Sheep by Sheep

Moving!

2009-04-08T10:25:00.002-04:00

Hey all,
I'm moving my blog to WordPress
There's a lot more I can do there and I want to begin experimenting with HTML and CSS more. Please read my blog there. I'm trying to update it more, also. It'll be easier because I can update it through my cell phone!
Thanks,
Me

Trying out a new layout

2009-03-29T11:24:00.003-04:00

I'm making a pact with myself that I will blog more often. Mostly because I always think of things to write and never do because I'm away from my computer. The acquiring of an iPhone has helped immensely in that department. And I've figured out how to add posts from my phone to the blog! Hurray! I'm still in the testing it out phase but I'm hoping it will increase my frequency of writing.

The newest news is that Boyfriend and I are engaged! So I guess he will be Fiancé from now on. We're not really planning the wedding until I'm done with this semester but I have some really great friends helping me out with it. I also lost one of my jobs but I'm collecting unemployment. I did this mainly because it will give me a chance to focus on school without worrying about money too much. Because I'd been working so much, I think I let some of my school focus slip a little but I'm dead set on correcting that. Here's to trying harder at everything!

In which I get all girly and talk about hair and shoes. Sorry dudes!

2009-02-24T09:02:00.007-05:00

I've been looking for nice fashion-type boots for a while. I originally thought I wanted cowboy boots although when I was younger, I made fun of my friend Amy for wearing them. She was too cool for me then, I think. I went to the mall looking for a spring jacket, regretting not buying that one from H&M. I walked into every store and didn't find anything I liked. Until, Anthropologie. I love this store. Which is unfortunate because everything is way, way too expensive for me. I mainly go in the store for masochistic reasons and dream about how I want my house to look and how I could totally make a lot of their clothes but am too lazy.

My search for a spring jacket led me to the sale room because, who am I kidding: $68 for this? Do you know how many fruits and vegetables that could buy?! About a million. What I did find in the sale room were these boots:

These were exactly what I was looking for. The appropriate color, tallness, bootyness (not to be confused with bootyliciousness), etc. One of the biggest problems facing me and boot wearing is my calf muscles. They. Are. Huge. My legs look like drumsticks. Seriously. But these boots were a size 10! And they fit over my calf perfectly! They were just a little too big in the toe area but I knew that I had some shoe repair items from my time at the shoe repair. Now, the boots fit well! And I can wear them with my super cool vintage dress and all my great skirts in the summer. If only Michigan would cooperate and stop being cold and stupid.

I also got a new haircut. It's not drastically different from how I looked recently but there are more layers and cuter bangage. I reluctantly have to blow dry my hair in the morning but I'm getting better at it and my hair looks vaguely similar to how the hairdresser did it. Which is good, because I was afraid I would never be able to shower again. Here is the new hair:

I'm not sure why I look so green in the smiling one. Probably because I was experimenting without the flash. This concludes the girly entry. I'll try to come up with something super non-girly for my next post.

Tales from the library! And library-esque tales!

2009-02-18T09:45:00.003-05:00

I recently sat down with an advisor and made a plan of work to get me through school. The LIS program recommends students do this after completing their first semester, which I think is a bit unfair. I can't decide what I want to do! I have to follow rules, though. I was assigned an advisor who was on sabbatical last semester so I took it upon myself to switch advisors and I picked a professor that I had a class with, assuming I would feel more comfortable with her because I knew her.

We had to reschedule the appointment two times because one of us was not feeling well each time. Luckily, this gave me extra time to come up with a more coherant plan than "I dunno... I just want to touch books." I hadn't really thought about my experiences at the Opera House as something I would want to do for real but the whole time I was scanning things I kept thinking that there had to be better methods to doing this. I have very minimal scanning experience and even less experience with photo software (like Photoshop or the like). On a whim, (well, a friend said I should take this class with her) I enrolled in a Digital Imaging class for the winter semester. It's only offered every other year and I'd heard awesome things about the professor. This is my favorite class I've taken in the program so far. We're learning all kinds of information about proper scanning techniques and about the retention schedule of digital files. Our group project this semester is working with the Charles Wright African American History Museum. We're helping them digitize some of their random collections for a future web collection.

