new blog

here is the address of my new blog

http://richardontour07.blogspot.com/

on the way home

So this chapter of my life is closing fast.

Left Halifax yesterday, chilling with my sis in ny for 2 days and then back home.

I ll be back in germany on wednesday..

sad and happy at once.. I think the sadness overweighs right now. Not sure if that is because i m not home yet or because hali was such an amazing time with so many incredible people and personalities.

goodbye halifax

5 months in review

Today is January 21st, so what? For most people it is just an ordinary sunday. For me it has a different meaning. It is time to look back and reflect on life, but also time to look ahead on what will be.
Its been exactly 5 months since I first set foot in my new room, since I first said hello to my new life.That moment was full of excitement, joy, but also full of uncertainties.

Now today, 5 months later, all those uncertainties for Halifax are gone. I can look back and say yes the excitement and joy didn’t cheat on me. I had a really good time here, met lots of interesting friends with interesting personalities from different nationalities, religions or just different backgrounds. Every person being different in their own special way and yet they all live in this one place together as friends.

I m looking at pictures, yes the millions I took here and remember all those moments I experienced here. I see the smiles on people´s faces, the insecurity, the love, the fears, the drunkenness ;P, the caring, the frustration, the excitement and the hard work that was put into events, classes, projects and into life as life itsself.

I think about the international orientation, when we went to peggy´s cove and I looked out on the ocean. I was wondering, what was going to happen in the next half a year?

Reading thousands of pages, writing hundreds of pages, travelling thousands of miles, talking for millions of hours, chatting for lightyears, calling people for hours, working forever, playing baseball for days, watching tons of movies? Being caught up in the moment was never in it and there isnt a moment I want to miss. Life is short and sweet, you have to experience all of it.

Life has been a highway, I cant believe it has been 5 months and I can not believe I m leaving so soon. I could probably write 100 pages about my life here, but noone would find time to read it.

So this is the time for me to say thank you to all of you. Thank you for all the memories we ve shared, for all the times we ve seen, if we laughed, discussed, ate, went on a trip, watched a movie, listened to music, sat in classes together, went to events or meetings, if we went to a hockey game to the musical, to a club, took a walk, played football or baseball together, went to the gym, shared experiences, went crazy or were being serious.
Thank you for everything.

I thank you for giving me advice or support and also for critizising me and letting me know I was wrong. Nobody is ever perfect. Life is a learning process until the moment you die.

I never want to say goodbye, so I will say…see you soon instead

As I ve told some people before… am I ready to leave?

No I m never ready to leave, but it is time to move on, so I have to.

Exactly a week from now I will leave Halifax and probably more than half of you I will never ever see again, I still cherish the moments with you and I appreciate all you ve done. You have all been part of my life and I thank God for it.
Halifax – Winter of 2006/07 – I will never forget

If anyone ever comes to Germany, call me up =)

See you soon ;)

Farewells, goodbyes, see you later or the end of something

So as I ve already told you, the semester is over. For some this means its time to go home. Fortunately not yet for me.

But what does it mean to go home. Is it a final goodbye, or just a goodbye on time. Most of the people that are currently leaving are germans, so I hope I will see them again. Its funny how the first couple of months I barely talked to germans at all, but now that they were all leaving I got to talk to them for a bit.

If you read this, Matthias, Dima, Henrik, Eva, Tobi.... it was good to know you guys and I hope we will be able to see again some time. I m sure Halifax has changed your life as it has changed mine and you will cherish the good times of the fall of 2006.

God bless and help you on the way to your dreams and goals....


ok so what else is going on. Still doing lots of things for AIESEC, but still having a good time... I think wasting too much time right now, but by the time i m home i m always so tired =(

Also waiting on the grades for my classes, hope I will get them this week.

Other then that... hm not that much yet... will try to buy some christmas presents this week and hope to be able to finally answer all those emails, which i really want to thank all of you for and i m sorry i havent replied to them yet.

ok this is it for now... the friend blog will follow soon....


Take care out there, whereever you are on this planet

I have my life back ;)

First of all….. SORRY …. I know I might not have been the best friend during the last couple of weeks as I ve been crazy busy, sometimes being up for 40 hours straight and felt like fainting a couple of times, well I guess, just like Germany ;)
It s just other occupations here.

