I am, as you are most likely aware, leaving on September 21st to live in Friedrichshafen, Germany. here is a little bit of a backstory on the whole thing.
having no clue where my life is going and no sense of direction about what to do with my life, i chose to postpone my college education a year. this choice was made following the discovery of the torchbearer schools in Europe. after limited research, i selected Bodenseehof, a school on the banks of the oceanlike Lake Constance.
the thought of a year in europe made normal life seem dull and unimpressive. i began to see it as the light at the end of my high school tunnel. i failed to heed the warnings of wising my senior year away and wish it away i did! this had the opposite effect and the year became twelve months of slowly being pecked to death by a duck. don't get me wrong, my senior year was great, but having such a brilliant reward at the end made it seem torturous.
as my senior year whiled itself away, funding for daily life in Germany began to become a concern in my mind. i began to search for summer employment to ensure that i could travel and have ample comforts during breaks. i found two summer jobs via friends of the family. neither job turned into a glorious or glamorous opportunity of employment.
my first job was as a pizza delivery "expert" at Dominos. it was not a wholly wretched job but entailed working with some less than desirable individuals and enduring some rather uncomfortable deliveries. my other job was at a daycamp. there is little to say about this job. it was all well and good but it was a very short day camp indeed and lasted only for the month of july.
the summer crept along at a slug's pace. i began to fell that september would never arrive. then one day when i woke up, i was smacked in the face by the log that is reality. i realized with alarm that i was to depart in just over a month and had done literally nothing to get ready. i frantically made online purchases of cold weather clothing that i did not already have and i started to mentally list all of the things i did not yet have that i would need. as the to do list continued to swell and the packing list exploded into something frightening, i hit panic mode. it was then i discovered i had a seriously small weight limit for my second flight. panic mode hit with a new crunching blow. i have to fit my whole life....all of it, into a twenty kilo bag and a carry on.
after panicking, i quickly made enormous lists on my computer which helped ease my way into the vast amount of preparation i still have to do. more to come when germany gets closer. and by the way. i speak no german. at all.
