characters

Are there some people in your life that you feel with everything that they do, it just seems so perfect - like they something and you're like 'that is so you!'

The greatest thing about people is when they do something so unexpected but it so perfectly suits their character.

I have one of my old teachers child as a facebook friend and often she updates her status with funny anecdotes from her parents (my mother works with hers as well, so I know the family just a little bit) and I find them just the funniest thing in the world.

It's so great when someone is able to make that kind of impact on your life and you just get so naturally attracted to them (in a sort of magnetic way) because you want to hear everything they say because their brain nuggets are golden!

Do you have any of these people in your life?

I think that even when you get to know your friends really well this is interesting.

Here's a story. My friend/roommate sylvia loves disney. While we've been in europe she and becky went to paris and of course went to disneyland in paris, which I'm sure for them was a dream come true. Now her obsession (and along with becky's less, but still wonderful disney-desire) they shelled out the euros for the fine french cuisine served at the princess restaurant, or whatever it's called. During this dinner the princesses walk around with their princess so that you can 'meet them' and have pictures taken - all part of the experience. Sylvia's addiction and her character went so far as to have a picture with the prince.

This is a picture that I actually edited and gave to her in a frame for christmas, which she loved by the way. But the fact that she actually went as far as to have this picture taken is just so typical to her character. But it's just surprising because you don't expect to see many pictures of this. Actually according the the actor playing the prince - it's not that rare. I just love when people don't hold back from conventional norms and live out their true instincts!

Leaving

It's my last week here....I'm scared.

I don't know why. I guess maybe the fact that I'm starting a new job in a month and I have still not yet found a place to live...oh yeah, and I'm going to be travelling around europe the three weeks prior to this. You all will get the lucky experience of me rubbing in the fun experiences of my parents visit.

But after that....I'm alone. For the first time in my life I'm literally going to have no one. I'm going to have to do absolutely everything myself. In another language. I'm excited for the fact that I'm going to be able to improve my language skills, and especially being able to work here. This is an opportunity that very few people get. It's really scary to think about. I know I can do it though.

I really like myself and I'm very proud of the independence that I have and my ability not to worry about things. I think that my drive will be important during my internship because I'm going to be getting paid dirt. One of the reasons that I am having such a difficult time finding a place to live is because finding a place within my price range is turning out very difficult. The biggest thing is that people want someone who is going to be living there longer than 4 months. I get that, it saves them trouble down the road.

I also realize that with insurance costs that I will need to live on less than 100 euros a month. Let's just say that's a lot of pasta. Cheapness may be the best diet I've ever had.

I've been inspired however by kate lanphear who is the style director at elle magazine. I read somewhere that when she was young she lived out her dream by interning in london - living the whole time in a hostel and eating bread with peanut butter everyday. If that's what it takes I'm willing to do it. My goal here is to make contacts and better prepare myself for jobs further down the road. Being multilingual will open a lot of other doors for me as well (or so I hope) and I know that I want to come back here one day.

I think the saddest thing is that my first day of work is on my birthday. My first birthday that I will ever be by myself. I'm going to have the best attitude though. I'm going to really appreciate the opportunity that I have, and the fact that I will have just spent an amazing three weeks with my mother and father.

real food

I think that I'm going to have really week teeth at some point in my life.

Living on my own as most adults, means I have to cook for myself...that is, if I want to survive, which yes, I do.

For the last four years I haven't had a strong desire to engage in any extensive culinary adventures. I honestly don't mind cooking. I have pretty diverse tastes so that makes picking food to cook pretty easy because I have a wider range of things that I enjoy. This year a lot of my diet consisted of soup and sandwiches. We don't have an oven and I never realized how much I love ovens. I miss oven fries and chicken fingers (even though I know how unhealthy they are). I just have no strong desire to cook fabulous meals because I really hate cleaning up. Especially when there is no dishwasher either. My biggest enemy is that I just don't want to make the mess. I haven't become sick of these foods yet so I'm just going to ride this out as long as I can!

But the fact that I am always eating like really soft foods, I'm going to lose all my jaw strength. I'm worried that I'll just not be able to eat steak. The past four years I rarely ever cook things that I have to cut on my own, and I have pretty uninspired cutting skills - like when I have to cut something on my plate. It's spoon city for me.

I hope my teeth don't fall out because I just am not challenging them enough.

Hmm, maybe time for a bowl of yogurt? It's to bad all the milk products are just so fantastic here!

first world problems?

So todays post inspiration comes from a very odd place...

This morning at around 5:17 my body decided that despite the fact I stayed up until 1:00 am watching old episodes of top chef just deserts it was a fine time to be awake. The worst thing for me is in the middle of the night when you have to pee and you just don't want to get out of bed. I used my better judgement and got up and 'did my thing' and got back to my room only to realize that there was no chance of me falling back asleep for a while.

So like a normal person I watched a little bit more top chef and realized that sleep certainly wasn't going to come. I knew it was going to come later which was going to take away from my study time so I reviewed through my notes a little bit. It was during this study period that I heard this screaming and I was like 'no d, it's like 5 in the morning, you are tired and hearing things.' I even went as far as to look outside, but I saw nothing.

This reminds me of a study that was conducted a number of years ago in which researches played a recording of a crying baby in an apartment building and no one came to check to see if there was anything wrong. I thought that I was going to be that person who falls into the 'heartless' category.

I was also freaking out a little bit because recently in our apartment someone came and knocked on the door to ask if we had seen anything suspicious happening because someone had kicked down the front door of her apartment and her room was unlocked - so they went in and stole her computer and other electronics and her keys.

My first thought was....this girl is getting raped.

When you watch scary movies, or at least when I do, I always get mad at the main character because they always have to go investigate, which always leads to something terrible and I always think, why would anyone go investigate. I didn't want to join that demographic as well and decided that it must have been me just imagining in my somewhat sleep.

