Apologies for not blogging for the past few months. It's been a whirlwind and somewhat stressful, but I hope to get back to it.
Celebrating the 4th of July in Germany is a strange thing. This is my second year being in Germany for the 4th, and I find that seeing 4th of July celebrations on FB, in the news, etc. just doesn't affect me as much as I thought it would.
People are nice about it, and considerate, asking if I'll take the 4th of July off work, or asking if it's OK to schedule something on the 4th, but it's just not...
I'm not sure how to articulate it.
I certainly love my country with all my heart.
But it's hard to feel patriotic so far away, and when looking at the US from afar.
Right now, I'm in the midst of a very practical people, and with a world view that I've never had before. I see how what happens in America affects the world and frankly it makes me sad. I feel like the US no longer cares to be a part of the world community and no longer wants to be a leader.
It's hard to be proud of that.
I see all of the violence in the US, all of the hate speech and hate crimes. I see the President acting like a spiteful 4 year old boy.
And it's hard to be proud of that.
But I also see the resistance to this kind of behavior. I see many of the ''regular'' people don't subscribe to the political lies, the distractions, the behind-the-scenes politics that the billionaires are using to reshape America without our consent. I see that there are people who are thoughtful, considerate, and kind. I see a fight for equality that has to fight from the sidelines and at a huge disadvantage. I see my Christian brothers living His word.
I see all of my loved ones and my friends living on despite the difficulties.
And that I am proud of.
(nobody say anything about my dangling participles)
Languages
I'm currently angry with the German language. We're having a spat. All of the rules I've learned are now being replaced by exceptions. And I'm finding that what I'm learning is actually a far cry from how people speak.
My understanding of spoken German is still very poor. It's partly because my brain tries to put spoken German into structures, but it doesn't often work that way.
And I don't have enough vocabulary. I can listen to someone speak, following along reasonably well, but then a word that I'm either not familiar with, or I've only just learned comes along, and my brain grabs it, and holds on to it while I translate it, and then I've lost the next sentence and all of the context.
It doesn't help that in German you often have to wait, sometimes for MANY MANY words, for a secondary verb at the end of a sentence to make sense of it.
I know this is the same for all languages. I'm not an idoit. But I have a right to be annoyed.
We'll kiss and make up, assuming we can ever speak the same language.
