I’m totally ashamed by my last post. What an asshole to think I’d be able to reduce my social interactions in the last month in a 3-paragraph post and a shitty picture of my room. I’m writing this post (a really long one) to make it up for that last one.

Heres’ the deal. Every time I make a new friend, it kinda tells me a little bit more about myself, and it feels like I’m in need of that right now. Before I came here, I had a pretty solid image of who I was, or thought I was. And now, between the days without eating, excessive drinking, late night studying and constant exposure to everybody’s existentialist ideas, that image is starting to slowly fade away. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. I don’t think so, to be honest. I’m not done creating myself. It’d be very stupid to think you can stop reinventing yourself at 25. I sometimes feel that’s what Donald Trump did, but whatever.

So, even though I should be writing an essay about the SCOT methodology (sociologists’ mumbo-jumbo, pay no attention) I will actually devote some time to divide my latest social interactions in two main groups and I will explain how that has taught me something about my self.

Group #1. The guys I see every day, every time. The people I live with. The majority of them are german and are studying something related to art. (that is, visual or plastic arts). They’re much more visually creative than me, and they’ve managed to build up a pretty colorful and alternative house. Their paintings and drawings are everywhere! And should I mention we live in what used to be a night club? That means there’s literally a bar next to the living room. And we take it a little bit serious. Beer is one of the house commodities, so we have to make sure there’s always beer in the house. We have a system, which of course includes dish soap, oil, napkins, etcetera, I’m still trying to get my head around it. These guys are part of the underground art scene of my current town, they help organize the best underground electronic/hardcore/techno parties, and contrary to my previous belief, German people are actually super friendly. Though it would be fair to mention that sometimes they forget I don’t speak German and I cannot understand a word when they’re speaking to each other. To be honest, I feel sort of like a loser. I do. I get home so late from being at the Uni all day and I’ll go straight to my room to keep reading while they’re watching German Talk Shows or just plain drinking and having a good time. They must think I’m a nerd, and I’m starting to realize I might be one. It doesn’t feel that bad when you realize it’s the only way to achieve the kind of life you want to achieve, but sometimes I’ll forget about it, come home, and feel like the loser. On one hand is nice to have some distraction at home and realize party is just outside my room’s door.

Group #2: My classmates. They are VERY smart, and I’m still a little bit afraid of speaking my mind, not only at class. They have such different backgrounds and some of them will refer, multiple times during a discussion, to books they’ve read in their life and I’m just trying to deal with the fact that I’m the worst and less disciplined reader of the whole class. My thoughts and opinions are not garbage though, and these things we’re discussing in a “sociological approach to science” class, I don’t agree with it. They have this theory(?) or programme that says all scientific knowledge is just a social construct. And just is the word here, because I don’t mind wrapping my head around the idea that there are some social components that can influence some of the interpretation of the scientific evidence, but, and I’ve said this to them many, many times: a physical law, is a physical law. And I’ve been engaging in a lot of discussions with friends, who are, of course, sociologists. I will not address every point of our discussion, I believe that deserves a post on its own, but my point now is they must see me as this square-head, narrow-minded engineer. I just explained to them the Pi tattoo is in my arm because I truly believe math is the language of the universe (shout out to Galileo). And I want a second tattoo of the cosmological model of the origin of the universe, Lambda Cold Dark Matter, which of course is the scientific approach to explain the universe and its origin with Physics. I’m not narrow-minded, I just think you should accept scientific knowledge as the objective truth of what can be observed in nature.

And this last thing going on in my mind has really started to make me wonder if I’m in the right master programme. I wonder if all of this parts from the idea that science is a social construct. The impact has been that strong. And I think that, after all, I’m not interested in staying in the lab, or computing complex theories as theoretical physicists do. I’m also not interested in designing rocket ships, I just want people to take science as their source of objective knowledge to draw public policies with it. Going to a philosophy/sociology inclined programme seemed like the right way to go. Who knows if I’m in the right place, but I’m holding my ground.

Scientific Knowledge = Objective Truth of Observable Universe =
Foundation for Global Policies  

Do you have a better idea of who I am because of this post? I kinda have. We’re making some progress. I hope the words for my assignment will come to my mind as fast as the words for this post did. Thank you for reading through my nonsense, next time I’ll come up with something substantial and useful.

