A conundrum in the making and some clarification.

As I sit in my room all by my lonesome on the eve of thanksgiving day, I find myself in a deepened state of reflection and introspection. The year 2011 has been everything I expected it to be, and then some! WOW. What a ride it has been and it's not even over yet. Many ups and only a handful of downs, but most importantly are all the ups. As always, I aim to make the best of both and lessons end up being my only take-away. The people, the experiences, the places I have visited, and of course all of the emotions each and everyone of them have evoked are things that are, and will be, indelible for the remainder of my life. Simply putting everything that is running through my mind would not serve proper justice to my gratitude and satisfaction to having made a move to Europe a reality. But I digress...

Tonight, the collection of things going through my mind drive me to further questioning of the self as well as an obscure, yet exciting curiosity of what is to come. In the not-so-distant past I've written about my notions and general emotions about my work, my dissatisfaction for it, and of course my desire to make changes in my life...all of which are still constant. For the past 7 days I have been working at the very minimum 12 hour days, but most commonly 18 hours days as a result of not getting off from work until midnight. This has been a direct result of the Army finding it a suitable solution for my actions taken in the past, giving me a 'slap in the hand' and punishing me with an Article 15. Although in reality they went lightly on me, it was something I had been expecting for the previous 2 months. In any case, come Tuesday my punishment will be over with and I can begin to assume normalcy. 6 more days....that's what I've kept telling myself...6 more days. Sigh.

As December quickly approaches, marking my one year anniversary of being a resident of the European continent, my much anticipated return home does as well. As previously proposed, I expect to spend a few days in New York City in order to provide myself with continued exploration of arguably the world's most vibrant city, prior to making it back home to Washington, D.C. Without a doubt, the time I will spend chez moi will be nothing short of spectacular, but the intrigue lies in all the uncertainties that succeed it. Come January, (and this is irrelevant to anyone from work that reads my blog) not only do I plan to, but I will,  submit my official request to my commander stating my claim as a conscientious objector to the United States military. Eventually, if all goes as desired, in the matter of months I will have rid myself of the burden of my uniform and begin my desired field of work/study. If not, well, be it as it may and I'll carry on. The question is: where?

Although a geographical location is what haunts me today, many other uncertainties have haunted since about age 13. I recall my very first thought on my very first day of freshman year of high school: I wondered to myself what I would be thinking on my very last day. The ironic thing is that if you were to ask me today what that last thought was, I wouldn't be able to tell you what it was. The only thing that I am sure of today, and what I was determined about back then, was the kind of person I wanted to become, the kinds of people I wanted to associate myself with, and that nothing mor anyone would steer me away from those things that I desired. Since then, it's fair to say that I've evolved into a man that is very much approachable, in-touch with himself and his mentality, yet with a fine and particular taste in all things people, material, and experience. I am curious, cocky, painfully honest, yet in an on-going and never-ending state of self exploration. When it comes to people, if I like you I would give you the shirt off of my back, on the other hand, if I don't __________________ (fill the rest of your sentence 'cause you're not worth my effort, simply stated.) As a result, this description of myself is yet to be fully written, and will perhaps never be fully written until the day I die. Nevertheless, it is the person that I have become today that shapes people's opinions about me, and what's amazing is how accurate they have become as of late.

During the past few weeks, I have found that people have had an inkling about accurately describing me to myself for whatever reason or motive they may have. Although sometimes good, and sometimes not so good, I have appreciated all observations simply because it has led me to realization that I'm doing something correctly. People see me for who I am. It is apparent in my eyes that I am conveying the person that I not only am, but the man that I wish to become. Today, for example, I was told that although for the most part my honesty is true and reliable, at the same time it often works against me. I was also told that I was cocky, but with someone from my background, it's kind of expected. On the other hand, I was also told that at least I have no reservations and I carry myself as if I am here to convey anything and everything I see or feel, and that if I keep doing that, things will work out for me and the thing I want.

