This World and Me

"Years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute—" —Edgar Allan Poe, "To —" , circa 1829

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. —Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement address , 2005

When I was in first grade, one of my classmates invited me to try out gymnastics. I didn't really know what gymnastics was, but I got an idea when my friend described the legendary "cheese pit", a deep pit of hundreds of soft, foam, "cheese"-like blocks. Gymnastics seemed like a huge playground for kids. The introductory class was just me, my friend, and two other kids. It was my first day, but the other kids had already been gymnasts for several weeks (a week feels longer to a seven-year-old), so I was more on my own. We started with a few basic warm-up stretches (not the cheese pit), and then we did a workout on the trampoline (also not the cheese pit). Towards the end of the workout, we made our way to one of those large gymnastic wedge mats. I was stunned. I could not remember seeing such a strange-looking mat before in all of my seven years of existence. I blurted out: "What the hell is that!?" This post flows naturally from a string of posts ...

Consider this scenario. The instructor of one of your classes promises you that there will be a surprise quiz next week. The class in question meets only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and a "surprise" quiz is one which, walking into the classroom, you have no idea whether it will be given on that day. The school week ends on Friday, so there are only three possible dates for the quiz: next Monday, next Wednesday, and next Friday. If you came to class on both Monday and Wednesday, and on both days, there were no quizzes, then you would know, walking into class on Friday, that there must be a quiz, for Friday is the last remaining day in which the instructor could give a quiz as promised that week.  Therefore, it would not be a surprise for the instructor to give a quiz on Friday. Because Friday has now been eliminated, Monday and Wednesday are the only possibilities left for the surprise quiz. If you came to class on Monday and were not given a quiz, then Wednesday...

Nervös. Bei dem Flughafen in New York war ich nervös. Es war meine erste Mal in Deutschland, und ich war einfach nervös. Dann habe ich die andere Amerikaner kennengelernt—es war auch die erste Mal in Deutschland für sie. Neun Stunden später war ich in der Stadt Nürnberg, und ich traf meine Gastfamilie bei dem Flughafen. Sie waren so freundlich, dass es so bequem war, Deutsch mit ihnen zu sprechen. Nach dem ersten Tag war ich nicht nochmal nervös. Ich konnte Deutschland einfach erfahren. Und Deutschland habe ich erfahren. Es gab viele Teile von andere Kulturen in der deutsche Kultur. Die beste Beispiel ist mein Gastbruder Urs. Er spielt wirklich amerikanischen Fußball (in Deutschland!). In Amerika benutzten wir in meine Deutschkurse „amerikanischen Fußball“, aber mein Gastbruder nennt dem Sport „American Football“—er benutzt Englisch! An dem erste Freitag hatte mein Gastbruder einen Tanzkurs, und dort hörten wir viele Lieder von Amerika. Jetzt muss jede Person in Deutschland Englisch ...