Zufriedenheit

You know how you see something and you really really want it and you spare and save for it and then you get it and you find that you want something else?

Or you go on vacation for a week and by day two you wish you were back at home?

Maybe it is just that: Unzufriedenheit, that is, dissatisfaction or discontent. I think I just need to be more content with life as it is. Not that I'm not happy here! I just keep finding myself looking ahead 5-10 years and wondering where I'll be. I think it's easier than working on things that need to be done in the moment.

Always before tests I would think to myself: don't worry, in 2-3 hours it will all be over, and I can celebrate--or at least relax. I think it's OK in that sense, but life isn't a test. You can't spend your days dreaming about what will be someday or else you'll get there and find that you were too busy dreaming about it to make anything of life.


I've been thinking a lot about whether I made the right choice in choosing Boston instead of SF/Palo Alto. But I guess the real answer is to stop worrying about it and enjoy what I have right now.

Kapute PlastIk

So I was just thinking to myself that europeans are really smart for using glass for a lot of things Americans would rather have in plastic. Pretty much any juice you buy here comes in a REUSABLE (mehrweg) bottle--even, or perhaps especially things like soda and beer. This is an amazing thing that American companies should pick up right now. The bottles, in theory, cost an extra 0.10 or 0.15 € (das Pfand) and there are receptacles that you return them to in most groceries, Getränkenmärkte (basically beer/wine+water+juice+some liquor store), and places with lots of vending machines--whereupon you recoup your change. I know some states have refunds for return of some types of glass bottles and maybe some plastic, but I don't think there is any state--even golden California--that has such and extensive tax/reward system setup. And while I suppose it's government supported, I think it's actually a company that collects the bottles and such. It's really quite an ingenious process given that it's probably much easier to clean and sterilize old bottles than have new ones cast. Granted, plastic is probably cheaper. Until there is some societally-accepted way (i.e. a way Republicans/Libertarians won't complain about--probably never going to happen (incidentally, shouldn't this be exactly the government's job? to regulate where free-market capitalism can't compensate for hidden costs--i.e. transfered health, environmental, and QOL costs)) to tax companies for the end environmental impact of their products, I don't think such schemes would catch on (wow, that's really hard to understand. good luck!).

Anyway; back to my other point. I was just thinking this when I went to lift my curtain and--POP--one of the little PLASTIC clasps breaks. There is absolutely no reason to make these things out of plastic. In fact there seem to be many reasons to make them of brass or steel or, hell, dried hemp--not the least of which is that they are holding up a moderately heavy object which will be raised and lowered 3 times a day and thus transferring (why on earth does that have two Rs? transfer-ing. why, english?) a good bit of stress to whatever is holding them up.

Come to think of it the most traumatic of my misadventures here have been due to unnecessarily cheap things breaking (also: by bike light died the other day. just fell right off. i think i'm illegal now!). So I guess even in Europe people have to some degree bought in to the American mentality: It's cheap! If it breaks, I'll just get another and throw it away! Who cares about the island of trash in the Pacific?!

I'm saddened.

pflaumen bei nikolausberg

delicious. sweet and juicy, but still a little tart and mostly undisturbed by bugs (i’m not sure what the clear drops are. maybe crystallized sugar, but it didn’t really taste like much). i was so happy to find these. i’ve been wondering where all the plums are here. the kirschpflaumen that i’ve found are good, but i’ve been dying for real plums too. these were in the middle of a few fields on a hill just below nikalousberg (below)--near the MPI. it’s a nice little hilltop town with a lot of old houses and supposedly a very old and nice church.

also, i really really need a limb cutter or a light bulb clamp. maybe a reverse version of ‘the claw’ (think toy story):

mehr denken daran

and this. also a watcher

mehr TEDs

more good things to see: suburbia. this guy is hilarious. or maybe i'm just immature. everytime i hear the word 'clusterfuck' i can't help breaking out in hysterics. it's just perfect. he also makes fun of 'wineos'--presumably the audience and despots. i might have caused a stir by laughing out loud. 'theoretical pedestrians' and such. and nature 'band-aids'.

NO REALLY! what it. it's hilarious even if you don't care at all about the horrible rape of land and people that is suburbia.

also very good: green is the new black. this lady has a lot of attitude and is really convinced of her message. i kind of want to meet her. her delivery is rough, but i agree that she has the attitude and message to take on al gore and steve jobs.

really, all of these are good. i'm just going to sit here and watch them all day because my experiment time was gobbled up. sigh.

gutes essen

michael pollan! interestingly, i think i've had this idea several times. most recently wondering why on earth cherries would put so much of their fruit out of reach if they wanted us to spread them around. also, in reference to why i'm willing to try some fruits i see randomly, but not others (not always sucessful however).

i'm a little obsessed! when you have an hour: see this! it takes a while, but it is quite awesome. props to google.

