Living a Dream

There's a popular phrase when people talk about improving themselves: "Be the change you want to see in the world." It's attributed to Gandhi, although that's pretty suspect ( source ) and there's no proof of him ever saying it (welcome to the internet!), and it appears on bumper stickers, motivational screenshots, and Facebook posts of girls aged 17-22. Since it's not Gandhi, and there's no really telling who popularized the phrase in the first place, you might think that I'm in the process of making fun of it and our culture for making "something" out of things that are really nothing. But that's not what I'm gonna do. Instead of being my normal angry-old-man self, I'm going to actually support this quotation and give an example. Everyone seems to think the world is trending in the wrong direction: gun deaths are up, religious insanity is *way* up, intolerance of LGBT/women/minority rights is somehow both up and down at ...

One of Jenna's friends from home lives in Stuttgart, Germany on a US military base. Stuttgart is known for having a big Christmas market. We would be free on Thanksgiving weekend, and it seemed like a US military base would be a good place to spend some time around Thanksgiving. Just a few hours away is the famously beautiful Neuschwanstein Castle, where we could day trip. Also nearby, Ritter Sport chocolate factory, also known as one of the greatest places in the entire world. This, it seemed, would be a wonderful weekend. On Thursday (Thanksgiving in the States) I had to cancel my lessons due to some violent illness that left me nearly unconscoius on a train. It didn't get much better. I toughed it out on Saturday morning to get on the flight and spent the majority of the weekend occupying a (rather pleasant) bathroom in our caring host's home. I made a hell of a first impression. It wasn't all disaster from me though. We did go to the chocolate factory and pu...