So this is a premiere. I have never done this before and I am pretty nervous and I have no idea if it’s working or if it will have the same flow and style but I promised. So here we go (Salut Jérémy :p).

It turned out that I kind of reached some state of fame. Mostly, negative, as far as I heard and noticed. I think I am turning into the secret villain of this seminary, the evil queen, that most of the people want to avoid, that is walking unwillingly to all the workshops, rejecting cheerful and way too loud „Good mornings!“ and absolutely senseless small talks. Actually, I am kind of conditioned now to those like Pavlov’s dog: Every time somebody only lets themselves fall down on the chair next to me I wince in fear of being slapped in the face with another question like „So, who are you at all?“. I must say, after six days and the feeling of a hundred conversations like that, I feel „kind of exhausted“. Warning: as this piece of writing is neither academic, nor scientific nor in any kind absolutely serious (This is just not my style. Although I might seem absolutely annoyed here, normally I am a very cheerful person, I like to be nice and friendly and I love to just smile at people. I just don’t feel like it here. And this has never happened to me before.) please just bear in mind that I personally love satirical writing. If you don’t then I recommend you to follow a gardening blog or something.

After my second workshop today which was some kind of „dream journey to myself“ (really interesting indeed although I am sorry that I couldn’t take it as serious as I should have to) I had a very interesting talk with one of the few people here I actually enjoy talking to. Well, „a few“ is not absolutely true, there are quite some people I actually like to talk to here. Anyway he made me aware of some really interesting things. As these days are full of new awarenesses above all, it was good to add another awareness to my pool of new awarenesses. It is very interesting that we learn here everyday that we are not supposed to judge each other and especially not to judge anybody we don’t know and thus there are so many people that like to judge other people, preferably behind there backs. Dear judgmental people, would you like to criticise me, would you like to complain about me, would you like to discuss with me or interact with me in any way? I would love to as well. So I kindly invite you to write some comments or to meet up for a coffee to tell me either in which way you think I offended you or in which way I am an arrogant cow or whatever. But I would really like to be confronted with that just to know. Because I am not a wise guy. Pun intended. 😉 Oh but one wise piece of advice I could give to you is the following: Practise being on your own as much as you can as you will be all alone soon in a foreign place very far away from home. We are learning so much here but unfortunately this is one very essential thing that we are not learning here it all.

Today when I was standing in line in the dining hall and once again was looking at this huge „Meat eaters are climate killers“-style poster with all its arguments I had to think of this extremely delicious Steak Tartare I had in Paris a couple of weeks ago when I was still a dumb and shameless and irresponsible person. People in France don’t seem to care about sustainability at all. But they seem to care a lot about gluttony and indulgence and oh god how much I miss those two. Eating that steak was so politically incorrect. But sometimes it just tastes so good to be politically incorrect. Sometimes I just want to let go, you know? Just to be sustainable with your own body and soul. Yes, I like that.

So after having my dream workshop and talking in the sun I went down to the lake. I was listening to music on my very capitalistic mobile with my very capitalistic headphones and I guess the music I was listening to was also way too capitalistic. But as I was walking alone through the woods by the lake, over sticks and roots, with the sun shining sparkling above the water surface, I actually felt the happiest and calmest since this whole thing has started. I was watching two swans diving and swimming and a granddad on a bicycle who was wearing Nike sneakers. Ahh, sorry Grandpa, you know that you are pretty much feeding the capitalistic system, don’t you? I was finally alone in the woods by the lake and I felt brilliant. Nobody was bothering me. Nobody was judging me. Nobody was screaming with a bulldozer-voice into my ear. That was actually really nice. Solitude seems to be a very rare resource these days.

For dinner, I even managed to have one table all for myself. I think by now even my coach is pretty annoyed by me because I am bringing the others down with all my nagging and my anti-attitude. I don’t intend to bring anybody down or to offend anybody or to be a complaining grumpy cat. Why would I? Way too exhausting. It’s just that – this whole thing is just not my thing. I think this is pretty clear by now. I can’t change it and I am trying hard but I can’t do magic either and so I am just counting the days and the workshops and can’t wait to finally break free into civilization again. Tomorrow it’s our day off and I am already allowed and able to leave the compounds. YES.

It just occurred to me that in one week it’s my first working day at Goethe-Institut in Accra. This is crazy. I am so nervous and so looking forward to going. And I am also very excited to see how long lasting the contents of this whole seminary will be and to what extent they will be applicable to the real world. I am happy to see.

C Ya.