

2010-02-03T12:17:00.002+01:00

Cold

2010-02-01T09:01:00.001+01:00

Wow, I'm almost glad the weekend is over.
Saturday evening I started to feel a little chilly and over the night it hit me. :/
When I woke up yesterday morning, I was sneezing and my nose was running. It lingered the whole day.
Also, I didn't do anything productive... It was one of the days on which you don't feel like doing anything at all.

Luckily I have recovered from the cold and my sort-of blues, now, so I am ready to distribute the city mag. :P
It's going to be delivered either today or tomorrow - hopefully today!
If not, I'm going to start working on the composition everybody has to write for Politics class (mine is about the "German Autumn" 1977).

Later,
Lunario

New Job

2010-01-30T11:31:00.001+01:00

Hello :)

I just put some lotion on my hands to make the skin a little less rough. On account of the heater air in all rooms, the skin on my hands always gets very very dry, so it looks like they belong to a 70 year old man (or rather woman, considering how small they are :P).
Being a back-to-nature freak, I don't like any sorts of lotions, creams or other beauty products, but yesterday one of my cats scratched me on my left palm, so it hurts now and wouldn't mend quickly without lotion. :/

Anyway, I am currently enjoying a four days break from school and try to find some nice motifs for pictures outside. Apart from that, there's nothing else worth telling you about, as far as daily stuff is concerned... but there is something very pleasant on my mind for some days now:
Some of my (male) peers in my grade and in the grade above mine (my brother as well) have an additional job at the port, and I also want one. :P
This city has a big port and thousands of cars are shipped into the world, every week.
Therefore there are some companies at the port that always need people to lash cars on the decks of the big ships. The work is said to be rather easy and boring. The thing is, it is very well-paid. :) I would earn as much as a normal apprentice earns, and I only have to go lashing about five times a month to reach the maximum limit of what we are allowed to earn.

Sadly I have to wait five months till I can start working there because you have to be at least 18 - but I already look forward to it now. :)
Probably I'm going to save most of the money for my years at uni because I don't want to make too many debts in those years. And apart from that, I will have some more money to spend on other things. :)

That's it for today - mum called me from downstairs, a while ago; I'm supposed to sweep away the snow on the sidewalk. :| Is this winter ever going to end?

Knowledge

2010-01-29T22:11:00.000+01:00

When I think about how much I want to learn, I wonder how I could manage to learn all of it.
There are so many things I want to know more about - languages, cultures, humans, history - that I don't even know what to start with.

It is difficult for me to imagine how much knowledge there is in this world, and how much of it has accumulated in the past thousand years.
Strangely enough, that knowledge that has been written down before this modern era interests me the most.

Often I find myself sitting in a library between the aisles of books without knowing what to read - simply because I want to read all of it. If I had the time and possibility to do so, I would rather spend my mornings in the school library than in classrooms- and in contrast to the ambience I have at home, libraries don't let my thoughts and actions drift away into something else.

Lunario

Random | Pics

2010-01-27T19:09:00.004+01:00

Hello readers :)

In case you wonder why I haven't been online yesterday, I should let you know about another decision of mine that I made during my hiatus.

In order to keep up the nice routine that I had in the past weeks, and in order not to waste too much time on the net doing nothing meaningful, I decided to stay away from the computer at least two days, every week. Tuesday will be one of the days and either Thursday or Friday the other one (I'm not sure which one I'm going to opt for).
If I don't set those boundaries to myself, I wouldn't stay away from the computer on my own - at least not for a whole day...

---

Lately, school has been very easygoing. Many lessons are canceled because a couple of my teachers are sick or do projects with their main classes (the term didn't yet end for those in grade 5-10).
Tomorrow and on Friday I will only have two periods in the afternoon, which I am quite happy about because I can sleep a little longer.
Next week we get Monday and Tuesday (also on account of the school reports), so I'll have a lot of time to respond to some e-mails, catch up with some blogs and so on. :)

Right now I don't have anything else to tell you about, so I'm going to show you some pictures that I took during my hiatus. :)

One of my cats coming to rest on the backrest. :D

Setting sun beyond our neighbour's kennel.

A survival of autumn - encased in snow crystals.

Bye,
Lunario

Boy Post

2010-01-25T19:29:00.000+01:00

There are some boys on my mind that I want to write about.

First off, since this year there is someone new in the bus who goes to a school close to mine. He is as same old as me, looks fine and seems to be quite nice in general. It's not that he is very very cute, sexy or something like that (as far as that is concerned, nobody goes above C :P).
He just has an air that I like very much - the mixture of his appeal (that I seem to like) and his demeanor, which is reserved and genuine. I wouldn't even say that I like him that much in a sexual way. I do, of course, but in the first place I feel attracted to him as a person who I like having around me. He has this certain appeal, causing a type of attraction that only few persons can enable inside me.

Now of course, as I mentioned above, he doesn't go to my school, has a different circle of friends than me and so on... So chances are low that I'd get to know him better.

This also leads me to another thought that I had during P.E. class, today.
By the way, this semester I have P.E. in the gym of the school and not in the fitness centre anymore. We now play basketball, soccer and handball. (I am good in soccer, but deadbeat in basketball and handball :P).

Whatever.... There is this guy in my P.E. class who I also feel quite attracted to. He seems to have the same traits as the bus boy: Calm and mature for his age. Even the fact that he is a grade above me, thus almost two years older than me, doesn't influence my attraction to him, even though I rarely feel attracted to older boys.

Anyway, after P.E. class I went to the parking ground where my bro was waiting in his car, and I saw P.E. boy talking to my bro while smoking (him, not my bro)...

Why is it that almost every boy I like happens to either have habits or traits that make them sleazy (right word?) to me or that he lives in another social sphere?
My attractive friend with whom I am together at school a lot always acts superficial when others are around, C seems to be self-absorbed and is in another grade than me, the bus boy even goes to another school and P.E. boy smokes. :|

Lately I have become very tolerant towards people who are different than me and stuff, but smoking is completely off-limits to me... :/

#3 Job Plans

2010-01-24T19:04:00.002+01:00

I'm going to finish my short posts, dealing with the thoughts I had during my hiatus, with a post about my uni and job plans.

Some days ago, I finally decided what I want to do with my life - I am still not 100 percent sure, but almost. ;)

Until now, I had law, teaching or journalism in mind.
In one of my earlier posts I already talked about the advantages and disadvantages of them and I came to the following conclusions:

1. Law was my favourite because I am interested in it, have high chances to get a good job with a good salary and perhaps I could live abroad.

2. Teaching was the one I wanted to do the most (out of interest and my penchant for teaching and school), but I did not consider myself to be able to really teach because of my social inhibitions.

3. Journalism was the other alternative. I would certainly like it, but I would have to spend a lot of years climbing the career ladder to finally work as a journalist for a good broadsheet or the like.

So, as I wrote the two previous posts, I intend to be more open-minded towards my peers and simply try to overcome my social inhibitions.

If I can really accomplish that - and I will have to work on it a lot, but am confident that I can do it - I would soo love to study English, Spanish and perhaps another subject at uni.

I may also look out for a possibility to teach in another country for a few years - at best an American country or Australia... and after a few years, maybe I could return back to my hometown and teach at the school I once went to - but only if I have seen a lot of places in the world, before. :D

By the way, you might remember my Spanish teacher I once told you about. Here is what I wrote about her:

"First off, me as a language worshiper, I have to find her interesting anyway. :P
But it's not only her competence as far as languages are concerned.

She is simply the most wisest and experienced person I've ever known.
Like, she seems to know a great answer for everything. She also knows everything about cultures, society, learning and life in general.

She is also the greatest teacher I've ever had.
Her air of motivation and wit makes me always attentive, and her wisdoms make me thoughtful."

I don't think that I would feel the same about teaching (and learning) if I had not come across her, especially not since she once said to me (she basically told me that I have no say in it, lol) that I am going to be a teacher.

By the way, despite that I abandoned my plan to study law, I am still very interested in it and am going to join the law group at school, which is likely to take place, this semester (it starts in February).

---

Well, that's it. I have some other things to tell you about, but I will save that for some other posts. :)
Since we have our new schedule, I have ten lessons every Monday, which means I will be back home at 6 PM, tomorrow. :/ At least I get to do some sports in P.E. class - Lately I have been lacking physical activities due to the cold winter

weather... but that's going to change this week: It's going to get warmer and the city mag will be delivered on Tuesday, so I have some things to do outside. :)

See you soon,
Lunario

#2 My biggest fear

2010-01-23T15:46:00.002+01:00

My biggest fear is that I will be alone for the rest of my life. That I will not find friends and a partner or, even worse, that I will not even be capable of making friends because of my inhibitions.

Sometimes, I long for somebody to be together with, to lean on when I am sad, to ask for advice and give advice to, when he needs it.

But there is always the knowing that I am too shy, too clumsy or too whatever to do that. And I neither feel able to get that possibility, to make friends.
My interests are different. And my demeanor is different as well.

It changed when I stopped being a child and developed as a lonesome teen with no interest in spending time with peers. There were many different factors that played a part in it and I already told you about and don't want to talk about in this post, again.

I just wished my mum or dad had not just watched me isolating myself, but instead sent me outside from time to time and given me the motivation to participate in my social life again.

Whatever- I can't change what happened, I can only try to make up for it.
And whenever I think about what I can do, the only possibility I see is to practice.
I'm not trying to force any friendships - doing that would be doomed anyway because friendship is based on trust, care and mutual interest, in my view, and one can not press for those things.
But still, at least I should bring myself to talk to my peers at school and perhaps in my free time.
There are a couple of guys who are in most of my classes and with who I took to hang out at school, but it is still difficult for me to address people and get used to regular talks with them, for the solitary drive is still in me and hedges about most of my social life.

And after all, those guys at school are no substitution for a real friend who would really accept and understand me.

If anybody out there - maybe one of you - would make friends with me, be there for me, let me be there for him and stick by me for a while, then I would soon overcome my social inhibitions (or should I call them anxieties? I don't know...) - yes, I really think that would work.

#1 Realizations and a new awareness

2010-01-22T19:45:00.002+01:00

For your information, I already made a post earlier today. ;)

As I already brought up at the end of my last post, I spent about an hour every day doing nothing. The experience that I made is that spending time in leisure - that means in peace and quiet and without any things to do - is a big blessing.
I thought through many things that I usually do not think about that much and I even made some important decisions for my future - especially the one of what I am going to study at university and want to do as a job (which I am going to tackle in one of the next posts).

The other experience is rather grave and distressing:
It was really difficult for me to stay away from the computer.
Of course, I did not expect it to be easy. After all, the computer has become an important part of my life (this goes for most people younger than 30, I would say) and I was used to be on it, every day, for at least two hours.

So the hiatus was a big change in my daily routine, and an even bigger change in my personal condition.

Above all, I felt lonely.
I don't have any real friends in my life and I almost never meet with peers apart from school, so I am already used to being alone (although I don't like that fact). That is probably why I found interest in online communities since I am about 13 years old (and as you may have read in some other personal posts about my past, I went too far with it in the age of 14).
What I want to say is, I was lonely in my real life, so I tried to make up for it by having a "nice" virtual life.

However, now it became evident to me what I also realized and began to understand in the course of the last year: My real life is much more important than my virtual life. Most of you would think that should be clear anyway, but it really wasn't that clear to me, before - and I am afraid there are many more young teenagers who are not aware of it either.

All in all, the hiatus was some kind of a deprivation to me. I temporarily gave up a habit or maybe even an addiction - and as we all know, the human is a creature of habit and an addiction is even more persistent.

To come back to the original experience I was talking about, I had a feeling of loneliness, but it was a whole new, different and definitely worse one. It used to be overshadowed by my virtual life activities, but now it suddenly cropped up. And that kind of loneliness is incomparable to e.g. watching TV alone in a room or taking a walk alone.
The only possibility to make that feeling go away was to socialize - either at school or in the family.

It feels as if you opted out of the current affairs, of your circle of friends and of the world. I felt like I missed something, all the time. And another worrying experience of mine is that books or even newspapers could not make up for the "lack of virtual life".

This was certainly different 20 years ago, when people did not have a TV or computer, and to me, it shows how the internet has redefined my own way of thinking when it comes to community or, in contrast, loneliness.

I will do my best to reverse that progress.

Back

2010-01-22T17:18:00.002+01:00

Hello everybody - I am back! :D

... And hopefully there are still people who read my blog. :P

First of all, I will give you a short description of what I did in the past days. Afterwards I will try to explain how I experienced my time without the computer/internet, music, movies and so on (this much can be said upfront: It was odd.)

My hiatus started with a day off from school because of a blizzard. :D
This is the first winter since years that can actually be a called winter. It is freezing here since middle of December and we have snow almost all the time.
Being a summer adorer, these days appear a little dull to me and I hope the snow will make room for the first sprouts on the plants, soon.

Most of my days were basically the same: Like always, I was at school till 2/4 PM.
After lunch I did my homework for about two hours. The rest of the day I ranned errands for my mum, read books or simply had leisure (which means I did "nothing", so to speak).

This alreads leads me to my experiences of the hiatus, which I want to connect to some other realizations and thoughts that I had. However, I am going to make extra posts about them over the weekend because I think they are worth it. :)

Later,
Lunario

Hiatus

2010-01-09T19:05:00.003+01:00

As I told you before, I want to take a short break from the internet. So this is just a short message to let you know that I won't be online from tomorrow evening on (for about two weeks).

In case you wonder, it has nothing to do with blogland. I just want to see how it feels to spend some days completely without the internet, movies, music etc. (and I also want to find out whether it's difficult for me to live without it :P).

In my leisure time, I'm probably going to catch up on Spanish grammar (I was a little negligent with that, lately), read a lot, maybe sort out stuff on the attic that I don't need anymore (so that I can sell it and make some money out of it).

Of course I'm going to share my experiences of those two weeks with you as soon as I'm back. :)

Hope you all have some nice days. :)

PS: To those who sent me emails in the last couple of days: I won't forget to answer them - I'll do that either tomorrow, or in two weeks. :)

See you soon,
Lunario

Sleep

2010-01-07T17:59:00.001+01:00

So yesterday school began, again and I'm already tired of it. Literally. I mean, I like going to school, but I hate being so tired. :| On most school days I have to get up at 5.45 AM and I always have problems with getting enough sleep on those nights.
Maybe it has to do with my circadian rhythm or something like that, I don't know... No matter how early I go to bed (10 PM, 9 PM or even 8 PM), I always end up lieing awake in my bed till at least midnight (@Warwick: No :P).
Most of the time I think about what is going to or likely to happen at school, the following day. It's like I'm in a state of constant stress, which I also feel at school. I neither know where that comes from - maybe it's because I am afraid of so much social contact all at once, the more so with peers.
Anyway, I always end up with the feeling that I need to be as low-key as possible.

When I have those thoughts at night, I try to calm myself down with some reading or listening to calm music, but that doesn't really help either. :/
So I barely ever get more than six hours of sleep before a school day starts, which means I'm always tired at school - and also for the rest of the day. That certainly has a negative influence on my effort at school.
Of course it's not like I'm really sleepy at school or during the day. It's just that I often can't concentrate or motivate myself to think through everything more intensively...

I can't even read for more than 20 minutes without my eyes tearing up or me drifting away from what I'm reading into a sort-of apathy mode. >.<

Does anyone of you know what to do against those problems? I have no idea what else I could try. :| (By the way, I would never use sleeping pills or any other kind of medicine, as long as it's not indispensable to my life)
---

Some random things:
Mum is currently painting my picture from Art class. :P I'm really bad in that stuff, so I asked mum to do it. Unfortunately we usually have to draw or paint our pictures at school (this time is an exception), so I always have to do it myself - that usually ends up in an average grade, that is only still average because the "story" or "content" of the picture (in this case we had to draw a comic) is quite elaborate.

I'm off for some reading, now (or at least for an attempt of reading). This night I'm going to go to bed early again and then try to find some sleep so that I get at least seven hours of sleep, tonight...

Bye,
Lunario

Bored randomness

2010-01-05T18:30:00.004+01:00

This picture I took yesterday evening from the window of my room. It is one of my favourite self-made pictures so far. :)
The only peeve about taking pictures where I live is that there are windmills everywhere - they stand in the light whenever I take pictures of nature. :/

However, if you imagine this picture without the windmills, it's really nice, isn't it? (as you may have noticed, I have a soft spot for colourful skies :P)

There really isn't much to blog about. This time of the year is so boring. :( The December month was still somehow enlivening because of Christmas, but the time beyond December 31 is always like a dim room to me - and I am in that room, lieing on the very side of my bed between wall and pillows.

Some days ago, I finished a novel called "The Pillars of the Earth". I think it is pretty well-known, so some of you may know it; It is a historical novel dealing with England in the 12th century. I need to get the sequel to the novel as soon as possible. :)

Lately I also found interest in classics, especially American classics. As yet I preferred books that are not too old, and I still don't like most German and French literature (except Proust), but American novels are really interesting to me.

---

I am not sure if I mentioned it before: there is a German website on which one can record German TV program. Some time ago, the service has been expanded so that one can also record American TV program. (It's all free and legal.) So I made a few records of series I like, for example NUMB3RS, and when I watched them, I noticed that there were ads every 6-8 minutes. oO
Apart from the stupid program, a main reason why I don't watch German TV is that there are ads, except for those stations that are under public law.
However, we only have ads every 20 minutes or so, whereas they are much more frequent in American TV. That makes it even more difficult to concentrate on the plot of what you are watching, and besides it must simply smash one's attention span...
Everyone should just switch off the TV and spend his or her time on something that he or she would normally not do. Or, at best, don't do anything for a while - it can be a blessing. :)

As far as that is concerned, you may remember that I once said I will take a hiatus from the internet sometime in January.
I think I will do it next week and perhaps the week afterwards (but I will surely make another post before). :)

Bye,
Lunario

Two decades

2010-01-02T14:19:00.002+01:00

Hello :)

First off, a happy new year to all of you and thanks a lot for your New Year's wishes. :)
It never really occured to me that two decades of my life are already over, now. When you look at the normal lifespan (although I would like to become 100 :P), one fourth of my life has already passed, even though I feel like I'm still in my fledgling stages... I haven't yet reached anything in my life - all I did was learning for it. It's hard for me to believe that many others in my age do already work. They are sort of in another phase of life, and I am not even on the threshold of it. I'm not even sure if I ever want to pass that threshold - in case I go to uni and study something to become a teacher, I would never have to leave the academical world, but do I want to be in the academical world my whole life?
I really don't know what to think of all this. :/

---

As far as the New Year's Eve is concerned, I saw some nice fireworks. :) My dad's house is on a dwelling mound (those mounds were built by men in the medievil times as protection from floodings) close to the church, so we had a very nice view of the fireworks, with the church bells in the background. :)

Hmm, I don't know anything else to tell you right now - there's nothing interesting happening anyway. At least we already have January now, so the first half of winter is over! My pleasant anticipation of spring gets stronger every day. :)

Bye,
Lunario

Resolutions?

2009-12-30T13:51:00.000+01:00

Personally, I never liked New Year's resolutions. When I really want to change something, I don't need a new year to begin (although that may be an incentive).

For the next year, I don't really have any resolutions, at least not in terms of "getting rid of bad habits".
However, I made a list with some things I want to do in 2010 and hopefully continue doing in the years afterwards. :)

1. Read at least 20000 bookpages (or in other words: read about 40 books)
2. Read Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time)

3. Eat at least 5 fruits, every day (I already got accustomed to that and want to maintain this habit).

4. Cycle at least 100 kilometer every week from April to September (that one should be easy since each ride to school is already 25 kilometer, back and forth)
5. Cycle at least 2500, this year.

6. In summer: go running every morning.

7. Settle on what I want to study at uni and therefore do as a job.

8. Take more hiatuses from certain things

9. Get an average of at least 12 points in my school report.

10. Stand up to my (often differing) opinions, more often. (<--- this one is an advice from my tutor! :P)

11. Roam around the environs and hinterland, more often.

---

So tomorrow it's New Year's Eve. Until now, we always celebrated it with relatives or other friends. This year I'll be at my dad's and my bro on a friend's party.
Also, I already look forward to see videos of the fireworks from Sydney, tomorrow in the afternoon. :)
Maybe I should get some fireworks too, I'm not sure... All those poor animals outside, especially birds, must be really frightened. :/

Lunario

Christmas

2009-12-28T18:10:00.003+01:00

Hey guys! :)

First off, my Christmas holidays were great. :)
On Thursday me and my bro were at my dad's for lunch and gift giving; In the evening me, my bro and mum went to the church and had dinner, afterwards. Later we got our gifts (after me and my bro had to sing two Christmas songs, lol).
The next day, we went to dad's again where we had a big and long lunch together with my grandparents. Afterwards we went to one of my aunt's for tea.
On Saturday we went to one of my uncle's (my godfather). He has a really nice house - actually it is more a mansion, with a big paddock for his wife's horses, a very big garden (paradise for a garden lover like me!) and a cosy interior. :)
Finally, yesterday we went to another aunt for tea again. :)

Here's what I got:
- wallet
- speedometer for the bicycle
- armored cable lock for the bicycle
- handgloves
- big National Geographic picture calendar
- small wallet for my keys
- yucca palm for my room
- books
- lots of candies and chocolate
- 300€

Hmm, what else... Ohh right! :D Yesterday I started working on a new blog. :P I looked for a nice template (with three columns, yay! :D), read through the HTML, CSS and JavaScript code and noticed that I still understand most of those webdesign/coding languages. So I thought: Why not modify it a little? :D
It all reminded me of my "geek years" when I used to do those things on a regular basis; I'm glad that I finally stopped doing those things because they were mostly time-wasting (and they also caused me being isolated from the rest of the world for basically all my free time). However, my knowledge from those years is quite helpful now because I can change everything in the blog the way I want it to be. :) I even managed to change the codes of some widgets so that they look better, now. :D

It will probably take me some more weeks for me to decide which colors the blog is going to have, but I already worked on some designs with Photoshop and I like them.
And above all, the three-columns are really nice and practical! :D I already have a title for the blog, too. :)

---

This afternoon I was a little saddened when we arrived home :( Me, my bro and mum were at the sea (my bro flew his kite, me and mum took a walk)... When we were back home, there was a dead sparrow lying on the bench on our terrace. :/ It must have flown against the big living-room window because of the sky reflections; The sun was shining all day but it was low, as always in this time of the year, so the poor bird must have thought it was heading into our garden... :| We had to burry it under the compost so that the cats can't get it. (Do you remember me "Saving a Bird" ?)

