A broad mind lacks focus.

I wish my filter worked better

2006-04-19T20:37:14Z

Our current topic in philosophy class is "the stranger/the strange". And frankly, I'm more than annoyed about it. See, that class is full of dimwits and morons. Our teacher gave us the task to bring something to school that is "strange" to us. One girl brought a book about Italian food and said "I've never been to Italy, so it's strange to me.".
Another girl brought a picture of her best friend modeling and exclaimed: "This is a picture of my best friend. We are very close. Yet, when she wears make-up like this and wears those clothes, I feel like I don't know her AT ALL. SHE IS A COMPLETE STRANGER TO ME WHEN SHE IS MODELING. A COMPLETE STRANGER I TELL YOU! EVEN THOUGH SHE IS MY BEST FRIEND!". Seriously, what the fuck? Last time I checked, I signed up for philosophy classes. Not the deranged ramblings of crazypeople.
Oh, and then we had this theory that tried to simplify the way we/our brains recognize things. Imagine that all the information your senses collect are filtered by some generic "filter" (I say generic because the theory didn't bother explain it at all) and through that filter, the information passes on and leaves "spots" on our personal "map" (yeah, right). The class would then go on and on about that filter, everyone topping a previous theory with one that was even more absurd, and more importantly not to be proven. Since we are neither psychologists nor biologists, I found it was really a moot point discussing this any further, but guess what, our teacher just threw it out there: "Now what to do with your map if our souls are eternally reborn, which I myself am a firm believer in?". "Yeah, well, than that would bring down that whole fucking theory, wouldn't it?".
The sad thing is, I remember a time when class was actually fun. Mostly because we had a different teacher and due to the fact that there were only 3 people actually participating.

der_metzger @ 2006-04-17T20:52:00

2006-04-17T18:44:53Z

I find it amusing how I always tend to come back to LJ after about 6 months, knowing that I won't stay for more than 2-3 entries. So much for being consequential.
A couple of days ago Nils and I were driving through Kaltenkirchen (I almost wrote 'the city', but that'd be somewhat of an overstatement) when a biker (one of the kind that seems to be spawned on the roads as soon as it's springtime) kept sticking to our bumper although Nils was already going too fast by about 10km/h. His comment "Fahr endlich schneller, du Penner!", obviously prompted Nils to abide the law and lower his speed accordingly. Infuriated, the biker passed us. This would not be worth mentioning if he had not pulled right into the wrong side of a one way. Moron.

der_metzger @ 2005-08-25T21:35:00

2005-08-25T19:43:40Z

Click here.
Take the quiz.
Post your results.
1) Is mettchen 1337? 1 d0|\|7 |<|\|0\/\/, |)4\/\/6
2) bottleofwater's eye color? a deep, watery transparent
3) If redscarfboy and roterschal were spliced together, what would be its name? Chris? I don't get it
4) Has amourinmusik dyed their hair? I know my friend Gerhard does.
5) Is wos athletic? most definitely
6) Where would venaja most like to visit? anywhere outside California? Berlin maybe
7) What is der_kommandant's favorite food? blood & iron, delicious pastry
8) Where was venaja born? somewhere in China, I just realize I never bothered asking where exactly
9) Does tjej know mettchen? I do not think so
10) What rank would bottleofwater have in a giant robot army? "coolant"
11) What song/movie would you recommend to redscarfboy? before I did that I'd ask him where the hell he has been hiding
12) If der_kommandant commanded an army, who would be his/her followers? a mighty legion of death
13) Is wos related to twencenboy? I doubt it
14) Is amourinmusik popular? Vikings aren't popular, they are feared
15) If tjej had a superpower, what would it be? shooting lethal brain waves?
16) Does twencenboy travel a lot? I have no idea
17) What is redscarfboy's favorite color? Well, duh
18) Is amourinmusik your best friend? a sister in arms, at least
19) Would bottleofwater be a better ninja or pirate? AHAHAHa, have you never pondered the possibility of a pirate ninja, fool? I think that'd be perfect for her
20) How long would redscarfboy dating tjej last? maybe as long as his girlfriend takes to find out?
21) Does redscarfboy do drugs? Lots of them. When I met him, he had 3 needles in his arm at once
22) What is bottleofwater's favorite band/artist? what was this crazy banjo player called? Earl Scruggs? Just guessing, anyway
23) Would you wrestle venaja in jello? ahhaha, that'd be the event of millenia to come
24) Does wos smoke? it is smoking hot, yes
25) What planet should venaja be from? A planet with only herself, many squishy kitties and a lot of fuzz on it
26) What is bottleofwater allergic to?
27) What would you do if wos died? It was once thought dead and yet it is still here. I do not worry.
28) If wos was a superhero, who would be his/her archnemesis? disconnects
29) Are twencenboy and amourinmusik going steady? my English has its limits
30) Have you ever dated amourinmusik? no, there is no time for romance when you're knee deep in the dead

