Another One

Once upon a time, I was going to put all of my Köln stuff in one giant post. Then I made one post, covering about 24 hours of Köln life, and ran out of pictures. Now Blair's got her pics up, and I'm going to mooch some of them, but I'm putting them in this post, because I know you hate scrolling down. Blogging about today (and that will be quite a blog) will happen this evening!


So this is all of us chilling outside the Dom, on Thursday afternoon, according to my notes. Where am I? See the group of people with their arms around each other on the left? See the red-haired girl in the black coat? That's Emily. If you look close beside her head, you will see my head, very small, my new hair hidden by my hat.

After the above pic, we went on a tour that involved going under the city to see some cool, old Roman ruins. Mostly I spent my time trying to keep Rose distracted from her migraine, and trying not to be terribly bored by our tour guide. We got kicked out of the museum because it was closing, and the lady made us stand outside and listen to the end of her story about some ancient Roman lady marrying her uncle and not getting murdered by her son or something. It was pretty cool to walk through ancient Roman sewers, though, I must admit.

And those are the only pictures of Blair's for which I have fun stories, but it's a good thing Mary sent me a TON. This post will grow as I get time tonight, what with bowling and all.


So we're back to Wednesday, hanging out in front of the Dom waiting for the train to come. This are Mary's pictures, and she is a narcissist. So the one above (Mary in front of a Dom but not the Dom) and those that follow are Mary trying to be prettier than the Dom, and wearing my hat because she was unprepared.


And the Hauptbahnhof, to help you imagine the things that were around me better!

Emily is very good at standing outside of centuries-old uncompleted cathedrals.

Christine is so sexy.

Whitney and Casey look so concerned. You can see my hat behind Whitney's head!

Remember that Australian that I told you we met? And how he gave us his card? Well, Christine took the original, so Mary took a picture.


We finally did make it to Bonn, and Mary and Casey and Emily got seperated from the group at the train station because they are awesome. I wasn't with them, so I don't know that story. I do know that I stayed with the group and told Dustin and whoever about how amazing Bonn is. And we went to the old Rathaus to meet the mayor, which Mary also eventually found. And after we talked to the mayor for a while, he invited us to play mayor for picture-taking purposes. You know Mary was all over that opportunity.


Many of the rest of us milled around and took pictures, including Buster, Dustin, Allyson, Carly, Morgan, Priya, and Kendra.


And then I got interrupted by dinner and Piff's English homework and bowling, and it is now 11 and I had a great night, but I have to get up at 6 tomorrow, so blogging will have to be put off for now. Sorry!

My Mom Wins At Life

I'll tell you why later. My emotions have been all over the past few days, but I am settled back at a high. Prayer is a good thing.

So I got up this morning and thought "the house seems quieter than normal." As it turns out, Basti had the day off, Philipp had the day off (of course, because he was still home- he's gone back tonight), and Piff had first and second free. I was very, very jealous because it's not like I've had a decent night's sleep in a week, and I have a cold, but I went to school like a good girl.

In German, Herr Friedl maybe made up a word that I believe should be a part of the English language, and every other language (he used it in German). Maybe it is already a word and I didn't know? He wanted to ask two people, and so sent Viktor out with the phrase "Would you like to go for a little ambulatorium?" Ambulatorium is now on my list of favorite words.

There was a pop quiz in English that I didn't take because I wasn't there last week and thus had no hope of knowing what it was about. I did, however, get the chance to explain that having places open 24 hours a day, or at least later than 6, is pretty nice and does not lead to societal collapse. Herr Kütz wishfully commented "Maybe, one day, stores in Germany will stay open until 8 pm."
Later, Sebi started tearing up the piece of paper that the pop quiz had been on. Herr Kütz won himself the Irony Award of the Day when he said the following: "Are you using my quiz paper for cigarettes? Okay, just don't use the part with the ink on you- I don't want you getting cancer or anything from it."

I love my Reli class. We got into a long, wonderful conversation about Christian Communism, and Reli is just in general doing a great job of filling the hole left by Sunday School and Raise the Roof. We are going bowling together tomorrow!

Bio is pretty interesting for me, but does not produce fun stories. Sorry.

Experiment called me tonight and gave me some nasty news, but then my host family and my mom made it all better because they are amazing. I'll let you know what's up as I get more details in the coming days- I promise I am just fine (better than fine) and things will be great. I'm just not 100% sure which way things are going at the moment, and I don't want to confuse you by telling you multiple things.

I made lots of notes for completing my giant Köln post (German was boring, and I had a free period and lunch break), I am just waiting for PEOPLE to get pictures sent to me so I can do all this at once. You have not heard any of the awesome stories yet. Unless, of course, you were there. I really wish people hadn't made Dustin's wristers stink like girl- I am wearing them now to keep my fingers warm, but they still smell so strongly that is irritates my nose and makes me sneeze even more.

Man, She's Fast

So Mary apparently spent her whole afternoon uploading photos, meaning I am now going to be very brav and put off a shower and bed so that you can get my longest post ever, with the most pictures ever. Yes. I am even going to go to the effort of making blogger display them at a decent size.

So Tuesday, some time after my post, my host mom drove me to the train station and I was the first one there, but then Priya showed up and we found Chris and Karl and then Blair and Bonnie got there just in time and we put ourselves into a compartment on the train and were loud, obnoxious Americans for the next four hours (Karl, an Australian, complained in his quiet, Australian way). We got to Köln Hauptbahnhof on time and Mary was waiting for me, and also for Casey and Emily. The others took themselves off to the Hostel while Mary and I went to C&E's tracks, only to have a few trains come, none of which contained our friends. Mary really had to pee, and had no interest in paying the €2 or whatever the train station wanted, so she decided that we should head on and let Casey and Emily find their way on their own, shoud they ever arrive. We found Bevelyn, though, and she was very happy, because she had been expecting Betreuers or someone to meet her at the train station, and had no idea where to go.
Not that Mary knew. Her "foot-by-foot" directions failed pretty quickly- we got on the U-Bahn and started talking and Mary said she was timing it (8 minutes) and then we hear her say, as the doors close, "Guys, I think that was our stop." Alright, no big, we get off at the next stop and wonder if we should ride back. I insisted, in my great Wisdom, that it wasn't that far and we could walk, and Mary and Bevelyn went with me because I am terribly persuasive. This was probably a bad idea. . . at some point, we saw a sign to the Hostel, and followed it. Of course, this was a sign for drivers, and, in fact, pointed us in the entirely wrong direction. We walked around a block or two (Mary complaining because she still had to pee) in the dark, found many buildings that are not hostels, and finally ran into Priya, who pointed us in the right direction. Then we started running into all sorts of people and there were enthusiastic hellos and Bev and I went in and Mary got lost in a crowd of greetings. I learned from Christian, who was in the lobby, that Emily and Casey, whose trains had been about an hour late but who had not gotten lost, were already there, and had claimed me for their room. I went up and we screamed and hugged and talked and waited and waited for Mary, who did eventually show up, but much later. Now, Mary had been knitting at the train station, because she had been there for four hours waiting for us, because she is brilliant (school ended early and she chose to come straight to Köln instead of going back home). And this leads to my first picture, a comparison of my sock and Mary's scarf. I don't think the picture quite captures how spastic Mary's poor scarf is- it was very cute.

Then it was time for dinner, where we saw so many more people and decided that speaking German is for losers, and took more pictures. The next three show me and Casey having a conversation. Note Casey's fancy new brown hair!



India was apparently quite startled at Mary's sudden bursts of enthusiastic affection (this became a theme for our week).

Me, Mary and Emily love each other very much.

After dinner, we headed downstairs for some sort of meeting that I don't remember. I do remember leaving the meeting and standing in a circle and talking and talking and talking all loud and fast and excitedly in English. Then, at some point, Dustin and Allyson broke off and had a hilarious fight of some sort.

This is the best picture of me ever.

We discovered the Elevator from Hell, although we didn't know it then. Seriously, this thing was creepy. The door never quite closed, so you could see the floors going past, and see how the door starts to open before you quite get to a floor. And it has this tendency to stop on floors without any known reason to do so. And it is slow. Anyway, Mary thought the sign in the elevator was entertaining. I don't know why.