So I'm officially going into Digital Archiving. This means that I'll be focusing on technology and building web collections for things. I'm really excited about this. I think that this will really help me after I graduate. I'm hoping that I can work for the Library of Congress doing something similar to the Flickr project they have. I also came across a job posting for the CIA that needed archiving experience.

The other news is that I'm going to be given more responsibilities at the public library I work at. I mentioned to my boss how I liked my cataloging class because to me, it's about fitting data into a puzzle and formatting things the right way. She decided that she wants me to learn how to process new books and do minor repairs. I've been feeling annoyed at that job because I don't have anything to do except help people at the circulation desk, so I'm glad that she's giving me a project. I have realized that I'm not sure I could ever work at a reference desk in a public library. I would really love to make the library I work at better but the director is super back-in-the-past and doesn't care about improvements. The reference librarians are all older and seem to like the job stability the most. There are also some annoying patrons I can't stand. I'm fine with chit-chatting and there are som patrons that I absolutely love, but I could really stand not to hear about which pet food is the best and did you know that Obama wants abortions for the whole world? It's totally true, the internet told me. I did manage to create a piece of art based on a patron's hair. He was an older gentleman but was going for that Bob Dylan-my-hair-is-its-own-entity thing. Here is what I produced in MS Paint:

I obviously need to learn Photoshop.

I love making inside joke T-shirts!

2009-01-23T18:45:00.002-05:00

A while ago, Boyfriend and I were looking up Darkwing Duck on Wikipedia (what? No one else does this?!). In the Wiki entry, it listed many ways to say his famous catch phrase, "Let's get dangerous!" in different languages. I found the Finnish translation of the phrase and used it in my next e-mail to my friend Laura, who is Finnish and taught me how to say the only phrase I know in Finnish: Olen ötökkä. This of course means "I am a bug." So when she pointed out that the phrase "Let's get dangerous!" in Finnish can combine with the only other phrase I know, I decided to make a T-shirt. Because I'm in graduate school and apparently can't be bothered to do my homework. I apparently love making T-shirts. So, for your viewing pleasure, here's my T-shirt. The shirt reads, "Olen ötökkä. Ollaan vaarallisia!" The translation of this is, "I am a bug. We're dangerous!" So true, so true. Also note my bangification. I opted to get bangs because I was bored with my hair. I like it. Even though the camera used a flash, I really am still that pale.

The infamous Christmas post.

2009-01-21T10:39:00.008-05:00

Today is January 22nd which means it's the perfect day to bring out the Christmas pictures! Hey, at least it's less than a month since Christmas. That counts for something, right?

Because I'm in grad school and not financially wealthy, I opted to make most of my Christmas presents this year. The couple of exceptions being for Boyfriend (because I already had the perfect gift for him) and Mom (because she is notorious for not liking anything she specifically tells you to get her. Harrumph.). I made my sister a cute apron and it turned out wonderfully! Here she is enjoying it in its apron glory!

I wanted to make my Dad something that I knew he could use but that other people would see it and think, "Wow, that is a sweet thing, Mr. Reile!" so I made him a tie.
It turned out kind of lumpy and very wide at the top but it was my first tie and he promised he would wear it. When I talked to my mom last week she asked my permission to make it smaller and hopefully less lumpy. I told her to go ahead because she's better at sewing than I am. To her credit, even though I didn't make her anything, she was really proud of what I did make. I also made a couple of pillows for my Dad's University of Michigan themed room. It's kind of been the default present for my family to give my Dad but he still likes those kinds of presents. Or he's good at pretending. Either way.

I got Boyfriend a video game and this T-shirt from Threadless.com. He's wanted that shirt for a long time but I ordered the wrong size and when I sent it back to exchange it, they were out of his size! So I was foiled on the awesome present front. He did like the Lego Batman game I got him, though.

I did manage to be secretly awesome on getting my parents to buy Boyfriend the present I really wanted to get him: Mac OS X Leopard. He was so surprised and happy! Look at his happy face! I told him that I had sent my parents a list of things that we wanted but I left off that I asked them to get him this. And I'm glad my parents decided to get it for him, too. I got a lot of really great presents, too. Boyfriend got me these super cute slippers and I got more sewing accouterments from my mom. What did I get my mom? I bought her a weaving book she said that she wanted. The funny part was that she forgot that she told me about it and was really happy when she opened it. Then I told her that she told me to get it and it was funny that she hadn't remembered that.

