About Myself

And here a few personal remarks about me, first about the image:

Me in Port Aransas in the Summer of 2008

And that’s me in the summer of 2008, in Port Aransas, our favourite place on the Texas Gulf Coast. The coast, btw, is not that far away – only about one and a half hours travelling time [90 miles]. Port Aransas is located on one of the outlying islands [Mustang Island], which – like the Frisian Islands in the North Sea or the spits in the Baltic Sea – are situated here along the coast, from the mouth of the Rio Grande in the south to the west coast of Florida. [And on the Atlantic coast it’s the same.] From the mainland you have to take the ferry [only about 5 minutes across the Intracoastal Waterway and free of charge], or – for us a detour – via the southern end of Mustang Island across a bridge.

And now allow me to introduce myself:

I was born on 5 April, 1947, in Krefeld-Linn. There I attended primary school from 1953 to 1957 and then I went on to the Arndt-Gymnasium in Krefeld,from which I graduated in February 1966. From the summer of 1966 to the summer of 1967 I studied the subjects of English and Latin at the Albertus Magnus University of Cologne, and from the winter term of 1967/68 on the same subjects at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. On July 9, 1971, I married and on December 1, 1971, I moved to Alfter. On January 31, 1972, I took my First Philological State Examination [subject: English]. From 1972 through 1973 I [as a graduate assistant] was in charge, together with Dr. von Köller, of the library of the English Department at the University of Bonn. From 1973 to 1974 I taught Business English at the business school of the private Joseph’s Society in Bad Honnef, before completing – from 1974 to 1976 – my trainee years at the Bezirskseminar Siegburg, while being a trainee teacher at the Ernst-Kalkuhl Gymnasium in Bonn-Beuel. I passed my Second Philological State Examination in 1976 and then held my first job as a teacher of English at the Collegium Josephinum in Bonn from 1976 to 1978. In 1978 I moved from there to the Kopernikus-Gymnasium in Niederkassel, where I stayed until my (early) retirement on May 31, 2003, teaching English to grades 5 through 13. After my divorce on May 29, 2009, I relocated to the United States, to Karnes City, Texas, where I married again on August, 22, 2009. Two wedding pictures here:

Two Bicyclists to be Wed Soon

The Happy Married Couple

And as of January 28, 2010, I have my “Green Card“, and thus am a “permanent resident” and do not always have to leave again after 6 months in the country – as before, when I was here on my visitors’ visa.

Why I Write This Blog

On the one hand, I started this blog – or rather the German version of it – to keep my friends in Germany up to date with my life and my experiences in the USA, especially southern Texas. And I started to translate the German version into English here in this weblog so that my English friends can more easily read it as well.

But, come to think of it, there is – on the other hand – a further purpose, both for this and the German version, viz. to tell about my personal experiences in and to explain about my adopted country, the United States of America, so as to hopefully provide a better understanding of this beautiful country that much too often is misunderstood and misappreciated, and to eliminate prejudices.