We went to our room and had to make our beds, and then we saw Zimmer run down the hall in a monk robe and Harry Potter glasses, carrying a toilet brush. He was being chased by other people, and we were most confused. Pictures exist, I think, but I don't have them. Someone said something about a toga, and Emily wanted to join the fun instead of making her bed. The results were wonderful.



Casey also had trouble making the bed, because, man, making the bed is hard. She was cheerful about it, though!

Sure, Casey looks happy, but she is screaming. Screaming because she is in the Elevator from Hell.

Breakfast was pretty delicious the next morning, mainly because I was with wonderful friends and had not slept well on terrible hostel mattresses.

Mary apparently did not find her breakfast as satisfactory, because she spilled coffee all over it.

We got on a train and went into Bonn to visit the mayor and go to a museum and have fun. Of course, people are terrible at being on time, and we missed our first U-Bahn, and thus our first train, so this meant we had time for fun at the train station. Allyson (I hope it was Allyson, because my memory is blanking) and I went and looked at very sexy shoes, and Allyson and Dustin sang fun German songs, and life was grand. The train ride included Mike doing chin-ups on the bar, and also the first time I have ever been on a double-decker train (less exciting than hoped).



I still love the Dom. We spent some of our waiting-for-trains time outside looking at it, and I told Casey my Dom story, and we walked around in the Dom, and everyone else who was outside met some awesome Australian dude who showed us his thermal and gave us his card and was quite entertaining.


And that is as far as Mary's pictures go at the moment, so you'll have to content yourself with that for now.

I find the writing in this post quite terrible, but enjoy the pictures. I need a shower and my bed.

Mind: Erased

Not really.

But the thing that happens when 50 people are constantly taking pictures around me for a week is that I don't focus on remembering things, because, you know, pictures exist.

So I got home a bit after 6 tonight, my host parents went to the theater, Piff grabbed me and said "Didn't your hair used to be blonder?" at which I nodded and he proceeded to ask me to do his English homework, since it's not like I had school this week. I laughed and shook my head and let him and Philipp continue to argue over Piff's math homework (I don't even pretend to know things about math).

So now I am catching up on e-mail (although you were all good and understanding and didn't e-mail me, meaning my inbox is terribly lonely) and internet and the like.

Being home is nice.

Give people a few days to get photos uploaded and e-mail me links, and I will put together a Properly Huge Photo-Laden Report.

And yes, my hair is not, in fact, blonde anymore.

Oh Man Oh Man Oh MAN

I am packed.

I have cleaned my room.

I even took the trash out.

My train comes in two and a half hours.

I AM SO EXCITED.

KÖLN




It is a really, really good thing that I am the only one home right now, because I am running around and giggling like a complete idiot.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Today, it was like people at school were determined to squeeze a week's worth of fun anecdotes into one day.

So let's start.

German:
Student: Herr Friedl, can we not have German Wednesday? A bunch of other classes are already falling out.
Friedl: If we don't have class, I'll have to go to that faculty meeting [reason other classes aren't happening]. And if that meeting goes badly, which it almost certainly will, I'll be stuck there for three hours.

English:
Zimmy taught me a fun archaic German word! "Flugs" is a really old word for fast! Yay for knowledge!
It was also Megan the Australian's last day, so she told us about her homeland, which meant fun stories about giant poisonous snakes and spiders and people who live underground because it is too hot to live above ground and street signs that melt in the summer because it is so hot. Vegetarians came into the discussion, and Herr Kütz informed us that he is a "hobby vegetarian. I mean, I'm not a vegetarian, but my wife is, so I don't really get meat unless I like go to the butcher and buy it myself." We also discussed Aboriginals, and Megan insisted that "it's not like everywhere you go you'll see drunk Aboriginals with maggots eating their arms," which is important to remember.

Of course Reli had no hope of following that, but managed pretty well. The sun was super-super shiny today, and English and Reli are in the same room, the room that collects all sorts of sun and thus gets really hot (although the high today was only -6 (thank you, Russia), meaning we were all bundled up, too). Robert came in and made the following observation: "Ugh, my chair is all hot. Let me hold it out the window for a minute to cool it off." And then he did.
In general, I am loving that we are actually studying the Bible in Reli, because we have some really critical people in there, and hearing their interpretations of familiar stories like the Prodigal Son is (a) eye-opening and (b) actually strengthening my belief in them and the God behind them, which is a good thing. Also, today was apparently Herr Rothmann Bashes Catholics Day, meaning Hilarity (just so you know, I do love the Catholics, but the are often exceedingly silly, so we have to make fun of them). My favorite quote (background: someone was complaining that Reli is much harder to follow than, say, Physics, because there is no clear formula or answer or anything): "See that? That's an equals sign. You can forget it in Reli. There is no equals and an answer. You want an equals sign, go to the Catholics." And then Herr Rothmann wrote "=Dogma" on the board and we all laughed heartily.

Free period, which is populated only by fellow History-LKlers, was boring because there is an exam tomorrow. Luckily, I will be on my way to Köln, so no need to come up with an excuse to not try to write about Weimar Republic politics. Eva drove me and Steffi to the bakery for lunch, came back and we looked over Bio, with Steffi certain she'd be asked because she missed the quiz (Germans don't to make-ups, they just get given some other chance to get a grade). Sure enough, she was, and unfortunately did not understand Amino Acids and Peptide Bonds as well as me (I got that stuff down) and then Herr Wittmeier did ask me about things later and I did, in fact, know where DNA is in the cell, although it took me a minute to remember that nucleus is one of the few things Germans have their own word for (Kern).

And Babsi had somewhere to go today, so we didn't get our weekly train ride together, but it was made up for by Bettina's bike being broken and her having to walk home, so we walked most of the way together! Bettina is in both of my LKs, too (like Babsi), and she is a great person.

I am getting on the train at 13:04 tomorrow. . . I do not know what the internet situation at the hostel will be, so the blog may not happen next week. Please try to survive. There are many archives that you may read if you get too desperate. I also have a nice, long links list, and maybe you will find something there that will tide you over?

I have heard about this new browser Flock. It sounds pretty sleek, but I like Firefox. I am torn.

BEGIN LIFE PHASE COLOGNE

A Whole Weekend In One Post

Yes, such a bargain!

Actually, it wasn't that exciting of a weekend. Saturday was spent being lazy, just me and Piff at home. . . Saturday night was Taco Night, made by me with Piff's assistance ("Piff, where's the cheese grater?" "Piff, can you make the [gas] stove turn on?" "Piff, don't you want to cut this lettuce up?") and it was Delicious. Introducing Germans to the joy of the Taco was great fun, let me tell you.

Today. . . I slept far too deeply to be awoken by my host mom's knocking on the wall/ceiling under my head (my bed being built-in over the stairs. . . it makes sense if you see it), so I missed church, but I watched a tv special about Jesus tonight (I learned that Jesus went to India when he was 14 and became a Buddhist and then went back to Israel, where he survived the crucifixion via ascetic yoga practices. Two days later, he awoke from his coma and left the tomb, after which he traveled back to India, where he is still buried (I guess he died later?)), which probably does not make up for it. I also ended up heading into Munich spur-of-the-moment with the host 'rents and a couple from church to check out a Carl Larsson exhibit- we've got two big Larsson posters in the hallway downstairs, and he is pretty cool and all about Swedish children. It was a pleasant exhibit! His art doesn't set out to turn the world on its ear, just to show his happy (and huge- 8 kids!) family and their idyllic home and also Sweden. Lots of silly Swedish hairstyles and clothing, turn-of-the-last-century style!

Just one day of school this week. . . and then Kööööööööööln! (Köln is prettier than München.)

END OF LIFE PHASE HOCHZOLL

Blimps Go 90

Woke up a touch on the late side this morning, so it is a good thing Basti is a good brother and drove me to the train station, or I would have missed the train AGAIN.

