What I will miss of Germany

I woud like to ask people who lived in Germany for a while and now are somewhere else what do they miss of Germany. Some might say the beer, some others the perfect organisation of many public services, or others again the exhausting bureaucracy.
For me, I could think about two things in particular right now.

Happy people

I would like to ask why some people are so nice and helpful, like they always have a big smile on their face, and some other always make trouble and see the dark side of everything. These last ones seem to just absorb your energy and spread tiredness and willingness to complain. The other ones remind you with the most unexpected and little things that there actually are nice people around.
I would like to be one of these happy-spreading walking stars. They are not always fakely hypocritically happy, they have their bad moments, but they don't accuse the world for them. They just think, "Oh, whatever, I can't do anything for it, so who cares" and they don't get bothered. I'm envious!

I would like to ask what is their secret. Green tea? Pills? Sex? Innate wisdom? Happy family background? Well, I will just try to stay nearer to them... get some of their light, and learn from them. I hope I will! 

Dreaming, dreaming

I would like to ask whether you ever had this feeling you took all wrong decisions in your life. You do your stuff every day and you keep thinking about how many other things you could do, how much time you do NOT have to do what you enjoy, how many other people you could meet, in which other place you could be. You start dreaming and dreaming, and then you stop thinking about the relative safety your job and daily life gives you, and then you start again. Many job seems better than yours, many places seems better to leave than when you are.

Snow time

I would like to ask how many things can be seen only when snow is laying on the ground.
Today morning I could see I was the first one to leave my building. My footsteps left the first signs on the white steps.
I could also notice that the bus always stop in exactly the same place. The people taking the previous buses have jumped in exactly where I did.
The parents looks exhausted and exasperated while pulling the sledge with their kids, who complain about going too slow, or wanting to go up the hill once more.

Leuna

I would like to ask what are those lights appearing as a town almost suddenly from the nothing in the window of the night train. Everywhere is dark but you can then see a galaxy of bright yellow lights. The first thought goes to San Francisco, or New York City, where the lights define the shape and the form of the buildings, the color of which merges with the one of the dark sky. But then you get nearer, you pass an empty bleak station with no roof, but some grass even where it would not be expected to be. And you see a name: Leuna.

Christmas crowd shopping

[...i'm back...]

I would like to ask why there were so many people outside in the streets today. It was so full, one could barely walk without being pushed or hit by the others, or by one of their thousand bags they were carrying while also trying to get through the human mass floating and flooding around.
I am nowhere normally associated with a mass of people, like an Indian or Chinese metropole. I am in the downtown of a small city, but today is the third-but-last saturday before Christmas. As here on Sunday the shops are closed, this is basically one of the last three days in which everyone can go shopping, or better, Christmas shopping. No matter that everywhere lies snow and we are far below -10°C.

Seated break

I would like to ask what happens when you have finished all what you were supposed to do. When you sit down, on a rock in the park, on the chair in the kitchen drinking tea, or on the floor of an empty apartment. And you think, "men, I do not remember when it was the last time I was sitting like this". And the following thought is sometimes, "But what did I do all this time? Why could I not sit here?".

One step, one breath, one movement of brush

I would like to ask why sometimes things seem to be bigger than ourselves, then our forces and energies. Sometimes they are somewhere outside, sometimes they just occupi the whole living room and they look so huge to us: thoughts, things to be done, things to be tidied, situations to consider, email keeping going through our head.
Other times, we just start trying to do one piece at a time, one step at a time. As in "Momo" by Michael Ende, the long big road will never be cleaned if you consider it in its completeness, but it will be cleaned if you just focus on every step, "a step, a breath, a movement of the brush; a step, a breath, a movement of the brush"...
And so, at the end, when you sit down after having reached your little goal, you find out that the living room is empty, or tided, and that your mind is happier, and more satisfied of having considered all available possibilities.
And it seems, things just solve by themselves. Your effort was much tinier than expected. And you could even go on, one step, one breath... 

