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December 29, 2001 - January 12, 2002
I can’t believe it is 2002! What a crazy and fast year this has been! For those of you who don’t know, every year I write an end-of year Christmas letter that is pretty in-depth about what has happened in my life during the previous year, as well as my thoughts and feelings about it. I continue to write this letter because I have lost touch with some of you, and others of you I am just getting to know. I hope that through this letter, we will at least have touched base. I hope that I can get a letter from you in return so that I’ll also know where you’re at and what you have been up to!
This past year is pretty interesting to sort through to write this letter. In the past year, I have had paid employment as a language tutor, a mail clerk, a sales representative for Hallmark, a web designer, and a certified massage therapist (CMT). I spent one-third of 2001 living in a different country than my own, having some awesome experiences there, and returned to find myself still wondering about where I belong and where I’ll end up. So without further ado…
Brittany and I had broken up during December of 2000, but I had gotten tickets to show up and surprise her on her birthday on January 2, so I went to Phoenix, Arizona for the first time in my life. Coming from Colorado, it was really incredible to hang out in 70 degree weather on January 3rd! Getting to see where Brittany grew up, meet her friends, and stay with her and her family was very nice.
From Phoenix, I flew to Las Vegas (my second time there) for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) conference. This trip was largely paid for by conferences and grants funding from UNC, and I’m glad that I applied for the funding to go. The conference was really amazing! They featured some of the newest and upcoming technologies, which really were cool to see! Some of what I saw there is just now coming into stores, like the Data Play discs, and the mini-headsets with glasses that let you watch DVD’s as if you were sitting in front of a 56” television! (I’m a techno-geek, what can I say?) The things I learned there I was able to bring back to benefit the radio station, though not as much as I would have hoped.
Upon returning from Phoenix/Las Vegas, I realized that I was in a financial hole that I didn’t know how to get out of. So I came clean to Mom and Dad about the money mess I had gotten myself into, and they were surprised that I hadn’t come to them for help sooner. They were very helpful and loving to me in helping me to get things in order, and I am repaying them, beginning this month, as opposed to being in debt with other people. I am very grateful for this help, and think that I have taken it for granted at times over the past year. I see that that can happen if you’re not mindful of the support of the people around you. I just felt in a lot of ways that I needed to make a go of it on my own. I did that. It worked, and it didn’t work. I know that I could be successful on my own, but not as successful as with the support of people around me. I don’t know why it took the hard way to learn that.
So because I wasn’t in school prior to going to Germany, and the job market was good last January, I was able to start working for Cigna Healthcare in Denver as a mail clerk. For temporary work, it was a great job! I was earning pretty good money, delivering and sorting mail for about 200 employees, and then just being on hand to help people when they had problems with the copy machines or fax machines. I was also responsible for ordering supplies for most of the office and I also learned quite a bit about Canon copiers in the two months I worked there! It’s not a job I would want for any extended amount of time (the guy whose job I took over had been there seven years), but it was a good environment and was nice to have a regular paycheck to start paying off debts.
Because of the financial troubles, I still owed my massage therapy school some money before they would let me take my CMT test. On Thursday, March 16, I drove up to the Healing Arts Institute (where I took my massage therapy classes) in Ft. Collins, paid my bill, and I took my 4-hour written test and passed! On Monday, March 20, I drove back up to Ft. Collins and gave what is called an ‘exit massage.’ In an exit massage, you give a massage to one of the instructors of the school to be sure that your technique is right and your manner is appropriate, and that you are otherwise fit to become a massage therapist. So I got my certification on Monday morning, drove to Denver, worked Monday afternoon at Cigna and started getting sick with some kind of throat/runny nose/achy head bug. I worked Tuesday part of the day at Cigna, and felt myself getting more sick, probably just with the stress of getting everything done. I shipped boxes and took care of lots of odds and ends on Tuesday afternoon. I then packed on Tuesday night through the night until about 3:00 AM, and got up at 7:00 AM to continue packing, so I was really pretty sick, but the excitement of going to Germany kept me well enough to get ready to go. Mom took me to the airport on that Wednesday morning after being sure that I had some medicines to take and making sure I would be alright on the flight.
My advice about traveling: stay healthy if you are going to be flying. It’s not fun to be sick, and really not fun to be sick on an international flight. Another piece of advice, even if you are going to be traveling for four months or even a year, travel as lightly as you can. I know everyone says it, but it’s true. Even with the really nice bag Santa had brought me for Christmas, it was a lot to carry all that I had packed. Carrying heavy luggage around airports can really be draining.