Now school is over though, so everything should be back to normal and I will have more time to keep everyone up to date to answer emails and everything else you want to know.

Ok so now to what has happened within the last 6 weeks, with all its ups and downs.

I finished all my papers, assignments and readings, 1st grade I already got is a B =)
And you guys know how I write all my papers… yes 1-2 days max per paper, so yes was a busy two weeks as they were all due within 8 days actually.

AIESEC has probably been even more time consuming then classes. After organizing the Corporate Breakfast, which was a success except for some attendance issues and also being involved in our speed dating (next semester) and coat check events and several other events like marketing calls and National Conference preparation, which I am actually still working on I also did a presentation on Germany last Saturday and a lot of people seemed interested in at least visiting, which would be great. I did it together with one of the many German AIESECers Matthias. Unfortunately most of them are going back already, so this week is a week of farewells. It is going to be hard once I go back in febuary, I remember my goodbye in Korea, it must be really hard for them right now.

Speaking of goodbye´s.
I broke up with my girlfriend. I was glad we broke up in a friendly way though and we are still in contact and I hope once I go back to Germany we will still be friends. We will find out I guess. It s never an easy time. I think it also told me a lesson though. I am really not good at long distance relationships at all.

Oh btw.. some of you worried about my roommate and me… we are fine now… we kind of had a rough time, but I think we are ok now. So no worries there.

I also had 2 visits during the last couple of weeks. My dad was here for less than a day actually on his way to Toronto, unfortunately on that day the weather was really bad, but it was good to see him, even though it was very short and I had to stay up all night finishing work, but I could sleep in the afternoon, when he left.

Also last week Julia was here. It had been 3.5 months since we seen, pretty long. It was good to see her again and I felt bad, because I was supposed to have more time this week, but there were just too many things coming up, with my final papers, AIESEC and internship etc.. more to that later.
We had a good time shopping to and again I found out…yes you can see Halifax in 2 days. We had crazy snow too, but we also went to a funny brewery tour and watched lots of movies, which I passed out on half of the time. But still good times =)
We also went to the gym.. my first time in like…I don’t know.. way too long and I felt it, I almost threw up, but oh well I hope to be able to go again today if I m not too tired, because I also have a meeting later tonight and a farewell party after, but I should have a really fun day Wednesday, but more on that after, because it is a surprise.

Oh yes with AIESEC of course there was not only work, but we also had some fun events… a chinese dinner, we went to a hockey game and of course all those parties, ok sounds like there were 30…haha…it was only a couple but still good times, although too many drunken people… LOL
I also got two awards from AIESEC, yeah….they really appreciate my work, although I m not sure if they do not overrate it, because I am not doing that much, although,… haha with the time I have you guys will probably say, yes you do..
I guess just what ever I do I give 120%

Now coming back to the Internship, for some this might be bad or sad news, for others they might be happy… not sure..

So I will be going to Indonesia for a 3 month internship from march to june and will teach english there and also lead projects in cooperation with 12 ngo´s.
Its what I want to do, because International Development is one of the two branches I am thinkin about to have as a future job and Indonesia has been my focus in my studies back home in Frankfurt, so it should be a good chance to go and find out if that is what I want to do. Right after I will hopefully go to Korea and work as a Volunteer for another 3 months, and hopefully also visit my family there.
My friends here have really motivated me to learn korean and indonesian again and I hope I will be able to keep this motivation floating. So yes I will pretty much be gone for the summer,
Which unfortunately probably also means no baseball this year, which really sucks, as baseball has always been a huge part of my life and I was also offered a spot on a 2. league team, which I probably wouldn’t have taken anyways, although it really made me think about going there, so you never know, if it hadnt been for that internship, but maybe in 2008 when our new field in Kriftel should also be ready I will come back, maybe healthier and stronger than before, who knows…

I feel kind of bad for leaving Germany for so long and I will only be home for like 2 weeks, so I guess within a timeframe of 14 months I will only be home for like 2 weeks, which is kind of bad. Hope once I finally will settle back in I will still have my friends there and I feel bad for being such a bad friend and chosing my path, but I think it is something that I have to figure out right now in order to find out where my life is taking me and I hope all of you will understand.

Reflecting on Canada…
Looking back on the 4 months I have been here now… Yes it has definitely been a good time, I have learned a lot from my friends, I have grown even more mature, although sometimes I feel like I should stop growing for a while, because I worry too much about things in the future, but on the other hand I am glad about that fact.

