Yeah well, you guessed it correctly: I started doing work for uni and I feel as though something smashed into my head. I just finished reading a 16-page-long excerpt from Plato’s Collected Dialogues and as I was reading it most of it made perfect sense and I actually found myself exclaiming, man alive, these guys sure know their shit! And they do.

I, however - let’s just say, I couldn’t for the life of me reproduce what I just read, I couldn’t possibly tell you. And here’s why.

When I first came to Kentucky everybody loved me right away; they welcomed me, they cheered me on, they came to me for help, we were a family right away. At first glance that may not seem to explain why I have trouble figuring out what the hell Socrates and Euthyphro are yammering on about in Plato’s likely to be very thoughtful collection - but just go along with it.

I wasn’t used to this because back home I only had a handful of friends (if there were even that many!), and in Germany it isn’t quite as common to tell people you love them every chance you get. The fact that I wasn’t Miss Popular all throughout high school never bothered me directly but it kept other kids from wanting to be friends with me. They saw that I wasn’t part of a huge group and thus decided that I must not be a very enjoyable companion. And while that may be true, I always hated the fact that they based their actions solely on what they saw others do.

People in Kentucky didn’t do it that way. They loved unconditionally from the very start based on what they found out about me day to day. They liked who I was and still am, and loved that person.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be, right? Love people for who they are and don’t be prejudiced.

Or as Socrates puts it: It is not because a thing is loved that they who love it love it, but it is loved because they love it.

Yeah, I know, that’s exactly what I thought. You may wanna read that again and then six times over because before that, just trust me on this, it won’t start making sense. You think you get it and then you read it again and it’s all like, DUDE. THIS IS LIKE THE TIME WHEN THAT GUY PUT THAT FUNNY PILL IN MY GIN MARTINI AND EVERY TIME I PUT MY KEYS IN MY PURSE THEY FELL TO THE CEILING.

Since we’re talking about love, let me just state how much I love Euthyphro’s reply to that statement by Socrates. Here’s what he said: Necessarily.

Listen here Euthy, what’s with being all dismissive? What do you mean, necessarily? Are you implying that what your homeboy Socrates just said is a natural conclusion which any person in their right mind would word in the same way?

And after 16 endless pages of philosophical discussion of the deepest and most confusing kind, when your buddy asked you to explain to him the essence of holiness? Did you really answer, another time, for I am in a hurry, and must be off this minute?

You gotta stop taking those funny pills, man.

So, as has been established in a previous post, my precious beloved Sony Vaio (whom I first called my baby in this post) is history. Gone buh-bye. The data, however, could be saved which is a plus, obviously - but not having my Vaio here with me, it sucks big time.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite simply because they had it on a sale. It came with a 320GB hard drive (in addition to my old 120GB now external hard drive), more than 2GB RAM, Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™, a 15,4″ TruBrite® shiny screen, Windows Vista, all sorts of fancy things that I don’t know enough about to ensure that they are, in fact, useful and awesome, and of course built-in wireless internet access - and well, no MS Office as is to be expected these days but a bunch of other annoying software that no sane person could ever need.

Oh, and also? It is really, really ugly. Not truly ugly; I mean granted my eyes don’t start to burn or flip backward or anything. But it’s your typical business, black and silver, awkward run of the mill design (if design is what you really wanna call it) and so this new laptop has absolutely nothing to do with its predeccesor. Because that Vaio - oh boy. It was white and soft and smooth and so perfect and pretty that I cradled it in my arms before I it went to sleep each night.

But they only wanted 499 euros ($730) for the Toshiba which is an amazing deal around here and as far as I can tell it is equipped excellently so who am I to decide to buy one of the new Vaios (although, oh my God, how can they look so beautiful?) when, truth be told, I don’t actually have a dime to spend on random crap like new laptops.

So now I guess I’m adjusting, is what I’m doing.

I keep stumbling across websites that ask for my username and password because my original Firefox had of course stored them for me and now I’m all like, wait a minute when did I ever have to register here? Did I actually do this?

I can’t enter said sites because, honestly, who can remember that many passwords? It’s enraging because I don’t have the same to contact every freaking website to reset my password. This blows.

There are so many university news and a rant about Germany’s public transportation to come. Some day. I want to blog about everything but it’s tiresome lately, it’s too much stuff.

Anyway, I’m off to grab some lunch. And dream of those new Vaios. Sexy beasts.

Picture source: here.

People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

Those were some good words, Mr. Clinton. Some very good words.