My flight went from Denver to Detroit, Detroit to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Bremen, and my German buddy Michael was to meet me at the airport in Bremen and take me back to Oldenburg. (Most of the exchange students to the University of Oldenburg are assigned “buddies,” who are there to help answer your questions, get you situated, show you where the nearest grocery store is, that kind of thing.)
By the time I landed in Amsterdam for my 6-hour layover, I was really not well. But the Amsterdam airport is cool. They actually had a section with reclining chairs which I found, and I fell asleep in one for about two hours. I couldn’t sleep any longer than that because the announcements kept coming on in the airport, and every announcement was in five languages, so it was almost a constant stream of announcements, but was cool to hear everything in five languages nonetheless.
I really thought I was in trouble on the flight from Amsterdam to Bremen when I thought I would try my German and ask where the bathroom was. “Wo ist die badezimmer?” I asked. In English, this would be the equivalent of asking “where can I take a bath?” The stewardess, who was Dutch, looked at me kind of strangely and said in perfect English, “the toilets are in the back of the plane.” I was just left to wonder how I was going to survive with my limited German.
Meeting Michael at the airport in Bremen was really kind of funny, because I had never seen him before and we hadn’t really talked about how we would recognize one another. So there was this big crowd of people waiting outside of the baggage pickup, and we just picked each other out quite quickly. That was cool! Michael’s help was awesome to have in the first few days I was in Germany and I really appreciated his friendship while I was there.
As far as speaking and comprehending German, I found that I really didn’t have that much trouble communicating or understanding what was being said. I had been well-prepared by UNC’s German department for the experience! There were also lots of Americans in Oldenburg on study abroad, and many Germans (over 40%), actually speak English conversationally. If I had wanted to go to Germany and not learn any German, that would have been entirely possible. However, I would have missed out on so much of my experience had I done that. That’s why it drives me nuts when people refuse to learn the dominant language of the country where they are living and yet expect to be completely successful. That is also why it drives me nuts when tourists don’t even try to speak the language of the country they are visiting, and yet go home and talk about the country as if they have learned all there is to learn about it. Having people understand one another through language, and not just the English language, is crucial to the education and advancement of our global society.
Germany
What can I say about Germany? It’s all online. Go to my web site and you will find nearly a day-by-day photo journal of my trip! One of the coolest days was the day I got to see where my great-great grandparents are buried. It was amazing for me and a great story! (Check it out online at www.strive4impact.com)
Because I was an exchange student, I shared the most common bonds with other exchange students. Life is just like that: you naturally gravitate towards the people who are having experiences and perspectives similar to yours, and they gravitate towards you. So my social group, my Germany “family,” became people from all over the world and the U.S. It’s amazing because I can now count friends in many of the states in the US, and in countries from Russia to Kazakhstan to China to Morocco to Finland to Spain to France to Canada to Iran. I actually already had some wonderful friends in France, and I was fortunate enough to get to visit some of them in Paris one weekend!
Hanging out with so many exchange students was funny though, because whenever I went out, I always felt like I was waiting for the punch line… three Americans, two Irish, one Russian, and a Canadian walk into a club… Only it wasn’t the punch line, it was the people I was hanging out with that evening!
I didn’t really date anyone seriously while in Germany, but met someone who I now consider to be a great friend, Anne. She and I dated for about four weeks, but knew from the outset that it wasn’t anything serious and that we would be friends, and that’s the way it has worked out. She was a great help to me while I studied in Germany, and I’m now helping her while she’s studying at UNC this year. I’m glad to have her friendship!
Another great few days in Germany were the days I visited with a friend of my Oma and great aunt and uncle. Anne Link lives in Hammoor, just outside of Hamburg. My great uncle knows her because she used to work for him in San Francisco. She was so hospitable to me while I stayed with her. We visited her mother, who I was glad to have met, since she passed on in September, and traveled to Luebeck for the famous Niederegger Marzipan. Those were some great days in Germany!
I had so many great experiences in Germany that I couldn’t even start explain them all in such a short letter (HA!), so you’ll have to go online to learn about them.
I do want to say thanks to the people who I was able to get in touch with from home on the phone/via email/instant messenger while I was in Germany. Even though I was making new friends and having a wonderful time, I did get homesick at times and it was nice to hear familiar voices!
When I got back home, adjusting back to America and my life here took a while. I think in some ways, it has taken me until this winter vacation to fully get back to some type of reality of living here again. When I first got back though, I had the chance to spend some wonderful days in Aspen, while my parents were singing at the Aspen Music Festival with the Colorado Symphony. There are pictures of that online as well. After coming back from Aspen, I spent some time working for my Grandma, trimming trees and bushes, and then for her friend, doing the same. It was really good to have the chance to work in the sun and make some money before heading back to school.
