Yes, classes have begun. And although I don't necessarily have many hours of class time each week, the number of things I should read or think about, and the number of group meetings I have never seem to end. That's all and well though, I suppose. Nothing like academia to speed the calendar along. Last week was exceptionally quick paced because we had our Welcome Reception event, this year at the local museum at the Anger (pronounced ahng-er, not anger like in English). It was a bit smaller of a location than last years reception, with only a modest supply of finger food and champagne, but that is just fine. It allowed students to mingle a bit better with other classmates and staff, before heading out to another museum basement to party. Strange that we would attend two museums to party at, though we were only allowed in the reception areas.
This Welcome Reception was also a bit more special than last year because of the attendance of Mr. Franz Haniel, one of the Willy Brandt School's major benefactors. I was actually quite excited to meet him; he comes from a very reputable family and has proven himself very successful and I believed he would have some very notable words for his keynote speech. I was also interested in meeting him because I personally am a recipient of his scholarship. It was one week ago that he spoke, and I will do my best to remember some of his key points from the speech. I do remember more precisely how he looked. He is somewhere in his mid 50s, lean, with very light blonde hair and blue eyes. He told us a bit about his history, that he grew up as part of the wealthy Haniel family, but his inheritance was not guaranteed and he had to earn his way into his position (though I imagine a high reputation and enormous wealth can pretty much pave the way to success). He studied mechanical engineering, always liked tinkering with cars, but had a change of heart somewhere along the way and moved into business and business consulting. Regardless of his position, he has continued to be a successful leader of his family's estate. When your family has been in the top echelons of European economic history, and you have a 3 story mansion-museum to commemorate your family's history, you will probably get a lot of respect from other people. I definitely wanted to hear what he said.
Much of what he talked about could be taken from a business perspective, but I think that many of the same core principles apply for many aspects of life. For example, his number one point, was to establish your own personal values, and to make them known outwardly. Values are an especially important characteristic of any business or person. If you can express and uphold your key values, people will also believe you and follow you.
The second major takeaway I got from his speech was to "know your DNA" as he put it. Do not fool yourself into believing a certain thing or acting a certain way because it is what is outwardly expected of you. You have to really look hard at yourself, very far down, to know what kind of person you are and what you really want out of life. It's not as easy as it seems, and there will be second guesses, but you have to make an effort to see yourself as you are.
I wish I could remember some of this other points, they were all very good and wise. I may ask around to my classmates and see if they remember any of the others.
In addition to his speech, I also got to meet Mr. Haniel more personally the following morning, when he invited the whole group of Haniel scholarship students to breakfast at his hotel. So while the food at the welcome reception were rather unremarkable, the food at this hotel was freakin' awesome, dude! They really brought new meaning to the term continental breakfast. I'm talking 6 different kinds of muesli, dozens of different kinds of breads, rolls, slices, whatever. They had mini pancakes, yogurts, 6 different fruit juices, dozens of kinds of sliced meats including bacon, breakfast sausage, bloodwurst, Hungarian salami and a bunch of other ones I didn't know. Also hashbrowns, eggs, cappuccino, fresh spring rolls, and dozens of kinds of sauces for everything. I opted for some sweet chili sauce (that was actually spicy) to put on my potatoes. It was amazing. There was even a guy on standby next to one of those fancy meat and cheese slicers, observing the levels of salami that were left and he would cut off individual slices of meat if you wanted it.
So yeah, breakfast went well, and we got to introduce ourselves to Mr. Haniel and ask him some more questions. He asked us to tell him what it is that helps you get out of bed in the morning. Which is actually a difficult question once you bar all the nonsense answers. There are the classic answers of "I'm just so curious about the world and what is out there, and when I get out of bed I just want to read CNN or the BBC" which are kind of a cop out to me because it puts on bogus intellectual mask. I liked the other answers that were a bit more humanist, like "I had this and this experience which really made me want to get out and help". I can appreciate that better.
I'm not sure how stupid my answer is, because I haven't shared it with anyone yet. But I told him I got out of bed because of something along the lines of: "I am still quite unsure what to expect in for me, and I get up, anxiously, to face the unexpected". Which I think is really quite true. I get up almost everyday without really knowing what is going to happen to me that day. As if I'm still waiting and hoping for something groundbreaking to occur that I can actually formulate my life around. So many things are still up in the air about what will happen to me in the next year(s) that it is enough to keep me anxious. I don't necessarily feel the need to get up because of an overwhelming curious nature, but more out of fear of what happens when I don't get out of bed. And an interesting thing about that is that I don't think you can ever run out of fear like you can run out of courage or stamina. I think it is something that is always there inside you unless you turn around and face it somehow. I don't mean to say that I am absolutely petrified with my situation, but there is a fair bit of anxiety about future days. Stability seems a world away. It won't always be this way, but for right now it's getting me up in the morning.
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