I know that I'm far, far away from perfection or even a satisfactory level of whom I want to achieve on a personal level, but in any case, I still believe that if I carry on the way I am right now, it will be the sole reason as to why I will have achieved the things that I aspire today. I have previously stated the things I want to accomplish and where, right now it's just a question of how soon and how viable my options are. I suppose that first thing's first though, and as I always have and always will, I'll deal with everything as it comes my way. All I know is that I hope for the best, and am prepared for the worst. 2012 will be a year to remember.

Unfinished Business

For the majority of the year, a trip to Stockholm has been at the very top of my bucket list. I've said it before and I'll say it again, no man has ever accomplished anything without a true sense of determination, and in regards to my travels, well, I moved out here for a reason. My first attempt at making this trip happen was back in April, but my plans fell through as I ended up going to France instead with a couple of newfound friends. Although that trip was one for the books, it also resulted in a soon-to-be-forgotten interaction. In any case, while away with work in October I came across a dirt cheap return flight with Ryanair for 30 euros, naturally, I couldn't pass it up.

Nevertheless, throughout the duration of the trip and even before there were many occurrences and influences that made the entirety of my visit feel somewhat, out of place, for a lack of a better means of description. First of all, although I had notified my bosses that I would be away traveling to another country, I was basically told I wasn't allowed to so, in response to that I basically said, "okay, yeah sure" and found myself with added motivation to make the trip in spite of their attitude, and of course, I did. The whole situation at my workplace isn't necessarily the best nor happiest it could be, but more on that later. Although the untimely feeling during the trip was a product of my job, there were also various things I did, or didn't do while I was there, consequently, I returned to Germany with a huge voided feeling and a desire to further explore Sweden.

On a brighter note though, from beginning to end I met a collection of people that made my travels more than worthwhile. The night before my flight's early departure, I decided to take a train down to Munich and spend the night and party it up a bit since I had to leave from a nearby airport anyways. That very night I met several Americans that were either traveling or working here in Germany, and of course it resulted in an intriguing exchange of experiences and stories we had all compiled during our time as expatriates. That night I also ended up going out alone and ended up at a pre-game bar named Sausalitos. The crowd consisted of lots of young people of different cultural backgrounds hitting up the early Bavarian nightlife and lubricating their social skills with an expansive selection of cocktails mixed by some relatively skilled bartenders (mind you, with skill comes higher prices.) While there I actually ended up meeting a really cool South American girl named Claudia. She was very kind and was more than happy to integrate me with her local friends from the city. After a few hours, I made my way back to the hotel, and before I knew it I was on a plane to Stockholm.

Of the many things I learned about the city itself, some of the things that stood out and I made note of were that a) it gets dark extremely early, the sun is already almost down by 3:30PM at this time of year! b) the Stockholmare find their own hometown to be extremely boring, and this notion is manifested into the fact that the only true party nights are Friday and Saturday and c) it is utterly and immensely true what they say about the aesthetics of the town and its people, truly beautiful. Wow....let me say that again, wow! I mean, THIS is considered ordinary and very common to see if you walk around the densely populated shopping areas and parks. Anywhere else, it's fair to say it's a rare occurrence or they've simply been arranged. Fucking incredible. I should also note that, off the bat anyone would consider a society with abundant beauty to be extremely stuck-up and pretentious, but the truth is that it is in fact the complete opposite. The locals are very, VERY welcoming and are more than happy to indulge in interaction with foreigners...of course it never hurts being good-looking ;) haha

In all seriousness though, although I had various and meaningful interactions while in Sweden, I still came back with a desire to learn more about Stockholm and the country as a whole. I fully expect to return in the near future. I think that part of the reason why I also came back feeling as if I had unfinished business is because Friday night consisted of me drinking profusely, I wasn't even aware that I had drank so much. It all happened as if I had too much too fast, and blacked out before I even made it out the door that night haha. I was fortunate to have made two very good friends in my hotel though, they took me back and settled me in properly and spent/wasted the night and the majority of Saturday (day) sleeping off a horrible hangover. I would just like to proclaim that my drinking levels are soon to decrease significantly, and that my return to Sweden will deserve its very own blog post.