Writing, moving, sleeping

I would like to ask whether it makes more sense, now, to write something here or just to go to bed. I wanted to try to write something every day, or every couple of days, but the fact that I am moving is taking me so much energy and effort and time and thinking, that I am not able, in these days, to also think about something to say and then write it.

Unaware boys

I would like to ask whether the boys on the tram today see the lady who was trying to reach the tram door at the station. She was too slow on her wheelchair, she touch the button for opening the sliding door too late. But the boys could have just press the one to get out, and she would have managed.
I don't think they saw her. They were probably not mean, just distracted. They were looking at the newest mobile phone one of them had, and playing a game. They completely forgot about the rest of the world.

Changes and complains

I would like to ask why people like to be always in the same situation, telling about it, complaining about it, and be careful that nothing changes.

Skills for everyone and own limits

I would like to ask why it is so difficult to accept that we are not good at doing something. I am sure that everyone has some qualities and skills, but I can also imagine that everyone is not able to do everything. Even if he wants to learn everything, he might just not be able to. It is maybe what most people call "untalented".

The fog

I would like to ask whether you know that smell, the one given by billions of tiny drops of water suspended in the cold air on the early morning or early evening. The same one that still has also a shadow of something else, maybe cut grass, fallen leaves, smog, train brakes, and almonds. The same one which makes your clothes feel wet without pouring water, which let you walk in a sensation of fluidity, as if air and water would have mixed forming no sparks but water bubbles. And so levitating while swim-walking one tries to find the known landscape outside the own apartment door, but everything is disappearing in this fluid: in the fog.

Moving boxes

I would like to ask what is the best strategy to pack your things if you are going to leave them to plow ocean waves for 8 weeks and you eventually hope to get them back in a not too moldy state. Actually, maybe the first question would be what are the things that fit in the bag you will carry with you, and which ones are all the other ones. No matter which criteria I applied for finding an answer, I always got something completely useless: either you think about all the stuff you could not have and you would still exist - and then you think, why do I have all this crap? and it does not really help. Or, you try to "save" your favorite clothes and the important documents and precious belonging, for then finding out they will never fit in your bag.

Panic moment

I would like to ask what do you do when you feel like you don't manage anymore, you can't do all what you had planned, you get confused and don't get straight your thoughts about your movements, and you think I will never manage, aaaaaaah.

Buying a house

I would like to ask what are the reasons which motivate someone to buy a house. Of course, I am considering someone who has the possibility to do it, either using some saved money or agreeing a mortgage.

Online university classes

I would like to ask what are the goals of online university classes. I have just helped a friend to prepare for the paper she has to submit this week. The topic regards the comparison between two different table which have to be prepared by the student using two different softwares. After we spent some time understanding how the table should look like and which data we can use, we realized that we only had one of the required softwares available and no idea of how to get the other for free. We checked the book, the website, the class description and nowhere was to be found a link or a hint of how to get the necessary software.

More-Than-More-Than-Moore

I would like to ask whether it is getting more common in scientific conferences about electronics and semiconductor not only to consider Moore's law, not only to say that we are in the More-Than-Moore time, but also to think whether it is rather a "Nothing-More" time.

Walking at night

I would like to ask what I was thinking few years ago in the case I was walking back home at night. Was I worried and scared, or was I enjoying the night atmosphere? I remember both cases, but I can't think of when the one stopped and the being frightened got more frequent.
Since quite a long time I did not have the occasion of walking back home through the town when completely dark and late enough to be desert - in the last time, I was by car or by taxi or by tram.
Somehow, I forgot how it feels. The empty roads, the silent streets, round light spots on your way and square ones along the houses.

Café with packaged cakes

I would like to ask why more and more often there are public places which sells coffee and cakes, but the cakes are not freshly baked, but just taken out from the freezer and warmed up. Not only: you could buy the same cake at the supermarket - paying of course less than half the price.