So I went with my instincts and chose not to investigate because there were no other suspicious noises. Well that's not totally true...I did hear some knocking sounds, but I said - nope not my problem.

So I killed a little bit more time and eventually fell asleep for about an hour and ten minutes. I would have slept longer, except for the fact that the maid, whom we haven't seen in weeks decided to come and clean at 7:40. Now I don't mind the fact that the maid cleans....really it's better than me doing it - but the problem is, our maid doesn't clean. I would describe her technique more as tossing water onto the floor and rubbing it around. To be honest I don't even know if she uses any cleaning products. I'm the worst cleaner of all time and I could do a better job than her. When syls mom was here, she watched the maid clean and this lady used the same cloth to clean the toilet as she did the sink. That's gross. And she always leaves the floor a sticky mess. But the worst...the very worst part is that she is so damn loud. It's ok if it's any time after say...8:30 because that's reasonable working hours in Germany. But if it is before this time - I'm not amused.

This morning she was doing an above average job at keeping the volume at a motivational level, as in - you shouldn't be sleeping, get up and study. All the crashing and banging, in my opinion does not make you clean any better. When you mop there is no need to throw the mop as hard as you can at my door.

This loudness has always been an issue with these maids but I just deal with it because I appreciate the job they do for me, but today I had enough. I came into the kitchen and in some broken german tried to tell her to shut it...she looked at me like she'd never heard broken german in her life. I was pissed - but now I had to be awake so I came a little bit later (after she'd left, if she was still there I would have sat in the kitchen and glared) and made water. Then I heard that the window was open a little and it sounded like a scream and I was like...that makes sense, I'm not crazy and I found a great sense of relief.

I then came into the kitchen a while later for the second cup of coffee and the other girls were up by this time. Syl came and discussed with me this sound that we had heard. She was aware of the screaming as well, and had the same immediate reaction. Then she heard someone laugh...so I had no idea what happened. I still don't have any further incentive to investigate.

I don't know why I needed such a long post for such a mundane story. You're welcome if you used this to procrastinate from studying.

puppies for everyone

If you don't like puppies - don't ever read this blog again because I don't like you.

It's no secret that I would like a pet. Preferably a puppy but a cat wouldn't be bad either. Thinking about my future I've realized that if my parents are going to make me pay rent, I'm obviously not going to want to stay there that long. Well played mom and dad....

So anyways, when I first got to Germany I definitely realized that a lot of people here have dogs. I think a significantly higher amount of people and this just fuelled my desire to get one even more. I have been begging for a cat at home because they will be needing less attention, but a dog would be preferable. My mother often gets emails of cute cat videos or pictures that I find on the internet, but it does not look promising. So I guess when I move out I'm going to want an animal. The trouble is - I don't have any clue how I would do with training them.

The dogs here in Germany are amazingly trained. Like don't even bother with a leash because they are so calm and tame and just like hanging out. I can't even count the number of times I've just walked passed a dog that isn't on a leash and they don't even look at me. At home I like seeing stray animals because then maybe they'll follow me home and I can keep it.

Once a this happened to me. There was a dog just hanging out on the sidewalk - this little black and white thing. And brave me checked his tags and made him follow me home. It was from really close by and we returned it right away. I remember their house smelled like smokers which is the worst house smell ever.

I've also chosen not to find the cutest pictures of puppies on the internet because I'm already procrastinating my studying for the exam I have today.

eyebrows again

So if you are in university/college you realize that there are a lot of things that you will do not to study.

Yesterday it came down to sylvia deciding that I should have eyebrows. For those of you that know me well - there's not very much there. It's very sparsely populated - however the hair that is there is quite blonde. Sadly I didn't take a picture.

The worst part of the whole experience was having one streak and getting a finger pointed straight in my face and getting laughed at. I told her she would do great at torturing war prisoners....giving them all makeovers

So after the 'makeover' experience ended I skyped with my father, and one of the goals was to make my eyebrows really thick and he called me groucho marx. Then when I put on my nerd glasses it looks even worse. I do regret now not taking a picture.

Also the other day I was bored and I did take a picture. So pretty much I did all my makeup but without any eye makeup. It is so strange how you look without. Like completely different person. I felt a little bit high fashion - but then I realized I don't weigh 68 pounds and the illusion went away.

The most awesome game (I just woke up)

so I literally just woke up seconds ago from a dream where I created the coolest game ever and I wanted to write it down before lal the thoughts go away.

So this isn't an ordinary game - it's like a game that has to be played over a course of like a year. It's only to be played with your closest friends. This will just be sort of an outline because obviously I can't work out all the details immediately. I just woke up!

So the object of the game is to get the most points. This is done by having a meeting with the players every week. During these meetings there are different games and tasks that will be played all in an effort to learn points. Throughout the evening you can earn and ose points through team games, individual challenges and there can be points lost because of specific rules that make no sense. Like during these evenings - for example. one night a rule can be no words that have to do with milk products, so you can't talk about cheese or anything. The rules are all clearly non-sensical and rules will be drawn on the hour, as well as each night will have a few pre-established rules set out by the creators. Wagers can also be made during individual challenges. If you do not complete your challenge, you can wager to complete the challenge. However, if you fail - you must have a punishment that needs to be completed throughout that months. This punishment can be having to lick your way through 16 jawbreakers or motivate 3 people to walk a total of 40 miles (piggybacking is allowed).

Ok I'm starting to wake up a little bit now, but man this game sounds so so intense. And should be played with a group of 12 or so people. But how cool would it be to just live in a year with such an epic game. Drinking is obviously included. One day it would be amazing to just plan everything out but I don't think I have enough cool ideas for any of this.

Nearly as epic as Chardee McDennis!