When we were at Boyfriend's family's house, we had lots of good food and quality time with his niece and nephew. His nephew got Guitar Hero World Tour for the Nintendo Wii and we played it. We've vowed that when we get out tax returns back we are going to buy it because those drums are too much fun to play. I sometimes think about buying it now but I suppose food is more important.

So this was Christmas. I think this holiday went very, very well. I was glad that my presents went over well and I genuinely had fun with our families. We're going back to visit family during my Spring Break in March and for a whole week so that will be great. It's weird that the older I get, the more I enjoy my family. Someone must be drugging me or something.

I also wanted to post these Christmas cards I made for Laura and Sheree. I'm super, super, super bad at sending things like cards out and just sending them things in general. I'm going to try to send them more things because I need distractions from homework and what better way than to send things to friends overseas. So, Sheree and Laura, here are what your cards would have looked like, had I sent them. The star represents where I am currently located in Michigan: the city of Royal Oak. Or at least as much of an approximation as I could eyeball.

I also couldn't decide which one to send to which person so that's my other excuse for not mailing them. And they're bigger than my hand (here's a picture of one of them by my hand) so how could I have mailed them?! There isn't anything written inside because I got lazy. But I cut out all of the Michigans and animals myself. It was hard to get that penguin's wavy thing right. Just so you know. This is what I do with my down time at work. Halfway make Christmas cards. Please know that I do miss you two and thanks for not being as lazy as me and sending me cards!

That's all from the Christmas holidays. I'm actually going to make a post tomorrow of this really awesome shirt I made and my new haircut.

Quick update, yo!

2009-01-07T13:30:00.003-05:00

I have a really huge Christmas post planned but I keep getting sidetracked (read: I keep reading books and watching movies and drinking beer). But I have many things to say about Christmas and some funny pictures to show everyone.

On books: I cannot get through the last "Twilight" book. It is painfully boring and I don't care about the characters anymore. I'm taking a break from it and in the meantime I've read "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" and I'm currently reading "The Botany of Desire." The Roger Rabbit book was way, way different than the movie. I love the movie and the book was great but it was much more noir-y and adult. "Botany" is amazing so far. I really love Michael Pollan's writing style and I am never bored by what I'm reading.

On movies: please, please, please go see "Slumdog Millionaire." It is great. I also rented "Penelope" and found that it wasn't as bad as critics have said. But I love Christina Ricci so maybe I'm a bit biased.

I'm trying to do as many fun things as possible before school starts next week. I'm also trying to organize an Obama Inauguration party that is turning into just an excuse to make a weird cheese dish and drink wine. But anyone that wants to come is invited. I'll get writing that Christmas post for real.

The Nutcracker Suite, or how ridiculous one fifth (or fourth) grader can be.

2008-12-05T15:53:00.005-05:00

Yesterday at the Opera House, our supervisor let us sit in on the first act of the Joffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker. It started last night and ends this weekend and the building was filled with tiny ballerinas. This was my first time seeing a "show" at the Opera House and I would love to see a full one, a real opera and not a ballet Christmas thing. The acoustics were amazing. Seeing a real opera in that space would be wonderful.

The Nutcracker reminded me of when I was in elementary school and my class performed the play. I can't really remember what grade I was in, either I was in fourth or fifth grade. And I can't remember if the whole school was involved or if it was just the grade that I was in. Anyway, what I do remember is that I was one of the Chinese Tea Dancers. We were all a bunch of elementary schoolers so it wasn't really a "ballet" but more of a "play with lots of movement." As the Chinese Tea Dancers, we had to make our own teacups to wear on our heads. I remember I made mine out of styrofoam (when I say "I made" I really mean "Dad made the form and I decorated it with glitter"). To make it look more believable, I glued brown felt on the top that was made uneven (like a teacup full of tea would be if it were on a kid's head) for a more "realisitc" look. I also remember wearing my friend Mary's authentic kimono, although it was Japanese and we were Chinese Dancers. But whatever. We were little.