Shamelessly taken from twencenboy

Poetry

2005-08-22T18:04:13Z

Yes, we will be focusing on poetry this semester. Finally. Our first task was to write an acrostic. Our teacher gave us the phrase "WRITING POETRY" as the first letters, so here is what I made of it:

Writing poetry while being forced is kicking
Rad.
I feel pure eloquence flowing
Through my veins.
It is hard to be so articulate,
Nothing left unexpressed.
Groundshaking,

Poetry flows
Out of me.
Eternally damned to do the weirdest
Tasks, sanity at stake, mind
Reeling, I am coming for
You

I thought that was so awful that it couldn't be kept from the public. MY teacher was actually very thrilled and demanded that we keep "exceptionally good work, like we just heard" in a special folder. My sides were splitting.

der_metzger @ 2005-02-10T19:57:00

2005-02-10T18:57:00Z

Alright, here goes something different. I will translate a philosophical essay - that scored me 14 points - simply for practice.

"Adaption and Resistance"
To support my thoughts regarding this topic, I'd like to refer to Ervin Goffman's thesis which says that there are two - opposing - identities inherent to man;
there is the social identity, virtually a product of demands and rules the social environment imposes upon the individual. The personal identity however resembles the uniqueness of the individual as it would occur without said social influences.
The balance between those two identities, says Goffmann, is what leads to the actual [for lack of an appropiate English term :] "Ich-Identitaet". Furthermore he claims the ability to bear this balance to be a requirement for the "Ich-Identitaet" itself.
This leads me to the actual problem as announced by the title.
Bearing and keeping this balance comes not without its troubles; there are situations where one is bound to ask oneself whether a compromise between the demands of the environment and those of the individual are even possible - or desirable. For lack of a more eloquent example, it might be helpful if we imagine a soldier. There is but one thing asked of him: obedience - even if that means harming and/or killing another person. However, our soldier deems it morally and ethically wrong to kill. No balance, no compromise is to be found there. Either he is obedient and betrays himself [the individual] or he stays true to himself and (knowingly or unknowingly) disregards the social identity.
Once we look at it detached from the example given, we might find that the result of multiple failed such "balancing acts" can only be a disturbed "Ich-Identitaet".
The conclusion can only be:
One who wholly adapts can only lose. Yet one who only resists has nothing to gain.

Feel free to correct mistakes, suggest changes - I can only learn from it.
About the essay itself I can only say that I wrote it in a hurry and didn't think much about (and of) it, yet my teacher deemed it worthy of 14 out of 15 points.

My eternal gratitude goes out to Katherine for the pointers she has given.

My English and weightlifting bears rock

2004-05-10T19:33:11Z

This is my English exam. Hell, I should get a prize or something. The bear stamp was a good start, anyway.

der_metzger @ 2004-05-05T21:22:00

2004-05-05T19:20:23Z

Well.. Yesterday it happened. I was reading Nietzsche's "Also sprach Zarathustra". Suddenly it all became clear. I fully understood what the hell he was talking about. Then I watched TV and it was all GONE!
No more TV. Ever.

Our English teacher is stupid

2004-04-19T12:46:13Z

Well, so my essay was the best thing mankind has ever seen. My teacher actually asked me if I was secretly native (even though my prounuciation is not even close to that) or if I had been living in an English speaking country etc.. I rule. Rico doesn't, as seen in this picture:

Now look at that. In the beginning she wrote a 6, but it looks like she changed her mind and made a 3 out of it. Then she turned it into a 5. Last but not least, she just wrote a 4 beneath that "thing".
Damn, I want more readers. More people to admire me.