Before school started at UNC, I realized that I could graduate in four years if I dropped my Journalism major all together. So that’s what I did. Seeing as how I don’t really know what I want to do with my life at the moment, I saw that it didn’t really make sense for me to stay in school a full year more to pursue a double major in Speech Communications and Journalism. Instead, I changed my German minor into a major, and left my music minor, meaning a double major in Speech Communications and German, with a minor in music. Kind of an eclectic mix I realize, and at the moment, I’m actually thinking of going for a masters in business after UNC. Time will tell.
In moving back up to Greeley in the fall, I wanted to find a place where I could give massage and also live. That way I would be able to offset my living expenses by giving massage where I lived. However, the places I looked at were expensive (by Greeley standards) and not very nice places (by most standards). Becca had offered to help me search for places, and in the process of looking at all these junky and overpriced basement apartments, Becca suggested that I could simply move into their basement, since it was partially finished and it would make rent very inexpensive for everyone. We called Josie (the nice landlady), and she said it would be fine if we thought we could all get along.
Living with three girls has been interesting, and it’s been a good experience. We have had our moments, but overall, it’s been good to live with the girls of 2807 22nd street.
I realized a couple of weeks ago that it sounds pretty odd to the people who are on the outside of the living situation when Molly at Hallmark said to me that it was kind of weird that I lived with three girls. Before going to college, I would have thought so as well, but the situation is really normal for us. I’ve known Tiffany since my freshman year in the dorms, Becca and I have a good understanding of one another because of the year and a half that we dated, and Jenny and I just have a good understanding of one another. We all seem to do a pretty good job of respecting each other’s space and helping each other out with car problems, relationship issues, taking care of eachother when sick, making tea, etc. And our property managers are great, so that’s a plus as well!
On September 11th, I couldn’t help but be glued to the TV all day after Jenny’s mom called at 8:00 to let us know what had happened. By that time, both buildings had fallen, and the pentagon was in flames, so we watched as the aftermath unfolded. Thinking about it now, even still, it makes me want to throw up, and it makes me want to cry. For me, those planes hit pretty hard because of what I had seen in Germany.
On most of the major “historical” buildings in Germany, there are signs which say when they were built, usually around 1500 or 1600, then when they were destroyed between 1939 and 1945, and when they were re-built...usually about a seven year span in the years of 1950-1975. On almost every major building, you can find a plaque that has these dates. It pained my heart to see this destruction that was created, this pain that was caused, and was hard to imagine a time when humanity was that stupid, first spending so much time and money erecting beautiful buildings, then spending relatively little time but millions of dollars destroying that beauty, and then spending more time and more money to try to regain what had been lost, and never completely doing so, but having to move on. The only consolation that I drew from that moving on was that we had learned, that we now had ways to see the kind of wonders and plunders humanity is capable of, and that we had learned that we don’t get anywhere with our hate and fear of one another.
Watching those planes hitting, over and over again, watching people plummet to the earth from one hundred stories up, and seeing the safest building in America partially destroyed through someone’s hate, stripped much of that consolation away.
I am an idealist. I like to see the world the way I want to see it rather than how it is, because I believe that vision is the first step in bringing about positive change. If you can’t imagine a world where that kind of hate ceases to have as much power, then you can never create a world where that is a reality. In many ways, September 11, 2001, will be a mobilizing force in my life, making me look at where I want to be and what kind of contribution I want to make. In many ways, it has had that effect. It causes me fear to know that we have witnessed the start of something in the laws of warfare and my bigger fear is that it is not over.
My hope is that while our militaries ponder the next steps, we can combat the next threat before it happens by reaching out our hands to those who would be the next attackers. As we’ve seen in our America already, when we don’t respect and take care of each other, the next attacker can show up in any form; They can just as easily be as far away as a guy living in a cave and wearing a turban, as they can be those who show up in a Ryder truck full of explosives, or in a trench-coat with guns underneath. We must be aware, if we are to reach out an open hand, rather than one that is outstretched but closed by judgment, greed, or fear, that we are not born to hate one another. We are not born to judge one another. Simply through our actions and our words, we teach others how to hate and fear, or how to love. I fear that September 11 has taught more people how to hate and fear. I hope that September 11 has taught more people how to love one another better.
In the midst of September 11, I began working with ‘the girls at Lolly’s’ Hallmark (as Cathy affectionately calls all of them). I was hired there just as school was starting in the fall and have really enjoyed a work environment where people are friendly, helpful, and nice. Not that the other work environments I’ve had haven’t been that way, it’s just different at Hallmark, and I like it.