I am also glad I have met so many people from so many different cultures and continents and I hope to be able to see all of them again one day, although I know I will probably only see a bunch of them again, even if I came back to Halifax in a couple of years they would probably all have left and be spread out over the globe, but its always possible we will see again and I hope so. Especially my closer friends, hope to really meet them again.
I also think it is different here, because most of them are in there regular environment, except for a couple of visiting students, but its not like Korea, where people only came for a summer. I think even if we would get all the people from Korea back together it wouldn’t be the same. It was just a magical summer back then and it is probably not possible to repeat it.

Anyways I think I should let you guys go now…it has been a long talk this time, but I promise next time it will not take 6 weeks till I post again….

And my next post will probably include a little more detail on all the people I hang out with, so it should also have some fun fact in there and hopefully some pictures… =)

Now its time for me to go to bed though, because its 7am again and I have a meeting at 12…haha…..enough of the ups and downs…..

Ok thanks for reading this…just a final quote from one of my fav. Movies “Antowne Fisher”

Jerome Davenport: "Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone / Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own" Antwone Fisher: "Who will cry for the little boy, he cried himself to sleep / Who will cry for the little boy, who never had it for keeps / Who will cry for the little boy, who walked on burning sands / Who will cry for the little boy, the boy inside a man / Who will cry for the little boy, who knew well hurt and pain / Who will cry for the little boy, who died and died again / Who will cry for the little boy, a good boy he tried to be / Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me"

Play the numbers game

Globalization (Presentation, ~200 pages to read, 15 to write)
Conceptual Foundations (~400 pages to read, 24 to write)
Popular Approaches (Presentation, ~300 pages to read, 25 to write)
Environment (Presentation, ~250 pages to read, 23 to write)
Project Managment (Presentation, ~100 pages to read, 24 to write)

Total, 4 Presentations,~ 1250 pages for class to read, 111 pages to write
Thats my numbers for November for class.

Then I have AIESEC ....
300 People event (Organizing President)
80 People (Responsible for Logistics)
100 People (Just Coat Check)

Flag Football Playoffs

And then all the other stuff.

I will go to the AIESEC National Conference, after all. Thought I couldnt go, but now will.

Besides that tons of meetings with different people ~ 10 a week, maybe more.

Also SMU Football made the playoffs. Cant wait for saturday. They have been playing really good lately, pushing the Number 3 ranked team into OT, but lost =(
But now its do or die anyways.

Had my first halloween today...probably is the same as fasching over there in germany.

Saturday had a halloween party...so funnny... dressed up as april...all pink....
she dressed up as me...baseball player...including the cup...LOL

so besides that seriously not much going on...

my dad will come visit me next thursday, will try to show him around the city.

Last but not least!

I AM REALLY SORRY, to all of you who i havent replied to yet, or who i just didnt have a lot of time for. I ve been crazy busy............
Barely sleeping...avg probably like 5,5 hours the last 14 days or so...and its 5am again and have 3 meetings tomorrow and class and ...ahh...

ok will go now... hope to hear from you guys....

take care,
rich

Work keeps on pillin up

Hey =)

So I was elected the head of an organizing committee that will hold an corporate breakfast on nov 24th. It will be huge and probably one of the most important events aiesec has had so far.
And we got awesome guest speakers and my team is gonna be great too.

Its gonna be so much work too though, but I m excited for it, because event managment is the one thing I m good at.

Also workin on some fundraisers, more work

and then still all the papers and presentations and everything...
kind of scared its all growing over my head, but well thats what i like...

Come on---give more, is that all you got?

Besides that had a good spiritual event today. Met one of the campus for christ leaders, which i think really helped me. we ll see how it goes.

anything else...
oh yeah...
one of the students i know is 15?!? Freakin 15? How can you be in university when you are 15? i was in 10th grade or something...freakin crazy....well whatever...stupid german system sucks anyways...


one more thing...had a fight with april today. Its really bothering me. I think i hurt her, and she hurt me or maybe I hurt myself...AGAIN...
anyways...hope things will work out... I m just really sorry bout what happened, but I will never be able to make up =(

ok..this is depressing me too much...sorry...dont wanna talk about it...

still besides most things are great.... I guess

take care all of you