I dealt with the disinterested issue in English, and it was anticlimatic. Adam said "It's like that episode where there's a bully and he's all mean and stuff and everybody hates him and they try to pull some kind of prank on him but when they are about to, they find that the bully lives in a shack and his parents are abusive and they feel bad for him and they hug him and in the next chapter he's still the bad bully so what's up with causality, people?!" which proves why I should marry him.

Biology Moment of the Day:
Herr Wittmeier: This window doesn't open at all anymore. That one opens, but the handle is starting to fall off. That handle's completely gone. Obviously, this was not part of the tour the Chinese exchange students got. (background: we had random Chinese exchange students for like two days, due to some future connection to some Chinese school)

Math Moments of the Day:
Teacher: Says who? (asking about something Tassilo insisted on)
Tassilo: Uh, the German Mathematics Commission. . . yea.
Teacher: And you get an e-mail from them every day, so you know, right?

Someone: Did you know that rabbits reproduce at the rate of e?
Sometwo: Really? I always thought it was Fibonacci's number.

David: Why is the right limit written on the left side and the left limit on the right side? That's confusing.

Slow night around here. . . Piff disappeared this afternoon claiming something about "challenges" and said he'd be home late. . . host 'rents went out. . . Philipp hasn't shown up yet, so it's just me up here and the lovebirds (Basti and Steffi) downstairs. . . Secret Project Status: I can't count. Yesterday's problem is totally taken care of, part 1 is done, part 2 is started. People may catch me finishing part 2 in Köln.

Tomorrow is taco day! I may end up baking cookies, too. Some of them may make it to Köln (depends on how quickly the bros eat them)!

Wish you could visit me, but worried you'll get ripped off on plane tickets? Google Desktop cares. And they have the perfect solution. (Google Desktop itself is keeping me so much more organized these days.)

Breaking a Personal Rule

And blogging twice in one day, because I don't feel like editing my previous post.

Yes, I got to school. Yes, I am feeling much better- 24 hour bug beaten back by my brilliant (b)immune system.

Sozi was fascinating but you don't care. English was frustrating, and I am gathering native speakers on my side to prove that the word "disinterested" does not belong in the following sentence at all:
For months now, Peter has been working disinterestedly in the woods together with a few industrious workers.
The Official Translation of said word was "selbtslos," which I have yet to reconcile with any known meaning of the word. (selbstlos being German for selfless)

Free period included Lexi finding a twin, discussion of a guitar distortion pedal, the decision that international relations is a fun thing to study because having a girlfriend in Italy would be pretty cool, and the sentence "Hitler war voll Scheiße."
History was uneventful but for this exchange:
Stoiber: Just a sec, I'm still chewing.
Herr Schäfer: I can see that.
Jakob: Matter of fact, we can see what you're chewing.

I got a box of chocolate chips from my mommy and Piff was disappointed that the cookies have to be baked first, because I guess he wanted some cookies today.

I am working on something secret and it is not going as well as I had hoped. I hope the other part works better, because I am kind of confused right now.

Wells has given me a $20,000 scholarship (that is $5,000 per year) because they think I am awesome.

Life Hates Me

So I got up this morning, at 7, like a good girl, and got ready to go to school, because school is important, even though I still don't feel 100%. Since I had no interest in walking to the train, and I didn't want to be late, I decided to ride the bus.
Walked to the bus stop, which is a stop for buses 31 and 90. Waited and waited cause I was waaay too early, and when a bus came, I glanced at its number, saw a 3 and the word Peterhofstrasse, so I got on. Turns out I got on bus 36, which had no business being at my stop at all, but came anyway and picked me up. I ended up on the opposite end of Hochzoll from the train station, but I walked back to where I could get a bus home, and here I am, since I of course had no hope of catching the train on time, to kill half an hour until my host mom drives me to school.

I swear I wanted to go to school today.

Sick as a Dog and Six Times as Mean

Got up this morning. . . as a matter of fact, I made it out of bed relatively easily for it being the first time this week I had to get up at 6. Do you know why?

Poppycock Theater.

Today is the amazing Steve Carey's birthday and he started his new comic. Last night, he said "Guys, it will probably not be up at midnight. You should wait until morning to be safe."
Well, his midnight is my six in the morning, so I ignored his warning. No, it wasn't up precisely at midnight, but I had a bowl of Cookie Crisp and made it out into the mush that is a post-snow morning.

By the time I got to school, my innards had twisted into a firm and painful knot. I chilled during first period (my free period), hoping that the distraction of class would release me. Reli turned out to not help at all, and then there was Pause and then came Bio, where we had a pop quiz thing that I got half-credit on max. Half-credit isn't too terrible a grade, actually. In any case, I decided by then that I could not make it until 5, and that I had no interest in staying at school another moment. So I left, and walked through the rain to the train station, arriving, of course, 10 minutes after the train left, meaning I had a 50 minute wait ahead of me. I staked out a chair inside the station and tried to make the time pass. It went slowly. At some point, I found myself outside, throwing up into the snow. Fortunately, the train came, and I got on it and made it to Hochzoll, where I literally just caught the bus in my first piece of luck all day. I came home, told my host mom I felt terrible, and went upstairs to discover that Poppycock Theater had been released on the world. It gave me great joy, and I went to bed and slept until maybe two hours ago, when my Betreuer made one of her random check-up calls, and then I decided I was awake.

I am trying to decide if I trust myself to eat anything. I may grab some bubbly water.

Do Do Do Do

In a better world, the title of this post would be that cool whistly theme from Rosenheim Cops.

So I slept in this morning and it was grand. It was snowing pretty majorly when I left the house, so of course the bus was late, and so I missed the train. Deciding that it was still important to go to the one period of school I could still make, I decided to spend my next hour in Hochzoll running some errands. First I went to the bank and got some money, then I hit up the Mini-Mal and Müller to buy so so so much chocolate. Why, you ask? Because I wanted to send it to my youth group in America, of course! So I took my bag full of chocolate and went to the post office, and said to the man "I want the biggest box you have." He went in the back and came out with a huge piece of yellow cardboard and said "Will this do?" I replied "I think so" and went off to the little table to unfold the cardboard and fold it into a box, which I filled with the chocolates. I grabbed one of those little forms that you have to fill out, and I scribbled a letter with instructions, and soon the box was all ready to be shipped to America. The Post Office Men were quite amused that I was sending such a large box of chocolate, but it is not the first time in my life, not at all. It was the largest box, though, because this one is for lots of people, not just one of them! And then I went and the train came and I got on it and I walked to school (in the snow) and hung out for a little while and then I went to Sozi, where I wrote the following notes in my planner: "we need to get some better government connections," "voting in this classis always so messed-up. . . I can't imagine that it works better in the whole country" and "'Hey! Look over there!' (Helicopter)"
So what does all that mean?
1. We are taking a field trip to some government office to listen to a presentation about one of eight pre-chosen themes, which we had to select today. I miss having the General Assembly Majority Whip for a teacher, which made trips more real and less like, you know, school.
2. We had to vote on the themes. We wrote the 8 on the board, talked briefly, then everyone got 2 votes (what? yes) and we ended up with 2 themes with a clear lead (11 and 10), one with 4, and the rest with one or two. So then we voted between the top 3, this time everyone getting just 1 vote. It turned out 10, 4, and 4, and because we needed a first and second choice theme, we voted for the second choice, where the theme that had originally gotten only 4 votes got 10, and the theme that had gotten 10 votes in the first option got 9. There were 20 of us in the room, and none of these numbers add up, and my chosen theme, the one that actually related to politics (cooperative federalism) (remember that this is a politics class), got beaten by telemedicine, which has something to do with a doctor giving instructions from far away. The top choice? College regulations or something. Better than the ones left behind, which were about things like historical preservation and promotion of culture.
3. Pretty much what it sounds like. We were about to start doing classwork (in the final ten minutes after the voting fiasco), and then Jakob suddenly points and yells "Hey! Look over there!" And, there was in fact a helicopter flying by outside. It was pretty funny.

So I walked to the train station in the snow and bought my tickets to Mid-Year (whoo!) and got on the train and rode to Hochzoll, where a bus sprayed me with dirty snow by being an idiot and driving through the pile of snow on the side of the road instead of the clear part of the road. It was just like a movie, except that I was still pretty cheerful.

