My Daily Writing

Click on the image above to get a clearer view of my current chaos created with Creately

At this exact moment I am overwhelmed. I am in a wonderful place called Zurich, Switzerland and loving it, but along with this love I am getting a flood of other emotions. I am completely inundated with a sense of "new": new country, new people, new languages, new school, new lifestyle, new transportation, new words, new bed, new home, new family, new climate, new, new, new. Every second of every day is an entirely new experience, which is amazing, but there is no lull in this tsunami of "different." Without sounding ungrateful, dare I say, it's exhausting!?

But as my wonderful sister-in-law warned me, this feeling should last for the first 2 or 3 months until you suddenly start to feel less clobbered with newness and more triumphant over the flood of new information. I'm just getting to the middle of month 2. My absolutely amazingly helpful and supportive mother, Margrit, helped me through the first 2 weeks in Switzerland by flying here with me, staying with me in a hotel while she chauffeured me through red tape and bewildering contracts in German. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't know what I would have done here without you Mom! So technically, I calculate that the start of my immersion in Swiss culture began 1 month ago after Mom headed back to her beautiful oasis in the United States. Just yesterday, for the first time in a month, I had my first glimpse of relief. I completed almost all of the things on my to-do list without that feeling of exhaustion or defeat. And I think I even managed to do it without inadvertently offending someone in Swiss-German!! Woohoo!

During my time weaving through the newness of Switzerland, I am also continuing to write for the blog and especially reliving all the amazing adventures of the Treehugger Tour. I am proud to announce that I am in the process of transcribing the notes I recorded on my favorite handy iPod voice recorder while driving (TuneTalk from Belkin), the notes I took sitting in my tent scribbled into a few notebooks, and the great information I gathered via brochures and newspapers along the way. It's all being slowly trickled to you as I get it down in coherent words (thanks for being patient).

Here's a new great tool that I hope will keep me focused and really prompt me to write everyday, even while I'm sorting through my new life in Europe. It is called 750 words and it is a simple and motivating online tool which encourages its users to write at least 750 words a day. Hopefully it'll help me get you all the fun stories faster. Even if you're just thinking of documenting your life more often, as we all should do (I find it spiritual and cleansing), this easy tool may encourage you to write every day. Check it out here: http://750words.com/. And the creator, Buster Benson, is pretty amazing too. Check out the other things that Buster Benson has done here. Let the words flow!

I discovered 750 words and Creately through one of my favorite new websites called MakeUseOf.com.

Let the words flow!