Anyway, here is a picture I took at the sea (it was low tide):

See you,
Lunario

Oíche Chiúin

2009-12-24T15:41:00.001+01:00

Hello :)

This midday, me and my brother were at my dad's for Christmas lunch and gift giving. :)
First off, he made those delicious cannellonis again, which, to me, was also a gift. :D Then we both got money and some candies. Normally in our family. we don't give away money as a gift, but this time was an exception; I bought a new bicycle, some weeks ago, so I asked him for money instead of books or something else. Same goes for my grandma where we will be tomorrow midday for raclette (you know, that dish where you have small plates with various types of food on a grill). Tomorrow evening, we (me, bro and mum) get visit from one of my aunts.
On the second Christmas Day (I think it's called Boxing Day, right?) we are at one of my uncle's for dinner; I guess I'll get some money there, too.

The best part of Christmas will be this evening, however. :) At first, we'll go to the church, like every year. Afterwards we'll have dinner at home; In order not to support stereotypes, I won't tell you what kind of food. :P
Later in the evening we do the gift giving - unlike many other countries, Germans do that already in the evening.
Me and my bro will give her a small wine rack with some bottles of wine, and a new calendar.
I'm not yet sure what mum bought as a present for me, but I already know that I'll get a nice Fossil wallet (I chose it myself when we were in a leather goods store, a while ago. :)

As for the rest, I'll just wait and see - I hope you all have some nice holidays, too! :)

Here is a wonderful Christmas song from Enya - "Silent Night" in Irish.

Love,
Lunario

Vienna 19

2009-12-24T01:03:00.000+01:00

I just had a funny MSN convo. :P
Earlier today, I got some adding requests from weird people. :P I have two MSN addies, one for blogland and one for my "normal" contacts (I don't use the normal one very often 'cause most people in Germany use ICQ). One of those new contacts messaged me and asked me about my address and stuff... oO I asked her where she got my MSN and she said that she found it on dating sites.
Probably my account was abused or something, I don't know... It doesn't really matter anyway because, as I said, I don't really use that address.
Whatever - I told her that there is a misunderstanding and she lol'd about it. But she continued sounding me out and also told me many private things about herself, haha. When she asked me if I'm interested in a relationship, I said no... but that didn't seem to bother her 'cause she went on talking about herself. When she asked me how old I was, I told her I'm 17. Her son is also 17, she said. (Maybe I should have asked her for HIS MSN? :P)
At that point the conversation stopped and she went offline a little later.

Anyway, I should also sign up on certain dating sites. It's funny when complete strangers tell you the most personal things about their lives. :P

But, of course, I would never sign up on those sites, in real. ;)

---

My plans for this week were totally messed up by a letter that I got from the publishing company of the city mag. It was written in the letter that all the magazines have to be distributed within three days after the arrival. :O
I got them yesterday, that means they'd have to be distributed on Friday, at last. Now, of course I don't feel like distributing them on Christmas, so I had to do it yesterday and today. And I tell you, it was no fun! The streets, sidewalks and driveways were still slippery from the snow and ice, so I couldn't even use my bicycle - and I'm quite clumsy when it comes to slippery surfaces. :P Surprisingly I did not fall on the ground (but I almost did, many times).
All in all, I spent about 14 hours on the distribution... at least I got lots of fresh air - and a xerosis on my palms.

Right now, I'm angry with myself because I ate crisps and also some chocolate, again. It's not like I don't allow myself to eat ANY candies at all, but I want to eat less of it... However, this evening I had such a ravenous appetite on candies and something salty. :/
Now I feel sick again - how come I always feel sick after eating unhealthy things, lately?

But hey, maybe I should take it as a sign - a sign from the inner spirit of mine that knows how much I want to live a healthier life, in truth. :D

See you tomorrow,
Lunario

Solstice

2009-12-21T19:25:00.004+01:00

Hello :)

Do you know what special day it is, today?
(It has nothing to do with Christmas, at least not in a religious sense. :P)
...It's winter solstice! That means the days get longer from now on. :D I can't even think about it without simmering with excitement! :D I'm so longing for spring and summer... There is already a plan for my new garden in my head. :D

As far as that is concerned.... I don't know if it also has to do with the current wintertime and it's impact on my sentiment, but I really found an interest in botany. :) I always liked plants, gardens and nature in general a lot, but now I also put plants in my room. Especially small palms can really cheer up a summer lover like me. :P
After Christmas, I'm going to buy some more plants in a botanist's center nearby. So far, I took those that my mum doesn't want to have in the kitchen and living-room anymore. :D

---

Tomorrow is my last day of school for this year. :) We'll also get our school reports for this semester, but I already know all my marks anyway. As yet there are no comments in the field for additional remarks in my report, but next semester law group may take place, so I'll definitely participate in it. :D
I also borrowed some Spanish books and short stories from the school library to improve my Spanish comprehension skills over the holidays. :)

---

Over the weekend we got even more snow. :D I guess there hasn't been so much snow here in the last ten years or so - it's about 40cm. However the weather forecast says that the temperatures rise in the next days, so it's probably going to melt over Christmas... The good point about that is that I'll be able to distribute the city mag between Christmas and New Year's Eve. ;)

Hmm, I don't have anything else to tell you, right now - here are some pictures of the past few days!

This picture is taken from my brother's room and shows one part of our garden and a blurred landscape in the background. See those poor horses out there on the field? :(

Same as before, but this time without falling snow. And ... =O The horses are gone! :P

Ducks waddling on the side of the moat. :P

Bye,
Lunario

Trouble class

2009-12-17T14:19:00.002+01:00

Hey guys :)
Wow, it's snowing here all day and the last lessons at school were canceled - that's why I'm home that early! :P

My bus needed about 1.5 hours for it's way back home and I was glad I arrived at our house without any broken bones. :P I'm really clumsy and I abhor slippery surfaces (like when you're on roller-blades, skis, skates and of course ice) and usually fall on the ground at least once, every winter. :P
Anyway, maybe school is going to be canceled tomorrow as well. :)

In Math class today, our teacher made a little chit-chat lesson with us because it was our last lesson, this year. I don't know what to make of it - on the one hand, I don't mind an easygoing get-together with my classmates, but on the other hand it's a little exaggerated to do that in almost every class.

As far as that is concerned, my Politics class had a big argument, today.
Yesterday, our teacher/tutor made a trip to a Christmas market in another city. At the outset our teacher told us that he needs to have an "alibi" for the head teacher because the head teacher has to approve of the trip. So my teacher used a sort-of exhibition in the city as a place that the class would visit because it would have to do with what we talk about in Politics. However it was clear to everybody that the main reason for the trip was to get a day off from school and also to get drunk on the mulled wine boothes. >.< Yes, my seatmate had a really boozy breath...

I decided not to take part in it and attended to my normal classes instead. So did some others. The problem is that most of those who did not take part in the trip didn't tell the teacher before (including me). So today our teacher was very angry with the class because he didn't expect about 10 of us not to come.
Some students who went to the Christmas market also said that our behaviour would be antisocial because we would exclude ourselves from the class. Then our teacher told us that we would have to do an extra assignment and he also asked why we did not show up. Some said that they were annoyed about all the discussions that we have in our class (almost every lesson somebody starts talking about something related to the class trip to Berlin or the like and then we end up talking about it all the time). I agreed on that because it's really annoying that all our lessons are wasted for endless discussions that don't have to do anything with the lessons.
Also, in other classes the teachers decide how things are going to be done and that's it. But our teacher says that he wants to include us, too. That's fine, of course. But it simply doesn't work because most of my classmates are simply unable to discuss. >.<

Another important reason why I did not take part in the trip was that I simply don't like acting the community when everyone is just interested in getting a day off from school, in truth...

Anyway.. I'm going to start writing on the Politics assignment, now.

Later,
Lunario

And Winter came

2009-12-16T15:16:00.003+01:00

Today it snowed for the first time, this winter. :) I love the feeling when snow falls down my collar and melts on my neck. :D

Here are two pictures that I just took outside, and a great (and suitable) Enya song. :)

Agua fiambre

2009-12-15T16:43:00.003+01:00

Hey guys :)
Accidentally, I just drank stale water out of my yesterday's water glass. Even worse, my cats surely sipped at it before I drank out of it - they love drinking out of water glasses, but refuse to drink water out of their bowl. :D

*goes brushing his teeth*

---

What do you think about my last post? Was it too long or complicated? Was the topic so uninteresting to you or did you absolutely not agree with me? :P
I'm wondering about that because almost nobody left a comment on it and I thought I could start a nice discussion with it. :)

---

On the weekend, I was sick. :/ Mum says it probably was a stomach flu... I felt very queasy and all. I won't go into details 'cause I also don't like reading about those things from others. But it really wasn't nice. :/
Also, I promised myself to never eat cookies, chocolate and other things like that, from now on.

When I told mum, she said I wouldn't stick to my words anyway - that was an even bigger motivation for me to really go through with it. :P

Soo.. Yeah, I'm going to change my selection of food again. Remember my attempt to become a vegetarian, this summer? This time I won't give in to my mum - when I wanted to become a veg, mum basically forced me to eat meat because her meals always contain meat. :/
But she can't force me to eat chocolate and cookies, right? :)
Ok, even that will be difficult for me in the first weeks, the more so since Christmas is looming. But I'll not give in. When I'm hungry in the afternoon or in the evening, I'll just eat some more fruits. :)
That will be good for my health, body and eventually also for my sense of well-being. :)

---

In one week I'll have my last schoolday for this year. :) I actually don't know when we get our half-term school reports, but I already know all my marks except P.E.

My best marks are 13 (out of 15) points in Politics and English, 12 points in Spanish, German and Ethics. The other marks are rather average, among them History in which I only got 10 points. History is my favourite subject, but I got only 7 points in the test and 12 points as an oral mark. :/
Next year I'm definitely going to work on more points in History, Politics, English, Spanish and Ethics.
My worst mark is Physics where I got only 6 points. I'm simply a loser in natural sciences because it's not interesting to me at all. :P

I don't know anything else worth blogging about, right now, so I'm going to crawl back under the warm sofa blankets in the living-room. Mum is at work and my brother is going to leave the house for dancing class, soon, so I'll have the house for myself. :)

Later,
Lunario

The Restless Consumer

2009-12-11T13:50:00.000+01:00

Initial remark:
This post is about the bad sides of new communication and technologies. The good aspects are obvious to us anyway. To say it in advance: Of course I agree that the net is a wonderful medium to get information quickly and easily, to communicate to people we would probably never meet in real life and so on. One can easily find a shelter in it, for example gays.
However, it is as well important, albeit ignored by most people, that these new possibilities entail some worrying and alarming issues, too.

---

At first, I want to go into the belief of many internet apologists that the net would be democratic. Even the word "e-democracy" and the the internet as the democracy of the future are said.

In truth, the net merely offers us the possibility to contradict people in communities. And that seems to be enough for most people to call it a democracy, even though a democracy does not only mean to get a majority for one's interests without any boundaries.

As long as those boundaries do not exist (and it appears to me that even unwritten laws like respectful and objective discussions are not given in most online communities), the net is not democratic. It is Bolshevistic and its users avail themselves of ostracism. Those systems and measures were once used by ancient regimes to eliminate dissenters.

----

The people have heard the news
The people have spoken
You may not like what they said
But they weren't joking
Way out on the desert sands
Lies a desperate lover
They call her the "Queen of Oil"
So much to discover

(Neil Young)

In ancient times, we used to forage wild animals in the savannah. Nowadays we forage information and pleasure. The latter is not particularly a characteristic of the past years, but it is important to understand why people are constantly foraging information.

Even worse, research has found out that every online search for information (and finding the information, of course) releases endorphins that make us feel happy for a moment. We all know that people easily get addicted to things that make them feel happy.

In the first step, our desire to participate in "the popular" thing is activated. It is the taking part that counts - being there is everything, the more so in a world where so many important things are instant: Food, communication and, finally, information.

We want to predict everything. But what do we aspire by prediction? We want safeness and total control of everything around us. Many people seem to believe that everything in this world can be computable, but those people forget that humans are not computers. Not yet.

However, this may change. Bit by bit, we lose our self-control. That manifests itself for example in the fact that the short-term memory of young people nowadays is by far not as good as it used to be. We forget things that we have just done because we are always interrupted by something.

In former times, it was the television that reduced our attention span to 20 minutes because every 20 minutes we were washed over by adds (and therefore we stopped concentrating).
Nowadays, there are all those little interruptions caused by so-called multitasking. Those interruptions hamper us from understanding things that can not be understood in two minutes and neither can be understood by reading 100 words about them, watching a video clip or an animation.

We always want to do everything at the same time - being up-to-date, adhering to our daily routine, pleasure ourselves, socialize (both online and offline) and finally find some time for leisure.
As an example, just look at how common it has become that people sit in front of their computer and constantly receive new information in the form of e-mails, instant messages or text messages (via cell phone), news and so on. The purpose is to not get the feeling that we may miss an information - maybe THE information that may change our life.
We compete with time and information, plus there is an attention contest. As for the latter, just look at the Google page rank that orders websites according to their number of visits. Following that, everybody wants to get as much attention as possible without ever reaching a level that they are content with.

When I think about all this, I wonder who is the computer - the human being, or the calculating machine on which I am writing this.
In other words, I believe the risk is not that computers become more and more intelligent. The real risk is that our wish of prediction leads us to predetermination. That humans become like computers.

Multitasking is exactly that attempt of a human to become a computer. (I know this probably sounds funny, but it isn't funny at all.)
Constant distraction caused by incoming e-mails, text messages or our own desire to quickly let others know what we are doing, to check out new YouTube videos and so on - that is what makes us slaves of technology.

Another example for the decadence of our attention is the fact that many people nowadays are simply unable to read a text that is longer than one page. They simply do not understand it. There are already uni professors who lament that their students simply can not analyse a text and that it disables those students to be educated.

The fatal aspect about all this is that most people do not even notice it when they lose their ability to concentrate, to reflect and to imagine. Hebetude contributes to it as well.

To sum it up, we lose our ability to think, or at least our way of thinking changes dramatically (and definitely to the worst).
And it happens disguisedly. When you buy things you do not need, you will notice after a while that you do not use many of your acquirements and therefore stop buying them. But when you are swamped with information (that you mostly do not need), you are not even aware of it because it seems to make perfect sense to us when we "learn" new things in the web.

It leads to us not being able to say what we want and to concentrate on it. Instead, we follow our will to be seduced and pleased by yet another information that might be worth consuming. Or, to say it in my initial metaphor (the savage in the savannah): There are only our primary instincts left and they tell us that there are already new possibilities for food (information) in sight that could be worth prospecting for.

Another consequence of this development is the danger of manipulation. Certainly it would take far too much words to go into this now, but in order to envision you how that manipulation may work, just look at Amazon or Google. Amazon suggests you to buy this or that book, based on your previous purchases. Google places adds on your screen that are based on all information they have gathered about you. Now put two and two together: Being mentally worn out from the overload of information, we are simply happy that somebody else makes the decision for us what we should buy or what we should think about - In other words, which new information we should consume.
And it would be a blessing for our idling conscience.

And in addition to all this, there is the TV and other information sources. Especially the TV and the internet are a major reason for the infantilisation of our society.

That development is yet another factor that contributes to the literal intoxication of the people (and still, information is the toxin).

Many people say that all worries about the computers and the internet are ridiculous because there were always people in history who were reluctant about new technologies like the radio and the TV.
However, it is a misleading comparison. Computers are incomparable to any other type of media we have known, so far. If at all, they are comparable to a manservant.

Just like manservant, computers are also supposed to "simplify" our life. They are a great for writing texts on them, for storing information on them and of course to get information as well.
But computers have spread their power like wildfire and they made us lazy and self-unreliant. Briefly: They made us dependent on them. The manservant gained so much influence on his employer that he starts to control him.

It all reminds me of Brave New World. In that novel, it is not a totalitarian government that controls the people. It were the people themselves who became controlable through their constant (pursuit of) happiness and simply their unability to think.
Draw the comparison: The computer, especially the internet, is the big playground for all of us. Most people find joy or even salvation in it. And many people, especially younger ones, display themselves in it.
All worries about surveillance on the part of our governments are dispensable when humans make themselves predictable and transparent.

Dated Post

2009-12-10T02:07:00.001+01:00

Hey guys :P
I am probably sleeping, right now. But this blog offers the possibility to antedate [right word?] posts and I like using it from time to time. :P

As promised, here are 10 random facts about myself. :D

1. I sometimes go to the church - but more in winter than in summer.
2. I abhor public toilets, but have to use the school toilets sometimes. They are more neat, but I still don't like the thought of how many people already used them before. :/ I also don't use urinals.
3. I do stretching while brushing my teeth. :P
4. In contrast to most other people my age, I like wearing sandals . However, I don't wear them at school because there are so many kids that could accidentally step on my feet.
5. I only drink water out of glass bottles and I really dislike plastic bottles.
6. When I was about 11 years old, I suffered from anxiety states, at night.
7. I actually find it exciting to hear which song is picked when I let the music player on my computer let the songs choose by random. Could do that all day. :D
8. I read the ZEIT paper, but also the IHT and British, French or Spanish papers from time to time. You see, I like being multi-perspective. :P
9. When I watch TV (which happens rarely), I either watch the German version of National Geographic, or program for children.
10. I can juggle with three balls and I'm really good with the diabolo. :D

See you soon,
Lunario

Irritating Classmates #3 | Random

2009-12-08T20:33:00.003+01:00

Probably it's not wise to start a post with a complaint, but I just have to vent my anger somehow.

It's about idiocy. Ignorance. R. Homophobia. :/

Today, in German class, our teacher started a discussion about something, and somehow the topic of homosexuality came up. Actually, it was only remarked and didn't have to do much with the topic we were talking about, but of course, some idiots (among them R) made really insulting comments about it. They were not just stupid remarks that we probably all know - they were more insulting than those normal one's.

One should think that the teacher would not tolerate those disdainful statements of students, but that was absolutely not the case. She didn't make any attempt to go into it.
Far from it, she even smirked about it (though I'm not sure whether it was the content of the statement, or the fatuitous way he presented it - both would be irresponsible, though).

Shouldn't teachers be role models for their students?
Okay, maybe not for students my age - one should think that my peers are familiar with social behavior and civilized conversations.
However, that's not the case for some of them, as I notice everytime again.

What about the younger students, though? After all, they still need somebody to model themselves on. Since many grow up with only one parent anyway, teachers have even more influence on the children's self-development.
But when even teachers don't make sure that their students are advised of their ignorant behavior, how else are they to learn it? From their parents who don't have time to occupy themselves with their children anyway? From older children? From the media?
Most of them don't know it better either.

---

So much for today's peeve...

I'm currently wondering whether there is anything else interesting that happened in the last days. There's nothing, actually, apart from some random things:
On Sunday, my dad invited me and my brother for lunch. He's a great cook. :)
It's a sort of tradition that he makes Canneloni on Christmas, however, this year we had it on Santa Claus - and it was soo delicious. :)

Yesterday, I didn't do anything interesting, just some school stuff, reading and shopping for mum.
Today was weird; After I came back from school, my bro and my mum both weren't here. Mum was still at work and my bro was at school.
Usually we eat lunch right after I get home, but not today, so I just lied down on my bed and started reading. After an hour or so, mum came home (and my bro a little later, too).

So we had lunch in the middle of the afternoon. Afterwards, I went back to the couch and continued reading until we had dinner at 7 PM. :P
I had also finished the book by then, so I did my schoolwork. Now I'm sitting here. :)

I'm planning to make another political post on the weekend. It's about a topic that takes many words to analyse and state my own opinion on, so I'm going to start writing on it already tomorrow. ;)
Luckily, I have saved some facts about myself, so I will post inbetween :P

Journey through the Past | Political Issues

2009-12-04T20:50:00.003+01:00

Hello, fellow reader! :)

There have been some political debates in the past weeks on which I want to comment. If you're not interested in those things, just skip them. :P

---

Firstly, this week it was proven that a direct democracy does not work. Even though many people claim that democracy, like we have it in Germany, the US and most other Western countries, would not give enough possibilities of participation to the people.
However, when I look at the Swiss referendum against minarets, it becomes obvious that referenda are easily swayed by lobbies and ignorance. If the biggest lobby is the government itself, nobody can seriously consider the people to be competent enough to decide about the issue.

Actually, how can there even be a referendum about something that is not in line with religious liberty? If people don't think that aspect of their constitution is worth to be protected, then what else may not be the people's preference - or rather: not the government's preference?

Maybe privacy of correspondence? Freedom of the press?

