Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Life is crazzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyy

Hey everyone,

another day, another story. I m having a good time in indonesia. Besides everyone being really helpful, everything is really cheap and everything is brought to me on a silver platter...

Its crazy.

Work is kind of relaxing as well, ok havent really started teaching english, but that will come soon.

Only thing is, cause i dont have internet...its really hard to keep in touch with all of you.
i have an indonesian cell phone number +6281374071147 , but sometimes its hard to understand, but you can sure try...
i m kind of out of the loop for everything..
no news, no american sports, but its all good. having a great time.

I have my own room and the rectors house with air condition and my own bath. so its really nice. the rector for the university always gets a house, so its only 2 blocks from the aiesec office.. yiiiiiihhhhhhhhhaaaaaaa

today is the turnover in canada. so i m kind of sad i cant be there. but i hope i ll get to see some pictures.
I think when i get back to germany in 3 months i ll have to make up for the time here, by just reading blogs and notes and all that. still trying to get some infos. please all write me emails, ok? want to know whats going on in your life and i ll try to also answer them as soon as possible, but this is the first time in 4 or 5 days i ve used the net, so dont be mad if it takes a while.

What else is going on around the world, feel free to keep me updated about world news as well.

Besides this like some of you already know. its more like a MT traineeship. i get food, housing, tours of the city and i also get paid. only 70 euro, but just as an example a dictionary only cost me 1 euro.

everyone is really friendly and my working hours will be very minor i think. only 4 days a week, so thats amazing, but on the weekends i might help out with the pbox hiv event. we ll see.

there is 4 trainees here now. 3 from the netherlands and one from mexiko. its nice to hang out with them as well. they all seem friendly.

What else can i tell you.... Oh some things like the bus are a little small for me, but its all good. Its part of the experience...

and there is some restroom story, but i will tell you later on ...hihi

still tons of moskitos and bites, but oh well. getting used to it.

weather is still hot and awesome. maybe even too warm for me, but maybe helps me with my diet.. i hope so.

yesterday i was on a talkshow for sushi fm...good times. tried to speak in indonesian, but was rather hard. i hope i didnt mess up, but i think it was ok. also got my voice recorded for " you re listening to sushi top 40 on sushi fm, terasa padangnya "

sorry if this blog is rather confusing, just writing down my thoughts, so everyone kind of knows whats going on in my life.

hope you re all having a great time as well.

(jenny, please let mom and dad know about this blog, so they know whats going on.)

ok i think this is it for now....at least thats all i can think of...

take care everyone...

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Life is good :)

Hey,

so just to let you all know, I got in safe. Everything is fine.

I had a crazy trip, spent 11 hours at the Jakarta airport sleeping outside next to a couple of other people. Some even asked me questions in Indonesian.

A lot of people think I am japanese or look like Hoobastank or a korean popstar (ren???)

They all hope I will study more bahasa indonesia so I can speak with them more freely.

My room at the rectors house is really nice to. Just way too many mosquitos, but oh well, just a little itchy here and there.

Other than that Padang is really nice. During the landing. I saw the whole city, the ocean and the close by mountains its really nice.

The city itsself totally reminds me of a rural korean town with food stands, all the motorcycles and pick up trucks, broken roads, but all well. Its nice. The food is good. Spicy and salty. the way I like it.

The AIESECers here are really nice and open. I m having a good time so far. Today I will meet 2 more trainees from the netherlands. I ve been toured through the city.

One problem about my guestfamily is that the children dont speak english, but I guess I just have to hurry up speaking bahasa, which one of my goals was anyways, so thats all good.

The University is also like Seoul, in the mountains lots of spread out buildings. Its really nice.

I hope it will stay like this :) Its really hot though. Liuke 33 degrees and humid, but its good, I ll get used to it. Although they say its even hot for them.

I will start working monday. I hope I can use the internet maybe during my lunchbreak, because it is kind of hard to go to a internet cafe, because i dont have my links or my programs, but it will be fine.

So I just wanted to let you know whats going on.

Tomorrow I ll do a presentation about AIDS in Germany and Canada. Hope that will go well.

So much from me for now, just wanted to let you know that everything here is fine and you dont have to worry bout me at all. oh btw... i have a new cell number, but i dont remember the number right now. but i ll let you all know later.

ok g2g....

take care everyone...hope to get some emails ;)

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Finally heading out - Padang, here I come!

To start of the blog with the words of Mark Twain to underline what I ve been trying to tell a lot of you.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

I ll be leaving in 6 hours, finally getting excited. I thank all of you for your travel wishes.

I might not be able to come online that often during the next 3 months, but I will still go to an internet cafe or something frequently, so keep checking back!

Take care everyone =)

Friday, February 16, 2007

Not scared, but just in case

You know how soldiers write short letters and wear them close to their heart, in case they might die in war. I want to write this now, just to make sure if something happens I wont have to regret not having said something.