My other really big memory of putting on The Nutcracker was trying to keep a girl in my class away from the boy that I liked. His name was Billy and I had liked him since Kindergarten. Our families went to the same church and he used to chase me on the playground. I used to think that we would grow up and get married? Or something? I'm not sure I knew what that really was when I was that young. Anyway, This girl in my class was obsessed with him and she was part of the Flower Girl Dance so they got prettier costumes and didn't have to wear teacups. I was kind of a tomboy which is why I think I wished I were a Flower Girl. I remember this girl talking about how she was going to kiss Billy and tell him that she liked him at some time during the performance. Billy had a big part in the production, I think, and I remember being super bothered, not only that she would actually say that to him, but that he might want her to! I tried to find Billy before the show started so I could tell him. We'd always been friends so I thought I should "let him know." I did find him and I did tell him but I think all he said was, "oh, ok. Thanks." I'm pretty sure that the girl never ended up telling him that she liked him or kissing him (I'm pretty sure I was in fifth grade, when kissing was still a super new concept).

The funny thing is, I liked Billy almost up until high school. I mean, like liked him. Then in high school, I didn't really care anymore. The last time I saw him, it was when I worked at Barnes & Noble after graduation. I was in this "I'm too cool for the people I used to know" phase of teendom so I pretended that I didn't know/remember him. When he clearly was trying to catch up with me. How ridiculous, right?

I'm thankful that I'm at a place in my life where I don't have to pretend to be myself. And I'm thankful that I'm with someone (not Billy, ha ha, that would have been super ridiculous) who let's me be myself and wouldn't care if I were a Chinese Tea Dancer or a Flower Girl.

interview, schminterview, i nailed that!

2008-12-03T22:43:00.003-05:00

I had an interview today at the Southfield Public Library. I basically forced myself upon the library a couple of weeks ago when my class visited. This is the most beautiful library I have ever, ever seen. I had applied for a Library Aide position there a few months ago so after the tour, I talked to a woman who worked there and explained my situation and could I apply for the Intern position they had? Because it's a Youth Intern position, she gave me the name of the Youth Services Director. I decided to call a few days later, while being frustrated with my job. I scored an interview! They still had my resume on file!

I went down during my lunch hour for the interview and was a little late. The library has this massive parking lot and the offices were up on the third floor so I sprinted toward the entrance and up the stairs. I scared this woman ahead of me because she was trying to walk at a normal pace and I just charged up behind her. I was totally out of breath as I walked into the office but I tried to calm down as best I could. I apologized for being late and the librarians were the nicest ever. I feel pretty confident that even if I didn't get the job, this was the best interview I've ever had. This internship would give me a huge opportunity. I would be responsible for maintaining an aspect of the collection, giving school tours, and a million other things. They did ask me how well I work with children and I was completely honest. I said that I've been getting better at relating to them but that I've had minimal experience dealing with them in real world settings (read: babies kind of scare me). I was completely serious when I said that I would love to have more experience with children and that although I am not super wonderful around kids, I'm really passionate about the library field. Even if it turns out that I don't want to go into Public Librarianship, I know this would be good for me.

Because it's becoming winter and the season is effecting my mood, I've been a little more contemplative about my place in this world. I am very glad that I decided to join this program. It's funny because I've loved to read since I was little but never seriously considered librarianship, as far as I know. During the interview, they asked me why I chose this field. I said that I originally wanted to get my MFA but there was a set back (read: I got depressed after not getting accepted right away) so I chose Wayne. I think that I am way happier in this program than I would be as an MFA student. I feel a lot less self-conscious and I feel that this is really something I could be good at. I'm getting an amazing amount of support from my friends, relatives and Boyfriend. It just feels right.

In which I review Twilight and In Defense of Food

2008-11-30T21:04:00.004-05:00

I have this huge paper due tomorrow. Six to eight pages about a library observation I did throughout the semester. Naturally, I used this weekend to read two unrelated books and watch a gazillion movies. Let's procrastinate even more as I babble on about two books.

