Das Vaterland ruft: Anxious heißt nicht Angst

Anxious can mean really excited in a positive sense or a more negative sense of distress and worry. This is quite a paradox but for once I realize how one could feel both emotions about something.

Today, I think, for the first time, it really hit me what I am about to be doing. Moving to Germany. My language skills have vastly improved and I know they will get better still once I am submersed in it again. But I think I just realized how much I don't understand in comparison to how much I do understand. That scared me. I am not sure if I'm ready for it but I still feel willing to do it. I know the beginning won't be too hard because I'll be with other exchange students again, and actually I could probably get to know the exchange students every semester I'm at the university, so at least I have that. I suspect I will get the full "slap-in-the-face" awakening in about two or three years and in comparison, what I feel right now is quite minimal. Nevertheless, I am very anxious (in every sense of that word) about doing this. I don't really lie in bed awake at night and worry about it, it's not that sort of anxiety. Instead, I just feel it somewhere deep inside me like a sense of foreboding. I know that's completely normal to feel because I am leaving what is normal for me and replacing it with something exotic and that is the logical response in the time leading up to that transformation. It will be quite interesting to see how my feelings change once I am there but for right now, I'm having a bit of a hard time. Normally, I can just ignore that feeling but as I do things, such as pack my suitcases, it's unavoidable. It's got a pretty good grip on me at the moment and I just thought I'd post some feelings about it.

Willkommen

Welcome to my blog. Here, I will attempt to post descriptions of my life in Germany. I created this mainly to keep in touch with the people I left behind in the States but it's also a journal and a travelogue of sorts and anyone is welcome to read and comment. I moved to Germany because I felt it was simply what I needed to do with my life (please read "My Story" below). At the present, I am studying to earn my masters degree at the Technische Universität Dortmund. Where my life will take me after this particular segment is done, I do not know. But this is the record of this part of my journey. Of my adaptation to the German life, my explorations of the continent that drives my interest and my pursuit of higher education. But most importantly: my pursuit of the equilibrium my soul flirts with while I am in Germany relishing in the vast history and culture of my heritage. If you choose to read this, I thank you deeply for your interest in my life for that truly has value to me. I’d love to see comments and to hear from you all so don’t hold back.

My Story

My name is Michael Pude and I am a college student currently working on my masters at TU Dortmund. I was born and raised in Western North Carolina. My mother's family are of Italian descent and hail from Buffalo, New York. My father immigrated to the US from Germany in the 70s and when I was younger we took a couple trips to Germany to visit my relatives. I think I was too young at the time to understand the significance but I think I like that because ever since then, when I thought about Germany, it was quite intriguing. Not quite a mystery but more like a fuzzy picture in my mind. And as I grew up I felt a desire to see the picture clearly.

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I became very interested in my German heritage and German culture, history and eventually the language. I took four years of German in High School but sadly never practiced with my father. In college I found my passion in History. I loved learning history at the collegiate level. I found it so awesome I wanted to tell other people about the stuff I was learning. I decided I wanted to teach history. This double-major of History and Secondary Education which I took on, often led to me having to fill out paperwork to allow me to take more than the maximum number of credit hours each semester, in order to graduate in even five years. This unfortunately left no room for German and I only took one semester of it in college. I quickly, however, directed my entire focus on European History. I learned a great deal about Germany as well as the rest of Europe and I imagined myself later in life, traveling Europe and doing historical research. There was only one problem: I was imaging something that I hadn't actually experienced yet. It was clear to me then: I needed to get to Europe to figure this out for real. In my last year as an undergraduate, I was given the opportunity to finally study abroad. Germany was of course my first choice but I was open to all possibilities. I almost ended up in Estonia, actually. I dare you Americans to find Estonia on an unlabeled map. But as I thought more about it, I grew apprehensive. Everything I wanted in life hinged on this starting point and I feared I would fail in Europe. I felt I needed to go to Germany where I at least stood a chance because of my background knowledge in the culture and most importantly the language, which I had always struggled with by the way. I looked at the list of cities available to study and found Dortmund among them. The professional soccer team from Dortmund had always been my favorite because when I was younger I liked their black and yellow color scheme. I spent almost six months of 2009 in Dortmund as an exchange student and cataloged the time in another blog entitled Püde Abroad. While I was there, I met Anne, my amazing girlfriend. She is from a small town in the mountains about two hours east of Dortmund that reminds me of where I grew up. She is also studying at the university to be a teacher and we simply understood each other very well and began to hang out. She informally taught me the vast majority of my language skills. By the end of the semester, I was one of the two Americans that had found a significant other in Germany and I really, really didn't want to go back to North Carolina. From August 2009 until March 2010, I spent most of my time talking to Anne per Skype or ICQ and putting in a lot of hours at Ardenwoods, the retirement community I work at. I also used this time to slowly come to terms and prepare myself for the inevitable life alteration that had been looming since I got on a plane to leave Germany that August. I had to go back. This time for good. I decided to return to Dortmund to study History and English at a post-graduate level and earn a degree with which I could teach those subjects.

3 comments:

Jes 17/2/10 04:21: Your anxiety is completely understandable, as you point out. I think I'd be more concerned if you had no anxiety at all. ;)

But think of it this way: you started on your awesome Dortmund adventure with few ties. IT WAS AFFENTOLL. Now, you have lots of ties to Dortmund. With the former as awesome as it was, how can the latter not be more awesome? :)

I think your language skills are probably at the point where you're good enough to know that you'll never be good enough. Which means you're doing pretty damn good!

Keep on keepin' on, mein Freund!
Michael 17/2/10 14:29: Thanks! Yeah I think I've just been in a funk lately... Last year was affentoll largly due to our adventures on the road. I need my travel buddies back! So seriously we're gonna have a reunion in a few years ok? I'll try not to see every square inch of Europe before we make that happen;-).
Tori 17/2/10 18:12: I like to think that my German skills are pretty good...but then I watch a German newscast or TV show and start getting freaked out by how much I don't understand. I start to doubt myself, my abilities, my plans, my potential for even learning the language....but we need to remember, like you said, that these skills will come in time, with submersion! So let's just keep on remembering how awesome we both are.

I can only imagine how you feel at this point. Right now I'm sort of sitting in limbo, waiting to hear back from my internship, waiting to know if i should start preparing for Plan A, Plan B, or Plan WTF...

i know two people from the University of Iowa who will be in Dortmund this semester, and I hope you get to know them. Noah (wendy's fiance), and Stu. there are so many great people to meet in dortmund, too, and i am still really jealous that you're getting to go back. (sorry this is turning out to be really long)

in a way, i hope i don't get my internship because the thought of coming back to dortmund is really exciting, and hearing you talk about going back makes me even more amped up.

thanks for this blog.