The birth of the American Umlaut

Greetings, Internet.

I don't suppose a great many people will ever read this post who aren't already conversant with the basic details of my life, but I'll just throw them up here for posterity, and because that's what you do with the first post of a blog, right?

First, my name: Benjamin Stürmer. I picked up that awesome family name via my recent marriage, and the oddity of being an American with a "ü" in my name is of course the inspiration for this blog's name.

My occupation: I am a Master's Student of Japan Studies at the University of Düsseldorf and work full time as a computer programmer at a medium-large firm that produces human resources management software. I'll be leaving the job behind at the end of this month and spending four months writing my thesis (on the history and identity construction of a minority called the Burakumin) in Chiba, Japan.

My interests: I cycle through quite a variety of hobbies, the majority of them traditional geek pasttimes. I'm finally emerging from a six- or seven-year dark age in terms of video games, and am now trying to play through some of the many great games that have hit since then; at the moment I'm about halfway through Perfect Dark (published in 2002 - I have a lot of catching up to do!). Boardgames, card games, role-playing games. Like Tycho Brahe I am consumed by a love of systems, and whether I'm manipulating those systems within a computer simulation or using a card-based representation, it's getting to know a new world that draws me into the experience.

Politics comprise one of the most complex, most fascinating systems ever conceived by man, and they fascinate me without end. I am liberal in my philosophy and my politics, and my political comments will reflect that.

I love to dance. I started when I fell in love with a girl from California on a cruise ship back in 1995 (I was 13) and made my dad teach me Nightclub Two-Step so that I could ask her to dance with me. Thirteen years later I'm now married to a woman I met dancing in Kyoto and am now taking weekly classes with her (I focused almost exclusively on Swing until this year, so I'm embarrassingly bad at and desperately in need of instruction in every other variety of standard dance).

I intend to focus this blog on these few most important of my many interests (though I don't know how much serious dance blogging I'm up to), and on the experience of living abroad as an American.

And now my lunch-break is over. See you again soon!