Perspective

I am a strong believer in:

"Change your location, to change your perspective, to change your thoughts."

(I imagine others would spin it from the other direction:
"change your thoughts, to change your perspective, to change your life")

I studied English and Spanish Literature as my undergraduate degree. I had to take one 'Modern Literature' requirement to fulfill the requirements--I chose 'Modern Literary Criticism'. It was the one of the best things I have ever fallen into, having fought it a little prior to sucking it up and succumbing to it. My primary reason for choosing it was that I didn't like the 'primary' Modern Lit professor, so I wanted something from the 'secondary' one, and this fit the schedule as well as making me more well-rounded, as it was my final year and I had no such course earlier.

One of the main items I took away from this course was the point of one of the essays, to paraphrase:
"All great works of art (literature, music, painting, etc) only come after turbulent historical times. Strife creates emotion which creates art."
It proceeded to give multiple examples, such as Picasso and others in connection to WW2, and other historical examples along the same vein.

I believe that holds true overall in life. One cannot create greatness without having to overcome something in the process. Great things do not come after steady times, they only come after strife where one can truly find oneself.

I had a few different seats this week, so I met some different people and had a chance to see and talk to different people than usual....

Most interesting to me this week--there is a woman at Benevolent Company J who is very close to my age, perhaps in a similar career level in a different area, who is an expat over here in the UK. I had met her about five years ago or so in the US. We could not be more different as she has a very different personality and style from me. Nothing against her personally, we have pleasant enough conversations, but we are exact opposites in personality and style so we have very little common ground.

She came to the UK almost two years ago as an expat for benevolent company J and has decided to go home after her two year assignment here. A few key points:

-I spent the first five months of my company J career in the UK.
-In retrospect, I would have loved to stay here instead of going to DE.
-Going to DE made me a lot stronger, so it's not necessarily bad.

I was interested to hear why she was going home. After having to jump through a lot of hoops to make the UK happen for myself, I was curious as to her incentives to go home, as Benevolent company J would have preferred that she stay another year or more.

"It's just too hard here!"
Most interesting. And I do mean that quite seriously, I like to try to understand what people say, and why they say it.

Tonight is the Thursday of Easter weekend. My DE colleagues--I'm sure you battled the crowds today to shop as the stores are closed tomorrow. They're mobbed again Saturday, and then (shudder) closed Sunday and Monday. (Thus the source of my annual exodus to the Netherlands.)

-->Do you want to know the UK schedule for the big supermarkets?

Open Thursday (normal hours)
Open Friday
Open Saturday
Closed Easter Sunday
Open Monday

I would never have appreciated this properly, had I not lived in DE where everything ground to a halt this weekend. Or worse, I had to leave this weekend, because DE was shut-down in effect, for visiting with family (of which I had none in DE).

So it's nothing against the DE way of life, or my US colleage for going home...but I am so very happy to be over here right now. I think I tend to appreciate it more having seen other options...and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing...

danger or opportunity?

The past week has been in flux. The universe finally coughed up a sign to answer my question.

In response I kicked off a few events which spawned even more surprising changes. Hmm. Not yet ready for prime time.

In other topics, I mentioned a while back that I was applying for grad school, to be able to attend part-time while working full-time. Today I received the acceptance letter from here. Now the question--do I want to attend? And how does it relate to other future plans now envisioned?

thinking...
thinking....

Divine fate

Is giving me a second opportunity, a grave warning, or looking for a confirmation of a de facto decision. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out which is it yet. Seeking a third sign to provide clarity.

Listening list these days, on repeat:

• Peter Gabriel - Secret Word (Live)
• Foo Fighters - Times Like These
• The Killers - Human
• Herbert Grönemeyer - Mensch
• The Cure - Pictures of you

Back to the usual mundane posts about the logistics of moving from Germany to the UK shortly...

Why didn't you leave earlier?

Since Frank asked in the comments...
Even when I know why and what your problems could have been in "good old germany", my question is: Why didn't you leave earlier? I hope that wasn't to much of German directness. Enjoy the UK

I love German directness, btw. The fact that you recognize that it could be seen as 'directness' confirms the fact that you are dating an American. I don't think that the average German would see it as 'directness' but more as 'a question'. ;-) However, the direct answer:

1. As an average American, it's difficult (but not impossible) to get permission to work in Europe.
One cannot up and decide 'I want to go work in Europe' the same way that a French person decides one morning to go work in Portugal. IF you do not have an EU spouse or another route like an EU parent, options are limited to get a foot in the door and to get over here. You take what you can get. Germany (in my personal experience in looking at various options as an IT person), is one of the easiest EU countries for an American to legally enter, without holding pre-existing local language skills. Others may have had other experiences.

2. Once you're here, in general you're still tied to your company/job.
Granted, there are various options in so many countries. However, my work permit configuration looked like this:
2003 - 1 year permit - tied to my job/company
2004 - 1 year permit - tied to my job/company
2005 - 1 year permit - tied to my job/company
2006 - 2 year permit - tied to my job/company
2008 - 2 year permit - not tied to my job/company, but limited to Germany
later in 2008 - at the 5 year point I traded up for an unbefristet permit, so a permit without an expiration, not tied to my job/company, but limited to Germany.

I was originally only supposed to be in Germany for 3 months before moving on to Spain and then France. Company J changed the rules though after year 1.

In the early years it would have been possible to change jobs, to another German company who would be willing to pick up the sponsorship of my work permit, but not easy. Or to change to another European country would have been almost the same as trying to come over from America, not easy.

During the 2000's, unemployment has remained high in Europe. I recognize that to have a job in Europe, as a non-EU person, was a blessing. From a language skills perspective, Spain would have been the only place where I'd have a bit of an advantage, but I'd suggest that it's one of the toughest to enter due to the restrictions they put on foreign workers in an effort to protect jobs in their high unemployment climate. Benevolent company J tried to get me over there for 3 months but got enmeshed in paperwork so it never happened.

In the later years by the I had the unlimited permit I had already come to the conclusion that I did not want to work for a different company in Germany, but rather, not in Germany so it was time to sit tight and re-evaulate options.

3. Financial reasons
A. I was paid as an expat for the first three years here. Financially it made sense for me.
B. I qualified for a financial benefit from my company, as long as a stayed with them until the five year point (March 2008). So really, years 1-3 made financial sense, and to add on another 2 years, well, why not at that point?

4. the unlimited work permit
Even if I never work in Germany ever again, I recognize the value of the EU work permits in my passport, and that I did get the unlimited permit from Germany (Sept 2008). Unfortunately it has a short shelf life. Once I de-register from Germany I have 6 months to come back in order to be able to come back under this permit, otherwise it's back to square one. However, since I was already staying another 1,5 years, what's another 6 months on that? (Plus I was waiting during those 6 months for the UK paperwork to process, so I had nothing better to do.)

Thus 5 years in Germany semi-explained. :-/