Update: I obviously changed my mind. But this post is not going anywhere, it’s a cute reminder of where I come from and I’m not ashamed of that.

This week I’ve been having the opportunity to know my roomies better.  I was afraid of them because they all seem so much cooler than me and I felt like the Mexican idiot who came to study philosophy of technology. But they turned out to be really nice people, each of them has a unique personality I like. I always forget people don’t really give a shit about your life, they mind their own business. And everybody here wants to get along, why wouldn’t we? It’d be really annoying to be in the class, or live with, or party with someone you don’t like.

So I’ve been trying to be friends with the people I’ve met in the Uni as well, I still run into some new people every once in a while. They’re all young and are either studying or just recently graduated. Everybody has a different story of why they’re here, and we like to talk each other about it. You’re in a meeting and you realise that guy from Indonesia knows how to play guitar and starts singing a cool Indonesian song, and the Finnish couple gets out a salty liquorice to drink, and the Italian girl gets the red wine.

And then there are classes. And the people who go with me to classes. We’re a group of 26 people, we want to be philosophers of science and technology. I’m not the only engineer, as a matter of fact, most of us have engineering backgrounds. People with philosophy background tend to participate more in class. They’re very smart. And I’ve been a little afraid of talking because I’m afraid, as I always am, that everyone will think I’m an idiot. But I’ve been reading a lot as well. Trying to remind myself to not have fear in class and just expose my ideas to get valuable feedback I guess.

I guess, okay! I’m out.

The trip was, well – exhausting. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired in my life. I managed to stay awake the whole day with the jet lag so I could sleep all night in this new time zone.

The only part of the city I got to know was the road from my house to the university, which is 20 min away, bus or bike. Well, I don’t have a bike yet, turns out I’m too short for the bike I was going to buy so I need to keep looking for one that suits me, probably in the Hobbit store. I also lost my OV-chipkaart card for taking the bus after the first use, which means I need to a) find it, b) buy a new one c) pay the bus rides in cash. I’m still rooting for plan A but I’m not the best finding things when I haven’t slept for 36 hours.

My room is really tiny. But, really, really tiny. I do have a shower inside my room which is cool, but there’s a clog in the piping we need to fix. There’s a bunk bed I need to disassemble and get rid of because the mattress is literally a foot from the roof. Something about sleeping with the roof on my nose doesn’t sound very appealing, so until I can disassemble that thing and get it out of the room I’m sleeping in a borrowed sleeping bag on the floor. I haven’t really talked to all my roomies because besides the fact that I’m very shy and awkward and this is all too overwhelming to me and I want to run away and hide in my room every time someone talks to me, well, I haven’t had much time.

Thanks to the Universe Lore lives in the same city. She made dinner for me and lent me her OV-chipkaart so I could come back home. I really need to sleep. Tomorrow’s the introductory day at the University. Let’s hope my brain works better in the morning and everything changes to a positive discourse. Until then.

Because you feel like you cannot take one more day of this 9 to 5. There’s a fire in your heart that’s telling you to go away as far as you can. Telling you something needs to be done, for your sake, for the sake of people, for the sake of the planet, making you feel like your purpose is way bigger than the money in your bank account, the chair you’re sitting on, or any title you can get. And you convince yourself it’s all going to work out. Somehow, things always work out.

But then you’re there and it’s all finally happening and your bank account has no money. You feel overwhelmed by the change. And you’re all by yourself and you realize you have no idea if it really is going to work out. And you forget about everything you wanted first, and fear overtakes your brain and it gets pretty dark inside your head. And you want to call it quits. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking right, I’m not ready for this, I’m not going to make it. I don’t know that much about life yet. This was a mistake”.

But you have to remember. You have to remember what was like having that dream, you have to move your hands violently and clear the fog and look at what’s ahead on the road. And when you ask yourself “How did I ever thought this was going to work out?” Remember you told yourself it was YOU who was going to make it work. It was you who was willing to sacrifice time, money and friends for it. And it won’t be easy. You gave up comfort and reassurance and a path everybody knows. You exchanged that for the unknown, the uncertainty. And if you were courageous enough to step on that path by yourself, you’re courageous enough to walk it.  And if you make it past the anxiety attacks, the drugs cravings, the procrastination, depression and overall shitstorm from your own mind, what needs to be done is waiting for you. And you are completely capable of doing it. So do it.