Also, Tuesday is Rosenheim Cops day. Numb3rs doesn't seem to come on on Mondays anymore, so Rosenheim Cops is my new favorite show. I love it so dearly. I desperately wish to find someone else who watches it so religiously (besides my host mom) so we can discuss my Michi theory, which got thrown a terrible curveball today when he bought beauty products for the secretary lady. I am reworking it to make this instance fit, but I am somewhat upset that it happened at all. I mean, after Baking for Men and everything!

Man, Remembering Stuff on Mondays is Hard

So I was finally finishing up reading the Pictures and Words that are Published on the Internet for the day, silenting berating various Authors for being late today. Then I was considering taking my iPod and yarn and curling up into bed until I fall asleep, safe in the knowledge that I don't have to get up until 9 tomorrow.

Then it hit me. I am worse than the authors I berate, because I completely forgot about this obligation of mine, this blog, which does not take any holidays, not even Sundays or MLKJr Day.

Good thing I have a planner full of notes of things to write about, or else I would be ending this blog right here.

Green pen tells me that I slept in until 7 today due to incredible scheduling luck. Red pen recorded a beautiful gem from English class: "Unemployed people, cheer up! No longer must you define yourselves through your work! Now you can take up new hobbies! Try jogging! It is free!" (A better version of this requires context to establish all that stuff, and the punchline is simply "Unemployed people, cheer up! You can go jogging!")
Dark blue pen lets me know how much I appreciated the warmth of the sun in Reli, while we talked about people's inner snakes and the first murder and I didn't pay attention because the sun was coming through the window so very nicely.
I had a free period and a lunch break during which I walked to Schwabi with some people and then walked back to school (food was bought at Schwabi), but, unfortunately, there was no interesting conversation to be had either in free period or at lunch break. Or at least nothing of interest for recording now.
Light green pen says I Heart DNA, because I do, and then there is a purple note about it being MLKDay and about there being 8 days until Mid-Year. I wanted to eat a Milka bar for MLK, but when I went to Müller (in Hochzoll, having cut out my walk through Aichach because Babsi got her license and was very happy to drive me to the train. . . I love Mondays because Babsi and I always ride the train together and have the best conversations. She loves to hear my stories about America, so I tell her about how Ukrop's sells out of bread and milk when they predict snow, and how we never have to worry that a teacher will drill us on last class's lesson, and how I miss black people. And we compare learning to drive stories and talk about music and tv and it is just plain awesome.) I was talking about going to Müller for chocolate. So I went in to get a Milka Marzipan bar, because they are my favorite. I'd never been in this Müller before, so I had to search a bit, and then I was very disappointed to find not a single Milka Marzipan. They had RitterSport Marzipan though, and since I was jonesing for almondy goodness, I gave up on my pretend relation to one of America's foremost civil rights people and bought the candy bar. Then I waited for the bus in the cold because I am super-lazy today (meaning I did not want to walk home) and as I approached the door, I heard loud classical music pouring from the neighbor's house. I was puzzled, until I opened the door. I was greeted by Piff practicing drums, apparently something like thirty-second notes today, or maybe just play as super-super fast as you can. I nearly recognized something like rhythm, then I gave up. I immediately took myself to my third floor room, where the distance between me and him (in the basement) plus a closed door muffled the sound enough for thought.

German Who Wants to be a Millionaire is not as cool because Regis is a German named Günther, and the questions require knowledge of the German language, meaning I cannot answer them at all. It is still fun to watch, and I got to have a moment of triumph in proving to Piff that there are approximately 30, not 40, centimeters in an inch.

I don't have to leave for school until 9:30 tomorrow. I thought I would reitirate this point, because it makes Piff very jealous, and you should be jealous, too.

Intellectual Babble

I forgot to blog yesterday because I got really, really into this whole Edge Question-of-the-Year thing. (Yes, this is me continuing in the same vein as Friday. It is that fascinating) See, they asked all these scientists "What is your most dangerous idea?" They should have said "what is the most dangerous idea to be coming out of future science" but it ends up being the same thing. You see, all these people who are very, very smart wrote all these mini-essays about how the world is going to change forever. I am way more excited about Darwin than I have ever been in my life, because I finally understand why his discoveries were so important, and it has absolutely nothing to do with monkeys or komodo dragons or strange birds, no matter what they tell you at school. I am beginning to understand why physics might be important to know, and it has nothing to do with the way stuff moves. I am going to link the articles that have gotten me the most excited (or maybe this can better be considered a topical list of just about all the articles), but I highly recommend locking yourself up somewhere for the next few days and digging through this thing (I am only on page 4 of 13 because I am slooooow, so expect this list to grow and grow) because it will change your life.
KEVIN KELLY on Anonymity
DENIS DUTTON on Art
FREEMAN DYSON on Biotechnology
RICHARD E. NISBETT on how we make Choices
ALISON GOPNIK with a meta-idea on Controversy
DAN SPERBER on Culture
HAIM HARARI on Democracy (I've quoted this one in the sidebar, I found it so important)
STEVEN PINKER on people being Different ("Groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments")
PHILIP ZIMBARDO on Evil v. Heroism
MICHAEL SHERMER on the Free Market
MIHALYI CSIKSZENTMIHALYI taking the opposing view of the Free Market
CLAY SHIRKY on Free Will
GREGORY COCHRAN on Human Evolution
DAVID LYKKEN with a great idea about Parental Licensure
SIMON BARON-COHEN on empathy-based Politics
RAY KURZWEIL about Radical Life Extension
MARTIN E.P. SELIGMAN, RICHARD FOREMAN on Relativism
ROGER C. SCHANK proposing to do away with Schools
JAMES O'DONNELL on the State
PIET HUT on Time (just for Billy, although I guess you may be allowed to read it to)

Otherwise, TUMC's youth group called me via my mom's handy last night and it was awesome to talk to all sorts of people that I haven't talked to in forever and I love you all dearly. I promise to put together a big box of German chocolate for you this week and hope that my mom will not keep it all to herself.
I also managed to get up and go to church today and Nadja had exciting piano-related adventures and I got somehow roped into a LAN Party? I am still unsure how the latter happened, but I guess I get to prove my complete lack of skills at electronic games to a large group of Germans, rather than just to some 5-year-old I used to babysit (it is pretty embarrassing to be beaten really, really badly at Nintendo by a 5-year-old). And then, instead of going through all this fascinating Science, I spent the afternoon watching a combination of winter sports and that movie about a fat camp with Ben Stiller (it was a channel-flipping kind of day, and Piff had the remote, as always). But now I have parked myself back here by the internet to Expand my Mind, making up for the fact that I am being increasingly inattentive at school.

These are things that have been floating around in my head for a long while, but this guy puts them better because he is smarter and more experienced than me. It makes me feel good about myself and also depressed at the same time.

I Think This Means I Can't Be a Literati Anymore

Most Interesting Thing I Have Read In a While
Yay for that Stumbly button in Firefox. You will probably be so so bored by this article, but I am hoping not. I am hoping that you will not think it is just the Matrix with scientific jargon instead of leather, because it is so much better, and it is not a trilogy. (At least read the excerpty bit at the top- it gives you the ideas you need to have in your brain to be an intelligent person in this day and age, or at least to understand my next few sentences.) I see an answer to the "vat or not?" question, although I have far less scientific background. The main argument against the vat is the lack of culture (ignoring any potential simulated culture) via loss of memes. To create a culture in these vats, we simply need to allow the various vat brains to interact with one another. We provide them with a body that doesn't fail, an environment that doesn't decay, freedom from the laws of physics and the universe that currently bind us. Then we let them turn their vat life into something that is better than reality as we know it in every sense.
As for me, my personal answer to this question depends not on potential linking of the vats, but one essential question- is there pain in the vats? I will always choose a life that comes with both pain and pleasure over one lacking either- this makes it incredibly hard for me to discuss either heaven or hell with people, religious as I am. Neither heaven nor hell is an acceptable option to me- without its opposite, nothing can exist, or at least, if it exists, it loses all meaning. We define things as much based on what they are not as based on what they are. As a matter of fact, my little description of the vat life plus culture that I gave up there is a pretty good representation of my concept of heaven, as I have reconciled it with myself.