btw, people looking for birthday gifts... books are beautiful. michael pollan has many. i want them all :P.

also (via lisa): conservative organics? no matter what your pollitical alliance (although i'm fairly sure everyone here is more to the left), we can all find a reason to support locally-grown, non-industrial, non-Farm Bill-supported food.

speaking of which: barack obama's view. i'm not sure i like it or believe it. somehow i just don't think it's going to change anytime soon, although if he really wanted to target big industry and lobbists, the farm bill would get my vote for 1st on the chopping block.

grüner welt

in the pursuit of a greener world:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/the-first-step.html

looking back 2-3 years ago, even 1, i've made a lot of small changes in my life. from the amount of meat i eat to how i get around to how long i spend in the shower. and yet, every week i seem to think of something new that i'd like to encorporate into my life. and i do. and i wonder how on earth i managed before.

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2.shtml

another site/article that i've only recently read but i've known about for a lot time. really scary stuff. it makes me want to wear a gas mask and never eat anything i haven't personally grown. well, not that i haven't had that desire for a long time. but now it's just coming out more often.

one of my goals for this year is to learn more about environmental problems that are going to loom large in the 21st century--not just focusing on global warming which seems to have utterly captivated the press and people's imaginations recently. ironically, we could almost thank the 100 billions lbs of plastic produced per year (45 billion kg of plastic = roughly 38 billion kg of carbon) for sequestering a very small portion of the united states' carbon output. sigh.

weiße zähne

i just finished zadie smith's novel, white teeth. a friend shared with me a while back something smith herself said about the book in retrospect:

This kind of precocity in so young a writer has one half of the audience standing to applaud and the other half wishing, as with child performers of the past (Shirley Temple, Bonnie Langford et al), she would just stay still and shut up. White Teeth is the literary equivalent of a hyperactive, ginger-haired tap-dancing 10-year-old.


i think understood vaguely what she meant by that, before i even picked up the book at bookman/bookwoman (7.95$ could be considered a bargain if i didn't love libraries so much--very much my father's son, i am.). by the end of the first chapter i didn't see anything remarkable about the storytelling, but it was interesting and i don't put books down. now in retrospect, it's pretty clear. rough, though it was, still a fun read. the past plays such a huge role in shaping every character's actions and reactions--sometimes it felt like more of the later was going on than the former, but i suppose that's real life (more on reactionism later)? also, every character was so very deep. compared to so many personalities, both real and fictional, none of the rest really seem to have such an extremely detailed history or carefully molded personalities. even the first, most boring character "whose significance in the Greater Scheme of Things" is nicely summed up in the "familiar ratios:/ Pebble:Beach./ Raindrop:Ocean./ Needle:Haystack," is interesting in that he is just so vapid. it might have been around here when i first saw the awkward dance through the new book haze. much sarcasm, vulgarity, and some 25 years of painful family drama (maybe i can be 'nephew/cousin of shame'--maybe i already am! ...just imagine that said by margaret cho!) the end (evening 31 dec 1992--i was 7 and probably in bed already) finally comes. for a book that places so much emphasis on the past and everything leading up to the final climax (at least most of the 2nd half was building up to it), i was a little scared to see that there were only 5 pages left and no sign of the apocalyptic clash that was promised. but it came (and went) and turned everything over. in the end, i was pretty happy with it. felt good to end it though. in a relief kind of way. for the poor characters, at least.

there was one particular sentiment that i liked: homeland. "The well-wooded and watered place. Where things spring from the soil riotously and without supervision..."--talking here about jamaica, but it reminded me of a certain pastoral idealization of far-off places like europe and japan and hawaii that i might harbor and occasionally actively nourish (miyazaki movies anyone?).

"homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into the language. ... And the particular magic of homeland, it's particular spell over Irie (angry teenager), was that it sounded like a beginning. The beginningest of beginnings. Like the first morning of Eden and the day after apocalypse. A blank page."

i think i really like that thought on homeland. a good portion of the book deals with an immigrant family from bangladesh who moved to london and an immigrant family from jamaica who was taken there. it's funny, because i feel like i identify with them sometimes, even though i've never (until last year) lived out of the state of tennessee. and it isn't just that tennessee doesn't feel like home. quite the contrary. as much as i loved california and i love germany, i genuinely miss tennessee, or at least the representation of tennessee i hold deep in my memory from around age 7. but there is that longing for a homeland. somewhere that feels more like home than land and a house. and i think for me a new beginning might be what it is all about. a place with no past, no legacy of sadness or grudges or regrets--a vague idea somehow imprinted in the genes, making it seem like a memory. my homeland is an eternal place of quiet refuge. no intruders or meddlers. just home. if you could have it, would you take it?

i'm still not done!! but for now i'm just going to post and let this simmer. more to come.