As far as relationships go, I have really thought about Brittany quite often during this year. I have dated people off and on; Anne and I dated while I was in Germany, I have had some dates with Nicole, a friend from high school, but nothing has been very long-term.
I was really in love with Brittany when she and I were together, but I (didn’t and) don’t feel ready or willing to be in a serious long-term committed relationship at this point in my life. Because of that, I think there were some perceived (or perhaps real) incompatible goals between Brittany and I. I have had strong feelings for her, which I have shared with her. However, she and I seem to be on some different paths. As well, we never really learned how to be friends for each other in person, and so I think we have to start from there. It’s just taken a while to get to a point where I feel like we can even start to have a friendship. It can be difficult to back down from strong feelings and to move forward from past hurt. A lot of that comes with time I suppose, and I’m glad to have the chance to learn this with Brittany.
Patience is something I’m working on being better at, while learning to balance that with persistence, which is also necessary for success in friendships, relationships, work, and life.
Changing gears a bit here…something I’ve been wanting to do is to get my own actual web site up and running, and starting in mid-February, I will have a web site up at http://www.strive4impact.com. I am very excited about this as it’s something I’ve thought about doing for quite some time! I’ve had my site up at Geocities, but have definitely outgrown that space, so come to www.strive4impact.com for the grand opening on February 15th!
I’m excited to go back for my last semester of school at UNC, but not ready for the semester to start yet. It’s been very nice to have some time off and to not have to worry about getting up to an alarm clock, doing homework, and running on a fixed schedule. It’s given me time to read a couple of books, learn about some new programs online, work on strive4impact.com, and get caught up with some friends. Life should be like that. Ideally, college would be like that—that I would be really intensely learning about something that I really wanted to learn about, like I did in my eight months at the Healing Arts Institute becoming a CMT. But I have never been able to narrow down what I want to do to just one thing, so I chose my general major of speech communication, which will benefit me in any profession I would want to end up in.
Ultimately, my goal is to make the world a better place by the life I have lived while I am here on this pale blue dot in the universe. A lot of times, I think I confuse this time of my life in college as a time when I’m stuck or lost. I think I get to feeling stuck because I’m exploring so many different things right now, and wondering which direction to go to accomplish this goal. The simple answer is that I should just pick a direction—just pick one and go with it, because I will make the world better by the life I live if I just live my life. However, I think I’m not in a mode right now to pick just one of anything. Maybe I’m not really a ‘pick one’ type of person, but I don’t think that’s the case. I just don’t want to pick one direction at this point in my life when there is so much that is new and available and changing, and will enable me to really make a difference in the future and in the present if I am open to see what’s there.
So having time to pursue a variety of interests over this winter break has been nice. In the last days of the year, my sister and I were nearly in a serious car accident when a blazer flipped right in front of us on I-25 at 60 Mph. so we consider ourselves all the more blessed and watched over I’ve also needed that time as I have needed some time for recovery from the 8 foot fall I took off of a shelf on January 5, while trying to step onto a ladder at Lolly’s Hallmark. I did something to my back, so I spent the last week of break getting that feeling better as well and Lolly’s sending me to a doctor to have it checked out. If you think about offering a prayer that it would not be anyting serious, it would be very much appreciated!
This upcoming semester, my last semester of college, I will drop my German major to a minor. It would be a lot of work still to get the German major done in one semester since I’m still eight credits away, and if I end up using my German in a job situation, I really don’t think an employer is going to care if I have a German major or minor, but will care if I can speak the language or not. A major is not worth the necessary in-class time when I can be moving on to something else, and possibly be learning more German outside of class than in class. Hopefully my German professor won’t be too annoyed by this switch back to the German minor.
After getting done at UNC in May, I will be out of school for a couple of months and then get to head to China as my graduation gift from my parents! We will be singing with a choir and touring in China (my parents, Deanna, and I are going), so I’m really looking forward to that!
I can see in Microsoft Word that I am coming up on the end of my sixth page here, so I think it’s about time to stop. I really hope to hear from some of you who I haven’t heard from in a while, and hope that this letter finds everyone in a time when you are experiencing a lot of optimism for the great things that will be coming to all of us in the next year!
Some of you know that I love quotations. I found these while reading through some things over break and found them very appropriate for my life. Hopefully you will find them useful in yours!
“Not all who wander are lost,” --J.R.R. Tolkein (Go see Lord of the Rings!)
“Ideals are like stars, you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafarers on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” --Carl Schurz
Peace Always,
Jonathan Kraft
2807 22nd Street
Greeley, Colorado 80634