---

On Monday, the climate conference in Copenhagen starts. The two most important nations with respect to climate change - the US and China - already precluded any results of the conference.
It's so weak-minded. And stupid too.
Like two quarreling children who refuse to stop teasing each other because nobody wants to make the first step, the US and the Chinese government refuse to make any efforts against the climate change; It's always the others who are to make the first step, but no one of them initiates anything.
Now look at the EU. It already set goals to reduce emissions to a high extent. Brazil and India also intend not to take the same path like China and the US do (and like Europe did until the Kyoto protocol was signed).

But that does not compensate the damage done by the US and China at all. Far from it, China's economy is getting bigger every year, so the emissions - despite efforts against it - increase as well.

Personally, I wonder when our governments begin to see that they can not go on like this forever.
At least there seems to be a consensus by now, that the climate change is true. That should be worth something.
But if the governments of Western industries do not reach a consensus with the emerging nations, efforts made by some few countries, enterprises or humans as individuals are worth nothing.

----

Yesterday, mum picked me up at the gym after P.E. class. By the way, I enjoy doing sports more and more every day. :D
Anyway, we went to the inner city into a store with outdoor clothes.
It only had brand name clothing like Jack Wolfskin and Adidas, so of course the clothes were more expensive than at H & M (or wherever others like to buy their clothes).
One time, an older man came into the store and asked the assistant why there are no jackets cheaper than 50€ in there, and said that it would be discriminating towards welfare recipients. >.<

Seriously, when I don't have the money or the intention to buy clothes of better quality, I wouldn't even look for cheap one's in a brand name store.
But some people are obviously still incontent with the financial aid that they get from the German welfare system (it's much higher than in most other Western countries). Or maybe they are just unhappy with their whole life and put the blame on "the society" or "the system", which seems to be common anyway, by now. >.<
Also, in my view, his behaviour was impudent. It would be like going to a Porsche car dealership and then complaining about the high prices of all those nice and good cars.

Apart from that, I hold the view that buying goods of better quality (rather than cheap one's) is always more money-saving, even when you don't earn a lot of money. This goes for basically every good, no matter if it's nutrition, clothes etc.

---

I notice that this is a very political and complaining post. :P To tell you something more personal and perhaps interesting, today I looked through our old photo albums from my childhood, infanthood and even the time before. :)
Mum and dad used to take a lot of pictures in the Eighties and Nineties, so you can really see the development of our family (which is very big) in every year.
When I was looking at the time when me and my brother were infants or little boys, I thought that that probably was the happiest time of my parents' lives.
There were pictures of us fooling around in the snow, swimming in the sea, on leave with our mobile home and many many other great moments of that time.

It made me tear up and I wonder whether we would still be that happy family if we would still live together. Of course, it doesn't really matter in the end because I will never know.
Bu it's amazing to recognize how much our lives are influenced by things we don't have influence on.

Lunario

Questionnaire #2

2009-12-01T18:46:00.002+01:00

This questionnaire is from Daniel's blog . Thank you for letting me copy it. :)

Hows your heart been lately?
It's dampened by the winter atmosphere around me. But by and large, I feel fine.

Why aren't you in bed?
Because it's 7 PM. :P

Did you do laundry today?
I never do laundry - mum does. :$

Are there always other fish in the sea?
I have no idea. :/

Do you have cable internet or dial up?
Cable.

What can you do with your tongue?
I can stick it out, curl it up and I still try to bring my Spanish "R" to perfection. :D

Did you ever see the movie Pearl Harbor?
Mum has it on DVD, so yes, I saw it a few times.

What size bed do you have?
It's 1.60 meters wide and 2 meters long. :)

Do you like Harold & Kumar?
I don't even know who they are. :P

Can you say all 50 states in alphabetical order?
The 50 states of the US? I'm not sure... It may take some time and I would need to make a list.

Do you have atleast 2 windows in your bedroom?
Yes, I have one big window and a smaller one. :)

Do you subscribe to any magazines?
Well, I subscribe to the German ZEIT paper, a quarterly history magazine and a quarterly students magazine. :)

Last time you babysat?
I never babysat before. :P

Do you ever buy the same shirt in different colours?
Yes, I like a varicolored closet. :)

Do you plan your outfits out the day before?
Yepp, I select clothes for the next day before I go to bed.

Favourite Pro Sports team?
What is "Pro" sports? I am not interested in sports, sorry. :P

How many hours of sleep did you get last night?
About eight hours, but usually I only get about 7 hours during the week. :/

Last time you rode a bicycle?
Yesterday evening when I cycled to the baker to get some bread rolls.

What do you have planned for today?
Since the day is almost over, I'm going to watch a movie later in the evening and read a book. :)

What did you argue about last?
Whether my mum's should pick me up at the gym on Thursday or not. I lost. :(

How long does it take to get to work?
It takes almost two hours every day to get to school (back and forth). It's time-wasting, isn't it? :/

What is the last thing you bought?
A new bicycle! :D

How many piercings do you have?
None, and I don't like piercings at all !

Can you touch your toes?
Uhm... yes!? I am 17, not 70. :P

What's your star sign?
Cancer.

Last place you went out to dinner at?
A Greek restaurant in the city with my dad and his wife.

Ever made out on a rooftop?
Hahaha. No. :/

What was the highlight of your week?
The week just started and there was no highlight yet... but last week I got a new bicycle, which I am very glad about. :)

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
...and who is she? :P

Do you like the Jonas Brothers?
Until now, the hype did not yet spill over from the US to Germany.
Besides, I don't think much of that kind of stars. ;)

What kind of phone do you have?
A Nokia 9300i (it's a communicator celly). But to be honest, I don't need a state-of-the-art phone like that. Got it from my dad when he got a new one from work.

Are your nails painted?
Nope.

Favourite person to be with?
In real life, my dad and my mum. :)
In my virtual life... I won't tell. But the appropriate person knows that it's him. :)

How many friends do you have on Facebook?
I dislike "social networks" and consider them to be antisocial.

Ever been on a blind date?
Gosh, no.

Who is the last person you kissed?
My mum, some months ago.

Do you believe in God?
I'm trying to figure that out.

One place you will NEVER eat at?
In a library.

Would you date anyone you met online?
Yes, there are some people I would love to meet in real life. :)

Do you download music?
Only legally and only to a certain degree (for example when I like just one song of a group). But if I really like a music group, I buy their music (IN A REAL MUSIC STORE, NOT ON THE INTERNET).

Opinion of Chinese symbol tattoos?
I don't know anything about those symbols and wouldn't want any tattoos on my skin anyway (body modification never made anybody more attractive to me).

Are coloured contact lenses sexy?
:O What!? I never saw coloured contact lenses before!
But... again, I don't like modifications of one's true looks, so I wouldn't wear them. But I guess some may find it sexy if it suits to the person who wears them. :)

Have you ever been white-water rafting?
Well, the river on which we were rafting (when I was 7) was not really wild - it was a tributary of the Rhine. But still, it was very exciting for a boy my age. :)

How many pets do you have?
I have four cats (together with my mum and bro) of which two are only inside the house and two only in the garden. Mum refuses to let them inside because they already loitered here when we moved in. :/

How is the weather right now?
I can't really tell because it's already dark and the blinds in my room are already down. But I think it's still about 0°C and sunny. Oh, and we almost have a full moon. :)

What was the last movie you watched?
It was "The Interpreter", which I really liked.

Where was the last place you went besides your house?
I was in the city this morning (school) and this afternoon to order some books and look for a new wallet.

What do you usually order from Starbucks?
I've never been in a Starbucks café before, so I don't know what's on the Starbucks menu. ;)

Have you ever fired a gun?
I have an airsoft gun - does that count too? :P

Last wedding you attended?
My godfather's wedding - it was in year 2004 or so.

Has anyone ever said you looked like a celeb? / What celeb do you look like?
When me and my class went to the Krabat movie in the cinema, I was told a few times that the protagonist (David Kross) would look like me.

Have you ever been caught doing something you weren't suppose to?
I'm sure there were moments like that, but I can't remember any, right now.

Ever been in a cop car?
No, lol.

Do you like Michael Jackson?
No, I don't like Michael Jackson at all and I especially don't like the MJ-hype that came up again, after his death.

I like questionnaires. :)

Later,
Lunario

Family values

2009-11-30T22:39:00.003+01:00

Probably there are not many boys my age who think so, but I would really like to have children, one day.
Of course that would be difficult because of my sexuality, and I'm not sure whether adoption would be a satisfying alternative (both for me and the kid). I have my doubts about that.

Before I write anything more about this issue, I should also make clear that I consider our society's attitude towards family and tradition to be disreputable.
Nowadays, most families are either split up or solely consist of a husband and a woman (who are both working most of the day). Children grow up with nobody at home with whom they could play in the garden or do their homework. Even worse, they are put into day-care centers so that parents don't need to care about their kids well-being anymore.

Why does the current system demand such an extreme adjustment of the people to their work? What about faineance? Time for oneself and friends?

Shouldn't we work in order to live our life and not the other way around?

It's not like I'm a completely conservative person; In terms of welfare and market economy, I have a more socialist point-of-view. However, as far as education, family and social values in general are concerned, I am conservative.

I could never be alone for the rest of my life. I know, it will be hard to find a partner and all. But even if I won't find one, I would probably spend a lot of my leisure time for social work or something like that.

However, my dream is it to live together with a man and educate children. As I said before, I'm not sure about adoptions when it comes to homosexual couples.
At the current situation, it would certainly be a burden for a child to grow up with two gays as fathers in a society that doesn't tolerate homosexuality as much as it should, in my opinion. Also, the society probably won't change its stance on homosexuality in the next years.

The other possibility would be to become a teacher. As I already discussed in an earlier post, I would love to become a teacher. It interests me to learn about the possible subjects themselves (languages and social studies) and I am into teaching, too.
The only problem is my shyness and incapabality to think clear in front of a group. :|
I should definitely work on it so that I could at least take something else than studying law into consideration (even though law would be fine, too).

---

So much for the personal part... some random stuff about the last days:
I spent Saturday and Sunday distributing the city mag. Because of the winter weather I always need to look out for slippery grounds. :/ It rains every day and people here are crazy about those red bricks which they use on their driveways. They are even more slippery when they're wet, so I am really hampered by them. In turn, I need more time for the work, so I feel even colder. :x It's a vicious circle. :P By the way, I use mum's bicycle when I distribute the city mag because it has a carrier and a basket and a pannier. :)

--

Today I took the last test for this term! :D
It was an Ethics test about the necessity of religion in these days, and the author of the text that we had to analyze and comment on considered god to be the only absolute value in this world. In the "comment" part of the test, I basically disagreed with him and explained my opinion on it (which would be far too complicated to put it down here. Maybe I'll do that sometime else.).
Anyway - now there are only three weeks left till Christmas holidays and the first winter month is also over! :D
I know, November factually is still part of autumn, but to me there is only winter (starting in October) and summer (starting in April). :P

Hmm... I have nothing else to post right now.
Tomorrow I'm going to fill in a little questionnaire that I found on another blog. :)

Bye for now,
Lunario

PS: Just found out that the first two lessons are cancelled. :D At least I now have a justification to be up so late. :P

Je me noyais

2009-11-26T19:42:00.003+01:00

Hello :)

It's been almost a week since I made my last blog post. Nothing worth blogging about happened. :/
I only had a few lessons of school, this week. Obviously a lot of teachers are sick (Swine flu? :P). On Tuesday I didn't have school at all. The first two lessons - German class - still took place, but I didn't go. Cheeky, I know. :P

But hey, I really think it would have not been very senseful if I would have attended to them. If I had done so, that would have meant getting up at 6 AM and spending 1.5 hours on the bus. Just for 90 minutes class - German class!
First off, I don't like German class. It's really boring to analyse German literature all the time. Reading it is ok. But not analyzing! :(
Also, I would have been tired all day for getting up so early.
So the cost-value ratio was on my side. :P

Hmm, what else... My school got a new library and some other new rooms. :)
The library is much bigger than the old one and is connected (without any doors inbetween) to a computer room that is free to use for each student. As yet, you could barely use the school computers for the web because of website filters (you couldn't even access Wikipedia, lol.).
This has changed now, which is good - after all, I think the school is the only place where it can be monitored (by teachers) if somebody visits illegal / porn websites. ;)

As for the new library + media room, I also noticed that only very few students really use the library and it's working places. I am one of the few who do, the rest is usually not older than 13.
How come nobody in my age is interested in books and well-groomed (school) work anymore? The computer room is always full of students, usually chatting, playing video games or just talking to each other...

I hate using the web for homework or research at school because it's so banal and bromidic: You search the web for any kind of information with Google, then you usually copy extracts from a Wikipedia article or any other article (no matter who the author is).

How are we supposed to know how to write a dissertation at uni if we never learned at school how to do proper research?

By the way, I'm currently reading a book discussing the nowadays' delusion about new techniques and its consequences on our self-reliance and thinking.
For those who have a good command of German, it's called "Payback" and is written by the German FAZ publisher Frank Schirrmacher. I encourage you to read it.
It basically corroborates what is also my attitude towards computers and tv, by now: So many people, especially young ones, are depending on it. And by "depending" I do not just mean that they need it for school work or watching a movie - they are addicted to it.

I have experienced that kind of addiction some years ago - it was like a shelter to me, which brought a kind of hold-up in my real life - I retreated from it because I considered my virtual world to be so much better and full of advantages.

Sometime in my life, I could escape from it. I don't even know how it happened, but with the benefit of hindsight, I am happy that I could abandon my urge to turn on the computer in every free minute.
After overcoming it, I also found time for real life activities and enlivened my interests again - reading, nature and even learning. Yepp, learning - I luckily developed interest for certain things like languages, photography, gardening and so on. But I wonder what is supposed to happen to those who do not develop other interests apart from the computer?
I'm quite sure that it will be too late to change one's bad habits at some stage in one's life. Bad habits are hard to change either way, but it gets even harder when you have accepted them for many years.

I just used the word "accept" and it reminds me of something: It's hard for me to accept that it's not my duty to advise those who are like that.
Even a former friendship of mine went into pieces because of that topic.

Probably I don't have many advocates of my attitude among my readers. New technologies, the internet above all, has helped gay people a lot, especially closeted gays.
I absolutely agree on that and I also don't condemn the internet, computers, tv and other type of media lumped together. That would be a generalization.
However, when it comes to an excessive use of those technologies, they are definitely not conducive for one's character and for one's life.

:/ I didn't intend to write so much about that topic. But that's what blogging is all about, huh? :P Letting your mind wander. :)
As far as that is concerned, I took to write some short stories and poems, lately. They are certainly not on the same level like those that I saw on other blogs. But hey, I'm just breaking new ground. :D

---

Yesterday, I was at the hairdresser. Everytime I was there, I wanted to ask her what my hair color is because that's really difficult to say.
This time I brought up the courage to ask her (but I felt really silly asking that :P). She showed me some tufts with different blonde hair types and we came to the conclusion that the covered hair and the hair on the back of my head is honey blonde. The rest is normal/dirty blonde, but much brighter during summer time.

Weird, huh? :P

Finally, here are some pictures of the past days. :)

1. My cat sitting on the backrest of mum's old sofa. :P

2. My other cute cat, sleeping on a chair. :D

3. He didn't want me to take any more pictures, sorry. :P

4. This picture I took yesterday evening on my way to the hairdresser. :)

Bye for now,
Lunario

Purchase | Advantages of being gay

2009-11-21T14:03:00.001+01:00

Hello guys :)
So yesterday I was at the doctor and got vaccinated against the swine flu. It wasn't as bad as the media and most people put it, lol. The injection itself didn't hurt at all - I barely noticed it, and I also didn't have any side effects afterwards. Merely my left upper arm hurts a little, but I think that's obligatory when you get an injection. :)

---

I just bought a new bicycle. :P

Yesterday I was at my dad's the whole afternoon and evening.
(I ate a coconut there and found out that they taste GREAT! It happens rarely that I really like something. I'm a very picky eater, but coconuts are great! :) )

We went to a small bicycle retail nearby. My dad knows the owner well because he often bought things for his motorbike there. So they talked for a while and I looked for bicycles. There was one that was really really nice and of very good quality (a Gazelle touring bicycle from the Netherlands).

Unfortunately the price was far too high for what I aimed at spending. I said to my dad and the retailer that that bicycles would be perfect, but not within the financial limits. Then the retailer told us he would sell it cheaper because he wants to get rid of the 2009 models. :D So he made it only 70% of the original price, which was still a little more than what I aimed at, but absolutely worth the money.
I also made a test run with it and loved the handling.
Dad said that I would have to ask my mum whether she agrees on it. So I asked my mum in the evening and she said she would think about it. This morning then, she told me that I can buy it if I don't spend any more money before Christmas. :D

I called the retailer right away and bespoke the bicycle. On Monday we're going to pick it up. :D

I actually didn't plan to buy a bicycle that early ('cause I can't use it often in winter anyway), but that one was just too good to miss the chance. :D

---

As for something completely different: lately I've been asking myself a few times whether there are any advantages of being gay.
What do you think?
I believe that at least a few aspects also have a good side.

For example the pressure that we grow up with.
We learn how to cope with (peer) pressure and "being different" in a way. This at least gives you self-confidence and a "hard shell", as we say it here. As long as we stay like we are , at heart, that's surely advantageous.

Another aspect that came to my mind was rival-thinking and courting.
I can tell from my own social environment that males (especially at school) are often focused on courting girls. It's so annoying when you talk to a classmate and he doesn't even listen to you because he courts a girl. >.<
And apart from that peeve, I think we are also more trustworthy for females than straight males.

Also, I asked myself whether many of us (surely not all, though) appreciate true friendships more than straight people.
Maybe we are somehow sensibilized when it comes to socialising because we know that it's hard to find friends for us as well. So maybe we are also more responsive towards others and appreciate them more.
But maybe I'm at fault here. It's just a thought.

Storm

2009-11-19T21:00:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was an exciting day. :)
First, me and a girl friend planned to cycle to school. We wanted to do something weird and funny - Cycling 25 km back and forth in winter when it's 0 degree Celsius and is weird enough, I'd say. :P
However, when I got up yesterday morning (15 minutes earlier than usually!) I already heard gusts of wind outside...
The weather forecast also said that a winter gale is going to blow over this region the whole day. So we decided that we're going to postpone our cycle tour by another day - Cycling with wind speeds of 100 km/h is quite arduous and also dangerous. :(

After school, I was walking over the city rampart (which is full of trees) towards the bus station, when I saw a big tree falling on the ground with a horrible noise! There were also big and heavy branches falling from other trees. Luckily it was only some hundred meters that I needed to walk through the rampart. I survived. :P

In Spanish class, I accidentally and in a funny way insulted my Spanish teacher. ^^
She asked (in Spanish) what eclecticism is because we talked about it the lesson before. So I said it's a type of architecture, "pero no sabes mucho de eso tema" (= "but you don't know much about that").
I originally wanted to say "pero no sé mucho de eso tema", which means that I don't know much about it, but somehow I mixed up the words. I guess I should learn irregular verbs more often. :P
Anyway, she had a sense of humor about it. :)

---

Tomorrow I eventually get vaccinated against the swine flu. :)
I'll go to the doctor right after I have finished the English test, so I'll miss some lessons... I put up with that. After all, it wasn't even definite till today whether the vaccine will be available tomorrow because there currently is a shortage.

Mum already takes preparations for the possible side effects of the vaccination, lol. She and my brother are not home tomorrow, so she wants me to stay at my dad's for some hours in the afternoon and see whether I stay fit or not.

All respect for her care, but I think she is totally manipulated by the bad coverage about the vaccine. And probably she's not the only one. The coverage is so confusing and there are always reports about people who supposedly have died because of the vaccine, but they do barely correct their statements afterwards (as yet, the deaths always turned out to be unrelated to the vaccine).

That's all I can think of, right now - I'll probably spend most of the weekend inside the house. If I have it my mum's way. :P

See you soon,
Lunario

Tricky Dream | Peeves about school

2009-11-16T16:24:00.004+01:00

This night I had a funny dream. :D
I got an own car - an old BMW - and sped with it really fast. Later on I also got a motorbike with which I somehow ended up in a rut in the forest, lol.
I can't remember much else, but at some point I "woke up" and noticed that I had been dreaming, lol.
When I looked at my alarm it said 2 PM, so I thought I would have slept away half the day. I rushed to school and ran into my Ethics class. Also, it was very hot outside, like in summer.

Then I really woke up and it was 5.50 AM in the morning. :P First I thought it was still weekend, but then I told myself that my alarm wouldn't ring at 5.50 AM if it was a Saturday or Sunday morning. :P
The weird thing about last night is that I was absolutely not tired this morning, though I am always tired on Mondays. Normally I don't get much sleep on Sunday nights because I am so well-rested, but this night was somehow different...
Anyway, I was grateful for it because I much more prefer being well-rested on Mondays. It's my favourite school day because I have all my favourite subjects on that day: History, Politics, Spanish and Ethics. :)

--

You know what really annoys me? When people at school copy texts from me without asking.
This happens so often, especially when I'm sitting next to certain people who don't really work on themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem at all with classmates who don't understand a question or task. But when that's the case, they should ask me (or somebody else) for help and not just copy it from my sheet of paper. It's even worse when they peek over from the side and pretend not to copy when I turn to the side. >.<

Also, I endorse seperate buses for every type of student.
In the US and in most other countries you all go to the same school, no matter what your education is. As I already mentioned before, here we are seperated into three types of school... However, we all still use the same bus to get to school.

