Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Bochum stories and Mr. Chicken!
Two and a half days left of this conference/IP and we are still living it up... we students are going out every night (almost) - I'm staying in tonight though, and bonding with the Groningen girls and with my beautiful laptop... And I have internet, all thanks to the wonderful restaurant next door to my hotel that goes by the name of "Mr Chicken"... and has the 'creative' network name of "MrChickenHaveFun".
"MrChickenHaveFun" had a realisation earlier today that I wanted to talk to my mother, and as a result, instead of cutting off every 3 minutes, decided to allow me a completely undisturbed conversation with my mother and my brother until a huge contingency of IP participants who didn't skip the activities of the day (as I did - needed a rest after celebrating Isabelle's birthday last night) came trooping back in from the day's field trip. I later heard from some French participants (who were arrested for not carrying ID) that we didn't miss anything.
We? I spent a very nice day simply relaxing with a fellow 'escapee' - had Turkish food for lunch, Shisha and Lebanese coffee for tea and SUSHI (made by Koreans) for dinner. I went back to my room to find that Isabelle was STILL celebrating her birthday with a bunch of Groningen girls in our room. We were sharing stories of past romances (awww.... how sweet). Two of the stories had happy endings (or rather, work in progress), whilst me and Isabelle only had the sad (?) reality of the present single condition to share. But then again, the end of a love affair is not necessarily a sad thing, is it? I rather enjoy my newfound freedom, but perhaps resent the hints of cynicism that are creeping in.
Although I've been moaning about the boredom, slowness and confusion of this week, now that these days are drawing to a close, I have started to feel that I will be missing all the amazing people that I've met. One thing is particularly striking to me - whilst in the past, I have felt the need to justify my ethical grounds for my actions and decisions in life, here I am meeting many like-minded people who may disagree with me on small details, but in general, are in agreement in principle. This is a huge difference. Where I'm used to preaching my ideology, here I am happy to sit back and listen, simply because I've found that when I start defending my ideas - people simply respond with "I agree with you 100%". So it's good to listen.
Last notes: Congratulations, Väiski, for becoming a dad, and Isabelle - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
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