Yitz aka Isaac Wasileski ([info]agnoster) wrote,
@ 2009-10-08 13:58:00
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I've done some math. My courseload is 30 LP, or "Leistungspunkte" (Achievement Points?), each LP is estimated to be 30 hours of work. The semester is about 13 weeks. 900 hours over 13 weeks comes to about 70 hours a week, plus my 80hr/mo job (19ish hours a week)... my schedule's gonna be pretty packed. I've been more on less on vacation for months now, not sure how I'll adjust.

Oh, and I am expecting my German citizenship approval in the mail any day now, meaning it'll be time to go down to the American consulate and formally renounce my citizenship.

Whoa.

I blame Obama that I don't really want to. Such is life!

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[info]heatrose
2009-10-08 12:45 pm UTC (link)
hm, are you really happy with what obama's been doing? i was hoping he'd be considerably stronger in this health care mess.

on another note though, the US and germany dont allow dual citizenship?

on another another note, when does yr program start, and what is it in, and why are you doing it, and all those other quarter-life-crisis-questions?! i am in paris-- we should try to meet up somehow, eventually!

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[info]agnoster
2009-10-08 01:19 pm UTC (link)
I think blaming Obama for the "health care mess" is like blaming the teacher when kids are annoying little shits. The parents (aka the electorate) have been bad at raising their kids (aka congress) and now we're expecting Obama to magically turn them into conscientious, caring members of society who don't pick their noses and eat their boogers.

The US doesn't officially recognize dual citizenship, but doesn't have any laws forbidding it. Germany, on the other hand, does, so I have to give up any other citizenships I hold when I get my German citizenship.

My program starts next week, officially. It's Masters in CS (or Informatik as the Germans call it), with a specialization in Intelligent Systems (AI, basically). And Paris is not so far away! How long are you gonna be there? Are you going to have time to travel to other european cities? You should get a Eurail pass or something and see the continent before you leave! Berlin being a big part of that ;-)

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[info]heatrose
2009-10-09 03:39 pm UTC (link)
hm, well, to use the same metaphor, i'd say its more that there are vast disparities between parents (aka socioeconomic classes), and there are certain very powerful congealed masses that have managed to acquire more parental power than most of the parents themselves (corporations)... and there is a system that encourages this to happen (modern american capitalism).

going in another direction with the metaphor but keeping the congealed-mass-pseudo-parents in the mess, it's also more like blaming the teacher when some of the kids are bullying most of the other kids, and the parents who have the time, money, and interest are doing even more bullying than the kids, of everyone. yeah, so there are a lot of groups to blame in there, but the teacher should be doing certain things, like taking the sticks away from the bullies and teaching them the things that are really important for their education (or at least trying damn hard to), and not accepting the bullying by the congealed-pseudo-parents who have no business being involved at all (even if they offer him apples/campaign contributions).

(in fact, this metaphor doesnt do a bad job when you think about some charter school businesses)

of course there are other issues-- the media, the culture of political apathy/felt and real disempowerment that runs rampant, etc. the latter i think is what you were getting at, and that's definitely fair, but one of the few things obama was not vague about before the election was in saying health care is a right, not a privilege. and i wasnt expecting him to mean health care is a right-- for businesses who want to profit from it.

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[info]ryochiji
2009-10-09 01:05 am UTC (link)
I wonder how sticky the renouncement is... Something tells me that if you ever applied for a US passport again, they'll just give it to you.

Also, I'd like to see the face of the Marine guards when you tell them you're there to renounce your citizenship.

But yeah, I'm kinda dreading going back to work. I'm not sure I could actually sit in a cube for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, 50-ish weeks a year, for how ever many years I... ok. This is getting depressing already.

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[info]annabananaface
2009-10-15 02:07 am UTC (link)
These are very exciting things :). I'm especially excited that you are going back to school, because school is fun. That is why I intend never to leave. It is hard to come back from vacation, but good to get going again, too. Let me know how it goes, and good luck!

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