My Dog Chihiro Watching Over Me While I’m Studying For My Next Class Test In Japanese. 🐕🐾

social anxiety is realizing you’re lonely, not wanting to be lonely, being handed and opportunity not to be lonely, and still choosing to be lonely because despite every previous indicator that you would be welcome to join in on other people’s fun and stop being lonely, you’re still afraid that no one wants you around

A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.

Hello everyone!

Sooo, this is going to be my first post and just to warn everyone: I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing here. And to be honest, right now is probably the worst time ever to start posting something. Because right now, I'm sitting at my desk (I've been sitting here the entire day actually), learning for a Japanese Language Test that I will have to take next week and I'm really, really tired. Am I Japanese? No, I'm a student from Germany, currently in my first semester of Japanese studies at the University of Heidelberg. My second subject is English Literature.

Also I'm a huge fan of Star Trek, especially of the Original Series and the new movies from J.J. Abrams. I guess my mom kind of infected me with her love for it. When she was young, it was a real appointment for her, her parents and her brothers to gather in front of the TV every afternoon to watch Star Trek on German TV. She often jokes that this passion has to be something that you can genetically pass on to your child. 

Now, what else is there to know about me? Hm, I like horses, although I had a pretty bad accident two years ago and I'm currently just trying to overcome my fear of actually riding horses, because I really love spending time in the stables and I also think that it's extremely important to try and battle your fears or else they will always restrain your life in some ways.

I really don't think, my posts are going to be that interesting, but hey, it's something new, that I've never tried before and I'm certainly going to try to have fun. So, yeah, I think that's it basically. We're going to see, where this path leads to. :D

The Head understands when life is finished, but for the Heart, life is endless 'till the last beat.

Klaus Bramigk

My grandfather is an amazing writer who turns almost all his experiences into texts or little poems. This one was his reaction to my grandmother's death last year. Well, originally it was in German, so I am to blame for the English translation.

Trank you so much for telling me all of this! I'm actually really happy with my decision. Right now I'm in my third semester of Japanese studies. At my university we are required to pass our Japanese language courses by a certain time in our studies (especially the first one) and I've come to realize that I would just need more time to really learn this language than I have at University. I'm still going to keep studying Japanese but just for myself and with the help of a friend of mine, but it's really not going to work out for me as a subject to study at University. So that's basically why I've decided that a change was necessary, even when some people in my life (for example my father) don't understand at all that sometimes the first thing you choose to do may not be the right thing for you in the end.

I'm sooooo happy for you for passing those tests! Great job ^^ I'm still really far away from graduating university, especially since I decided to change my subjects with the beginning of my next summer semester. So I'm always really excited for people who've made it through their studies because it's kind of a sign for me that I, too, will eventually get through it. :D

Thank you very much, and you know what?! I spent and wasted three years at a university pursuing a degree that I just couldn’t get. I ended switching completely and starting over with court reporting. Honestly, I feel a lot of people switch their degree plans. Sometimes what you thought you wanted to do at 18 isn’t what you feel like doing anymore at 21. Don’t feel bad at all for changing things. Ultimately what matters is that you’re happy doing what you’re doing. And if it’s what you WANT to do, then do the shit out of it. You know, one of my court reporting mentors said she did so bad in court reporting school that her teacher told her to give up and find something else to do, that she was wasting her time, not learning the skill fast enough. And guess what, she ignored that teacher and kept at it, and she graduated and ended up becoming the president of the Texas Court Reporter’s Association, which are the people who administer the CSR examination. So she took longer than some, she ended up being bad ass anyway :)

Women In History

I grew up believing that women had contributed nothing to the world until the 1960′s. So once I became a feminist I started collecting information on women in history, and here’s my collection so far, in no particular order. 

Lepa Svetozara Radić (1925–1943) was a partisan executed at the age of 17 for shooting at German soldiers during WW2. As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a way out of the gallows by revealing her comrades and leaders identities. She responded that she was not a traitor to her people and they would reveal themselves when they avenged her death. She was the youngest winner of the Order of the People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, awarded in 1951

23 year old Phyllis Latour Doyle was British spy who parachuted into occupied Normandy in 1944 on a reconnaissance mission in preparation for D-day. She relayed 135 secret messages before France was finally liberated. 

Catherine Leroy, War Photographer starting with the Vietnam war. She was taken a prisoner of war. When released she continued to be a war photographer until her death in 2006.

Lieutenant Pavlichenko was a Ukrainian sniper in WWII, with a total of 309 kills, including 36 enemy snipers. After being wounded, she toured the US to promote friendship between the two countries, and was called ‘fat’ by one of her interviewers, which she found rather amusing. 

Johanna Hannie “Jannetje” Schaft was born in Haarlem. She studied in Amsterdam had many Jewish friends. During WWII she aided many people who were hiding from the Germans and began working in resistance movements. She helped to assassinate two nazis. She was later captured and executed. Her last words were “I shoot better than you.”. 

Nancy wake was a resistance spy in WWII, and was so hated by the Germans that at one point she was their most wanted person with a price of 5 million francs on her head. During one of her missions, while parachuting into occupied France, her parachute became tangled in a tree. A french agent commented that he wished that all trees would bear such beautiful fruit, to which she replied “Don’t give me any of that French shit!”, and later that evening she killed a German sentry with her bare hands. 

After her husband was killed in WWII, Violette Szabo began working for the resistance. In her work, she helped to sabotage a railroad and passed along secret information. She was captured and executed at a concentration camp at age 23. 

Grace Hopper was a computer scientist who invented the first ever compiler. Her invention makes every single computer program you use possible. 

Mona Louise Parsons was a member of an informal resistance group in the Netherlands during WWII. After her resistance network was infiltrated, she was captured and was the first Canadian woman to be imprisoned by the Nazis. She was originally sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was lowered to hard lard labor in a prison camp. She escaped. 

Simone Segouin was a Parisian rebel who killed an unknown number of Germans and captured 25 with the aid of her submachine gun. She was present at the liberation of Paris and was later awarded the ‘croix de guerre’. 

Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to have ever won an American Medal of Honor. She earned it for her work as a surgeon during the Civil War. It was revoked in 1917, but she wore it until hear death two years later. It was restored posthumously. 

Italian neuroscientist won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of nerve growth factor. She died aged 103. 

EDIT

jinxedinks added: Her name was Rita Levi-Montalcini. She was jewish, and so from 1938 until the end of the fascist regime in Italy she was forbidden from working at university. She set up a makeshift lab in her bedroom and continued with her research throughout the war.  

A snapshot of the women of color in the woman’s army corps on Staten Island

This is an ongoing project of mine, and I’ll update this as much as I can (It’s not all WWII stuff, I’ve got separate folders for separate achievements). 

File this under: The History I Wish I’d Been Taught As A Little Girl

- Spock, come here. Let me see you. Spock?