I spent a good portion of my day planning potential college research projects in very, very vague terms. It all has to do with the way people who speak different languages think differently, and it is more boring than the article I linked, and more boring than my laboring of the topic thereafter. (I am not certain that labor is the word I want here) I also remembered an argument I had with my English teacher recently concerning the meaning of the phrase "care for." Could you people who still speak English regularly please give me examples of the phrase used in a sentence so that I know I am not going crazy?

There was also math class, where German word "heavyeren" was invented (Germans use "heavy," but it means something slightly different than the English meaning. . . closer to tough and rough combined. And then an "er" to intensify and an "en" becuase Germans have to put nearly-meaningless endings on their adjectives, and we have a new word.)

I also am enjoying listening to a German man named Ranier read Mark Twain's The Awful German Language via my iPod. It is wonderful, and captures everything I feel right now. It is far more interesting than the words I have typed here.

So I hearby dedicate today to Science, and I apologize for the things I said earlier. Science is often rather nice. It's just that books are nice, too. This website I have found is telling me that science and books are natural enemies, but a Third Culture is arising to make them the best of friends. That sounds pleasant. I hope that it happens.

(I got to use my BlogThis! button! I am pretty happy.)

My Goyim Friends

Have I told you how wonderful this Hannukah song iTunes gave me is? I probably should have told you about it back when you could get it, too (I mean for free, you can still buy it, which I totally recommend), but it is really nice, and there is just a hint of that Jewish accent that gives me those butterflies in my belly. . . is it okay if I am this into Jewish accents? (A newspaper article I read a few days ago said that philosemitism is bad because it is an unhealthy obsession with Jews just like antisemitism, except that you don't kill anyone. So I am a little worried.)

Thursdays are sleep-in days. So I slept until seven and left at 7:35 and thought about taking the bus but decided against it. So of course I got to the train two minutes late instead of the ten minutes early I could have been with the bus. First time I missed the train. I rode the bus home and my host mom drove me to school (I didn't have to leave the house until 9, however, to get to school on time, thanks to not having to walk anywhere) and I went to Sozi and had to explain that, no, the pursuit of happiness is not in the Constitution and thus not a legally guaranteed right. This does not mean that we do not believe in protecting the pursuit of happiness, but you cannot use it as an argument against Guantanamo, other than envoking a general sense of respect for the founding fathers. Now, there are a lot of much better arguments against Guantanamo anyway, but Germans really love the 20 articles (I am not kidding) of their constitution that guarantee human dignity, and like to think that other countries have them, too. Sorry, guys. It is still only 7 articles long, and was written by dudes who were not guilty about watching a lunatic kill 7 million innocents. I also learned that Reagan's politics are literally unconstitutional in Germany, because they declare themselves a social state right there in the first line of Article 20 (the first one that really deals with government at all, the first 19 needing to clear up important things like marriage and required religious education and copying America's bill of rights but with 20000 extra words and a socialization clause). I found this funny, and figure that Mr Cox (for more reasons than this) would hate Germany. I was actually really interested in the debate inspired by a group translation effort in English- I am coming to love hearing Germans debate their language in terms of English (meaning I understand it), and I am smelling a half-formed Div III project before I have even been accepted to Hampshire. Then came my free period, the one where all the really awesome people are around and we discussed giant outdoor rock concert festivals, and then we discussed time- from strange clocks to the fact that they apparently have to add a second every 10 years or so to why on earth leap day is February 29 (one member of our group insists that December 32 would make more sense). I also explained that there is no quark in America, and also no döner, much to everyone's shock and dismay (döner is that delicious, quark is just a strange dairy product that I do not understand and cannot explain. . . I mean, how do you explain cottage cheese?) My motivation for history died pretty much as soon as I realized that Germany had about 10 parties with seats in the Bundestag between 1928 and 1933, and I can only keep track of two of them (NSDAP and SDP), and that makes understanding things hard. On the way to the train station, I realized that I should actually be working my butt off to try to get (check in German- how awesome is that?) history so I can be a German history genius when I get to college. Somehow, I would rather be a German slang genius, because that is easier. I am working on a giant list of words that I didn't know 6 months ago and use all the time now to prove that a 5 on the AP German exam proves nothing about my German abilities. I use the awesome ScratchPad in GoogleDesktop because it is always on my desktop and it saves automatically and everything. There was an autistic man on the train who looked at his watch every 5 seconds or so. Thursday is not only the day that I get to sleep in until the same time as Piff gets up, but also the day that I get to come home from school earlier than Piff because he has Sport and I don't (wheee). My host mom and I made fun of the Experiment Host Parent Questionnaire for a while. . . "How does the exchange student get along with your children?" "It is terrible. They always want the bathroom at the same time in the morning, and then there is this drag-out, knock-down brawl and it disturbs our neighbors' sleep." "What difficulties are there involved with being a host parent?" "Well, I am always so tired in the morning because I have to get up an hour earlier now." It was fun.

Oh, Today

Once upon a time, Tuesday was the day of the week I hated. The hard day.

No more. Thanks to this whole school-until-5 thing, Wednesday has come up to become the day that tries to kill me every week. It didn't help that I couldn't sleep last night because my feet were strangely frozen (I finally got up and put socks on, but I still didn't get a very restful night). . . getting out of bed was so hard, and getting out of the house was harder. I was later to the train than I ever am, and I drug so much walking from the train to school, absolutely freezing in the -5 (so GoogleWeather says) weather, unhelped by the fact that I could not move fast enough to keep warm. Fortunately, no first period, so I chilled (literally- it was even cold at school) until Reli, where our discussion of the Bible Creation story remains interesting (how on earth are we allowed to learn this as school?). Then came the Art Exam, all 4 periods of it. I blew the theory bit (1/3 of the grade) by having German issues, and also being really uncertain how I am supposed to write an analysis of a drawing in any language. But the practical part was fun- we had to do a study of a mushroom, then work out some sort of composition in which we change the mushroom in some way or another. The whole thing seemed very psychadellic, and I ended up doing a really giant mushroom on a cutting board. It was purple. I swear I did not eat the mushroom, just drew it. Then it was lunch Pause, and Bina interviewed me for the school paper (and took a super-cute picture), and I didn't have Döner and was a little bad sad. German and we read something that was actually kind of interesting for its Wildean overtones (yep) and no math (for the second time this week) and then English and we are doing translations and they are so hard and then I skipped Chemistry because I am so tired and I am not taking the Chemistry exam Friday anyway, so I figure it is easier to skip if I don't show up to Chemistry at all this week. (Before you point fingers at me, know that my Chem teacher has already said that I don't actually have to do anything to earn grades if I don't want to, so my skipping is ever-so-slightly justified. Better justified than when I always skipped Chemistry in 11th grade, at least.) Stopped at the bakery on the way to the train and thus missed the 4:40 train and had to wait for the 5:13, but I was glad of there being a 5:13 train, because normally they only come every hour. And I rode the bus home because it is so freezing outside. Google says -3, but it feels so much colder.

Also it was super-sunny? Nice for great, dramatic side-light in art, but not effective at keeping me warm! Cold winter sun, what is your problem? You make me think it is springtimey, but then it is colder than when you are gone! (Science tells me that humidity (thus, clouds) makes the air warmer. Science is such a jerk.)

Brrr. May I go to bed now?

Oh No!

I was so distracted by a really awesome website about Dante's Divine Comedy (I am serious- it was like Goss's class only with no BGs) that I forgot to blog! Oopsies! Also, I got to use OK Go's latest CD as my blog title- heehee!

So, um, I went back to school yesterday, and it was nice to see everyone again! We are reading terrible Goethe poetry in German- I really don't like Goethe, and I am saying it for the whole internet to read! Ha-ha! English was a double-period, so long. . . in Reli, we are finally getting to the Bible (what?) and starting with the creation, which means my teacher said this fun thing (devil's-advocating a student, but still): "Men are boring, so that's why there's women?" And then Bio was fascinating but far too late (2-2:45. . . ugh I hate afternoon classes). . . and that was Monday! Woo!