It's suuuuch a nuisance when there are people vandalizing in the bus or offend you on the busstop. :( This happened to me today; When I was about to enter the bus, I stopped walking almost in front of it because I wanted to check on the readout in front of the bus whether it is the correct bus. Two girls walked behind me and one of them just continued to walk and jostled me while telling me to walk. How unfriendly is that? :/ Also, when somebody bumps into you in the city or anywhere else, they barely ever say sorry. And even if you say sorry yourself (though it wasn't your fault), he or she either makes an angry face or simply ignores you.

Why can't people just walk around you when they say you're in their way?
Are they all too stressed out or have no time to be a little more careful? Or do they just not care about other people?
When it comes to teenagers, like the two girls from the busstop, I really believe that they are looking for a way to present their "coolness" or "self-assuredness", so when there is an opportunity to do so, like accosting and jostling somebody who is in their way, they use it gladly in order to prove their dominance among those who are on the same level of thinking.

That's basically why I like the German school system more than those systems in which all students go to comprehensive schools (high schools, for example).

I am in one of the few age groups that still had to visit such a comprehensive school in class 5 and 6. Afterwards it was luckily abolished so that you now visit one of the three type of schools after class 4.
Those two years on a comprehensive school were a complete waste of time, and above all they did not subserve my education at all.
We were all mingled together in one class and the pace was geared to the worst students, so you often just sat there and were bored. Sometimes me and some friends didn't even have to show up for a few days, or were allowed to leave school earlier because the teachers didn't have any more mandalas for us to color in, lol. (that was one of the most common works your teacher gave you when you were done with the real tasks). If that's what teachers and politicians call individual education, I can renounce it.

Apart from the badly shaped lessons, there were always problems within the groups of students.
Those who couldn't keep up with the better ones often felt blue about it. I understand that, and that kind of a system is not fair for anybody.
But then they often vented their anger on me or my friends, for example they stole your bike, bedaubed your clothes or something like that. And of course, the teachers didn't care about that 'cause they were already too disaffected from those students.

I detested those years.

---

Hmm, I departed a little from what I was originally planning to blog about - something gay-related.
I think I'll do that in my next post. As far as the next days are concerned, I'm going to be busy studying for some tests, so I'll probably not be back before weekend. :/

Have a nice week! :)
Lunario

Martinmas | Tests

2009-11-12T20:33:00.004+01:00

The first week of tests is over. :)

On Monday we took the Politics test, which was actually the one we already copied before (please read my second latest post to get more info about this :P). I feared our teacher might have played a trick on us and give us another test, but he didn't - good for us. :D

Yesterday then we took the History test. For those who don't remember: History, Politics and English are my main subjects, so the marks are very important for my final graduation (Abitur/Matura). The History test was a little weird - You didn't have to know anything about the subject matter (French Revolution) because we had to deal with two text sources. I always fluster myself because I fear that I didn't study enough, but this time it was obviously unnecessary. :)

All in all, I think I did quite well in both tests. As for History, I also made some efforts to impress my teacher with really long sentences and words. It's a quirk of mine to do that anyway and I always need to control myself about this. :P

As far as the Politics test is concerned, I will have at least 10 points (of 15). My teacher told me this today while we discussed the oral marks (where I got 12-13 points).

All in all, I'm planning to maintain my current mark level. After all, I have to maintain it in order to get a good Abitur and be able to go to law school. :)

By the way, I decided that if my plans about studying law don't work out, I'll study English, Spanish and Politics or History and then become a teacher. Teachers are sought-after in Germany (especially on the Gymnasium) and they can not be dismissed because they mostly have tenure (which also makes them earn good money).
Besides, I think teaching would be fun. I like the academic world and I also like teaching things to others. So learning more about pedagogy would be interesting as well. :)

---

We have a religious feast called Martinmas in Germany, on which it is a custom for children to go from house to house (like Martin Luther, the German church reformer), sing a song and then get candies from the people.
It is celebrated on the 10th of November every year.
On Tuesday evening, I was home alone, so my mum told me to give candies to the children if any come along. Since I live in a quite big settlement with many families, there were many children standing at the door when it got dark. As it is the custom, they all had a light with them, which looked cute. :)
After singing or reading a poem, they turned around so that I could tuck candies in their backpacks, which was even cuter. :D
This went on for about two hours and everytime I went back inside, I couldn't help but eating some of the candy bars, too. :P I guess when mum came home, she thought that I gave all candies o the children, but there weren't enough candies, but many of them were on me. :P After a while, the candies were all up, so I gave apples to the last children. :P (That is usually only done by old people or people with a big health awareness). But hey, at least they are sugary, too. :P

---

I noticed that I didn't post any new pics in the last weeks. That's mostly due to me not being outside as much as in summer, anymore.

Here is one pic of a falling November sun, taken in the backyard. You can also see the funny cow (or at least one of them) on the field. :P

And that's one of my cats, who sadly didn't want to cuddle in the bed with me. :/ Her eyes look sort of demonic because I used the flash light of the cam. :D

---

I don't have anything else to post right now... Next week I'm going to take three (!) more tests, which means I won't have much time for blogging. Sorry. :(

However, when the next week is over I am basically done with studying for the rest of the year, which means I'll spend more time in blogland and with my blogland friends. :)

Bye for now,
Lunario

Day of Admonition

2009-11-09T15:10:00.005+01:00

Specials in the newspapers, talk on the radio, documentaries on TV - the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall is remembered everywhere.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall was a peaceful revolution and it lead to the end Sovjet Union.

It's important to remember that day, especially for those who directly suffered from the surveillance, suppression and arbitrary rule of the communistic regimes, but I think it's far more important to emphasize the importance of democracy in the world we (or most of us) live in.

When you look at these days, there are former GDR politicians in the German parliament. The fourth strongest party in the Bundestag is the party that governed the GDR - and every tenth German voted for them.
Even worse, the "Leftists" are already in power in some Federal States (mainly the Eastern ones, by the way).

How can people forget that they already fell for that kind of people, some decades ago?
Why don't they learn from it?

Democracy may not always be flawless, but Dictatorship never is!

But that is not the only reason to remember.
71 years ago from today, there was another historic event in Germany: The Night of Broken Glass, in which the violent pogrom (persecution) of Jews in Germany begun. Hundreds of Jews were killed in that night and Jewish houses and synagogues were destroyed by fire.

We should find gratefulness in ourselves that our predecessors overcame those fell times and gave us a world in which we can live peaceful with other countries.
On the other side, we should also remember that, if we look at places in the world that are not as developed as we are, we need well-thought-out approaches to show them how to respect human dignity and basic human rights - if those words are serious to us.

Visit | Archness :P

2009-11-08T19:44:00.001+01:00

Heyho! :)

Today we visited one of my aunts. She lives quite far away, so I got to drive on the Autobahn! :D It was really cool (I was at 150 km/h, sometimes), even though my mum was very frightened about it. She never goes faster than 120, even on the Autobahn, so she doesn't want me to do it either. But my other uncle, who we picked up earlier, also said that he always drives fast on the Autobahn, plus my younger cousin thought it would also be exciting - so mum gave in. :P

On our way back home, it was very foggy outside. The visibility was down to 40 meters or so... So I got to drive with a fog lamp (I think they look cool :P). Mum almost had a blue fit, but I told her that I'm never going to manage difficult driving situations if she doesn't let me practice.

On a side note, my family is really big. Mum has eight siblings and I have many many cousins (I don't know the exact number, but it must be about 15). Me and my brother are almost the oldest of the "young generation" in our family, so the younger ones always ask us a lot of questions and generally think that we are very interesting. :D

Another good aspect about a big family is that we often get visit or visit somebody, so that means I can eat lots of cakes and cookies. :P (I love chocolate cookies!)

---

Tomorrow I'm going to take a very important Politics test - here's a little story about what happened last week during the class:

My Politics teacher told us what will be asked in the test and at one point he took a sheet out of his folder and said: "By the way, that's your test..."
Then he put it back into his folders, switched pages and continued talking about the subject matter. Later, in the five-minutes break he went to the smoker's area, as always. As always, he left his folder was still there on the teacher's desk, so you can guess what we did. :P

First some boys opened the folder and searched for the test. One stood at the door to make sure no teacher is coming. When they found the test, some more students (including me :P) went to the desk too.
Since we live in the 21st century, we also took pictures of it with our cell phones. Afterwards we made sure that the folder is in the correct position again and then acted like nothing happened. :P Now, of course I already pre-wrote answers for the tasks and learned them by heart, but I still don't rely too much on it. Maybe our teacher was just playing a trick to us - after all, it's very stupid to put the test in a folder on the desk and then leave the room, lol. But then again, the teacher is rather old and doesn't really prepare his lessons, so chances are also that he just forgot to put it away.

The only problem with this is that most students are now likely to get good marks in the test, even those that normally wouldn't get good marks. So, if the marks come out too good, he could get suspicious about it and maybe let us rewrite it... We'll see. :)

As far as school is concerned, this is really the hardest month of the year because so many tests are due. I have to take five in number, among them all my high-level subjects, so I spend a lot of time studying, currently.
But, there's also a positive thing about it: The pleasant anticipation of the following month when everybody is happy that the first term is over and Christmas just around the corner. :)

---

Me and the girl with who I used to cycle to school during summer are going to cycle to school, sometime this week. :P
In summer we decided that we should cycle to school during winter at least twice, just for the fun of it (and because we are so looking forward for spring when we can do that regularly again). :D Our first tour will be at Wednesday or Friday - we're not yet sure about that; The second one probably shortly before Christmas, maybe even on the last day of school before Christmas holidays. :D

I guess our classmates will all think we are crazy, but I don't distress myself about what they would think of it. They don't know how much fun it is anyway, so I occupy the high ground for myself. :P

I don't have anything else to post right now... Do you have any ideas about what I could post about? I really lack ideas, recently. I also noticed that many of my posts don't deal with gay topics, even though this blog is meant to be about me being gay. However, in fact there is not much for me to write about it as far as myself is concerned. :(
If you guys have an idea or want me to write about a certain topic, feel free to tell me in the comments or in an E-Mail! :)

Bye for now,
Lunario

Friendship and love

2009-11-05T22:51:00.001+01:00

This post is about friendship and love.
I especially want to explain my attitude towards friendship, and why a strong friendship is so much more important to me than love.

Of course I also can't really tell if I would think the same if I really establish a friendship or love with somebody. This is only about what I THINK and how I imagine my future friendships and maybe even love-relationship to be.

By the way, whenever I use the word "he" as a substitution for "friend", I do not only mean males. I would just as same like to be friends with female people, but I think it would not look very nice and would maybe be confusing if I always write "he or her" in this post. ;)

---

First off, I believe that friendship and love are at close quarters, but fail when there is love without friendship.

Love - at first glance, love seems to be like a very close friendship plus the sexual aspect. Without the latter, there is still the possibility that love develops to one certain person after a while. But I think you can't just fall in love with somebody. There must have at least been a sort of appeal in the (sub)conscience.

Apart from that, love is inherently transitory, friendship is not. Of course that does not mean that every love fades away sooner or later, and it does neither mean that a friend will always be a friend. But I think it's self-evident that, if you want to start a long relationship with somebody, you should primarily like his personality (and not only his looks).

If you get lucky, your love is returned. In that case you get closer also on the sexual level.

But then happens what makes it all so difficult: Your love towards him vanishes.
When that happens, there is nothing that could keep together your relationship. ¹
You bore each other, you argue, you cheat and you eventually split ways.

I think there are only few people familiar with us who would really fit to us and with whom we would be happy in our life.
This is basically why I try to keep my hope low when it comes to people like C.
The probability that my "object of desire" is one of those few people is respectively low. It's even harder for us gays when the boy you want is not gay.

The other, more promising possibility is that a relationship is a friendship in the first place, and secondly a love attachment.

I think that kind of relationship is much more stable and durable. You trust each other in a different way, and even if you for example fall in love with somebody else, you can talk about that freely and without fearing that the relationship is destroyed.

Maybe I oversee some things when I write this. Things that complicate it. Maybe my thoughts on it are just phantasmal, I don't know. But I will make every effort to never fall in love with somebody I could not be friends with (due to his personality). It surely won't always work out, maybe it will never work out, but I believe it is necessary for a good relationship to always remember the importance of being friends with each other, rather than lovers.

¹ : This is also the reason why I would never use online dating sites.
You never know before whether you will get along with somebody. I also made the experience that, even if you have a lot in common with somebody, you maybe don't get along with him on the long term.

---

On a side note, it's unexplainable to me why I don't manage to write more ingenious and creative about things of which I have a very clear image in my head. :/

Recovering, analyzing

2009-11-04T21:01:00.003+01:00

Hello! :)

In a comment on my last post I said that I may have the swine flu. :|
We called the doctor later in the evening and it turned out that I don't. *breathes out with relief*
According to the doctor, I would have a much higher temperature if I had the swine flu. Mine is normal - just that I sneeze a lot, my nose runs and my throat was sore till yesterday.

I'm currently recovering from the cold and will hopefully be fit again when the final tests for this term are written, which will be in the last three weeks of November. :/
All in all I'm going to take five tests of which I think Math will be the hardest one.
I'm already studying for it and would be happy with an average mark in that test - Math is just soo hard (even though I didn't chose it as a high-level class). :(

To come back to the swine flu once again, I'll get vaccinated against it at the 20th of November. I wanted to get an earlier appointment, but there were too many people who want the vaccine, that's why you have to wait for some weeks. That also means I may get sick in the middle of the final tests. In that case, I would have to take a make-up test, which usually more difficult. So I will do my best to stay fit in the next weeks. ;)

---

A while ago I mentioned that I spend a lot of time analysing other people's behavior.

For example, during my long and boring bus rides to school I unobtrusively observe other passengers when they communicate. I mainly do that in order to improve my lip-reading skills, but in other situations than the bus I pay heed to body language as well.

On Monday I bought a book about body language and I almost finished it already. It's really interesting to learn about human behavior/human nature and it gives you great access to other people.

I also found out that the way I act (e.g. gestures, mimic, way of talking) mostly comes across as shy. :/
Now I'm working on a way to get rid of those habits, for my wise Spanish teacher once said that "our psyche copies our physics" (this is also said in the book).

Oh. With the benefit of hindsight I can also tell now that C is by far not as self-assured as I always considered him to be, lol. :P (Remember C? The cutest and hottest boy I've ever seen.)
Since this week or so he also wears a red-grey scarf, which makes him even cuter. :)

I have nothing else to post right now, except this song. I stumbled across it this morning when I turned in a Dutch radio station in the bathroom. The music group Krezip seems to be very popular in the Netherlands, but I've never heard of them before.
Anyway, I immediately liked this song, even though I rarely like female vocals. :)

If this is true, I thought then, what will I think

Will I stay but rather I would get away

I'm scared that I won't find a thing

And afraid that I'll turn out to be alone, but I

I have to learn, have to try, have to trust I have to cry

Have to see, have to know that I can be myself, yeah

And if I could I would stay

And if they're not, not in my way

I'll stare here in the distance

But I'll grow up to be just like you, yeah

I'll grow up to be just like you, yeah

I see it all I'm sure but

Do I know what's right?

I thought I knew but it turns out the other way

I am scared that I won't find a thing

And afraid that I'll turn out to be alone, but I

I have to learn, have to try, have to trust I have to cry

Have to see, have to know that I can be myself

And if I could I would stay

And if they're not, not in my way

I'll stare here in the distance

But I'll grow up to be just like you, yeah

I'll grow up to be just like you

I want to tell you

Why would I try to

You, are all that I can see now

Why would I try to

And I want to tell you

Why would I try to

You, are all I can see now

I know I'll try to

I have to learn, have to try, I have to trust I have to cry

Have to see, have to know that I can be myself

And if I could, yeah, I would stay

And if they're not, not in my way

I'll stare here in the distance

But I'll grow up to be just like you, yeah

I'll grow up to be just like you

Like you

Lunario

Swine flu vaccine

2009-11-02T16:21:00.001+01:00

In probably most industry nations in the northern hemisphere, the swine flu and it's vaccine is currently omnipresent.
Me, I decided that I'm going to get vaccinated against the swine flu sometime at the end of this week, depending on when my sore throat will get better.

What really bothers me about the current discussion about the vaccine is that most people play down the danger of it.
Surely the (swine) flu is not a reason to panic (at least not yet), but it surely isn't as marginal that nobody needs to worry about it. After all, we now have first cases in which the deceased didn't have any pre-existing diseases. Also, I've read that especially young people are suspectible to the swine flu, though I don't know whether that's true or not (you really don't know what to believe anymore because everybody tells you something different >.<). By the way, please fill in the poll at the sidebar of my blog!

Later,
Lunario

Watermark

2009-11-01T21:01:00.003+01:00

There is really nothing interesting to post about. :(
I mainly used the last days for finishing some school work, distributing the city mag and thinking about Christmas gifts (I always plan those things very well and already made a wishlist :P)

Do you have any ideas or any wishes for my posts? I lack ideas and somehow the drive to find topics to blog about. (Besides, I'm bad at figuring out what could be interesting to others)

---

This afternoon, we visited my grandparents.
I noticed that my grandmother becomes more and more oblivious and senile. My grandfather already is. :/
Today she asked me and my brother when autumn break starts, though we told her before that they were at the beginning of October. She insisted that we would get holidays next week, and then said that it must be Christmas holidays that she read about (in November, sure. :P)

Also, I wonder why old people always want children (and even people my age) to eat, lol. Whenever there is a family feast, the older ones tell me and my cousins to eat more and more, even if your plate is still full.
Maybe it has its origins in their childhood when they couldn't always eat as much as they want? I don't know...

What else... Hmm, I wonder whether I caught a virus or something. I feel kind of weird (but not sick) and this morning my gorge felt a little inflamed.
Maybe I contracted it while I was out there in the cold, distributing the city mag; Or when I was running in the evening.
Anyway, I hope it will be gone tomorrow... Hopefully it's not the flu. :(

---

Here is a song from Enya which I really enjoy. I love most of her songs because they are so calming and inspiring. :)

Day at University | Questionnaire

2009-10-28T19:45:00.002+01:00

Today I was at a uni with my Physics class.
There was an exhibition about many different Math and Physics topics like solar energy, silicon etc... (I don't know a lot about Physics so I can't explain anything about it :P)

All in all, it was a complete waste of time. :/
When we arrived, we could visit some booths but they were all uninteresting to me... So I looked out for a more quiet place and, when I found one, read a book there.
I think that's still better than leaving uni and walking into the city, like many of my classmates did. :) Later in the morning I took part in a tour about laser microscopes and photovoltaics, which was a little more interesting. :)

Afterwards mum picked me up and I drove us (my mum and one of my girl friends) back home. :)

---

Lately I've been thinking about a sports activity for me. Since it's too cold, windy and icy to take the bike during winter time, I am looking for a way to keep myself fit.
From now on, I'll probably do jogging [is it called like that in English too?], every day.

My primary aim is to work on my posture. Yesterday I was at the doctor to ask him some things about the swine flu vaccine, and he said it would be good for my body & posture if I did more sports (not that there is anything seriously wrong with my posture, but you get the point).
Cycling mostly trains my legs, and jogging would be good for my back, too. :)

So I'll probably go jogging every evening before it gets dark. When it's summer, I may also do it in the morning, before school. Right now, it would be impossible for me to do sports right after getting up because it's so cold and dark outside. :/

I'm also planning to buy a new bicycle sometime this winter.
Currently I only have a city bike (Dutch bike, as they are called in Europe) and those are not very suitable for riding fast and long distances, like I do.
My next one will be a touring bicycle with more gears and an aluminium frame. Also, I will buy cycling gloves (they prevent you from getting blisters on your hands), a speedometer and perhaps a helmet. As for the latter, I'm not sure about it yet; I must say that they look silly (though I'll buy one that looks not that childish), but they are definitely senseful.

---

In my last post, I asked whether you were interested in it if I filled in the questionnaire from Tyler's blog.
Nobody responded to me, but I'll do it though. :P

Here it is:

1. First thing you wash in the shower?
My arms. Afterwards I continue from top to bottom. :P

2. What colour is your favorite hoodie?
Dark blue. :)

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
I kissed my grandma on her silver wedding, and I would do it again, if there was a reason to do it. :)

4. Do you plan outfits every day?
Yes, I always chose clothes for the next day from my armoire and then put them into my room.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now?
Weary. :P

6. What’s the closest thing to you that's red?
Right now, that's my vocabulary box. :P But I have some red clothes too.

7. The last dream you remember having?
*looks into his dream book*
I had this dream in the middle of October:
Me and my dad drove through the commercial area of my hometown as there were suddenly people with rocket launchers on the street. My dad sped up and evaded those people, and sometimes they would shoot in the air so that there were "trails" of the rockets all around us, lol.

8. Did you meet anybody new today?
At least nobody new that I will see again in my life.

9. What are you craving right now?
That's a tough question. :P I'm craving for lots of things... right now, I'd say it's weekend, 'cause I am really exhausted and would like to sleep in tomorrow.

10. Do you floss?
Yepp.

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage?
Rubbish, lol.

12. Are you emotional?
Oh yes.

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?
No. :P

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?
I lick it because I get a sort of shiver when my teeth get too cold. Besides, I like licking. :P (Sorry, I couldn't help but make a sexual connotation here. :P)

15. Do you like your hair?
Yes, also I prefer my hair when it's whitened from the sun.

16. Do you like yourself?
I can't answer this question with a definite Yes or No... I like myself partly. :)

17. Would you go out to eat with George Bush?
Yes, although I most likely won't get to eat because I would like to discuss some issues with him.

