personal issues

I finally made it back from the US to Switzerland and from there with my parents to Schopfheim, Germany. There, I jumped in my car and made had my first Autobahn ride since half a year. I'll talk about this another time...
It was great to meet all the people I left behind, though I haven't seen some of them yet and some are out of the area themselfes. Now, it's time to meet the requirements of the - as everybody sais - most challenging semester!

My flight back to Zurich, CH is scheduled to leave at 7 pm, my 3 suitcases are ready and I just closed my bank account. Except from some final cleanup and throwing-away in the appartment, I'm ready.

It's sad to leave this great country, I really enjoyed my stay and met some very special people here. Thanks everybody for everything!

But it's also time to look forward and get ready to meet the folks I left behind! I really missed every single one of you and I'll be glad to see you again!

1998 at the age of 15, with long hair. The picture was on my 1st German ID	Before going to the US, I dug out some old pictures of me. They are basically the photos I had made for various official occasions. The collection of private photos of me is partly buried in some albums of my parents, whereas a large share of the digital ones got lost in a harddrive crash some years ago.	2002 on vacation in Italy. The only amateur photo in this series
Another formal photo, which is on my current German ID	2000, turning 18, with shorter hair. This is the picture in my German driver's license.	The latest formal photo.

Usually, vandalism in Wikipedia is rather annoying. People thinking that they're funny try to insert tiny stupid changes or other nonsense into wikipedia articles, thinking that nobody will notice. But watchlists, the recent changes page and differential article views usually uncover them pretty quick.	Normalerweise ist Vanalismus in Wikipedia eher laestig. Einige Leute, die sich fuer lustig halten, denken dass es lustig sei, kleine dumme Aenderungen oder sonstigen Unsinn in Wikipedia-Artikel einzufuegen und denken, dass es niemand merkt. Aber Beobachtungslisten, die letzte Aenderungen-Seite und Artikelversions-Unterschieds-Sichten decken diese normalerweise recht schnell auf.
As the article about my old school, the Theodor Heuss Gymnasium Schopfheim, was vandalized last week, I was rather happy for being notified about something I wasn't aware of. The change was the following:	Als der Artikel ueber meine alte Schule, das Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium Schopfheim letztens vandaliert wurde, war ich eher froh, ueber etwas benachrichtigt zu werden, das ich nicht wusste. Die Aenderung war folgende:
"After this year's graduating class didn't censor their yearbook, there was an outcry inside among the teachers about the "unfair" treatment. Therefore we escpecially want to apologize to Ms. Scheibert, Ms. Olbert and Mr. Mezger and take back our ratings for competence (wow you guys are quick)
Inside the yearbook, the graduating class' teachers were rated for competence, attractiveness, fairness, authority and entertainment-factor. Apparently, some teachers scored very poor and were upset about this. Instead, they suggested that students should discuss their problems with teachers instantly, not afterwards. Yeah, right! I imagine myself going to my teachers - there would have been several candidates, telling them that they are completely clueless about their subject, suggesting them that they go back to college to study their subject properly. We also prefered keeping our heads down that time, though we didn't place so harsh criticism in our yearbook.	In der Abizeitung wurden die Lehrer der Abschlussklasse nach Kompetenz, Attraktivitaet, Fairness, Autoritaet und Unterhaltungsfaktor bewertet. Anscheinend schnitten einige Lehrer sehr schlecht ab und waren darueber sehr aufgebracht. Stattdessen, so schlugen sie vor, sollten Schueler ihre Probleme sofort und nicht im Nachhinein diskutieren. Ja, klar! Ich stelle mir gerade vor, wie ich zu meinen Lehrern gehe - da haette es ein paar Kandidaten gegeben - und ihnen erzaehle, das sie null Ahnung ueber ihr Fach haben und ihnen vorschlage, dass sie zurueck auf die Uni gehen, um ihr Fach ordentlich zu studieren. Wir haben damals auch unsere Koepfe eingezogen, auch wenn wir nicht so harte Kritik in unserer Abizeitung hatten.

Somehow, I stumbled upon Blogthings and did a few of the tests. Here are some results:

Us Citizenship:

Well, I hope the real test is a way harder! I mainly guessed and excluded solutions - apart from that, the test was pretty challenging. I thought I had more general education about US history.

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 7 out of 10 correct!

How much do you weigh?

This one was especially funny. According to the test, my weight is approximately 200lbs, which is roughly 90kg. In fact, it's just 68kg / 150 lbs. Conclusion: Fast Food and Soda can't be too bad for your health!

You Should Weigh 200

If you weigh less than this, you either have a fast metabolism or are about to gain weight. If you weigh more than this, you may be losing a few pounds soon!

Political profile

Additionally, I did the political profile, which found out that I'm exactly 50% conservative and 50% liberal. This one matches the way I feel pretty well!
By the way: the terms don't translate very well, the meanings are rather different from the literal translation - especially concerning the term "liberal". But that's a good subject for another entire article!

Yesterday, I finally finished Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor (German title: "Ehrenschuld"). I enjoyed it very mouch, although the amount of reading is enormous. The paperback copy I own has almost 1000 pages containing no pictures but a lot of small-printed text. Together with the limited time I have for reading, it took almost two months to get through it. I'm a little bit disappointed that my English reading ability is still so bad and plan to excersise this more.
As always, the book is very exciting - even or maybe especially at the very end. And as usually, Clancy uses his enormous knowledge about military and secret services to make the book realistic. The only thing I found slightly boring was the remarkable amount of submarine action happening. Somehow, I never manage to imagine what is exactly going on under water.
In comparison to e.g. "Without Remorse" (German title: "Gnadenlos"), the amount of violence is much lower. So my Tom Clancy to do list got reduced by one - the italic ones remain, the bold ones are read (source of list: Wikipedia):

English title	German title
Without remorse	Gnadenlos
Patriot Games	Die Stunde der Patrioten
Red Rabbit	Red Rabbit
The Hunt for Red October	Jagd auf Roter Oktober
The Cardinal of the Kremlin	Der Kardinal im Kreml
Clear and Present Danger	Der Schattenkrieg
The Sum of All Fears	Das Echo aller Furcht / Der Anschlag
Debt of Honor	Ehrenschuld
Executive Orders	Befehl von Oben
Rainbow Six	Operation Rainbow
The Bear and the Dragon	Im Zeichen des Drachen
The Teeth of the Tiger	Im Auge des Tigers

I'll try to at least buy the remaining ones in the US, since they are much cheaper here. Maybe eventually I'll write something about Germany's system of fixed book prices.