Hi, my name is Gabriel, I am in my 20s and I live on a small planet called “earth”. Well, it is probably not that small…
I lived in Germany most of my life, but since I am half Norwegian I have also spent a lot of time in this beautiful country – which makes it kind of hard to only call one place “home”. So I am, or at least I like to think of myself as a cosmopolitan, a weltbürger!
Although not on a big scale, I already started with that as a child: We, that is my parents and my younger sister, moved quite a few times, once even to Norway, for a year. Since both of my parents are Waldorf teachers, it was quickly decided that this also was the school for me. And I guess it was.
There, students are granted the space to develop their personalities and abilities in a more individual way. It is not all about memorizing figures and dates, but just as much about learning about life. In the beginning there was a lot of song and play, as well as action outdoors, but later on I also learned how to study and how to think (or so I believe), I acquired my degree (quite pleased) and I became actor, artist, musician and craftsman along the way.
Before I started my studies in electrical engineering in Ulm, South Germany, I went traveling quite a bit. Feel free to browse through this website/adventure blog to discover stories from my year-long around-the-world trip (September 2015 – July 2016) or from an expedition to Spitsbergen, among others…
Since I am currently on an exchange semester in Singapore, there are also more adventures to be expected here…
It might be faster to write about what I do not like, but that would be a list with some depressing stuff, so here are a few things that I like: Nature. I love walking, hiking, jogging, cycling, skiing, swimming, and also just being outside! I simply can’t get enough of the natural beauty that surrounds us; the reflection of sunbeams on moving water, ever metamorphosing shapes of clouds against the blue sky, the miniscule details in a leaf or a stone – everything! I also like the challenge of documenting it, filming and taking pictures.
I always care for a good movie or a good book once in a while, I like to fix stuff and build stuff, to have a lot of projects going on. More abstractly, I am also interested in science, politics, history, philosophy and geography. Along those lines, I am intrigued by other ways of thinking, other cultures and languages. I speak German, Norwegian, English and French, and am currently struggling with learning Malay/Indonesian (for my exchange semester in Singapore).
Sometimes I get called naïve, but I prefer “optimistic due to lack of counter-evidence”. See, if optimism is on the right, and pessimism is on the left, I am actually right in the middle, but it is realism that is slightly to my left… ;-) I believe it is better to set oneself high goals rather than easily achievable ones. Because who bothers revising his goals upwards? I certainly don’t/can’t! But I have learned that with the necessary persistence there often is no need to revise them down either! And when there is, it is not a shame! (End of pseudo-philosophical motivation talk.)
This is not easy, writing about myself, and although I could do so even more elaborate, I am having a hard time getting it more accurate. Because so far it certainly isn’t! But still I will leave it at this.
If you know me, you know that I am not really the guy described above, if you don’t, I would be genuinely interested in meeting you – that usually gives a deeper understanding of a person, and it’s also more fun!
See you!
