Wow, it's been quiet here.
And I'm sorry for that.
It's just that every time I considered writing, I just thought "Well, there is nothing to write about" and I felt like it would just be boring to tell you that yes, I'm still unemployed, I'm still semi-living with my parents, I'm still broke (right now, even more so because I wasn't fast enough to stop the KfW from charging the first quarter of one my two student loans. But at least I know "only" owe the German state 9k € instead of 10k...) and that I still hate the situation. I have been cooking, and there actually are two recipes I still need to type up here, and I have even been crafting again (continuing to knit the plaid I now call The Green Monster because it is really, really green, really, really heavy and really, really hard to finish, and a new doorwreath for the winter season. Anyone want to see it?) but it's nothing really interesting or exciting.
I've been having lots of thinky thoughts on US politics (actually, more on US politics than on German politics, which is kind of stupid because it's not like there's nothing happening in German politics. In fact, there's happening a lot, it's just not that much of a train wreck as US politics is. Well, yet, anyway) and nuclear deterrence and the gutting of the State Department (I cannot get over just how thoroughly the Trump Admin is destroying Foggy Bottom) and democracy and the entire complex of a political military vs. a politicized military, though but I lacked the motivation to get them into something at least sort of resembling coherent writing. Would anyone here be interested in a couple takes on US politics from someone not living in the US but having strong opinions, anyway?
I have also been doing a bit of reading, mainly Susan Bordo's The Destruction of Hillary Clinton (I loved how she dissassembled each and every stupid claim about the Clintons but I relished her bitterness about how the American left treated and keeps treating Hillary) and right now Hillary's What Happened (which is definitely her most personal book yet. I have also stopped reading it on public transport (which is usually my main place to read non-fiction) because I keep tearing up again and again and Hillary, you are breaking my heart please stop!) and Alyssa Mastromonaco's Who Thought This Was A Good Idea? And Other Questions You Should Have Answers To If You Work In The White House which is both incredibly informative and hilarious, in a sort of Bridget Jones meets Scandal meets Designated Survivor in the real world kind of way. I'm considering going for Richard Clarke's Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes next (i.e. when I'm not broke anymore. So probably sometime next year...). Or, you know, finally finishing Susan Power's A Problem From Hell, and Das Amt und die Vergangenheit (a very comprehensive and thorough account of the German Foreign Office's contribution to Third Reich politics and crimes) by Conze, Frei, Hayes and Zimmermann sounds like a good idea, too. So, lots of non-fiction reading material to work my way through.
But other than that... writing job applications, getting rejection letters, the usual. Like I said, boring, boring, boring :(
So, how are you, folks?