Bus rides are fun

2004-04-05T12:49:29Z

What you see here, my friends, is a wild banana, devouring its prey, a terribly unlucky candy paper!
Nature, so cruel and yet so beautiful
And from documentary to art:
I am the definition of an artist

der_metzger @ 2004-01-11T21:25:00

2004-01-11T20:32:46Z

This weekend was just completly awesome. When I was waiting for Katherine at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, I actually started talking to this woman I thought to be Katherine, but all of a sudden I realized she looked like one of those poor animals they use for testing makeup, so I knew that wasn't her. When we had found each other, she gave me this little Dutch house made of porcelain, which actually had very tasty liquor in it. On the car, I actually had to translate a lot of English into German and German into English, just like I did throughout the whole weekend.
Katherine's German was a lot better than my mom's English, though. I am actually too lazy to write a real entry now, plus Katherine already posted about it. But take my advice: don't watch Band of Brothers (in Dolby Digital, because of my awesome home-cinema system) in 10 straight hours. Afterwards I felt like I was one of those soldiers in WWII. But the calming, continous sound of a MG42 actually worked better than a lullaby on me.
I'll just stop here and conclude this was awesome, even though I sometimes missed the "CynicalWaffle" in front of what Katherine said.
Hopefully I can visit her in Berlin.

der_metzger @ 2003-12-28T22:39:00

2003-12-28T21:35:27Z

Just so incredibly bored. Someone put me out of this misery.

der_metzger @ 2003-12-08T21:28:00

2003-12-08T20:26:59Z

So, I am bored. Nothing ever happens. Today we had a blackout. No shower, no nothing before school. I was very happy. In school, English class pissed me off, because we're reading a book and in two classes we managed to progress to page 3. Fuck that. "When the author wrote 'It was raining.', did he mean rain? What kind of rain? What does rain stand for? Do I deserve death?". Now I have a terrible headache, but at least I'm on skype with Katherine. That kind of saved my day. Except I'm hungry. Not on skype with Katherine anymore. [insert random rant here]. People suck. Humanity sucks. [another rant]. Blah, blah.

der_metzger @ 2003-11-24T14:20:00

2003-11-24T13:26:49Z

Today was the day of the math exam. Wow. I wrote for exactly 45 minutes and I thought I was doing OK. So in the break, we talked about it and I realized I wasn't doing that well. I was somehow mad and disappointed, because for the first time in years I had the hope of getting something better than '5'. The fucking Eroerterung in German was a 3. Well, I can live with it. I'll get my English exam back on Monday, probably as early as Friday, but I screwed that up, too.

der_metzger @ 2003-11-18T19:49:00

2003-11-18T18:51:20Z

Today was a very strange day. I can't tell why, all day I felt like I was only spectator. Does anyone of you know that feeling? Wait, let me be more realistic. Katherine, do you know that feeling? Other than that, Madleine made muffins for me. Well, not exactly. They were supposed to be for her family, but they didn't like them. So who gets them? Me. I'm the perfect trash can. Hit my foot and shove it down my throat (except that won't work when I'm wearing my boots).
Did I mention the English exam? I fucked up. No glory in this one. I'm hungry.

A promise to myself

2003-11-16T20:34:21Z

On Saturday, I bought 2 DVDs. That makes a total of 3 in my collection. I have "Grave Digger - Tunes of Wacken", "Natural Born Killers" and "Reservoir Dogs". And a few hundred SVCDs & DiVX movies. But from now on, I will spent all my spare money on DVDs and CDs. No more downloading (well, maybe for previewing purposes :p). Now it may be 3 DVDs, in 2 months, it'll be 300 !!!

der_metzger @ 2003-11-13T20:50:00

2003-11-13T19:52:34Z

Being on skype with Katherine is just plain awesome, so that's about all I have done for a few days now.

der_metzger @ 2003-11-03T21:01:00

2003-11-03T20:11:27Z

Another day of boredom draws towards an end. Today in school I had my head hammered with bullshit. Guess what I've learned from it? Nothing. Now I'm watching "POPSTARS - The Finals". What do I learn from that? The mass is easy to manipulate. Give them some either a) "good looking" females dressed like barbies, who dance to computermade sounds like they had spasms, or b) some badass ghetto looking gangstaz, whose pants look like they were wearing (filled) diapers, and they'll buy the records like there's no tomorrow. Damn, I could go on and on about this. It fascinates me.
I feel sick, drank too much water in too not enough time. Also I'm listening to that POPSTARS crap. Save me.

der_metzger @ 2003-11-02T21:26:00

2003-11-02T20:28:28Z

Today I ate fleisch. It was delicous, just like real fleisch. It was awesome. Then I played Diablo 2. It was awesome, too. They I talked on skype with some old friends from my clan. Now I'm on skype with Katherine. This is awesome, too. Conclusion, this day was just a standard Sunday, and I hate Sundays. Goodbye!