The Revolutions of the Hamster Wheel

This morning -- more or less -- I woke up at about 1:00, having slept at least eleven hours. Perhaps I'm taking my holidays a little too far. I'll see if I can get back to about 10:00 soon. Part of the problem is late-night television; I also finished an online book and cleaned up more in my room before going to sleep yesterday.

As for the weather, it's beautifully sunny and not too warm yet. I hope that the seeds that I sowed in pots on the first day of the summer holidays will sprout soon; there were radish seeds, nasturtium seeds, oregano seeds, parsley seeds, rapunzel seeds, and one sunflower seed. I've watered the pots every day. So far there is one tiny sprout, where I can't tell if it's a weed or not.

Now the developments regarding our move to Germany: Yesterday we managed to sell the car that we inherited from our great-aunt for $3,500 -- which will defray some of the cost of our plane tickets. Mama has also been busy e-mailing real estate agencies about apartments that we found in online advertisements on such sites as immobilienwelt.de. Yesterday she, Papa, and I looked at the photos of apartments; most have plain white walls, floors of wooden planks or parquet, and large windows. In two or three there were also bedlofts, which I thought intriguing. Our main considerations are floorspace (preferably at least 125 m squared), number of rooms (at least four in addition to the kitchen and bathrooms), and cost (preferably not above 1000 Euros per month, including utilities).

I've also been gathering appliances, etc., that we no longer need, to sell at a flea market on Saturday. It feels nice getting the stuff out of the house, though of course I can't be sure how much I'll sell. I ventured into the closet adjoining my eldest brother's room, and cleared out the confusion there. There were a few old bags that smelled dreadfully vomity (I threw them away directly), I was crushing insect corpses underfoot, some boxes of books were very heavy, there was dust everywhere, and my feet hurt afterward, but I didn't become grumpy or despairing. I'm also pleased that the objects I've gathered are all more or less desirable -- in good condition and generally useful. I also like putting my mind to something and arranging it all my own way, even though I don't like the mercenary aspect of this particular business.

Perhaps I should do something educational again. I don't think I'll work much on my music, because I'm particularly uninspired at present and can't find anything new in the pieces that I play. I expect that the life experience I'll gather during our move to Germany should improve matters in that respect; the one advantage of being miserable and self-doubting and ill at ease with myself is that it adds something to my music. Being at ease with myself makes me essentially more shallow, I think. But if the move turns out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I won't complain. (c: Anyway, I will probably read more about "Massenpsychologie" as Freud saw it, learn more Italian (I've already reviewed the definite article -- l'articolo determinativo, hehehe -- today), listen to Papa reading about Plato, and review some German grammar (especially the uses of the accusative and dative).