In other developments, although I was due to fly home about 12 hours from this very moment, I was told by my job that my vacation dates were to be changed and rescheduled for administrative reasons. In reality what this means is that they decided to figuratively shaft me in the asshole with a bean-stock sized throbbing penis and fuck up all of my plans as well as those everyone else had made that was counting on seeing me while in the US. I would like to offer everyone my most sincerest apologies for the sudden and untimely change of plans, however, I did in fact reschedule my dates and will be home from December 5th until December 20th. I decided not to spend the actual Christmas and New Year's holidays back home because I already had plans to host my good friend James who will be flying all the way from California to spend approximately 12 days with me here in Germany. Furthermore, I would have already had the majority of those next 12-14 days off anyways, so it would be senseless to practically waste perfectly good vacation days on days I will already be off from work; this will enable me to accrue more vacation days in 2012 and come home again a few months after the holidays.

I also have a few more updates on the whole on-going quarrels with my job that I wrote about here. There are some pretty big moves that are tentative at the moment, but could very well define the next few months or years of my life, but I'll write about it in a few weeks when the time is more appropriate. I'm sure I'm leaving out several other things I had the intention of writing about, hopefully I'll get to it in an upcoming post. Lastly, thank you everyone for being so understanding and cooperative with and of me these last few weeks, I know that things have been relatively tumultuous, but I am determined to figure things out and make it all work out for the best, one way or another. Oh yeah, and don't forget to follow me on twitter ;) Cheers all!

A Swedish dusk as seen from Old Town Stockholm

Chirp Chirp! Developments 'a brewin!

Modern day technology never ceases to amaze me. It's crazy to think about the many advances we've been able to accomplish at this day in age, but what's even crazier is where we're headed. While I'm definitely all for research and development, I'm not exactly one to always be on top of the latest and greatest gadgets and internet fads out there. Nevertheless, it's clear that I strive for self-expression and an outreach for new-found knowledge and interactions, be it through people or any other mediums.

I think that having started this blog over a year ago was the catalyst for me beginning to grasp the vast distances of a global and modernized internet society. I have the freedom to share anything with anyone, and overall it's been a huge success. One thing that I was quite hesitant about exploring was new phone technology (well, new for me.) Until about a month ago, I was still utlizing my old LG Shine mobile phone that I bought when I first came back from my tour in the Middle East in 2008. Ever since, I had been very reluctant to upgrade simply because I felt that a phone should serve its purpose, to send and receive phone calls; furthermore, I barely ever even used the calling feature on my phone simply because I believe, and still do, that if I want to talk to you I would rather do it in person. It wasn't until my phone began to crap out on me that I truly began to reconsider my stance on the whole dilemma, and so just as change is a part of life, change found its way into my mobile means of communications and I upgraded to an iPhone.

Thruth be told, my fears have become reality and am now attached to it 24/7. It's kind of troublesome, but at the same time I suppose it really does serve its collection of purposes. To make matters worse (or better depending on the perspective,) my common use of Facebook and frequent status updates brought about many suggestions from friends to open up a Twitter account, and after minor reluctancy, I gave in and opened up my own account. With that said, feel free to click on the link to the left <--- and 'follow' me :) I hope that Twitter will present me with a different, yet alternative way to connect with friends, family, and my blog readers, new and old.

Aside from all of that, this weekend will consist of several random acts. The first occured today as I established plans with Daniel and Fernando, the same guys that I wrote about here in regards to my recent adventures in Munich. We've made plans to conquer Frankfurt am Main, all else is unkown :) What's even better is that for the next two weeks, I'll only have to work for a total of 5 days, as next week I'll be spending 4 days in Stockholm, Sweden and a few days after that I will be returning home to the United States for 18 days. Words cannot describe how excited I am. Expect new blogs full of details and experiences that are yet to happen, but in the meantime I'm out to do some damage :) Cheers all!