18. What are you listening to right now?
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

19. Are your parents strict?
No. Though, I wish they would have been strict to me, sometimes.

20. Would you go sky diving?
No, I am far too scared of the dangers. :|

21. Do you like cottage cheese?
No, I only like Butterkäse cheese and Gouda cheese.

22. Have you ever met a celebrity?
I once met the German President when he came to my school. And I saw Daniel Craig in Berlin at the premiere of "Quantum of Solace".

23. Do you rent movies often?
No, I record them, cut out the adds and then save them on my comp in order to watch them when I want to. I already have a movie library of about 800 movies because of that. :D

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in?
No.

25. How many countries have you visited?
The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and France - six in number.

26. Have you made a prank phone call?
I guess that's an American tradition - we don't do those things here. :P

27. Ever been on a train?
What a question - of course. :P

28. Brown or white eggs?
I prefer white eggs, but mum only wants to buy brown eggs for whatever reasons. :/

29. Do you have a cell-phone?
Yes, it's even a communicator-thingy! :P

30. Do you use chap stick?
No.

31. Do you own a gun?
I have an airsoft "gun" that I don't use anyway. I actually bought some years ago as an excuse to sometimes go into a small forest nearby (but for other reasons).

32. Can you use chop sticks?
I'm afraid no. :/

33. Who are you going to be with tonight?
My cats, but not for the whole night.

34. Are you too forgiving?
Yes.

35. Ever been in love?
Mhmmm. :)

36. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow?
Going to school/uni. :)

37. Ever have cream puffs?
Yes, we usually have them on birthdays here. They're yummy! :D

38. Last time you cried?
I can't remember exactly when it was, but surely not more than a week ago.

39. What was the last question you asked?
I can't remember. But my next question will be whether my mum's going to buy bread rolls, tomorrow morning, lol.

40. Favorite time of the year?
SUMMER.

41. Do you have any tattoos?
No, I don't like tattoos.

42. Are you sarcastic?
Rarely.

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
Yes, and I liked it (though it was a little confusing when I saw it for the first time)

44. Ever walked into a wall?
No, but into the door of our old living-room. :/

45. Favorite color?
Orange and bright blue. :)

46. Have you ever slapped someone?
Gosh no!

47. Is your hair curly?
No.

48. What was the last CD you bought?
I preordered "Victorian America" from Emily Jane White.

49. Do looks matter?
For a friendship, no. For a relationship yes.

50. Could you ever forgive a cheater?
Never.

51. Is your phone bill sky high?
The initial balance of my phone is still not used up - so I'd say no, my phone bill is very low. :P

52. Do you like your life right now?
I like it more, every day. Though, currently the looming winter dampens my mood.

53. Do you sleep with the TV on?
I don't even have a TV in my room, and I never watch TV either.

54. Can you handle the truth?
Yes, and I am realistic.

55. Do you have good vision?
No. I wear glasses while reading and driving. :/

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?
I don't hate people - hate always trammels you. But I dislike some people, yes.

57. How often do you talk on the phone?
I don't like talking on the phone, so I usually avoid phone talks.

58. The last person you held hands with?
My mum. About seven years ago, lol.

59. What are you wearing?
Socks, shorts, a T-Shirt and briefs. :P

60.What is your favorite animal?
Cats! :D

61. Where was your default picture taken at?
I found it on the net, years ago. Then I saved it and changed it a little. :)

62. Can you hula hoop?
Yes, but not more than 20 times. :P

63. Do you have a job?
I distribute the city mag, every month, and and mow the lawn of an old couple. :D

64. What was the most recent thing you bought?
A pretzel stick at school, last week. (they are soo delicious with melted cheese on top of them!)

Lunario

Random

2009-10-26T15:56:00.007+01:00

My life is really boring, these days. :|
To me, the last days of October and the following month is the most boring time of the year.
I can't go outside for cycling, tanning, gardening and other things - no, I have to stay inside the house most of the time. :( Also, since this weekend it's already dark outside at 5 PM in the evening; That's horrible for a sun worshiper like me. :P

Sometime this week the city mag will be delivered, so I have to distribute the mags while it's rainy, cold and stormy. :|
Also, there are leaves everywhere on the ground so I have to take care that my bicycle doesn't slip while I'm riding up and down the driveways.

Anyway, I should stop complaining. :P
Over the weekend I practiced driving in our car, every day. :) On Saturday I drove to the hairdresser and yesterday to my aunt. My mum has to sit on the co-drivers seat as long as I'm 17, so I can't yet drive completely alone.

---

On Wednesday I'll be on a trip with my Physics class to a university, which is about 120 km away. >.<
The school ordered a bus, lol. That so reminds me of my time at primary school when we had to make rows of always two children (sometimes holding hands) before we were allowed to go into the bus, haha.

The trip is quite dispensable because we're only going to listen to some lectures that don't have anything to do with our topic in Physics... But I'll take part in it though - I always wanted to listen to a lecture at uni and walk over a campus. :D

I don't have anything else to post, right now. If you are interested, I can fill in the questionnaire that some other bloggers already posted, before. :)

Later,
Lunario

EDIT: THE COWS ARE BACK :(

I just realized... :/

It was much more idyllic when there were horses in the field behind the backyard. :P

EDIT2: Sorry, blogspot screwed up the last part of my first post - now I added the part that was missing. :)

Various thoughts | Driving test

2009-10-23T21:30:00.002+02:00

First off, I had my driving test today... and I passed it! :D Only narrowly, but that doesn't matter. :P

I had a driving lesson before, and was almost sure that I wouldn't pass the test. My driving teacher told me that I'd have to do the test with the VW Polo instead of the Mercedes B class; Since I was used to the Mercedes, I was soo frightened that I would completely fail the test... :|

However, I managed to pass all tasks somehow...
There were two situations that made me almost sure that the tester wouldn't let me pass it: The first one was on a traffic light that switched from green to yellow; I applied the brakes at first, but then realized that I was too close to the stop line... So I accelerated again and went back on the Autobahn. Luckily the tester interpreted my reaction as due to nervousness. The same also goes for the second mistake that I made: Only one turn away from the destination, I forgot to indicate...
When we arrived at the TÜV building, the tester said that it's really dangerous not to indicate when angling off.
That was the moment when I thought I would have failed again... Then the tester searched something in his folder and said that he is still going to hand out my driving license. :D

After the test, mum picked me up in the city and I drove back home. :)
She was worried about our car, though she afterwards admitted that I drove very well, lol.
In order to get more practice in driving, I'll probably do most driving in our family now. :P

Later in the afternoon, we (I) drove to the dike with my brother in order to fly his kites.

One time, a cute younger boy, who was on holidays here, came to me and my bro and asked many questions about kiting... it was kinda cute. :D

So far the random part. :)

---

It took me some hours of writing to get straight my own thoughts about the following topic, and I guess some parts of it are still unclear. Sorry for that. It's an attempt of mine to discuss some questions that I began to ask myself, lately.

The first one is: Do I miss something?
This topic is on my mind for a while now, and I think it also reveils most of my self-doubts (which probably everybody has, once in a while).
Surely I don't come across as not sure of myself. In a sense I indeed am sure of myself, for example I know very clearly what I want and let others know that.

It's just that I sometimes wonder whether my way of dealing with various things is the right one, or more precisely, whether it makes me miss experiences that may be valuable for the future.
On principle, I do what I consider to be right-minded. This manifests itself for example in that I attach much importance to eduaction (not only school stuff) and therefore spend much time for it.
Also, I don't do most of the typical stuff that teenagers do on the weekends, like drinking alcohol or partying in general.

Another example, different from the others though, is me being gay: I did not yet come out to anybody in real life, and am not planning to do so.
Some people take it for granted that I would want to come out to my real life friends and family. However they do not regard my personal situation, for example that I don't feel ready to come out or that coming out would only worsen my social situation.

So, to me it makes sense not to come out yet, not to get drunk regularly and for example not to waste a lot of my time on the TV or on the comp without any useful activity.

Then there is the other side. I notice how many of my peers, who once thought the same about parties, drugs etc like me, changed their attitute towards it over the last years.
One of my female classmates with whom I get along well, told me that she once found all those drug and party things stupid as well. But then she tried it and liked it from then on, so I should also just try, she said.

The problem is, I consider it to be plain impossible that I would like parties or even drugs. Maybe I can't be sure how it actually feels to do those things because I never did, however I don't see why I should do something when even the thought of it makes me uncomfortable.
Even the advantage of those things (making friends with people or even more) doesn't please me. In order to explain this, it would take much time however and it would go beyond the scope in this post. I think I'll write about this issue in one of my next posts.

Anyway, I try not to lose sight of pointing out here that I am basically not averse to socialising with my peers.
I would really like to make friends with some of my classmates, even if they go partying every week and do things I would never do.

The problem is that I have a negative trait, which makes me sorta stand in my own light: My shyness. I can't just break it of, even not if I would spontaneously invite somebody to my home or register in dating sites.

I try to get rid of my shyness since about one year, by now. The time before, I was just oblivious of it.
Meanwhile I already gave it up to some extent, for example it's easier for me to approach strangers.
Nonetheless it is still existing to a certain degree.

Another aspect that comes to my mind when I think about socialising more with my classmates, is that they would want me to come along to parties or would find out about more of my uncommon interests of a boy my age, like reading, wandering, gardening... and boys.

By and large, I probably need to strike a balance, unless I meet a person that I'd really like to have as a friend. As long as that's not the case, I think there is no other way for me to change anything about it apart from trying to be less shy.

The last question, and probably the most difficult one to answer, is:
Can and will I put up with it?
I've been told that I am likely to become addicted to drugs, and I know that many in my situation do. Though, I don't feel suspectible to it at all. Is it just my biased conscience that tells me not to worry about it, even though I maybe should, or do I really not have to worry about it?

And may I regret one day that I did not do any of those things that my peers all did?
I don't know. :/

I'm still alive! :)

2009-10-20T19:28:00.003+02:00

Sorry for not being very active on my blog, lately. :/ It's not like I am not online at all. When I am, I spend most of the time chatting with online friends and reading other blogs.

I am currently writing on another post - a more interesting one, I hope. Probably I'll be able to finish it over the course of the week. :)

Apart from writing blogposts, I would also love to write stories - both short stories and longer ones. There are so many self-invented stories on my mind that I can perfectly play through in my head. I can even imagine everything that is thought and the character traits of all characters that take part in the story.

But... The problem is, I can't write. :|
Whenever I try it, there is a sort of blockage in my head that hampers me from forming any sentences that people would like to read (or at least myself :P). So I always end up writing sentences that don't sound "readable" at all, at least not for short stories or novels.

I already informed myself about methods to improve one's style of creative writing; What I basically got out of it is that you have to practice, practice, practice.
However, I think practicing creative writing makes me even less confidant about it because the bad results are not very promising... :/

Do you have any advice on how else I could improve? :/ Surely there are some writers among you! ;)

---

Some random things about the last days:

I called my driving teacher yesterday in order to ask him when I'm going to repeat the driving test.
He said that he's going to pick me up on Friday midday and then the tester will join us at the TÜV building... Ugh, I so hope it works out this time.

It really sucks when you are under pressure and can't influence it... If I could at least practice for it to gain more confidance, the pressure wouldn't be that big...

---

From now on I have another additional job. :) My brother used to mow the lawn at an old couple in a small adjacent village. My bro doesn't have enough time to do it anymore, so he asked whether I wanted to do it. So I took it over, 'cause the work is very easy (it's only a small lawn) and the payment is very good.

When the old man came outside, he asked me whether I can actually see anything because my hair would be so long... XD They also call me "My boy" in Low German, which sounds kinda cute. ^.^
(By the way, my hair is not as long as the old man put it... :P Even when I don't comb it to the side, it only covers most of my left eye... but I can still see! :P)

---

Yesterday I got back my Politics test (my main class).
I got a pretty bad mark on it (9 of 15 points), considering that I am usually quite good in that subject... But I must say, my teacher (he is also my tutor, who tried to coerce me into participating in the school trip next year) is a very odd person.
Whenever he asks questions or gives us tasks, everything you answer is not exactly correct or "put into wrong words". When he lets other students say what they want to say, he basically never agrees with them either.

After some students tried it, he puts the "correct answer" into his own words, but basically says the same as I/we already did, before. >.< style="font-style: italic;">he said, and what we said before.
Then he always dismissed our objection, for example he refered to slight differences between words that we used, and words that he used, but those distinctions are always without real difference... so he is just splitting hairs, mostly, and thereby makes it hard for us to get at least good oral grades... :/

Anyway, that's it for today. :)

In a tumble

2009-10-14T23:10:00.000+02:00

Lately I have felt such a strong inner stress. The main reason for it is actually the driving test, which I have to repeat next week or so.

I so take against it because I know that I'll be exposed to pure luck and the narror-mindedness of the test's standards. The rules are so strict that many things just depend on your luck. One would think that the excitement is comparable to the one that you feel when you write a test at school, but it's totally different. The tester can't assess your skills - he has to follow standards. :/
Those standards are so irritating because even if I do fine with everything, but then make one very small mistake (like not parking exactly inside a parking lot parallel to the lines), the tester is forced to not let me pass. >.<

Then there is the financial aspect of it. Mum doesn't allow me to buy anything as long as I haven't passed the test. And even if she did allow me to spend money, I couldn't, 'cause I am basically busted.
Of course I have money saved on a savings account, but I don't have access to it... my normal account is basically empty and I already needed to borrow some money from my mum for the second driving test fees. >.<

So, these days, I am sooo hoping that I will pass the second test. If not, my inner strain will probably grow even more, 'cause then I'll have to wait another 2-3 weeks till I can repeat the test again... On the other hand, if I pass the test, I'll probably beam with joy. :D

---

On Monday, we were shopping in a bigger city nearby.

I wasn't looking for anything specific, but mum told me she would buy me one or two more things for winter. :)
As always, I found something in the Esprit store - another sweatjacket (black, this time) and a T-Shirt. :D
And guess what! the T-Shirt is actually purple! :P
Usually I am not so into trendy stuff (purple/lilac clothes are currently very trendy, here), but I somehow liked it and it suited me well, so I took it. :)

Also, I once learned in Spanish class that lilac and purple are colors of la introversión, so it also suits to me in a symbolic way. :P

---

Yesterday I did some schoolwork, since this is the last week of my holidays. :/
My tutor wants me and all others who don't want to take part in the school trip to write a letter of explanation.
I started the letter with a reference to the waiver in the Federal Estate's school law, which seems to be unheard-of at my tutor. The waiver says that all school trips with overnight stays are explicitly on a voluntary basis.

However, I reluctantly named some reasons...
The main reason about which I wrote was the needlessness of a school trip, of which everybody informally knows that it will be all about getting drunk and partying.
I didn't name those things exactly, 'cause my tutor claimed he would have to give the letter to the head teacher. So if the head teacher knew about my tutor's laissez-faire attitude towards drinking, he'd probably get real problems. That's not my intention, so I put it into a more subtle way (I am good at that :D).

Finally, I gave the reason that I am planning to do an internship at a lawyer's office in the week when the school trip takes place, and in the week afterwards.

That is partly true... I am really planning to do an internship at my uncle (he is a lawyer). I just didn't yet decide when. :P
However, the week when the school trip takes place, would be perfect for it because spring break would be just over and the lower classes are not at school either (due to their obligatory internship).
Also, I will not have to show up at school in order to do compensation work for not participating in the school trip. ;)

That's it for now. :) Phew, my mind is pretty much in a tumble because of all these things on my mind...

*goes back praying for his driving test to work out fine*

Lunario

Room for Development

2009-10-11T14:14:00.005+02:00

Hello :)
It's a foggy Sunday morning and I am halfway through my holidays. :|

Until now, nothing worth blogging happened. As I wrote in my last post, the weather doesn't allow to be outside, so I spend most of my time reading or watching movies... Hah, I guess I'm more lazy in my autumn break than on Christmas, spring or summer holidays. :D

Soo.. Since I don't know what else to write about, I thought about a retrospect on the last months.

To begin with, one year ago I had just discovered blogland. In fact, blogland wasn't really existent. There were only a few gay blogs and when you took them together, they couldn't really be called a community.
To me, the most important blog was mirrorboy's blog, and it was also the first blog where I left a comment (sometime in November).

However, last year I didn't spend any thoughts on getting a blog because I considered my life to be far too boring (and still do, somehow).
Sometime at the beginning of this year I started to follow more and more blogs and also started thinking about writing an own blog or personal diary.

At first, I was actually more inclinced to write a diary because I was worried about my anonymity and whether I would have the courage to publicize my whole life to a basically unknown audience.
However, I couldn't resist thinking about the possibilites that a blog would bring to me. It would be a motivation to write and I hoped that I could benefit from it, in some way.
But I am a pessimistic person, so I didn't really expect that many people would read my blog at all, lol.

Whatever, sometime around March I started thinking about a new nickname.
How I came to the name "Lunario" is one of my secrets however. :P It has to do with the nickname I have always used before on IM, big communities and everywhere else in the net. If I would use my old nickname for this blog, people from real life could have infered from it who I am. For example all my classmates are in my IM contact list, and if they googled my old nickname just for fun, they may have landed on my blog... ;)

So I made up Lunario for a certain reason, and then gave this blog the title Lunario's words between the lines of youth.

In the first weeks, the number of visitors tended to zero, lol. :P With the help of the StatCounter Plugin, I looked at the number of visitors a few times - it was never more than 10 per day.
So you can imagine how I was happy when I got the first comments! :D
Even better, some well-known bloggers discovered my blog and I also emailed a few. Most of them linked to me, so more people found my blog. Since May, the number of visitors is always around 130 per day, which I am happy with.
Also, I don't want my blog to become too well-known - the higher the number of visitors, the higher the danger of losing my anonymity. ;)

In case you are interested in some statistics:

- The most often viewed pic on my blog is the one of my room. :D

- The most often viewed post is that one.

- 30% of my visitors are from the United States, 15% from Germany, 11 % from Canada, 9 % from France and 5% from the UK. The other countries are all lower than 2%. However I wonder how people from French Guiana, Qatar or Costa Rica stumbled over my blog. :D

So far the factual part of this post...

---

In August, I wrote this:

"In the last couple of days I changed one of my basic assumptions about my peers. I found out that many of those who I labeled superficial or ignorant are not that bad, really.
What they say during the lessons is intelligent and when you talk to them directly, they are serious and all. It's just that they are so superficial when more people are around."

I want to go into this a little deeper because that - to put it in more general words - is the biggest step that I have taken since I started this blog; Probably I would have not developed that sense of empathy for my peers if I had not started this blog.
Through this blog I became friends with many people. My contact list contains
13 people and with half of them I chat on a regular basis. Three of them are very good friends, and I am in love with one of them.

So I learned to accept different views, even from people I like. Of course, I still have certain expectations of how a friend of mine should be like, but I can cope with some flaws, now.

Further, thanks to you, my readers and commenters, I know that there are some people who show interest in what I write (and do hopefully overlook linguistic mistakes that I probably do all the time. :P).

If it wasn't for this blog, I would still have to rely on my own thoughts without the feedback of anybody.
I mean, I never expected that anybody would think the same as me about certain issues, or at least be appreciative of it. But then I realized that many people actually do feel/think the same, and that I can benefit from their advice or experiences.

I hope that everybody else, who is in the same situation as I was at that time, gets to realize the same.

Current (holi)day structure

2009-10-07T21:17:00.001+02:00

This is just a quick post 'cause I don't really have anything to write about. :/
All my days are all practically the same, anyway. :P

1. Wake up at 10 AM
2. Stay in the bed with breakfast and a book till 1 PM
3. Wash up and get out of bed clothes
4. Have lunch at 2 PM
5. Learn vocabularies and Spanish grammar till 3 PM
6. Read or watch a movie till 6 PM
7. Have dinner (either reading or watching a movie again :P)
8. Surf the web and chat till midnight

Boring, I know. :P
Maybe I should explain that when I eat breakfast or dinner in my bed, I don't lie there with dish on my duvet, lol. German breakfast and dinner usually consists of bread or bread rolls, so you can easily eat them in your bed with one hand. Though, as legend has it, Americans have bad manners, so they may do the same - just with pizza or burgers instead of bread/rolls. :P

---

This afternoon, me and my mum were in a city nearby to do some shopping. I was looking for some winter clothes, but only bought a new jeans. The other things were either too fashion-like, or of too bad quality (I don't like it when clothes fray out or shrink after wearing them for some months, or after laundering them a few times...

So I settled on one Esprit jeans and will have to wait for next week when we're planning to do a trip to a bigger city where there will be a bigger range of products. :)

Here are three pics, the ones with the cats are just quick snapshots of one of my cats.
When you look at the first one - do you also find that her nose looks very much like a heart on that pic? :D
The second pic was really just a lucky pic - I randomly pressed the picture button when she sniffed at my hand.
It reminds me of the big T-Rex in Jurassic Park II, lol. :D

This pic is from yesterday afternoon. I was sitting on my desk when I suddenly saw this big and weird-looking critter scuttling over my fly-screen. :O Does anybody know what that is? I know, the quality sucks, but maybe it's more common somewhere else.

It kinda frightened me, 'cause I live in Germany, so we normally don't have weird animals here. However, I've never seen that one before. oO

Freedom

2009-10-03T20:00:00.002+02:00

/Second post about Unity day:
I found this video on YouTube. It contains some nice pictures of the Reunification. The song playing in the background has become an anthem for it (and evokes some nice childhood memories). My dad was at the concert and he told me that it took place shortly after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, in Hamburg.