Today I was even more tired when I woke up (as is normal on Tuesdays), even though I went to bed earlier last night (grr). I shall start with the funny moment from my two free periods (no math!), and then give you my thoughts from the three classes I had today, all of which are more serious and related to education (eep). So in third period, when, someone, both math GKs didn't happen (so only the 12 or so people with math LK actually had class), Steffi decided she wanted to go home because she was done for the day (econ didn't happen today, either, and she apparently always has 4th and 5th free). Zimmy's got a car, and Jakob was asking Zimmy if he'd drive him somewhere later, when Steffi decided to ask if Zimmy would take her home now. Zimmy, not missing a beat, declared that his fee for driving people anywhere was €3, and also that he had no time to drive Jakob. Jakob was deeply offended, but Steffi actually took Zimmy up on his silly offer, and we all giggled as Zimmy and Max and Steffi went off, Zimmy making a very easy €3. (Max in attendance because he is always with Zimmy)

So we're reading these poems in German, right? And I'm realizing it's actually kind of fun to read poems in a foreign language, because you don't always really grasp the meaning at first. Especially with Goethe, whose language is all old and weird, I just kind of pick out lines and words that make sense to me and ignore the stuff I don't know, and create a little poem in my head (one that I find pretty good). I like this method of interpreting poetry. Unfortunately, Herr Friedl continues to slowly force something like the real meaning of the poem out of my classmates (who know German), and shatters my beautiful image and makes me dislike Goethe more. For example, today we read this poem that is Goethe writing a love poem to the moon. At first, when Friedl mentioned that Goethe was like 78 when he wrote this thing, I took a few elements from the poem and turned it into a love poem to life, a bittersweet lament that he is coming to the end of his, represented by a moon being covered in clouds. I liked the idea (as much as I can like a Romantic poem), and then Friedl had to prove that the poem is actually just about how old people (unlike young people, who fall madly in love with a specific person) can find love in general experience, and thus write a poem to love in general, represented by the moon. Crazy Romantics.

So then in history (after my 2 free periods), I found myself strangely motivated, having discovered that I can take notes from the lecture (rather than just write the stuff that's on the board) if I write the notes in English. This is encouraging, because I always understand the lecture, but the process of picking the German words to write down is always so difficult, but using the English note-taking system I've developed from many American history classes (classes in America, not necessarily about American history) means that I can absorb more German history! Yay!

And we got our Sozi test/exam back, and I got a 5, which is bad. But considering that I could not answer the first question at all (20 of 52 points), the best I could do was a 3, and I calculated that I would have gotten a 3- or 4+ based on the 3 questions I could answer, which is better. I am upset that my teacher took off so many points for my issues with German, and I was very much reminded that German teachers grade WAY harsher than American teachers- if he has a list of 5 possible ideas to put in a short answer, if you are missing two of these ideas, you get 3/5 of the points at most. An American teacher tends to figure that 3 of 5 possible ideas is acceptable and gives you all the points if you got 3 and explained them well. This has a lot to do with our percent-based grading system, where 50% of the points is a failure. In Germany, 50% of the points is a 3, which is a rather acceptable grade. Also, I am noticing that my AP-style writing, where listing facts is nice (and necessary), but analysis is the point, is pretty much useless here, because my teacher just kinda blew over my little analysis of the Oxen-Tour in my essay on that and complained about my lack of alternative ideas (which I freely admit). . . I mean, the whole going-above-the-question that was in my analysis would have been rewarded in America, but here it got one tiny check, which I guess is nicer than piles of red correcting my adjective endings and grammar and complaining about leaving out some tiny detail (I am still trying to figure out the general idea of the German political system, so I feel that he should be impressed that I can come up with anything for this, but NO, he judges me just like his other students, which means I end up on the low end of the spectrum without so much as a mention of my awesome grasp of primaries). I know the grades don't count, but I feel that it is actually kind of unfair to grade my stuff so harsh, and I miss the positive reinforcement of American schools, which I guess are indeed the hand-holding, don't hurt anyone's feelings stereotype. I think Mr. Cox (oh my goodness, Kacey, that is two Manchester teachers in one post- this is your lucky day!) would have given me a much better grade, though.
I also really miss the concept of a curve. The highest grade on this test was a 13 (and there was only one of those), which is a 1. . . in an American class, that would have been curved to a 15, and I could have had a 4 instead of a 5 via the joy of curve. No, here the standard for essays is the teacher, and even if not a single person in the class can get full credit, then it just means that no one studied as well as they should, and it sucks to be them.

German school is rough, man. I didn't mean for this to end up being such a complaint (because, once again, my grades don't count), but man. Culture shock. I better study a bit harder for art tomorrow (although that teacher loves me and is far more understanding of the fact that I am from another country. . . don't get me wrong, my Sozi teacher is nice, but he doesn't quite seem to get that I have a HUGE knowledge gap, especially for this subject, nor does he get that German classes are entirely different from American classes. Oh well.)

On the train ride home, I noticed that the trees of Friedberg have ice all frozen on their branches that somehow ends up making them look an awful lot like dogwood trees in bloom (except that most of these trees are far taller than any dogwood I've ever seen). Adding that to the fact that we had blue sky and sun today for the first time in ages, my brain is ignoring the fact that it is even colder and thinks that spring is coming. My poor brain.

So instead of studying for art, I am poring over these piles of college mail that my Mom sent me (so much for giving colleges my Germany address- they will still take the cheap route and ship to my parents, where my dad opens the mail like the snooper he is and my mom collects it all and puts it in a giant envelope with Sour Patch Kids and pays $13 to ship it to me and make Piff jealous because I have a giant pile of mail) and there's the picture in the Wells viewbook (I like Wells a lot more since I have seen the fancy personalized note they sent just to say they'd gotten my application, and also the fact that they have already accepted me does not hurt) and it is of a seminar-style class with all the students sitting around the table with the prof, and I notice one of those ubiquitous yellow Langenscheidt dictionaries on the table. Now, this makes sense to me at first because I am never far from the thing here and it is Germany's #1 maker of foreign language dictionaries, but what is it doing in an American college classroom at a table where the students' notes are in English and the one textbook I see is entitled "Feminism is for Everybody," so presumably also in English? I do not know, but I am intrigued. Also, it makes me happy that it is there, because, these days, a yellow dictionary with a big blue L just seems to need to be near any sort of academic work (not that I take it to school, because there is no time to be looking up words in class).

I Won a Game!

And I hadn't even ever played it before! This is huge and exciting for me, because I have been on a really terrible losing streak recently.

Slept in too late again this morning, but I promise that stops tomorrow (school- aah!). . . at some point this afternoon, as is usual on Sundays (because Anja is here), we pulled out the Games. We started with the infamous Bohnen-Spiel (bean game). . . have I explained this one? It is a card game where you have 59 different kinds of beans, all with different values based on their frequency, and you try to collect them and sell them to make money and then there are 59 different expansion sets and new rules and things. . . we always play with la Isla Bohnita, which means that we add islands and ships to get more beans. . . it makes perfect sense when you play it, but I am not all that great at it, so I totally lost (also OTHER PEOPLE kept taking my beans before I could get enough for a decent payoff). . . after the beans (which is a long game) came some game involving numbers and ox-horns. . . I can't begin to explain this, but it was another card game in which I lost really, really terribly because it was my first time playing (there is no such thing as beginner's luck for me anymore). . . it went fast because it is one of those games when you stop when someone gets a lot of points (the person with the most points loses), and, considering how terrible I was at it, it took like 5 rounds for me to have the requisite points and so we moved on. The next game was awesome. I forget its name, but it was another card game with some strange medievalish theme that involved building a city. . . there was a king and 7 other characters, each with a special task. Everyone picks a character at the start of each round, and then you draw cards that are buildings and try to get enough money to build the buildings and the first one with 8 buildings in their city wins. Also, you can steal other people's money or demolish their buildings or even kill them for a whole round. It is awesome. . . Piff was almost always the Demolisher dude, and he also lost. . . as it happened, I got myself a nice, pretty 7 buildings, and in the final round, Anja was the king, meaning she got to choose her character first, so she picked the character who was automatically protected from demolition (so I couldn't have it), so of course I picked the character who is able to demolish things so no one else could knock down my buildings. My host mom grabbed the character who can kill someone else, and then she just had to figure out which character I was to keep me from winning that round. She had it down to two characters, and I thought all was lost when Anja told her to pick the demolisher, but I got super-lucky and she picked the preacher (immune to demolition). Anja had to sit out and I built my final building and won quite gloriously. It was an awesome game, with or without my winning, and I am adding this to the proof that Germany has a much better variety of games- don't get me wrong, America has some awesome games, but we seem to have so few. I mean, Germany has a game of the year every year, and I am not certain that enough games come out in America every year for the prize to be worth much.