Yes, I read this book. My co-worker read it and loved it so she wanted me to read it. Apparently, while reading it she thought of me and wanted me to read it because she thought I would love it. Man, do I not want to go to work on Wednesday. To be fair, I didn't hate the book. I thought the story got more interesting as the book progressed although it ended abruptly, I thought. The writing style is not my cup of tea and I found it cliché a lot but I know that if I were a fourteen year old girl, I would drink this up like it was diet Mountain Dew (hey, I only drink diet pop now, sue me). I've never been terribly impressed with vampires. I liked Dracula and Interview with a Vampire but that's about it. I've watched specials about vampires and things because I think scary stories are great, but I also will watch them about werewolves with the same apathetic attitude. Anyway, the book. Basically, it was a really angsty teen romance in which one of the characters happened to be a vampire. The language was very flowery and dramatic and felt like a diary entry at times. Like if I were writing a diary that I secretly wanted people to read one day, I would write like this. Now, who am I to talk about good things vs. crappy things being published. I've never been published and I'm crap at writing fiction. But I read a lot of it. And I'd like to think that I'm a good judge of books. So there.

One of the reasons I wanted to read this book was because the waiting list for reading the series through my library is over 100 people long. Like the Harry Potter books, I wanted to find out what all the hullabaloo was about. And I'm impatient so I jumped on my co-worker's offer to borrow it. Now, I'm probably going to read the rest of the books, I'll admit, in the same way I had to watch all "Saw" movies: I have to know what happens. My curiosity far outweighs my low tolerance for crappy stories. But I still refuse to see "Firefly" for those keeping track at home. On principle. I found myself thinking that maybe Boyfriend's high school age niece would love these books. I am glad that there are these series of books that give young people the enthusiasm to read, however. Granted, I wish they would open their minds a little bit but I can't convince every teenager to read Neil Gaiman. I'd probably be upset if they did anyway; I'm hypocritical that way. Bottom line: if you want to know what the kids are up to, read this book. If you really don't care or are not impressed by lines like "'Yes, you're exactly my brand of heroin'" save your time. I mainly read it today to avoid my paper anyway.

The book that I absolutely want everyone to read right now is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. This book is amazing. It talks about the "Western Diet" and how it has lead to diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. I've struggled with my weight over the last couple of years (oh, and forever) and eating healthy. This book made me really think about what I'm putting into my body. Basically, the tenets of the book are "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The author goes on to explain these sentences in more detail later in the book. He says that the best way to combat these diseases are to make sure the foods you eat aren't processed and don't have any hard to pronounce words. I've already been losing weight through eating smaller portions and slightly more often throughout the day and I think that this book can help with altering the thinking of most people.

I don't have the time sometimes to make the dinners that I want but I'm slowly learning to prepare meals once a week for all week long. I also watched "Supersize Me" this weekend and this has also contributed to my change in thinking. I'm going to try really hard to make my own food from now on as much as possible. It should also save me money in the long run, which is a good thing. I've already found sources for local eggs and I'm going to start buying meat that is only grass-fed. I really recommend this book, way more so over Twilight although they are in very different categories.

Today is officially the last day of NaBloPoMo but I am going to keep writing on a regular basis. I feel kind of guilty for not posting every day like I should have and I tried to make up for it as much as possible. I realize that writing has helped me "get my feelings out" a lot (man, it's like I'm IN that vampire book) and I think that I should continue. I can't rely solely on the Prozac in the winter. So keep reading!

DEEEETROIT BASKETBALL!

2008-11-29T22:52:00.004-05:00

Boyfriend had some of his friends come out last night and we all went to a Pistons game and got into some shenanigans. We had planned this for a while because we would be unable to get home for Thanksgiving and one of his friends was going to be in England over Christmas taking his British girlfriend back home. The tickets were a super good price but apparently there were some problems with credit cards and what not. There was a moment where we thought we wouldn't be able to go; luckily, we were able to get the Palace of Auburn Hills to issue us enough seats in the very back row of the stadium.

If you look closely at the ticket, you can see the words "partially obstructed" on the bottom. We were hoping that we wouldn't be sitting behind a dumpster or anything like that. Really, "partially obstructed" meant that we were in the back row of the press section where we would need to stand up to see it. It wasn't that bad, actually. The basketball players are tall enough that they didn't look like ants and they had the game on the Jumbotron, which helped.