English lyrics:
The treaties have been made
And there was much laughter
And sweets for the dessert

Freedom, Freedom
The band plays rumtata

And the pope was already there
And my neighbor ahead of all else

Freedom, Freedom
is the only thing which is missed
Freedom Freedom
has been canceled again

Sadly, the man is not naive
Sadly, the man is primitive

Freedom, Freedom
has been canceled again

All those who are dreaming of freedom
Shall not miss celebrating
shall be dancing, even on graves

Freedom, Freedom
is the only thing that counts

A quote from Albert Einstein about freedom:

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."

[By the way, I already made a post earlier today.]

Lunario

Unity Day | Facts

2009-10-03T13:33:00.002+02:00

Today is German Reunification Day, which is the only national holiday we have.

In fact, the day when Germany was reunited was the 9th of November 1989, but due to other (less celebratory) incidents, like the Night of Broken Glass and the Hitlerputsch, the 3rd of October has been taken. That's theday when the German reunification has been formally carried out.

---

I wrote down some facts about me, this morning, which you not know yet.
It's so hard to think of something that may be interesting... Here's the first load (since I don't have anything worth posting, right now, anyway :P)

1. I have a red-green-amblyopia.
2. Actually, I'm evangelic (Protestant), thus baptized and confirmed, but I'm not that religious in real.
3. I don't like hot food. :|
4. The first blog I've read was mirrorboy's blog.
5. If I could travel to any place in winter, it would be Almería (Spain).
6. If I could travel to any place in summer, it would be Arizona, Spain or Florida.
7. I have two fetishes... but won't tell you more about them (yet). :P
8. As a student job, I distribute the city magazine at the beginning of every month.
9. I love playing with Photoshop gimmicks. :D
10. This is my 128th post. :P

Driving test

2009-10-02T20:34:00.005+02:00

*doesn't know how to begin*

Hmm... :/ I didn't pass the driving test. :/
It was sooo close , but I made a very stupid mistake only a few hundred meters away from the tester's building...

The test was not as tough as I thought it would be. I did fine in all tasks (parallel parking, reverse parking, evasive brake application, driving on the Autobahn etc), and I was basically done with the test.
So I had to drive back to the TÜV building (remember TÜV boy? :D ).

When I was at a certain crossing with a special traffic light for right-turning vehicles, I misinterpreted the signs.

Here's a picture of the type of traffic light I mean:

Here you can see it with flashing lights, though I don't know why the red main light is in the shape of a heart, lol:

When the one with three lamps (main traffic light) is red, you are not allowed to angle off to the right, exept if the one with the two lamps (showing a green arrow) is green (it's only colors are green and yellow).
When I reached the crossing, which was right behind a turn, I saw that the main traffic light was red. The one with two lamps was yellow and in the very act of signaling nothing. That would mean I have to wait, but in that moment I didn't realize that. So I was about to angle off... then my instructor had to apply his brakes, which means you've failed...

It was soo annoying, 'cause I basically mixed up the meaning of the two-lamp light.
There are also two-lamps lights on crosswalks here, and if they don't show yellow or red, that means you can drive. So I mixed that up, though I actually knew that I was to wait in that situation. :/

After the test, I was mostly annoyed about the fact that I did all the tasks so well, and then, after 40 minutes of pure concentration, it turned out to be all for nothing...

Also, I missed four periods at school... I went to school for the last two hours though.

All in all, it was an irritating experience.
However I am not that displeased about it anymore. It just happened, and I can't change that. Also, I know that it was my fault, but I don't think it makes sense to let that rain on my parade. For I've got a two week break from school, now. :)

Now I have to wait two weeks till I can repeat the test, and hopefully will not have to do all the hard tasks again; The tester will probably be the same one, so he knows I am basically a good driver.

---

Somewhen at spring time, I posted a video of a Flunk song, which I like a lot.
Flunk is one of the few music groups to which I mainly listen in winter. Their songs are mainly winter or rainy-weather songs, and they always have an air of hypnosis.

The following one, which is actually a cover song, is one of my favs.

How does it feel
To treat me like you do
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are

I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how do I feel

How does it feel
To treat me like you do
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are

I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how do I feel

Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They'll turn away no more

And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today

And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how should I feel

Treat me like you do

Lunario

Week of horrible tests

2009-09-30T21:17:00.000+02:00

Hello!
I'm just back from distributing the city mag - It's the end of a month again. :/

It's really not a pleasure to distribute the mag while it's all rainy and misty outside. Also, I realized today that it's already dark at 7 PM, by now. :/
I sooo take against winter time and I am already looking forward to spring 2010...

---

Today I took the Physics test. I'm confident that I failed at half of the tasks, the other half may be partly correct.. Hopefully it will be enough to assure a not too bad Physics mark, this term.

Another nail on the coffin of this week: Practical driving test. :/

I'm going to take it on Friday and am sort of afraid to fail at it.
The instructions and rules are very hard and about half of all learners fail at it, the first time. o_o

The biggest problem for me is parking, especially parallel parking and reverse parking.
At least my driving teacher gives me another lesson before the tast, so that I can practice parking some more (and hopefully improve).

In case I fail, I'll have to take some more lessons and then repeat the test in two weeks.
That would cost about 250 more euros - as if the 2000€ that I already spent for the license would not be enough, lol.

At least I know that my well-deserved citymag-money is spent well. :P

---

Today, after the final lesson, I went to the secretary to file in a sheet, and got to be together in the same room with C! :D

He was standing around there with a sports bag (probably for P.E. class) and obviously waiting for somebody.
I realized that I never had a crush on somebody for a longer time than on him.
It started at the beginning of last school year (August) and increased by-and-by.

---

This evening I need to practice my P.E. presentation - yes, P.E... :/
Everybody has to make an "stretching + strength program" and present it to the class. >.<
Considering me being as stiff as a poker, I'll surely be the laughing-stock of the class, haha.

See you Friday (with hopefully good news about my driving test)
Lunario

Turnout | Wisdom

2009-09-28T16:04:00.003+02:00

Firstly I'll answer your questions on my last post...

I was in favour of another big coalition.
Sadly, they did not get a majority, and of course, the Conservatives rather wanted to form a coalition with the Liberals.
For those who don't know yet, the latter two have a majority now, which means the country shifted to the right.

Personally, I don't like the Liberals' attitude towards society.
Together with the Conservatives, I fear that they both govern the country like the Republicans used to do in the US. That means they are in clear favour of free market economy, less social aids and consolidation of the upper and lower class.

I am not illusionary or so - I know that we can't all be as same wealthy and that there will always be classes.
But if you follow the principles of the Liberals (and partly of the Conservatives), you solidify both classes and make it even harder to climb them.
For example, both parties are in favour of tuition fees.
I know that they are already common in most other countries in the world - however, they have not been imposed here till 2005; For a good reason, in my opinion. For education should be free for everybody, independent of one's financial possibilities.
Also, it's the task of the government to make sure that the state unis have enough profs, rooms, books etc.

But instead of assuring its own society's stability , Germany spends hundreds of million euros for the military and the Irish + Eastern European economies, every year.
The EU is important, yes, but IMO it's wrong that Germany is forced to pay more money than all other countries, even though it needs so much for itself.

To get to the next point, one should be really worried about the low turnout of voters.
Merely 70% cast their ballots, which is the lowest turnout ever in the history of the German Republic.

Everybody says that politicians wouldn't care about the normal people anyway, so why go voting?
Those who say so fail to see that politicians can not know what people want, if the latter don't let them know.

By the way, here is the most stupid comment of the day, made by one of my classmates. (For your information, the leader of the Liberals is gay)

"Governed by a woman and a fag! How could Germany stoop to that level?"

---

As for my own life, I want to tell you more about one particular person in my life - my Spanish teacher.

I already mentioned her on my blog, a while ago.

"She is the best teacher I ever had and also a very wise person. She was already my English teacher in class 10 and also teaches French (besides, she speaks Russian, Arabic and another language... seven in number. <_<)"

First off, me as a language worshiper, I have to find her interesting anyway. :P
But it's not only her competence as far as languages are concerned.

She is simply the most wisest and experienced person I've ever known.
Like, she seems to know a great answer for everything. She also knows everything about cultures, society, learning and life in general.

She is also the greatest teacher I've ever had.
Her air of motivation and wit makes me always attentive, and her wisdoms make me thoughtful.

Today she said something that perfectly words what I always think of my peers. Especially of those who constantly shift the blame for their misery on others:

"We can even built golden watering places for the cows. But if they don't want to drink, the gold won't change it.
And no matter how many video projectors, computers, and new learning methods we use, it won't help you students if you don't want to learn."

Then she told us about how the children in India, Korea and Bangladhesh are so eager to learn that they are going to overflood the Western market, one day, and then we will be the ones who do their work.

I don't know if it will come that far, but she is definitely right with what she says about most of my peers' attitude.

---

That's it for today - I gotta do some studying for Wednesday's Physics test ( Physics is the most difficult subject to me).

Bye for now,
Lunario

Elections

2009-09-27T11:32:00.000+02:00

So today there are Federal elections in Germany. :)

Mum already casted her ballot this morning (and brought very delicious bread rolls from the baker :D).

I am not yet old enough to vote, sadly.
This evening, my dad is going to take me to a local government building where the votings are counted and sent to Berlin (he supervises the counting and sending).
I think that will be very interesting. Also, many politicians + the media will be there.

As for the election itself, there are two likely possibilities.
Either the Conservatives (with current Chancellor Merkel) enter into a coalition with the Liberals, which is their prior aim. Or the Conservatives go into another big coalition with the Social Democrats.

The latter wants to go into a coalition with the Greens and the leftists, but that's rather unlikely.
Also, the leftists are a populist party (formerly the governing party in the GDR). Even worse, there is a right-wing extremists party in one state parliament in East Germany.
What makes people so stupid as to vote for communists or Nazis, again?

English results; Social Pressure #x

2009-09-25T20:59:00.003+02:00

Today was quite a nice day.
I had the first two lessons off, so I could sleep two hours later than usually. :)
On a normal schoolday, I am always tired because I have to get up at 6 AM, every morning. :/

Anyway, this was not the case today, so I could even muster enough energy to read a book, this afternoon (apart from certain other activities I like to do when I've got the house for myself :P)

In English class we were handed back our test.
Turned out I had the best mark of the class - 13 of 15 points :D (we have a different mark system here).

I totally didn't expect my test to be that good. But I'm happy about it though. :D

However, my teacher marked some supposed mistakes in my test of which I'm pretty sure that they are not mistakes at all.
I already asked some friends from blogland (English natives) whether they could revise those parts of my test. :)
Also, the teacher copied those passages and wants to ask his colleagues about it.

However it turns out, I'm confident of the following tests now, which are all very important for my graduation results.

Oh, one thing which we all found funny, was that one of my classmates, who spent the whole last year in the US, got a rather bad mark in the test.
She complained about it to the teacher, adding that she got the best marks in English at a Californian school. My teacher replied it's usually that way, 'cause Americans don't lay much value on correct grammar and spelling, thus it's easy for German students to get the best grades on American schools, lol.
He claims to be an advocate of American culture & way of life, but he also bashes it a lot.

---

Some updates on yesterday's post's topic:
I am still resolved not to take part in the school trip. (even though one of my readers offered me a private sightseeing tour in Berlin :D)
Aspiring to become a lawyer, I also checked the school law and it says that a student does not have to take part in school trips with an overnight stay; So there shouldn't be any legal problems about it.

The only difficulty could be the social aspect.
One of my readers asked me whether it could have any influences on my integration in the class.

Well, I don't think that the consequences will be too big if I don't go.
Of course, my classmates would ask me for the reason, but I have a good excuse for it:
Rather than telling them the truth (which is me not wanting to be among drunken peers for one week), I'll tell them that I don't want to spend two half weekends for the trip.
This is true, by the way - though it's not as important to me as the alcohol thing.

Luckily, there are some others in my class who neither want to spend two half weekends for the trip. I hope they still think the same about it when the chips are down, so that I'll not be the only one who thinks so.

However it turns out, I will be able to cope with the social pressure that will come up.
It's not like I was never exposed to that pressure, before.

Legitimation

2009-09-24T16:47:00.003+02:00

I'm currently caught up in a really annoying situation.

Next year after spring break, me and my main class are going to make a trip to Berlin.
Berlin is cool and all, but the trip would be suuuch a nuisance...

Our teacher talked about it with our class over the last couple of days. Every class in my grade does the trip in the same time period (from Monday till Friday).
However my class goes to Berlin from Sunday till Saturday, which is even worse.

I always hated school trips. It feels like I'm superfluous there, and everybody is having fun except me.
I'm not someone who likes to be taken out of his normal habits or even being in a completely strange environment (with people I don't like that much).
So I always had to outlast those days on school trips somehow...

Now I'm older. And my classmates have become more open-minded.
But still that school trip will be a seven-days-boozing-party.
My teacher flouts the law that alcohol is prohibited on school trips (he actually told us that he doesn't take stock in it at all), so everybody will get drunk each night and try to make me drunk, too.
It was almost the same on my last school trip (also to Berlin), which is one year ago. The difference is that most of my classmates are of full age now (I'm one of the youngest in my grade).
This means they wouldn't abide by the teacher's rules anyway...

Probably most of you will tell me that I should take part in the trip, just for the sake of it, but I really don't want to and thought about it well.

There are also two others in my class who don't want to take part in it because they don't want to waste two half weekends for the school trip.
My primary reason is not the wasted time, but the trip being a drinking bout.

I didn't yet talk about this to my teacher. When I do, he'll probably tell me that it's a school event, thus compulsory. My answer will be that school law and duty of supervision is also compulsory for a teacher. So it's just hypocrite if he forces each student to take part in the trip (I won't say that literally, of course).

Maybe I sound like a complete spoil sport now. But I can't help that; In my view it's just unfair if one has to take part in something that is lacking of legitimation.

---

That's it for today, sorry if my irritation came a little out of the blue.

I have an appointment at the doctor, this afternoon. He's going to confirm some small physical interferences (right word?). It may increase my chances that I get exempted from military service - 'cause I've got to go to the physical examination soon. :/

That's it for today,
Lunario

Picture-Facts :P

2009-09-22T14:55:00.003+02:00

Hi!
Respectable Tyler tagged me in one of his interesting games, so I complied with it. :D

The task is to answer the following questions in terms of pictures (if the answer is still unclear after viewing the picture, you can still find the text-answers below. :)

1) Where are you from? (you can choose to answer with your country, state/province, or city)
2) What' your favourite food?
3) What's your favourite drink?
4) What's your ideal/favourite (future) job/career?
5) What's your favourite thing about yourself?
6) What's the place you most want to visit?
7) What's your favourite body feature on someone else?
8) What's your favourite Movie?
9) What's your favourite TV show?
10) Choose one word that best describes you
11) What time period would you most like to have lived in? (in the past)
12) What's the next thing you're (probably...) going to purchase?

The order of answers in the mosaic picture is :
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 101112

1. I'm from Germany.
2. My favourite food is pasta (excepting the long thin ones :P)
3. My favourite drink is mineral water.
4. I want to be a lawjer :D
5. I consider my imagination and dreaminess to be good traits. :)
6. I've got a lot of places which I want to visit . My favourite one would be Arizona/New Mexico, but Andalusia, Mexico, Canada and Australia would be great just the same. ;)
7. *opens his boy folder* Hair! :D (but only hair on top of the head).
8. I love Jurassic Park since I'm 6.
9. I don't watch TV, so I don't have a favourite TV show. But I really enjoy the Youtube-vids of the Andy Kaufman show from the Eighties. :)
10. It's a little difficult to choose a picture when the question demands a word. :P
I settled on a sea with stagnant water because it describes my calmness (and partly shyness) best. However I would be more vivid to the outside (I already am, inside) if I was more self-reliant. That may happen when I leave home in a few years, I don't know. Anyway, the emerging reed/cane in that pic would signify that the sea is not constantly calm (and therefore boring).
11. The Fall of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent Reunificiation must have been a great time. :)
12. A textbook for learning Swedish. :D

---

I actually thought of writing about something that occured to me this morning at school, but unfortunately I forgot what it was. :/
It would go beyond the scope now anyway 'cause I have to study for tomorrow's History test... at least I'll get a two week break from school at the end of next week!! :D

Bye for now,
Lunario

I'll be dreaming of you

2009-09-20T00:59:00.002+02:00

A while ago, I found this video on YouTube and fell in love with it. Everytime I watch it, it moves me to tears.

It's obviously a Norwegian one and the bottomline is "Du trenger ikke være så tøff", which means something like "You don't have to be that brave."
If only I was as brave as the boy in the video.

8.57 PM

2009-09-18T19:43:00.006+02:00

In case you wonder about the meaning of the title: That's the time when I made this post. :P
I couldn't think of a suitable "real" title due to the diversified topics of this post, so I took this one. :D

First off, a remark on my last post:
Some people got wrong what I meant with "Federal Estate Library".
It's not the big library in Berlin (or the branch of it in Frankfurt). I was talking about those that belong to the Federal Estates in Germany.
However, for reasons of anonymity I won't say which one we visited. ;)

---
My brother throws a party at our house, this evening. He invited about 20 people. Luckily they're going to stay in the garden house/garage so no drunk will stumble in the house (or even in my room).
My mum wants me to join them because "I could talk to the guests", which she always does when there is a chance for me to socialize.
She just doesn't understand me at all, and I am so angry at her for constantly comparing me with others. The most stupid argument ever, even I knew that as a child.

It's such a pain for me to know that my mum is doing a lot for me and my bro (which means I should support and respect her more), but on the other hand she being so ignorant (and therefore me not talking with her a lot, or only in an annoyed way).

---

As I told you, I settled on learning Swedish. :P
Thanks for all your advice, I really appreciate it. It's just that I can't relate to Asian or Eastern European languages, therefore I could never motivate myself to learn such a language on my own. :/

Arabic would be an alternative, but definitely too hard and time-consuming...

Anyway, Swedish is a nice-sounding language and spoken in a country that I really like.
It's also a Germanic one so it shouldn't be too hard (many words are the same).
As well, two of my readers (him and him) are from Sweden and they both offered me their help. :D
Now I only gotta look for a good textbook... :)

---

Yesterday I took the Politics test. Politics is my main class and we only write one test in this semster, so it's important for my final marks.
Our tasks were to explain the "magic hexagon", the economic theories of Marx, Smith + Keynes, as well as the beliefs of two economists from a text interview that we got.

Except for the last task, I think I did quite well.
Afterwards, my right hand was sort of aching from writing so many pages (eight in number) in such a short time, lol.

Yesterday afternoon, I had P.E. in the gym, again. We had to continue our "muscle formation program", which means I could barely get up this morning on account of muscle ache. :/

---

I've recently read an article about Vietnamese immigrants.
Until now, I never thought a lot about immigrants and integration. Of course I know there are differences as far as education and level of integration is concerned. In Germany, we have many Russians and Turks, which are both integrated badly and usually not to be found in the educated class.
The Vietnamese, however, are the contrary. Almost all of them go to the Gymnasium (that's where you go when you're planning to make an academic career) and even there they are usually among the best of their class.

Whatever - this whole matter makes me wonder why there are such tremendous differences between nationalities.

The reason can't be a financial one. After all, Vietnamese immigrants were also just poor fellows when they came to Germany at the time of the economic boom and Vietnam War.
But in contrast to others, they climbed the social ladder. Already in their second generation, they speak German fluently and have their children perfectly integrated.

A possible explanation, given in the article, was the mindset of the Vietnamese. It says that Vietnam is a country that is characterized by Confuzius, so that is the reason why they're so hard-working and open-minded towards education (like the Koreans or Japanese).
Maybe that's true, I don't know. But even if not, I think it proves that integration is possible - if people want it.

By the way, somehow I also like Vietnamese (and Japanese, that is) boys and girls (especially Vietnamese girls). There's one Vietnamese girl in my class who I actually find attractive. Even better, she has a gorgeous brother (not in my grade) who I have a crush on.

---

Finally, here are some pics that I've taken in the last couple of days, I hope you like them. :)

Rainy sky in the evening:

Wet clothesline:

Nice sunset sky:

6.30 AM this morning (misty fields and weird lines at the sky)

6.30 AM too. Direction: East. :)

That's it for today.
I'm going to get some of the delicious food from downstairs, now. :)

Busy, busy...

2009-09-16T20:30:00.003+02:00

Hey!
I'm sorry for being so absent in blogland, lately. I'd really love to be here more often (both for blogging and reading other blogs on a more regular basis), but my real life keeps me away from it. :/

On Monday, I studied a lot for this week's English and Politics test.
I took the English test yesterday, and going to take the Politics test tomorrow (which will probably be much harder than the English test).

Today I was on a school trip to a city in which we visited the Federal Estate library.
The trip was real non-sense, IMO.
We were in the city for the whole day (I arrived back home an hour ago), but only in the library for two hours. >.<
The rest of the time we could spend in the city doing whatever we wanted to.
So all in all, it was very unorganized and I would have rather spent my morning and midday at school so that I would not miss all my classes. Also, when we were in the library, we couldn't do research for our skilled work at all. The librarian showed us everything for 1.5 hours, and for the remaining 30 mins we were allowed to do "research" on our own. However this "research" merely consisted of searching for books on the library computers because the books were all stored in non-public rooms (if you want to see a book, you have to ask the librarian or order it before).

Hm anyway, I need to do some more studying for Spanish (an update on the other foreign language I want to learn will be posted soon as well :P) and tomorrow's Politics test.

