Welcome to Justin's newly remodeled blog. You may remember me from such blogs as La Vie Rennaise de Justin and La Vie Hirsonnaise de Justin. You should be asking yourself, if you had checked up on my other two installments in the wanders of yourstruly, that there has been a change in the language at the head of said blog. Das Leben in Cottbus von Justin. Well it is German for those too lazy to read the next line of the blog, and indeed it is a change from the Frenchified titles of years passed. It means Justin's Life in Cottbus. So, I have moved one country to the East in my ever changing and haphazard life choices.

Yet what exactly will I be doing there? Do I have any real plans? Is life a game that I enjoy playing with, not aware that there can be "consequences"? Do the Bears have any chance this year? The answer to all these questions is, of course, not really.

Right, so first I will do an update, for those less than informed readers, about what is happening with myself. I graduated from school in May 2004 with a degree in French, and with no other prospects other than the possibility of going insane, I decided to go to France for 7 months as a language assistant. I was assigned to a town in the northeast of France called Hirson, and spent 7 months in the high school there, and a further 2 months in the primary schools. During this 9 month period I thought about what I would do next. I had no real plan, nor any idea what the hell I should do. I wanted to stay in Europe, but who the hell knew where or what I could do.

I looked around for masters programs, and discovered that some programs actually looked interesting. I had no desire for masters school out of college, but a year of only working 12 hours a week took its toll, and I was bored stiff. This lack of stimuli caused unknown and previously unfelt urges in me to learn via an established institution.

It was in Germany that my destiny awaited itself. I found a program called World Heritage Studies, which is basically a potpourri of knowledge about how to preserve and maintain historic sites of world cultural importance. I don't really know what that means either. So, in effort to shift the blame, I will give you the link to check out the program for yeself, arr. www.tu-cottbus.de/whs

OK, if you have made it this far through the ramblings and ill-explained commentary, then I ask you to come back for basically more of the same. I will update as much as I can about what is going on in this new step in my life.