It has been over two months since my previous post, and I think that can be attributed to the fact that life has become relatively normal over here in Germany. I have grown accustomed to the everyday happenings and interactions. I hope you don't misunderstand me-- things are still extremely interesting and exciting, but the fact is that this country has been my home for the past 4 months, and as such I have not been as inclined to deliver frequent blog posts through the interweb. With about 2.5 months left over here on this side of the ocean, the subject of time has entered my mind quite frequently. If one takes the patience and dedication to truly think about time on a deep level, then the mind becomes slightly overwhelmed. It seems that as we age, time somehow moves at a faster rate. When I was young, I would count the days until summer vacation, and it seemed like those days sitting in the classroom would last forever. During my years in college, the semesters would progress at an unnaturally quick pace-- the time from the first day of classes until the last day of finals felt as though it passed with the blink of an eye. I think about my nieces and nephew, or my younger cousins, and can't believe the age they have become, and I often have to make sure that my calculations are correct. And time continues to be a natural wonder. I look back on the time that I have spent here, and look forward to the time that I have left here-- almost 4 months are behind me, and about 2.5 months await me. It is rather difficult to comprehend. How can days pass by so quickly? One wakes in the morning with the chirping of the birds, and goes to bed in the evening as the moon rises, and it is often hard to believe that a full day has come and gone. I think time often likes to play with us-- a cosmic force acting on subjects who have no control. In many cases we want to conserve the time we have in a certain place, or with a certain person, and instead, time seems to mock us, moving at a quicker rate than it previously did. Time is certainly an unbelievable phenomenon, and something that we have no control over. We simply have to live life as time expects us to, finding the value in every piece of every day. Take this video as an example:

http://vimeo.com/3986821

More information about other aspects here in Germany, and the happenings in the fungi world will come soon.