This was my first Pistons game, actually my first professional basketball game. Emma, the English girl, had never seen a basketball game at all. I actually wouldn't mind going again to a game but hopefully with better seats. The crowd was really energized. The only thing that was weird was actually getting to our seats. There was an elevator that would take us up but it took forever to get a car that was empty enough for the six of us to squeeze in. We asked people where the stairs were and we got multiple answers ranging from "oh, there aren't stairs to that level," "well, you can use the emergency stairwell but I can't promise you the door will open up when you get there," and "they're between these seats." When we tried to find them between the sections we were shooed away because we didn't have tickets in that section. Finally, when the game was over, we walked down the hall and DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS TO THE NEXT LEVEL. So... thanks Palace employees for not letting us get exercise. The Pistons won and it was really awesome. I had talked to one of my friends the day before and he had just seen the Orlando Magic play the Milwaukee Bucks (who the Pistons played last night) and said that the Pistons would pretty much kill them. The game was closer that I would have expected but I was really impressed with the Pistons. I've never been a basketball fan, or really any kind of a sports fan, but there is something to being at a game that makes me interested in them.

After the game, we wanted to go out to the bar, although I was the designated driver so I wasn't too concerned with the drinking. Boyfriend wanted to take them to this really awesome bar called Gusoline Alley but when we got there, they were at capacity. Maybe this is just me showing how uncool I am and not used to the bar scene, but almost all of the bars we tried to go to had lines out the door or were super, super packed. We finally were able to get into one bar but we wanted somewhere to sit down. We decided to find somewhere closer to the apartment and ended up going to this restaurant/bar called Royal Kubo. I had been invited there by my cousin a while ago but I didn't end up going so I wasn't sure what to expect. That place was crowded and so so loud. I ended up only having one drink that night but combined with the loud bar and staying out until 2:30 a.m. made me a zombie today. I've basically been sitting around in my pajamas drinking tea and watching movies. Which is really nice but would be better if my throat didn't feel like I swallowed a sword. The moral of this story: I'm getting old and my healthy eating habits don't really allow room for partying. Which is fine, I'd rather keep this weight off than drink a million drinks in one night. By the way, I'm officially down 16 pounds! Whoo!

THANKSGIVING!

2008-11-28T08:02:00.004-05:00

Man, I'm so bad at posting every day. Anyway, yesterday was Thanksgiving and Boyfriend and I had our own little Thanksgiving because he had to work so we weren't able to make it home. It was a lot of fun. I'm not sure if I could ever have the patience to cook a full meal for tons of people, but it was a lot of fun having just the two of us in the kitchen. We made two steaks, mashed potatoes, asparagus and candied sweet potatoes. I could only eat two out of those four but that's ok. I did have tiny tastes of the other two.

This was the first time either of us had made mashed potatoes and they turned out wonderful. I'm glad I have a potato masher. Boyfriend made the sweet potatoes and the recipe we found called for brown sugar, which we both thought we had. When we couldn't find any, he decided to substitute maple syrup and I think some Agave nectar. They tasted really, really good but definitely maple-y. That's not a bad thing, though. Boyfriend is really good at making steaks, as evidenced by this picture. I've never had steaks like the ones he's made. I'm not usually a steak kind of girl, but I might be converted. The hard part about living in an apartment is the tiny kitchen. I would love to have a giant kitchen some day with tons of counter space. I think it would be fun to cook a huge dinner for about twenty people but I'm totally not ready for that yet. Plus, this made a special day for the two of us.

This is what our dinner looked all laid out on the table. Yes, those are Batman placemats, yes, Boyfriend is drinking a giant beer. It's Thanksgiving! Here's another picture of him digging into his food. Which is not staged at all. I suppose it wouldn't have hurt to get a couple pictures of me but I was in my pajamas. Which is another thing I'm thankful for about this Thanksgiving. I could sit around in my pajamas and be not showered because it's my apartment, dammit. So I took pictures of the one of us that had showered in the morning.

