Time For General Updates

This post was written over a month ago, a week before the start of my Masters. It is late, but that is better than nothing.

Lately (lately is relative) I've written lots of hike-, picture-, tours of the Western European world-, lots of 'la-di-da look at me traverse fields and tiny mountains-' posts, but a life update hasn't come up in a while. It is highly possible for someone following my life only through the blogosphere to think I've been wholeheartedly studying trumpet for the past year and am now somewhat good. This is wrong.

Sometime in late April/early May came the realization that I do not what to study music. I want to make music, and listen to music, but I do not want to study music. My brain is wired to study other things. That's just how it is. I think music and the study thereof is just as intellectual as the study of anything else, but my brain has different tastes. My heart and soul, they are very much into music! My brain wants something else.

That is a very plain summary of music and me. It took some time for me to chip away at that block. It was not necessarily the greatest time. Had to face the fact that neither studying music nor being a professional classical musician were my cup of tea. Then came the question, where does music fit? Fortunately, answers came too.

Good, music placement solved. What next? Strong urges to study, to learn like my brain wants to learn. End of May/beginning of June is pretty late to decide one wants to start studying in the fall. In fact that wouldn't fly at all in the U.S. I was however not looking to studying in the good old U.S. of A, and in Germany I still had six weeks. Those six weeks were strenuous. Finding programs, finding universities, trying to organize applications, gathering documents from several different sources across the Atlantic (luckily all competent ones with good support systems), getting last-minutes recommendations and writing papers was nerve-wracking. I handed in my applications the day before they were due, often with missing documents that were to then arrive a week after deadlines. But it worked. With a catch, of course.

I was accepted to my top choice program at the University of Freiburg under the condition that I pass a language entrance exam. After intensive preparation and a couple years off my life due to stress, I passed and am now officially enrolled in the Masters Program "Fremdsprache Deutsch/Interkulterelle Germanistik" (German as Second Language/SLA Acquisition/Intercultural German Studies). And I am enthused.

There is your quick update from April until now(ish). On a completely unrelated note to end the post; Henry this picture is for you. Look at that railway.
How does it make you feel?

love,
Ben.