All of you who sent me E-Mails over the last couple of days, I didn't forget you! It's just that I didn't get the chance to answer them in the way I want to; I'm going to do that tomorrow and on Friday, for sure. :)

---

Here are two very cute pictures of one of my cats. :D

PS: After I took these pics, I needed to take her down from the shelves because she started to grind her claws on my pile of papers and books. :/

Bye for now,
Lunario

Various | Languages

2009-09-12T18:54:00.005+02:00

Hey,
Next week I'm going to take the first tests of this schoolyear.
I hate preparing for tests. :/
It's like you never know exactly what you need to study for it, so I always end up unsure about whether I have studied enough and the right stuff; That means I usually study more than necessary just to be on the safe side, which in turn leads to less leisure time for me. :/
At least I've got two lovely cats of which at least one always nuzzles my belly. :)

---

Today I spent three hours tidying up my room!
There were lots of old school booklets, folders and other stuff under my bed.
Now there's only the tent and a cardboard with various things in it. :)

---

Yesterday I did my first clothing purchase for this year's autumn/winter. :( I don't like trousers, jerseys or even jackets. Everytime I wear a jacket it keeps me either too warm or too cold.
At least I got to order a red sweatjacket from the Esprit online store. :)
Mum didn't want me to order it in red, at first.
She claimed I would not like it after a while and insisted that I at least order the same in black and see whether I like it, too.

---

Yesterday I was at the hairdresser (got it only trimmed).
I noticed that everytime I go to the hairdresser, she makes nice comments about me. :D

Last time it was about my "highlights by nature" (see here). Before, she told my mum (they know each other) that "her boys [me and my brother] are so good-looking and friendly". :D
Yesterday she asked me why my legs are in such a good shape, lol.
I said it's probably because I'm cycling a lot. (Also, I cycled to school everyday of this week :))

---

Lately I was thinking about which language I'm going to learn.
In case you remember, I once told you that one time I'm likely to learn a Scandinavian language. Since the summer is over (which means I'm getting more assiduous now than over the last couple of months :P) I mulled over learning either Swedish, Danish, Portugese or Arab.

As for Swedish, I like the country (both the people and the landscape) and I like the way it sounds.

Danish also sounds nice, but if I ever move to a Scandinavian country, I'd want to live in Sweden.

Arab is interesting too, but I think it's far too difficult to learn it on my own.
The language is so complex, has different letters and has a difficult pronunciation (for a Westerner). So if I'd really want to learn it, I'd probably have to live there for a while.

Also, as soon as I speak Spanish fluently, I'm going to learn Portugese. It's just that if I'd study it now, I would always mix up Spanish and Portugese.

As yet, my favourite is Swedish.

However, I haven't yet made up my mind and I'm still looking for other languages that would be worth learning.
If you have any ideas, please let me know (but please no Asian languages - I couldn't immerse myself into such difficult languages currently)

I also thought about Russian, but I'm not sure whether I could motivate myself to learn that language (it seems a little uninteresting to me).

Italian is beyond all question - not another Romance language! :P Maybe I'll learn Italian later in my life; It shouldn't be too difficult with my French and Spanish knowledge (the words are almost the same).

---

When I rearranged my blog layout, some days ago, I noticed that I got a lot of new followers over the last couple of weeks. I've got 35, right now.
Welcome to each of you! :)

This is it for today - nothing interesting really... ;)

Later,
Lunario

The Boy in the Well

2009-09-09T20:20:00.001+02:00

This song is from R.E.M. and is surely worth sharing it with you, my viewers. I assume that many of you are gay as well, so you can probably relate to this song as much as I do.

To me, it describes the youth of a gay boy who is in the closet, at first. He suffers from the burden of it and then finds some like-minded people who become his hideaway because he can't shape his real life as much as he want to.

Look at this, it's me, walking away.
Look at you drowning, on display.
Every time I've dropped by, I've tried to say
The water is rising.
You don't want to stay.

It's that sinking feeling. you know what it's bringing on.
You might as well say it,
I see it, I feel it.
This town is going wrong.
It's turning away.

You wanted me to be someone that I could never be
My new friends are offering things I've never dreamed
It's beautiful
I'd like for them to take me on ...

The track mall gang went off
On the Tennessee goth. a lunar moth,
You chrysalis and flail.
The water is rising. you try to rappel.
A rousing cheer for the boy in the well.

It's that sinking feeling. you know what it's bringing on.
You might as well say it,
I see it, I feel it.
This town is going wrong.
It's turning away.

You wanted me to be someone that I could never be
My new friends are offering things I've never dreamed
It's beautiful
I'd like for them to take me on ...

Here is where I look back.
Here is where you fell.
This is where I got up,
Shaking off my tail
This is where your rope trick
Started to look stale.
A greyhound pass for the boy in the well.

It's that sinking feeling
You know what it's bringing on
I might as well say it.
I see it, I feel it
This town is going wrong.
It's turning away.

You wanted me to be someone that I could never be
My new friends are offering things I've never dreamed
It's beautiful
I'd like for them to take me on

You wanted me to be someone that I could never be
My new friends are offering things I've never dreamed
It's beautiful
I'd like for them to take me on

Love,
Lunario

Emotions

2009-09-08T17:16:00.002+02:00

I think this post is rather depressing, so better don't read it if you are in a good mood.

---

In the past two days, I awoke to something that I actually knew since a while, but never really thought of.

I'm an emotional and emotionally weak person (and I just wonder whether "emotional" already includes being "emotionally weak"... whatever).

Today, one of my mum's brothers died after a long time of suffering from lung cancer.

It was already clear in the last two days that he was going to die soon, so you can imagine the mood at home.
To make clear what I want to express, I have to tell you that I barely knew him and therefore should not be too affected by his death.
However I spend the whole yesterevening thinking about his death, death in general and the distress of the relative (especially my mother). I also couldn't fall asleep well.

Though, it doesn't have to be as dramatic as the death of a person to make me develop emotions about it.
To say it briefly, I guess it's harm of other people (or other living creatures) that makes me sad.
I can't bear it when I see people having been beaten up or any other injury. Far from it, I can't even watch a horror film or kill a fly/spider, despite that I hate them.

All the more if it's about somebody who is close to me.
When one of my cats was hit by a car, some years ago, I unintendedly saw her (the cat) lying dead on the side of the house where mum buried her later. I almost couldn't get breath afterwards - and it's not that it was such a "bad" sight. She was dead and there was blood on her fur, but nothing shocking for most people, I guess..
What I saw there has been engraved in my memory though, and I spent the following night sleepless and didn't go to school the next day.

Yesterday evening, when mum told me about her brother taking his last breaths, she was crying (I didn't see her crying often). I hugged her afterwards; It's been a long time since I did that.
I am not somebody who shows his emotions to others, usually. When I get emotional, then it's mostly at night.
Besides, there is also the thing that I tend to tear up or even cry about a lot of things; Not because it depresses me really - it's just that I try to cope with it, and perhaps I don't know any other way to do so.

Also, if something in my environment changes for the worse, I regret that (even though I mostly do that in my thoughts), regardless how marginal it is.

---

Knowing all this, I worry about how I would react if somebody who is really close to me, died. Someday that is going to happen, for sure.
Hopefully I'll be able to cope with it.

Spontaneity

2009-09-06T01:48:00.005+02:00

Each of you who thought I'd be too German - that is, offish and prearranged - was proven wrong, tonight! :P I made the spontaneous decision to work on the layout. :) It's mostly the text colors and the sidebar that is different now. I also overhauled the labels and included a label widget to the sidebar so that you can find a post about a certain topic more easily. ;)

Please let me know what you think of it. :)

---

It's 2 AM now, actually. This cost me one hour of my nighttime! :P I'll turn in, now. :)

Bye,
Lunario

Random | Facts

2009-09-05T22:20:00.003+02:00

Did you ever fall asleep while listening to music? :)
I did so, last night. Before I fall asleep, I often listen to music. (Especially if I wanked before, I enjoy music afterwards. :P)
It's nice to wake up to ones favourite songs with the knowledge that you can sleep in. :) It's also funny when the music mingles with your dreams. :D

However I won't listen to music at night too often 'cause I don't think it's very healthy on the long-term. Our synapses are overstrained from our daily life anyway, aren't they? ;)

---

As for today, the weather was autumn-like (windy and cloudy/rainy), so I couldn't do anything outside. :|
So I spent most of the day reading on the sofa. We have to read this boring book "A Star Called Henry" about the Irish Easter Rising for English class. It's one of the most boring books I've ever read.

Anyway, I added some facts to the list of facts about me. :)

- I tend to make very long sentences

- BMW is my favourite car brand.

- A globe on my bed table is always turned on at night, so it's not completely dark in my room.

- I hate wind. And it's often windy, here :/

- I often write down my dreams in order not to forget them.

- When I was about 11 years old, I had a period in which I suffered from anxiety states.

- I always open doors with my pinkie because I find door latches a kinda manky.

- Cold water on ones skin is horrible, IMO. I never have cold showers, neither I go swimming.

- When I wear a jacket or a jersey, I usually have my hands in the sleeves. It probably looks funny, but it's comfortable. :)

Bye for now,
Lunario

Capitalism ante collapse?

2009-09-03T20:45:00.000+02:00

First off, I have to admit that I am not an expert in economy theories and the like.

---

Lately in Politics class we talked about the "magic square" and other basics of the (social) market economy and capitalism.

Today my teacher told us that capitalism is bound to collapse one time.

Until now, I always thought that this was only a theory of some scientists, but he said it's a common fact.
The reason is that our system requires a permanent growth (that does not mean there can not be recession - they are normal, but the general tendency has to be growing).
There will also be one moment in which we can not export more goods into less developed regions of the earth, and innovations won't do it forever either.

I'm not sure whether that's all correct. Talking to bob has opened my eyes for other possible strategies to encounter the problem, like "planned obsolesence".

However I find the thought that our economy system may collapse sometime very disquieteing. If it really happened, that would probably be worse than everything that happened in the last centuries, including the World Wars.

Misery

2009-09-02T20:45:00.001+02:00

Today, on my busride back home, I saw something horrible.
The bus was stopping on one of the bus stops in my village and on the main stop, there were school kids around, like always. Most of them are from the low level schools (because the better students go to the Gymnasium in the city). I am not shocked anymore when I see 14 year old kids smoking, but today excelled everything.

There were two boys smoking cigarettes at an old understory and they were definitely not older than 12.

What kind of world is it where 12 year old children are already smoking and probably doing more stupid things?
How are they ever going to live a good life after that sort of childhood (which obviously ends at the age 10, nowadays)?

Sometimes I just want to leave this world and enter one in which misery does not exist. The more so when I realize that one can barely do anything against it.

Time after time

2009-09-01T21:25:00.003+02:00

So today is the 70th anniversary of the German war on Poland, thus the beginning of World War II.

I wonder whether these men knew what was coming up to them.

On Sunday, there were elections in three German Federal State parliaments.

I find it so embarassing for Germany that we have a growing populist leftist party in many Federal State parliaments. For those who don't know, it's the descendant of the former GDR government.

Even worse, in one Federal State there is a right-wing extremists party in the Parliament that denies the Holocaust and praises Hitler.

This only proves one more time that people don't learn from their mistakes.

For your information, I already made a post earlier today.

Lunario

Autumn | Gay teacher | Pics

2009-09-01T18:59:00.005+02:00

Hey,
According to the weather forecast, today was the last day of summer (the meteorological one). The temperatures are slowly falling and it gets more and more cloudy outside. The wind is kinda cold, already. :/

Seriously, I love summer - there is nothing I love more. The best moments of my life did all take place in summer. The weather itself also has a strong influence on my well-being. My basic mood is much better in summer time and I get an urge to go outside doing something in nature or at least in the garden.

The first changes of weather are imminent and the green color outside changed to yellowish. I wish summer would come back and I'm already looking forward to spring 2010.

At least the time before January isn't that bad, in my opinion. I have to take many tests in September, will have a two week break in October and going to take more tests in November. At that time, we will also all look forward to Christmas time (at least most of us). So I will always look forward to something (not that I look forward to tests - but at least there will be no huff on account of the season.)
However, I think January and February are going to suck. :| It's the time of the year where nothing happens. Christmas (+ the entailing mood) and New Year's Eve is over and summer is still far away. :|

Whatever.. For the next days, I'll focus on catching as much sun as possible. :)

Oh, haha, and as soon as I notice that my tan fades away, I'm going to eat carrots every day. :P

---

In the last couple of days, nothing interesting happened. Did there ever happen anything interesting in my life, by the way? ;)

Yesterday I found out that one of the teachers at school is gay, even though it was more like a rumor. I think it could be true, though, 'cause he dresses rather gay and acts gay. That sounds stereotypical, but there are some further things that make me believe he is gay, like he doesn't want his students to address him formally (in German there is a "formal version" of address - not like in English where people only say "you").
He also makes parties with each of his classes and was even on a birthday party of one of my brother's friends.

I don't know what to think of all this. If I was a (gay) teacher, I would certainly not try to get on the personal level with them ('cause that is what he did; He was hitting on one of my classmates in a pub, last weekend)
Even though it may be legal to do it as long as it's in the students' leisure time, I would have moral concerns (apart from worries about my reputation and job).

---

Some lessons were canceled today, so I went to the city library and lend some books. My theory is that the more books are on my bed table, the more I read. :P
It sounds weird, but I can't make myself reading as much as I want to, if I don't recognize it with my eyes.
So I put some unread books and those from the library on my bed table and will probably bring myself to read more. :)

By the way, the books from the library are:
- about the German language
- about language, thinking and the cultural aspects of it
- about the American revolution
- and about the Southern States of the US (this one is more an illustrated book)

---

Next week or the week after that, I can take the practical driving test, according to my driving teacher.

Ugh, I so want to pass it... :/
For those who wonder, German driving tests are very hard, especially the practical one - and you have to pay a lot for it... If I fail, I will be at about 2000€. >.<

I will make a political/historical post later today. For now, I'm going to revert to my POUB. :)

---

Here are some pics of the weekend. :)

A bunny on the field behind our backyard. :D

Amazing look of thunderclouds at sunset time.

A hedgehog eating food of the cats at night. So cute. :)

Yesterday evening, somewhere on a field near the sea.

Same, but this time with midges.

A ladybug on a plant at the sea. :)

---

This video I just found on another blog.
If you are not German, just skip it.

I think it's very funny. :D

Getting on

2009-08-26T21:30:00.002+02:00

Hey,

In the last couple of days I changed one of my basic assumptions about my peers (at least about those on my school). I found out that many of those who I labeled superficial or ignorant are not that bad, really.
What they say during the lessons is intelligent and when you talk to them directly, they are serious and all. It's just that they are so superficial when more people are around...

This is something really positive because I don't hesitate about socialising with them that much, anymore (though I still can't get rid of my basic diffidence...)

---

Yesterday, C was walking right in front of me two times. =D One time it was in the morning when I walked from the bus stop to the school hall. I stared at his cute and hot body for about one minute without any interruption. :) Certainly the best way to start a schoolday! :D

The second time, however, was much greater. It was the end of the break and everybody was walking to his/her room. Like me, he was heading to the staircase (just by coincidence; I didn't see him stick around before), which is rather small. I immediately thought of him walking next to me all the way up the small staircase, but it was even better: He was walking in front of me again, so his adorable bum was at the level of my eyes all the time. =O I couldn't help but glancing on it many times. Nobody could notice anyway, so why not? :)

Afterwards I had Math class and was still happy to see that I get along well with the subject matter. Hopefully the looming test will work out well.

---

As for something completely different, today I had the first four periods (two classes) canceled. On Monday there were also two classes canceled and the weeks before there was always at least one canceled class every week, too.
This is really starting to annoy and worry me because we need to learn the subject matter for the Abitur (the final graduation test). Of course, we catch up on everything in the next lessons, but in that csae we do it more superficially because we are pressed for time.
In my opinion, the teachers could at least lodge some work sheets or other exercises for us so that we can work on the topic on our own. Almost no teacher does that though, so we can only sit around in the cafeteria (where I can't really concentrate on studying on my own). The library is locked most of the time, too, so I can't study there either. :/

---

I was thinking about blogs that had been shut down or vanished in the last couple of months and one particular blog came to my mind. I lost track of it or it was shut down, I can't remember.
It was written by a 15 or 16 year old twin and I remember one post in which he said that he has a bad disease (cancer or leukemia, I think)... Does anybody know who I am talking about? I hope he is still blogging because I really liked his blog... :/

Half a World away

2009-08-21T01:00:00.004+02:00

One of the greatest R.E.M. songs ever. It's from my favourite album "Out of Time".

The pictures were all taken today.

The post was published automatically, by the way. Right now, I am probably laying in my bed listening to the thunder and pelting rain that announced itself on the last picture.

I may also be just sleeping - half a world away. :)

This could be the saddest dusk
I've ever seen
Turn to a miracle
High alive
My mind is racing
As it always will
My hand is tired, my heart aches
I'm half a world away here
My head sworn
To go it alone
And hold it along
Haul it along
And hold it
Go it alone
Hold it along and hold, hold

This lonely deep sit hollow
I'm half a world
Half the world away
My shoes are gone
My life spent
I had too much to drink
I didn't think
And I didn't think of you
I guess that's all I needed
To go it alone
And hold it along
Haul it along
And hold it
Blackbirds, backwards, forwards and fall and hold, hold

Oh, this lonely world is wasted
Pathetic eyes high alive
Blind to the tide that turns the sea
This storm it came up strong
It shook the trees
And blew away our fear
I couldn't even hear

To go it alone
And hold it along
Haul it along
And hold it
To go it alone
And hold it along
Haul it along
To go it alone
And hold it along
Haul it along
And hold it
Blackbirds, backwards, forwards, and fall and hold, hold

This could be the saddest dusk
I've ever seen
Turn to a miracle
High alive
My mind is racing
As it always will
My hands tired, my heart aches
I'm half a world away and go

Personal Future Thoughts | Random

2009-08-20T21:12:00.000+02:00

Hi together,
Today was the hottest day of the year and I had eight lessons. >.<

The past days have been quite nice. Yesterday at school, I rented a locker together with the girl that accompanies me on my school rides.

Unlike the US schools, we basically don't have lockers here. You can rent a locker if you want to. Since I don't want to carry books with me all the time (or even my sports bag), I rented one and now won't have aching shoulders anymore. :D

---

Today I had Math class and actually understood most of it. I am a complete flop in Math (and natural sciences) and only study for it as much as necessary, so that I don't fail in the tests.

My subsequent Politics class was canceled, so I had two free periods, which I wanted to spend in the city library. Unfortunately it was closed, so I went back to school and did Math homework. After that, I joined some classmates in the cafeteria and made the acquaintance of two boys of my Politics class. They were talking to me all the time so I was kinda forced to go into conversations with them, even though they are absolutely not my cup of tea. Besides, they are also older than me (like many other classmates), both 18.

In the afternoon I had P.E. class and made another acquaintance (never before I had so many contacts as this year, lol) with a student who seems quite nice. However he is already 20 and one grade above me, so I won't deal with him apart from P.E. class.

During the lesson (we were in the gym), we had to make exercises on the equipment for arm musculature. I sat down on one of those thingies (it's name was "Arm Curl") and saw that my antecessor put a 160 pound weight on it! >.> How can one be crazy enough to lift 160 pounds only with his forearms!
I took off all the weights except the 10 pound plate and started the exercises. :)
On another tool (the one at which you lay down on a bench and have a bar with weights over you that you have to lift), I didn't put weights on it at all because the metal bar was already heavy enough, lol.

Anyway, when I left the gym and cycled home, the temperature was at almost 40°C (104F). :D I love it when it's warm like that. It shouldn't become warmer than 40°C though, but everything between 25 and 40°C is fine for me (not for most other people here though).

Talking about weather, I think this is a good moment to tell you about something that is on my mind often.

I am really unsure about where I want to live when I am older and, consequently, what I want to do as a job.

Those who are reading my blog for a while, may remember that I am planning to study law on uni.
I was also thinking about Journalism or teaching, but law is what I want to do the most.

To me, the biggest disadvantage of studying law is that I would be forced to live in Germany for all my life because I can't use my German law knowledge in other countries.
I'm not sure whether I want to live here for all my life.
Don't get me wrong, I like Germany and all. It's definitely one of the best places to live. I also prefer the German way of life much more from the other ones.
However the countryside and weather is absolutely not what I like - and I set VERY much story by countryside and weather.

As I mentioned before, I like warm or even hot weather (30-40°C). We rarely don't have that weather here. I also don't like the wind, rain and the average temperature of 10°C. >.<

My favoured locations are Australia, the Southern US and Spain.

Australia is just a great country to me. I love the countryside and the weather. I also find it interesting that it is the only country in the Southern hemosphere that actually is like a Western country (in terms of culture).

Spain is the eventual alternative if Australia or US wouldn't work out. I would mostly be pleased by the weather, and perhaps the language (I like Spanish very much). However the culture and the way of life is not quite what I like.

Living in the Southern US is what I favor most of these three options. However I would be more interested in those states that have a Mexican border, like Arizona or New Mexico. Both the countryside and the weather would be perfect. Living in the US would be great too (even though I don't like many things of it).

Anyway, I will probably never make it to one of those places (except for holidays) because of my job aims. At least, if I earn enough money for it, I will buy a holiday domicile in one of those countries.