I have still yet to unleash Phase 10 on this family. I am biding my time, because that crazy game takes FOREVER to play.

Obligatory Geek Post

Man, Google Pack.

With its super-convenience, I've finally gotten myself hooked up with Firefox (yes, I know I am the last person in the world to do this) and I have spent my day discovering many new toys for it.

I'm del.icio.us-friendly now, too, if that tells you anything (social bookmarks, man! When did I get so behind the times?). . . and I am going to break this off to continue to try to kill my computer with Firefox hacks and extensions (open-source is still my favoritest thing ever). I want to have way more toys than I could ever use.

My example of why my life is better now:
So I'm reading Mary's Blog, and she of course has this picture that is like 59 billion pixels wide, meaning that reading anything means side scrolling and side scrolling and side scrolling (which, by the way, makes Baby Jesus cry). Normally, I would sit there, scrolling, thinking "I am going to kill you for this, Mary." But then (then!) I remembered that I am in Firefox, and that I have just added this great little picture zoom option. I right-clicked on her picture, shrunk it to 10%, and proceeded to read without needing to side-scroll AT ALL.
I was so happy. So happy that I used the magic of tabs to come right back to my blog and post this. Man, tabs. (I have a BlogThis button in my Google Toolbar, too, but I don't like multiple posts in a single day, so that will have to wait until later.)

I have Live Bookmarks! Travis, would it kill you to stick a feed on your photo site?

(I promise school starts Monday, and we will return to your regularly scheduled "Germans Say the Darndest Things")

Happy Epiphany?

It is an official holiday in Bayern and everything.

Man, socks are pretty hard to knit, I have discovered.

Today I rediscovered awesome people from my not-so-distant past. For example, other Kari! That was pretty awesome. Maybe that is what Epiphany is all about?

Sources say no.

I Saw You Slipping Out the Back Door, Baby

I told myself "I will make the next song Lexi plays the title of my blog." She picked OK Go's "You're So Damn Hot." We both love this song, and it is appropriate because I am in such an OK Go mood (also, these new pants are so damn hot).

I slept in super-late again today, proving that my equilibrium is still gone. I guess school next week will give me something pretending to be balance again. I awoke to discover that Piff and Philipp were already home, meaning there was a wait for the bathroom again. This goes under "reasons living with other people sucks." We finished up 12 Monkeys today, and it is a Great movie- go watch it if you haven't seen it. It is possible that I am years behind the rest of the world on this one, too, but that is okay. Piff and I also tried to explain to my host mom why movies get made, but we failed. It was a strange conversation, and she left us to our movie.

I am now MySpace-compatible, my wish to be compatible with everyone helping me to get over my detest for places where people make lists of their friends on the internet and 15-year-olds have terrible, life-ending feuds. If you're curious, drop me an e-mail and I'll hook you up with a link- the upside to being MySpace-compatible is that I can put OK Go songs in my profile! I want to add their A Million Ways video (it is the best dancing ever), but I am incompetent, so maybe you can help me?

That is all for today. I am going to go try not to poke my eye out with a knitting needle. Also maybe turn some more yarn into sock.

Wednesday Weirdday

Ever just wake up really early and decide to get up? That was me this morning, at 5:50. After sleeping in until sometime between 10 and 12 (or later) for days and days, it was over. Equilibrium: re-established through some strange method.

So I discovered a new online comic that has broken every concept of gender I had, which is sad because I thought I was pretty gender-neutral and enjoying of adrogyny. Turns out, androgyny is an awesome Garbage song, but there are places my brain still doesn't want to go. Also, you don't care.

The boys (well, Piff and Philipp) are off skiing until tomorrow, so the house is quiet (Basti, as always, is Not Home). . . and I did nothing of interest yesterday, so I didn't post. I will make up for it with a special story of Cultural Differences from a week ago!
So it was December 23, and we were heading home from the Sound Check (explanations in that blog, too lazy to link) and we stopped by Anja's to drop her off and pick up DVDs. I went in to grab the DVDs and hit the button to call the tiny elevator (we are talking half a meter square, maximum of 4 people according to the sign, so you know 4 people can only fit in it if they are very good buddies). Elevator appears, and there is a person in it. I stand back to let him out, assuming he wants to get out (my brain refusing to allow the chance of having to ride this thing with a stranger). He just kinda looked like me like I was an idiot, and I realized he wanted to keep going down. I gave him an awkward nod and stepped in, only to realize he was also smoking and that there was no way to gracefully turn and take the stairs. The door closed and I stared at an undefined point on the wall, as I always do when in such potentially awkward situations. The guy was old, and while not creepy, hardly nice and grandfatherly, and I was startled to hear him say "Good evening, beautiful young woman." My brain, carefully trained by years of bad-touching skits and Family Life videos, immediately thought "Oh my God, he wants to rape me. How can I escape?" I managed to get out a "Guten Abend" and began praying that the elevator would go much faster. To my dismay, the man continued talking, and confused me by launching into a lecture about how one should always greet people or something- I simply stood there and nodded politely and hoped he would not compliment me again, and thanked my lucky stars that the elevator came to the bottom floor. I mumbled some sort of Auf Wiedersehen and hurried out, leaving the strange smoking man to whatever he was going to do. Seriously, who smokes in elevators? So rude!

Anyway, I took advantage of being up early (and also tried to avoid the house being all empty because that is no fun) and went off to Augsburg for Shopping today: I declare H&M a total success: they were having the kind of sale where there is more for-sale merch in the store than normal-priced, and I got 2 pairs of pants, a coat (my old one is having zipper issues), 2 long-sleeved tees for wearing under t-shirts and a wallet for about €75! This is good shopping, my friend. I have also decided that I need to drive myself insane, and that I should do this by knitting socks. Yes, socks. 3 mm needles, 5 of them all at once, and tiny yarn, and let's add a funky pattern to make things interesting! I bought fancy German sock yarn today and teensy needles and I came home and settled on the couch to begin the torture. My host mom, who can probably win some kind of speed-knitting competition, watched me for a bit and said "what are you doing?" Me: Uh, knitting? Her: Like that? Isn't that awfully slow? Me: Is there another way to knit? And then I kept going the American way and it was a miserable failure, so I stopped and pulled things apart and she showed me this sleek German method- once I get my fingers to go where they are supposed to, this will be awesome. Seriously, why is the sleek German method a big secret? Why is America knitting like the French? It makes no sense! Of course, the needles are still tiny, and now I am trying to learn to knit all over again, so this pair of socks is still going to take FOREVER. I am such a masochist.

I bought OK Go's Oh No last night because I am kind of behind on buying music! I have been wanting this album since July (it came out in September) and it is exactly the kind of music Lexi loves- fast and loud and snarky and good for shaking your groove thing to. Half of the time I feel like I am in an iPod commercial, and the other half of the time I try to avoid strange stares on the bus. So if you like music that is great, OK Go's Oh No is a great choice! You can also get their first eponymous CD because it is also rad and I have been rocking out to it on a regular basis since "You're So Damn Hot" was on Queer Eye. (Come on, it's not like you've never looked up a song from a makeover show montage on the internet and discovered your new favorite band.)

Do You Think I'm Awesome?

