Before the Germany trip —— academic & personal goals

   

       Actually I didn’t really feel like I was going to Germany until yesterday, which is already the last weekend before I leave the U.S. Maybe my experience in Switzerland before was telling me not to be devoted into this trip so soon--dreaming of a trip in Europe trip is romantic, but doing it is not so true; it could be exhausting, unexpected and disappointing, especially to the newcomers. Germany and I are both new to each other, but looking on the bright side, I’m not a completely a rookie. I spent almost one year in Europe when I was 16 years old, and I just finished my first year in the U.S. Experiencing a new culture is not so new to me anymore. However, culture is always a topic at length or in depth, and I’m still learning it. Apparently learning German culture is one of the most important tasks and also goals during this trip, including the German language of course.

         I picked up a little German when I was in Switzerland. When you’re learning a language, you’re actually already learning a culture. English is my second language, so I did not have the advantage of being familiar with German and English words. It was a really hard situation to be an Asian learning a complete different language who was surrounded by students who had learned some German during high school or who had mastered the same Latin language system. I felt like an Asian exchange student who was expected by her host families to learn this language (German) well. The catch-22 was that if you studied too much, some people think you are wasting your time in a foreign country; if you took it easy, someone think you are not here to study. Yes, that year was hard; I grew up from the innocent, with pain also great experience. But now I get it, I’m independent in this trip, I know what I will deal with and I’m going to be cool with it.        

        Learning language takes time, but we can learn faster and deeper if we live in that environment. We don’t need to struggle with it if we don’t need to be the master of this language; it is more a communication tool than a subject. We could stammer in a German conversation in order to make the local people understand while English is still the mainstream in the world, which means doing whatever it takes to communicate, possibly as a last resort using English to explain and make jokes about ourselves. I think it is ok even like this. We learn, we fail, we laugh and we learn.

        I have taken German 121 in spring semester; it was not hard for me because of my basic knowledge of German. But from now on, it will get harder and harder, and I will skip German 2 to German 3 in the fall semester, which means I have to make up the missing part by myself. So hopefully I can get enough in this trip to make my future study easier.

        For the culture part, I think everything will be much truer when we indeed experience it. All I know about Germany so far is just some shallow things; I want to know more about its secret beauty and also its dirty side. So I will go there, see it, listen to it, taste it, feel it and write about it.

       Those are pretty much my academic goals for this summer. Of course, I have more personal goals. I love classical music and I played piano for seven years mostly Bach and Mozart; before I came to the U.S., I almost did go to Poland for a music college. The reason I didn’t go there was music was too important to me and I was afraid to fail myself there. That was a bad excuse but I always believed if I had this fate with music, we would eventually meet each other someday. So as the origin of classical music, Germany is one of my dream places to visit. It’s not just about a music dream; it’s a place to allow me to think about my life and future, or maybe it’s a place to bear a dream. So I take it as a goal of searching goals.

        At the beginning of this essay, I said I was trying to avoid thinking about the coming adventure because it could be unexpected and unpleasant. But the truth is that’s also what I love about. I guess I’m a person who longs for great encounters and the so-called “miracles” which could bring my life to a higher level spiritually. Accidents are not good, especially those unexpected results we learn from movies, but I believe in the good in accidents just like I have some faiths in fate. It’s a trip of spiritual travel. Every trip is a spiritual travel.

       Finally, I think I’m trying to prove myself subconsciously by doing this trip. A long time ago, I couldn’t say I failed that journey, but I lost some part of myself in that beautiful land of Europe. I was daydreaming in my Swiss school, I walked down by Seine riverside like a frustrated poet, I was too scared or upset to be alone in Rome street, so I hid myself in the hostel for two days. I mean things just happened, I couldn’t control the past, but I can look forward to the coming. I just watched the classic romance and conversational movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and I was especially touched by the latter one which was filmed in Paris. I felt sad about the nine years’ loss between the lovers, what passed is past. But I was also inspired from the message that we shouldn’t miss the beauty in life. This time I’m going to Switzerland and Paris again after the German study, going over the old ground, even I can’t get the old me back, I will become the new me. Starting from Germany, it’s a trip of finding myself.

      At the end, there’s no need to talk about the upcoming trip now, I will just wait, and I know it’s worth it.