California or Japan, One or the Other

Something shifted this week. I started actually studying for the Abitur—the university entrance qualification I’d been circling without committing to—and switched this journal entirely to English. The two decisions are connected, even if not obviously.

The language thing: writing in English is how I learn it. Every sentence I have to wrestle with is vocabulary I keep. There’s a wider reason too—so many writers I wanted to read had never made it out of their original languages, and I figured the same was true in reverse. Write only in German and you’re writing for one country. That started feeling like a wall.

The longer plan, if the Abitur works out, is web design. And after that—California or Japan. I genuinely haven’t decided. Both feel like places where the version of myself I want to become might actually be possible. Germany has never quite been enough of a container for the ideas I wanted to have.

I also brought back an old design for the site—something I’d had online about a year ago, dug it out, coded it up fresh. Still love it. A reused thing for a restarted life feels right.