And are you also able to put together a well-formatted, candid paragraph or two expressing this idea?
And do you fall under the category of my parent or peer (this means you are not my teacher)?
And do you really, really want to tell Mt Holyoke how awesome I am and you have some free time in the next two weeks to do this?

See, I'm way behind on my Mt Holyoke app due to holiday fun and laziness (more of the second one, but don't put that in the essay), and I am only just now noticing the 100% optional parent/peer evaluation. And I figure, yes it is optional, but maybe someone wants to do it anyway? I should ask them! So if you're interested (once again, totally not required and I will not be at all offended if you say "extra work? no way!" because I would probably say that), hit that little button down there that says comments and let me know! You could also send me an e-mail (oneseventy at gmail dot com, as usual) if you don't want other people to know that you read this blog, which is perfectly understandable. If there is a giant deluge of offers (which is the last thing I expect), then there might be some sort of test of strength and wit to determine who to pick.

Then, to make myself feel more productive, I decided it was really silly to be sitting on copies of the Common App that I finished a month ago, so I went ahead and sent it to my final two colleges. . . and I'm totally done with Sweet Briar's supplement a month early, to make up for waiting until now to finish Mt Holyoke's. I tell myself this makes me a good person (I get to check things off on my Google To Do list!)

What? Did I do things today? I watched a Nightmare Before Christmas. Auf Deutsch. Sorry. It is 2 January. I am not yet able to face the world. Perhaps tomorrow.
I also worked on planning the trip to Mallorca for the end of April. I am going to Mallorca and you are not! (well, unless you are Casey, Emily, or Mary, in which case you are)

Why didn't anyone tell me about the World Beard Championships? In Berlin! Granted, I was in Italy on 1 Oct, but Berlin for this would have been a better use of my time. Why do I always find these things out too late? (Mary, what is the likelihood that we can crash with your Brighton buddies in 2007 for the next competition? Beards are important!)

Happy Silvester!

Where to start? Let's see. . . morning of 31 Dec, slept until 10 am, lazed about, managed to be showered and dressed by lunchtime. Anja came for lunch and then there was quick packing of overnight bags and Philipp, Piff, Anja, and I managed to get into a car and on the road to head to the cousin's house (Gerhard and Eva still had to do something else and wanted to stop by Oma's first, so we left early; Basti didn't go because he was hosting a Party of his own here). . . an hour and a half on the road. . . trying to get my iPod's volume to cover Piff's less-awesome music and yet still be a comfortable volume (failed), then we were there and Philipp parked literally inside a large snowdrift (it was crazy and you should have seen it) and I met my host aunt and uncle and cousins (Nico, Dani, and Caro) there was tea and German cheesecake (it is not like American cheesecake) and then, in the true fashion of family gatherings as I know them, the kids disappeared to the basement to play until dinnertime. Sure, we are all over 18, but that doesn't stop us from choosing rousing rounds of Uno and Activity (pictionary plus taboo plus charades for lots of fun) over helping prepare dinner or participating in boring Grown-Up conversation. We started with Activity, where Dani broke through our indecision about teams by having us draw slips and symbols. . . I thus ended up on his team (probably bad for him, considering my lack of German skills), Caro, Nico and Philipp ended up together, and then Anja and Piff. As it turns out, I am not too terrible at German, although there were quite a few cards I put back because I had no clue what the word was, but Anja and Piff spent most of the game winning because Anja is too smart. In the end, it was Nico and Caro and Philipp that won through some magical pictionary vortex of skill. Also, we learned the absolute funniest charades word ever: stark naked (German: splitternackt). There is a part of the game where the non-winning teams pick a card and a word from the card for the winning team to make things more difficult, and we forced this doozy on Philipp for acting out to Nico and Caro- it was hilarious in the literal roll-on-the-floor way, and I highly recommend it for spicing up your next game of charades. Uno followed Activity and was less hilarious but still fun in all the ways Uno is (also, possible for me to win), although there were quite a few giant stacks which seemed to always get passed between Caro, Philipp, me, and Dani, which isn't fun at all. Dinner was far too late but delicious and then we hung out (grown-ups included) waiting for midnight. . . at some point, chocolate left over from last year that was at our house but got brought along for unknown reasons got pulled out, and some genius insisted that chocolate never goes bad, so let's eat it. Dani made sure that every one of us took a piece, and a few brave souls ate theirs first and declared it terrible. . . Piff and I, being smart, nibbled tiny bits off, discovered that it was so nasty (it tasted vaguely like burnt marshmallow gone horribly wrong) and quickly rewrapped the offending piece to be rid of. No one has died yet, but I am still glad I didn't eat the thing. Finally, midnight drew near, and we bundled up to go outside and shoot off fireworks (wheee). . . people were already firing them off from basically every backyard in the village, so the sky was all full of pretty. . . we had the longest sparklers in the world (seriously, they were huge) and also normal sparklers and mini sparklers and rockets! We started shooting them off and then it was apparently midnight (there was no counting down) and we all hugged and went back to firing off rockets like the rest of the world- there were plenty of funny moments, inspired mostly by our insistence on using sparklers to light the rockets and the tendency of tea lights to blow out in the cold and it was late, so I don't remember things clearly. . . when we ran out of fireworks, we went back up and stood outside the door to drink strange red Sekt (there was maybe some sort of fruit juice in it? No one was quite sure what was up with it) and then we declared it Too Cold and went inside to wait for Dinner For One to come on (at 1:30). . . ah, Dinner for One. For weeks, I have been hearing about how this movie (if we can call it that at 18 minutes) Is New Year's Eve. It is impossible to explain: a German movie, but the spoken language is English: no dubbing, no subtitles, just increasingly drunken English. The idea is that it is some rich old lady's birthday, and she has invited her four closest friends, but her four closest friends have been dead for over 25 years, so her long-suffering butler James has to fill in for them all at the dinner table, which consists of toasting the Lady for each guest every time there is fresh alcohol. . . it is so funny to watch this guy get drunker and drunker and there is no way to capture it for you- one of those things you have to come to Europe on New Year's to experience, unless you find it on the internet or something. After the movie, we decided we were all falling asleep anyway, so we figured out air mattresses and sleeping bags and sleeping arrangements and eventually got to bed. . . I slept in Caro's room and talking to her in the dark before we fell asleep was exactly like talking to my real cousin in the dark before we fall asleep. . . it is comforting to have these parallels. I slept or half-slept for quite some time. . . I have no idea what time it was when Dani came in and reported that he had been sent to drag me out of bed, but I got up and found Anja, Caro, Nico and Piff playing cards and we then found Philipp and Dani to start a game of Career Poker (it is Capitalism except with little signs for the positions and its own special cards and everything- I felt so official!) that lasted all day because it is one of those awesome games that you never want to end, because you just might make it to Boss in the next round. Caro spent Forever as Dishwasher (this game's version of Scum) and Dani and Anja had the top two positions covered for a while until I got into my groove and knocked Dani from his throne, at which point things became nicely random and much more fun. We stopped for lunch, which turned into more hanging out, and my host parents decided to head home, but Career Poker drew us too much and we stayed for a few more rounds- the very last round ended with Dani as Boss and me in the second position, which we decided was a very comfortable place to end (also it was dark). We packed up the car and said good-bye and the way home included Adventures in Getting Gas (the first gas station's money-taking machine being broken), and also Fog and we dropped Anja off and came home, where I considered putting a blog off for tv, but Sunday Night on German tv is so boring (there is some strange Mozart Candy-Based Musical on, that appears to just use songs that already existed and may or may not have a plot), so here I am. This blog is nowhere near as good as it could be because I am So Tired, but you will survive.

Gutes Neues Jahr, my readers.

Oh no! I nearly forgot the most important thing! Song of the Year 2006! Are you fully prepared? No, because that is impossible. So thanks to Josh Woodward for hooking me up with this gem- Nickel Creek, covering Britney Spears' "Toxic." I challenge you to tell me that isn't deserving of being the song of an entire year that hasn't even happened yet. I challenge you to find a better song. I nearly squealed out loud in the car when my iPod played this thing. Squealed!