And no I m not scared, but with everything going on in Indonesia, bird flu, malaria, volcanos, floods, tsunamis and yes I ll be close to the Merapi which erupted last year, recently 7 people died of the birdflu and the region I m going to suffered during the tsunami. Anyways I m still happy and excited to go and I m sure I ll make it back.

I just really want to say thank you to everyone that has shared my paths in life, even if it was just for the glimpse of a second. Some people dont even know they influenced my life, as I never talked to them, but a simple smile sometimes can do magic. And yes I do also thank the people that at one point hurt me really bad, because in order to be able to hurt me really bad I must have been close to them so they had a big influence on me and they made me who I am today, if thats good or bad? I guess I can not really judge that.
Although after some comments I recently received something must be going right =)
I just wish I could see all those compliments myself. but its all good. at least I m doing something right, I hope ;)

For those people that are still sharing my path right now I thank you even more, because right now the friends I share my thoughts with are really important to me. During the last couple of months I have lost a lot of friendships and I can tell you it hurts really bad, but coming out of this I can see who my true friends are and the people I can rely on or I want to rely on.

I also want to thank my family, because for all the pain they have given me, they have given me joy as well and they are after all also responsible for the person I am today.

I want to thank my baseball coaches and teammates, because they saved my life, when I was down. Baseball picked me up when I was miserable and it brought the joy back to my life. It literally saved my life.

I dont really want to name people here, but I have to name on person. Kai, I thank you for everything you ve done to me. I know I havent always been good to you. We have gone through rough patches and sometimes I was not fair to you and I am afraid I didnt do as much for you as you have done for me, but I really appreciate what you have been doing for the past 13 years. I am so grateful that we met and you ve been the only person that has always been loyal to me (except for the people I just recently met) and it really means a lot to me. More than you can imagine. I thank you so much. Bash bro 4 life

So coming back to the original reason I wrote this.
Some things I had actually planned for the rest of my life.
1. Visit every continent
2. Save a life
3. Leave an impression on people and area
4. Learn guitar
5. Regain my language skills (korean, thai, vietnamese and indonesian)
6. learn chinese
7. Fall in everlasting love
8. Experience one perfect day

I hope I ll be able to pull it off.

Ok I think this blog actually came out different than what I had originally planned to write but oh well.

Just on a final note.
Remember how powerful a little tiny action can be, just to give it a visual.
Think of your favourite song, think of in how many situations it has lifted you up or pulled you down.
And now think of how little action it takes to play it on a instrument, but how many people around the world it has influenced over the years.
Same can be said for a poem, or just a single phrase.

Words and Actions can not be powerful for the positive though, so always remember, be careful what you say, as words hurt more than weapons and they can hurt without you knowing!

Thats it for today. Leaving in like 5 days =)

I ll keep you updated

Friday, February 09, 2007

Impressions of a short visit

It is just a short transition period for me, so a lot of people I will only see once, which feels kind of strange, but oh well. This is supposed to be, where my origins lay, but then again, if someone asked me right now, whats your address, I would ask them, which one?

Anyways enough of the melancholy.

So whats new for this week?
Writing a test monday, for bureucracy reasons might have to graduate 3months later =(
Hope I can avoid it though.

I missed Baseball, it gives me so much energy, even though I was really sore after practice (5h) it was still awesome and I cant wait for sunday. Dont know how I m going to survive a whole summer without playing. but maybe I ll be able to play somewhere in Korea, although its a national sport there, so they are really good, but we ll see.

What else is new? I dont know, but it seems like Southeast Asia has really taken over my life lately, which is not a bad thing at all. I just never expected it until I started studying Southeast Asian Studies 2 years ago.

Anyways my ticket is pretty much set for febuary 27th and its getting closer and closer...so much stuff piling up to be done be for, but should all work out.

Ok this is it for now... will keep you updated later on!

Take care,
Rich

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Back "home"

So where is home really?Well for now lets call it Frankfurt, Germany. I got in wednesday and it feels kind of strange. I had been gone for almost 6 months, but nothing really changed, everything was still the same old. I didnt even feel the need to call everyone up and let them know I m back. I guess I m not really back yet. Only met a couple of people so far. Its weird, it really seems like I never left and Halifax was just a one night dream.

Good to be back, but sad to have left as well. Halifax was an awesome time, which I never want to miss. Great people, some of them really surprised me in the end. One thing I ve learned, well I kind of knew it before, but it really clicked just nowÉ DonÕt just people on the first occasion, people donÕt ever seem to be who you think they are.Keep in touch is always hard, but this time I will really try, because some people have really touched my heart.

My life is on the line. And I ve been thinkin about it a lot the last couple of days. Friendships, Relationship, University, Internship, Future job..pretty much everything that defines my life will be decided during the next 12 months and I hope it will all pan out to be the perfect fit.The travel only just begun and yet I feel tired of traveling already. I dont know I m still excited and I m sure by the time I leave I cant wait to go to the next place.NY was good, but well some people will wonder how, but to me NY is just boring.

Anyways I ll try to keep this updated way better than my last blog.Thank you again Halifax for a great time, which has inspired me in so many ways.