That's all I can think of for today. Thanks for reading this piece of broken English, lol

Later,
Lunario

Spanish; Improvements

2009-08-17T17:32:00.003+02:00

¡Hola chicos! :P

This morning I woke up with relief because my muscles weren't aching anymore. I had aching muscles on my legs due to a lot of cycling (last week, I went to school by bike three times and one time on the weekend. All in all, these are about 100 km. >.>)
My upper arms were also aching since Friday because we did strength training in P.E. class, the day before.
Additionally, my finger/hand/wrist muscles (or whatever it is, lol) were a little ailing due to certain "activities". :P

---

I'm not sure whether I told you about my Spanish teacher or not.
She is the best teacher I ever had and also a very wise person. She was already my English teacher in class 10 and also teaches French (besides, she speaks Russian, Arabic and another language... seven in number. <_<)

I am currently soo motivated to improve my Spanish. It's one of those times in which I actually want to learn additionally vocabulary and grammar.
We are currently learning the imperfecto tense, "el subjuntivo presente" and "el condicional simple". It all reminds me a lot of French. Just that I thought Spanish wouldn't have so many irregular verbs, which is only true for the indefinido and imperfecto. But the subjuntivo and condicional have a lot of verbs which need to be declined individually. :|

By the way, I am thinking about ways to improve my Spanish usage in my leisure time. There is something called etandem partners, which means you exchange E-Mails or IMs with somebody whose mother tongue you want to learn, and vice versa.
However those partners are very rare, especially for languages like Spanish (and English, French, German etc.) and the waiting lists on the interposition sites are very long...

Any Spanish/Hispanic reading this? :D

---

Since this school year, I am socialising with some people from my grade. Probably they will show up in my posts more often, so I'll give them names.
I'll call them M and D. M is the hot boy and D the smart one. D is very homophobic. M too, but he is more homophobic in a jokey way, whereas D is probably serious about it.

They are in my three high level subjects and some others as well. And we are together during the breaks, though some of their friends are with us too.

I guess that there is no other way for me to "open up" towards others.
The last years, I always found that I don't want to have to do anything with my mates. They were all so different from me and I didn't feel comfortable among them.

Basically, it's still like that. But a while ago I realized that I would be better off if I socialised with some of them - at least at school.
I started to work on it at the second term of last school year.
Meanwhile I have people around me with whom I get along well, and I notice that it eases my school life. I'm less worried about how I appear to others and I see that many of them accept me and even want me to be around them.

That is a real improvement compared with the last years of my life. :)

America

2009-08-15T16:50:00.001+02:00

Today I was at the city. I got there by bike and afterwards I felt so warm and sweaty that I actually took a (partly) cold shower! :D I never did that before and every time I tried it, I couldn't bear it for more than 5 seconds, lol. This time however I jumped into the shower right after I arrived home and the cold water was very calming. :)

It got too cold after about 2 mins though, so I turned the spigot to the warm side. :)

Oh I meant to ask you, especially readers from South & Central America, whether it's true that people in South America and Mexico shower about four times a day. Last year, a Brazilian exchange student told us that, but I find that hard to believe. We usually shower two times a day here, and I reckon it's the same in the US (except maybe the Southern States where it's very hot). However Mexico and the Hispanic people are not very rich and may even lack of water...

Anyway, in the city, I got some books from the bookshop, which I ordered there before. One is about the French Revolution (I ordered it out of interest and as an additional help for my History class), one for Politics and one for German class. In English class we're going to read the Irish book "A Star Called Henry" by Roddy Doyle, since this semester's topic is "Ireland".

By the way, we got a new teacher in English class. He's a is very nice and funny guy and also a good teacher. He lived in the US for many years and was making fun of the US-Americans. :D When he started the lesson, he said that we are all good in English and already do a better job than the American natives, lol. Moreover, most US-Americans are be bad spellers and don't understand their own grammar.
I'm not sure if he was exaggerating or if it's really true. I mean, it's not the first time that I've heard of the American bad linguistic habits, but I can't imagine that an American would easily say "This is me car" or "I doesn't have no homework" (these were examples from the teacher)
Maybe a native could throw a light on it? :)

Further, I was recently talking to Tyler about the question why the US-American culture is so different from the European. He made a good point about America not having had enough time to develop a culture like Europe.
I will look for information about it on the net or maybe a book, because I find this interesting to know.

By the way, I'm going to make a list of all books I've recently read and put them at the bottom of the sidebar. There is enough freee space anyway. :)

Bye,
Lunario

New classes; Bullies

2009-08-11T22:31:00.000+02:00

Hey guys,
Sorry I'm not blogging a lot, recently. At four days of the week I get back from school at 4 PM. And even though this school year just begun, I already have to do a lot of homework and studying, afterwards. At dinner time I'm usually done with it, so I've got about two hours left in the evening. Those two hours I spend either chatting with my online friends or researching on the net. At 9.30 I go to bed and read some pages (I hate the fact that I can only read about 30 mins in the evening because I'm so tired.) :/

So I'm bound to reduce my amount of blog posts from every day or every second day to every third day. Nonetheless I'll try not to let the quality of this blog suffer from it.

---

Today and on Monday, I had some more classes that I didn't have last week (Math, Ethics, Politics and History).
My Math class is so-so. I don't like Math very much and it will probably be my worst subject.
Ethics was fine and it will be pretty easy.
Politics, my main class, was very cool. :) First of all, I am sitting directly at the front with the two other boys whom I mentioned in my previous post (the smart and the hot one). The teacher is also quite nice. ;)

In History class, we were in the computer room doing internet research about the French Revolution. Me and the hot boy were sharing a computer. :D

Our primary task was to find out what exactly "revolution" means and judge by the definition whether the French Revolution really was a revolution.
We did so, and when we were to present our results, I got into a discussion with the teacher. I claimed that a revolution always requires a group of people that demands changes and a reactionary governing class that suppresses those who demand changes.
When a revolution took place, there also must be some kind of progress and improvement for the people.

On the other hand, my teacher claimed that a revolution only means a "dramatic change" of the society, political system or of the governmental actions.

He corroborated his claim by referring to the origins of the word (the Latin word "revolutio" means "turn", so it doesn't express any positive or negative meaning).

I replied that the word revolution was always used to describe positive developments, like the French Revolution, the American Independence or the German Reunification.
Further, I said that, according to his definition, the power grab of Hitler in 1933 was a revolution as well, since it caused dramatic changes of the society and the governance; On which he agreed. o_o

Do I misunderstand the word "revolution" or does he just see it in a very specific context (by referring to the linguistic roots of the word)?

---

Today I didn't cycle to school for the first time since the beginning of June. It was raining in the morning. :/

On the bus ride back home, three girls of my grade asked me to sit in one of the quad seats at the back of the bus. I normally don't sit there because you don't have anything in front of you or on the sides on which you could hold in case the bus suddenly stops or something.

The back of the bus is also the place where the students from the low-level schools sit down and shout around, throw things through the bus, ... They are just annoying.

When the bus stopped at a bus stop in one of the villages, there was a young boy (about 12 or 13) waiting at the bus stop at the other side of the road. The guys in the back of the bus basically went mad when they saw him. They called him fag and other mean things and one of them said "There's our lilac friend again!" (the supposedly gay boy wore a lilac T-Shirt), so they obviously knew him from the days before.

The boy was very cute and he actually looked gay (although many boys look gay, so that doesn't prove he is). Since I never saw him before at the bus stop, he is probably going to a school in the city from this schoolyear on and might be in my bus in the morning.

I wonder what the boy may have thought when he noticed the idiots in the back of the bus. Not that he is surely already scared about new school and a new environment, now he is also scared of bullies...

I'm looking forward to this school year.

2009-08-08T15:42:00.003+02:00

Hey :) Yesterday was a really good day. My classes (I had Art, English and Physics) are all good and I made the acquaintance of some more students.
They were not very special people, just like most people I know, but at least I will have some people to knock around with in every class.

I also think I looked quite nice, yesterday. :D
I wore black sneakers with white stripes (Adidas), white shorts and an orange T-Shirt. The orange T-Shirt is actually a little bleached since I already have it for some years (it still fits well), so the orange is a little more pinkish. :D

By the way, orange and even pink clothes are not only worn by girls here. Boys on my school wear them as well (not many, but some do), even those who are not gay (or at least not outed). So it's not like everybody would think I'm gay just because of the color.

---

Over the holidays I completely forgot that my new schedule may allow me to join the law group, this year. :D

A mate, who is already a member of it, asked me on Friday whether I still wanted to join them. I said yes and asked him when it takes place. He said it will probably be on every Tuesday afternoon for two lessons (90 mins). I've got no classes at that time, so I will definitely join them. =)

They will meet at Tuesday and the teacher (my former Arts teacher who I like very much) is going to brief us on the topic, the materials etc. According to my mate, this year's topic will be law of contract. :)

---

I really don't know anything else I could blog about right now, so I guess that's it for today.

The rest of the day will be used for lowering the PUB and later chatting with some friends.
(For your information: When I use the word "friends", I am always talking about friends from blogland because those few boys who I would call real friends are boys who I merely know online and not in real life (sadly).)

By the way, last week one of them advised me to smile more often when I am around people, for I would appeal to others much more in that way.
Thank you so much for this advice. I guess it really works. And in addition, it makes me feel good.

Lunario

First day of school

2009-08-06T20:10:00.004+02:00

So the first day of school is over and I have both good and bad impressions of it.

First off, you need to know that, in contrary to American schools, we don't have different classes till class 12. That doesn't mean that you are taught together with people of lower or higher grades - you are just always together with the same people in the class who are also in your grade
Further, the German school system is trinomial, which means there are three different
types of school for the grades between 7 and 13.
I go to the Gymasium, which is for academics. Till grade 11, every grade has a certain amoung of classes in which the students have all subjects (except Religion/Ethics and bilingual classes) together, which means you don't really get to know other students except the 25 of your class.
However from this school year on, we all have different classes, which we selected before.
You have three high level subjects and usually six others.
My high level subjects are History, Politics and English. ;)

---

I was supposed to have one of my high level classes (Politics) today.
Funnily enough the lesson was cancelled. Me and two other boys of my Politics class sat down outside during the free period. We were in the same class the years before, so we knew each other well and I get along with them more or less well. One of them is homophobic and the other one a party guy, but he's hot, lol.

I would never call them friends despite being with them at school a lot, for mostly we only talk about school or other normal things or joke around. But we don't talk about anything personal (and I wouldn't want to).

Luckily, the hot one has almost completely the same classes as me, which means we will often be together. :D

After the free period I had German class. Turns out that the girl from P.E.
class last year asks me to sit next to her.
In case you don't remember her:

"I'm afraid one of the girls in my P.E. class likes me somehow... she always starts conversations with me and wants to be my lesson partner since I was hers some weeks ago, lol. But maybe she is just trying to be nice, I don't know... guess I'm not good at interpreting those signs. :P"

Since my German class mainly consists of people like R, who are very superficial or hypocrites (there are few exceptions though), I said "Yes, sure!" and we sat down at the window row next to another boy we both know.

It was quite nice to sit next to somebody you don't yet know well. She seems to be a lovely and modest person. I'm just afraid that sometime she may think I'm interested in her as a girlfriend....

Afterwards I had P.E. class. This term we will go to the gym in the city for strength training. >.<
Though, we met in the school today and didn't yet do sports. Before the lesson, while I was sitting in the classroom with very few other students, one of them looked stupidly over to me while I was typing stuff into my cell phone. I noticed him looking at me from the side, so I looked over at him after a while.
He smirked, then turned away... That guy and most others in my P.E. class are from the 13th grade (the P.E. classes are mixed) and he is a yob.
The teacher told us what we are going to do in the gym and that we have to pay for using the exercise equipment, since they don't belong to the school; The yobs don't have to pay for them though, because they are already Premium Members at the gym. That was clear, lol.

---

What is bugging me most about the beginning of school is that I won't be able to talk to my good online friends as much as before, since school/college/uni starts for them soon. In addition, we live in different time zones. That means that most of the time when I am online, they are still at school and when they are online, I am already asleep. :<

---

Report on yesterday's post:
I sent her a text message in the evening, and funnily, she called me 15 mins later and asked me whether we want to cycle to school together (she didn't yet look on her celly). :D

It was quite a nice cycle tour, although we had to cycle back home in the 30°C midday's heat. <.<

Bye for now,
Lunario

The Great Beyond

2009-08-05T21:57:00.003+02:00

I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes
All the sights that I have seen
I can't believe that I believed I wished
That you could see
There's a new planet in the solar system
There's nothing up my sleeve

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punchlines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

And all this talk of time
Talk is fine
And I don't want to stay around
Why can't we pantomime, just close our eyes
And sleep sweet dreams
Being here with wings on our feet

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
Sweetest dreams of you
Look into the stars
Look into the moon

I love this song. It inspirates me every time I hear it.
The pic is about 10 minutes old, by the way.

Good night. :)

Help. :(

2009-08-05T09:26:00.001+02:00

I need your advice.

As you know, tomorrow is my first day of school after a six week summer break.
I'm planning to cycle to school again, like I also did it in June.
Another girl of my class, who I know well, always accompanied me and I wonder whether I should ask her now, again.

The dilemma is that I didn't talk to her the whole holidays and didn't see her anywhere. She was online on IM, sometimes, but I never felt like talking to her because I never know what to talk about with my classmates on IM.

So if I asked her this evening on IM about cycling to school together, she may be offended that I talk to her only now, when school begins. It would maybe look like I only want to associate with her at school time or something like that...

On the other hand, if I don't ask her, she may think that I don't want to associate with her at all from now on, since we barely have any classes together anymore.

Help. :(

Fail, alternative plan

2009-08-04T22:26:00.007+02:00

Last night:
After I crawled into the tent with a book, I covered up myself with two blankets because it was relatively cold after the sun set. I thought that I could stay out there for a while and see whether it gets colder; It did get colder - about 10°C eventually. At midnight, I decided to go inside, since I didn't want to get a cold or something even worse.
I took some pics when I got out of the tent... and, oh yes, there was a hedgehog on the terrace! :D
It scrambled over the lawn while I was still in the tent. I assumed that it was one of the cats, so I went outside with my flashlight in order to invite the cat to the tent :D
I heard a noise coming from the cup with the cat food, so I shined the light onto it and saw the hedgehog leaning over the cup. :D

The hedgehog:

At nightfall. I like the contrast between the trees in the background and the hedge right in front of me (which is only visible on the right side).

---

This morning I made a cycle tour to the city. Bought new slippers, Dutch cookies, pita and maps + booklets for school.

Green folder - German
Red folder - English
Yellow folder - Spanish
Grey folder - Politics
Brown folder - Math
Black folder - Physics, Ethics
Orange folder - History, Arts

(There weren't any more colors available, so I bought two black and orange maps. This will often confuse me...)

---

I thought about my blog today and what I would do if somebody who knows me in reality finds out. It is very unlikely that this will happen because I'm writing in English and don't leave many infos that may identify me; One would identify me if he or she is already suspecting that this blog is written by me, but in order to get that far, he or she must have gotten the link from somewhere/somebody.

Sometimes I take a look at the stats, in which one can see the visitor paths. There are some visits from Germany, but they are not from my Federal State.

Though, if my blog ever gets "public" for whatever reason, I would quickly make a backup and then change the URL or delete it.

I also like the idea of having a private blog which is only visible to those who I invited. In that way I wouldn't need to worry about undesired visitors or somebody identifying me.

But of course, I won't do anything of that as long as nobody finds out about this secret sanctuary of mine. :)

Lunario

Night in the garden

2009-08-03T20:07:00.003+02:00

After three weeks of wind and rain we finally got the perfect weather for sleeping outside in the tent. I wanted to do that for a long time, but either bad weather or long online-talks interfered.

The tent is already built up and I think the cats like it. They are both sleeping under the awning. :D
At nightfall I'm going to crawl into the tent with a book and a reading lamp.
Reading a horror novel with unfamiliar night sounds in the background... that's so thrilling! :D

I hope it's not too noisy out there at night. Until now, I have already spotted strange cats, bunnies, eagles and weird-sounding birds at night. Maybe it's going to be like in "Night at the Museum", haha.

Since we don't have an air mattress here (it's still in the old house), I digged out a neoprene cover and two woolen blankets from the attic; That should be soft enough for my back. In case it gets too uncomfortable after a while,I could still go back to my undoubtedly much more cozy bed. :D

---

This morning I got up extra early - thanks to a blogland inhabitant. :P
My inner clock ought to get used to school time anyway, for if not I would be too drowsy in the first week of school;
I want to avoid that, since the most important thing of one's classes are decided in the first days: Who sits next to me in which class and where am I sitting? I prefer sitting rather nearer the chalkboard because I wouldn't need to use glasses (I have glasses for reading). Further, I am closer to the teacher and probably more attentive during the lessons ... I know, I'm a grind... :P

---

Mum brought the desired 30 clothes hangers from work, today. As yet we only had a few of them and mostly just put them away in the wardrobe.
So I hung all my T-shirts, polo-shirts, shirts, jerseys and cardigans on hangers - 28 in number.
I also ordered them, primarily according to sleeves (long sleeve / short sleeve) and secondarily according to color.

---

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to make a bicycle tour to the city, once again. I will buy fresh pita and some other food at the farmers' market and go to the library. Before buying a book, I often read a few pages of it (sort of test reading)...

That's it for today; I'll go outside soon - bye!

Easy Sunday #2

2009-08-02T19:00:00.004+02:00

I woke up far too late again. At 11 AM mum came into my room and told me that she was about to make lunch and wanted me to do some work in the garden. So I got up, still tired despite 9 hours of sleep, took a shower etc.
After getting herbs out of the garden and cutting off the green things (how are they called by the way?) from the onions, I took a look at my class schedule for this school year. Looks like my first day of school is going to be an eight-lesson day including P.E. class. >.<

---

This afternoon, while I was laying on the couch in the living-room with one of my cats, a book and some cookies, I got a stomachache. It was probably caused by me not having taken breakfast, but instead a fatty casserole for lunch and the subsequent cookies... It got better after an hour or so, but in that time I could barely concentrate on reading.

---

In order to make this post a little less random, I'm going to post some more facts about me. ;)

1. I love pretzel sticks.
2. I tend to make very long sentences and need to shorten many sentences after writing a post.
3. I hate wind. And it's often windy, here.
4. I write down my dreams in order not to forget them.
5. I always open doors only with my pinkie because I find door latches a little manky.
6. I collect papers
7. I collect coins.
8. I've got hundreds of movies on DVD that I recorded on TV. (No, I don't do illegal movie/music downloading). Though, I only watched about 200 of them.
9. You see, I'm a gatherer.
10. Nonetheless, I am very neat and I structure and classify everything.

Later,
Lunario

My last week of holidays

2009-08-01T11:30:00.007+02:00

Hey!
I'm just back from my driving lesson on the Autobahn.
We were mostly practicing how to use the slip roads (exits and inlets). While refueling, the instructor explained the devices in the motor compartment to me; in the practical test, the tester often asks technical things... Oh by the way, I passed the theoretical test (with zero mistakes). :D

While I was waiting in front of the assessment building at the Technical Inspection Authority, there was a very cute boy from my school in the line, who I never recognized to be so cute. He looks a lot like C and is about the same age. I'm going to keep an eye on him at school... :D

---

Thursday night, I had a really nice dream... actually, I had two, but I don't remember a lot from the first one and it wasn't that interesting... the second dream had some gay content, lol.
I was planning to sleep in the garden in a tent with other boys. We were building up the tents (three in number) and at some point my mum came out of the house and told me that she doesn't want us to stay outside at night. We were all angry with her and decided to move into the old garage... [I woke up at this point of a dream because of a mosquito bugging me, lol. After catching it, I revisited the dream.] We started to decorate the garage, some were nailing up the windows and digging a hole, lol. I also remember something like a signboard out of wood on which "Weltuntergangsraum" (German word or "Apocalypse-Room") was engraved, haha.

I don't know what made this dream so pleasant - it wasn't a wet dream - but after I woke up, I felt really excited and somehow gay (not only in the sense of homosexual).

---

Today is the sixth day on which I didn't eat any meat. I am still not sure whether I should become a vegetarian. On the one hand, I consider it to be the most healthy, uplifting and intellectual attitude, however it is very difficult in my familial environment to get meatless food. We eat practically everything with meat. As spread, we mostly use ham, bologna, salami and the like... Cheese as well, but I only like cheese combined with slices of cucumber, which means that I can only eat cheese during summer. Our lunches partly consist of meat most of the time as well, like meatballs, fish, sausages, chicken fillet, ground meat, ...

I am not sure whether I really want to stick to my plans on account of that. I would not be able to enjoy many lunches, for my mum would not cook extra things for me. My mum and me had a quarrel about this, but she still doesn't realize it would also be to her and my brothers benefit to eat less or no meat.

So eventually, I would have to make do with dry potatoes, pasta and vegetables all the time...

Maybe I will settle on eating less meat than before, which means meatless spread and meat for lunch only sometimes. But that wouldn't quite fulfill my objectives of eating less meat, except that I live a little healthier than before.

---

Yesterday I spent basically the whole day in the garden. It was the first time in a long time that it was sunny, again, so I regained my tan and did a bit of soul-searching about what I want to study at uni and consequently what I want to become, sometime... I'll tell you more about that in another post; some of my aspirations have changed after my latest post about uni/jobs

The old cats outside, Timmy and Jimmy, were with me most of the time. Timmy is the very lovely one (in terms of character). He always follows me when I am in the garden and practically presses hisself against my legs. When I lay on the lounge chair or on the lawn, he jumps on me and licks my chest and arms. :>
If he wasn't a human boy instead of a cat, he would be my boyfriend. :D

---

Here are some pics about the last three or four days.

These plants are to be found all over my flower island. Does anybody know how they are called? They look like little green wheat.

A wesp (or is it a bee?). They look awesome on pictures, IMO.

Impending thunderstorm at sunset time. I know I often use this motive (church spire behind trees), but I like it. :)

Timmy (the cute one) lying on the shady lawn in front of the hedge.

"No pics, please!" :D

Jimmy (the evil one) leering at me:

Timmy jolly-looking:

Yesterday evening: Ducks swimming on the sea.

Later,
Lunario