I was also invited to my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dan's house to spend Thanksgiving with some of my dad's side of the family. It was really nice to see all my aunts and uncles and cousins. They asked me tons of questions about my schooling, Boyfriend, working and things like that. I "accidentally" ate a bunch of food that I shouldn't have, though. I kind of felt guilty but when I got home, I cleaned up the entire apartment for the most part. So I'm sure that I burned up all or most of those calories. It feels so good to have the apartment this clean. I'm hoping I can stay on top of it so it doesn't get messy again.

These are my confessions....

2008-11-26T14:26:00.002-05:00

Ok, I have to say something about this. I've been dealing with these... feelings for a while and I haven't really told anyone outside of my apartment. At first I was ashamed of how I felt but then I realized, you know what? Who gives a shit? I am my own person and I can feel whatever I want to feel. I thought that in the interest of opening my soul, I would share my feelings here, because you care, and because I felt that I should post some juicy info as an excuse for not posting for the last couple days.

I've been too busy... listening to Beyonce. I know, I know. I never thought it would be like this. I always regarded Beyonce, and pop music in general, with the anti-Lauren. Sure, there was that one time I started listening to Journey to be ironic and then started to really like Journey. And that time when I thought I liked the Spice Girls. This is serious. I think that it started last week when she was on Saturday Night Live. She sang her newest hit, "Single Ladies", and I couldn't get it out of my head. Or the dancing! I am obsessed right now with learning the dance to this song. I blame that on all of this extra energy that I've had since losing weight. But seriously, I like Beyonce. I think she's amazing.

I solidified my feelings when she was the only guest on Ellen's talk show yesterday. She sang the "Single Ladies" song along with another song that she performed on SNL. I didn't like that song when it was on SNL, I think because I was shocked by this creature. But after the Ellen show, I kind of like that song, too. Don't get me wrong, I still adore Morrissey, the Smiths, the Clash, Led Zeppelin, and many others. But I've found the missing piece in my musical life. And that is: Booty Music.

headache

2008-11-23T16:00:00.002-05:00

This weekend was spent in front of the computer, almost all day, every day. I should have updated but my head hurts so much from staring at this screen that the only thing I did *not* want to do was update. I've been working on this group project with my group member and we've been chatting on-line while trying to figure this out. We each had to make a five minute video about a topic that we chose and then put it together. The problem was that the files weren't merging correctly and then it wouldn't upload at all. The video was too big or something and kept crashing the site. So we worked for five hours Friday, just as many hours yesterday and it's still finishing up today. I am just waiting for it to upload to my site so I can check it out. This has been one headache of a project and I'm so glad that it's over. I can't really think of anything else. My brain can't think of anything else. I'll try to think of interesting things to talk about that aren't my stupid video project.

Dinner fiasco.

2008-11-21T21:01:00.005-05:00

One of the things that I'm glad I'm doing is eating more vegetables. I've gotten very good at cooking all kinds of vegetables that I never really cooked before. And I've gotten adventurous, too. I bought an eggplant the other day because I thought it would be fun to make it. I could remember having eggplant in a stir fry once and not minding it. Because this next week I'm going on a little "resetting my metabolism" week, I can only eat green vegetables. I thought tonight would be a good night to use the eggplant.

I found this recipe on-line that required using eggs and baking the eggplant with some spices. So I decided that I could invent something. I took some EggBeaters and mixed pepper, paprika, and chili powder together. Then I cut up the eggplant and soaked it in the batter and put them in two pans to bake.

Here's what they looked like before I put them in the oven. It didn't look too bad and I was kind of excited to eat it. Since Boyfriend was at work, I asked my roommate if she would want some and she said that she would. So I baked the eggplant for a half an hour while I finished up a school project.

When the food was done, I took it out of the oven. I could see that some of the slices were still wet from the egg batter but I figured it didn't matter. I grabbed a bowl and scooped up some slices and headed into my room.

It didn't look that much different when I took it out. It definitely looked baked and it looked pretty good. I took one bite and thought, "hey, this isn't so bad. Kind of chewy but good." About halfway through the piece, the taste of old socks showed up. I kept chewing, thinking maybe I was imagining it. I ate another piece and it was not my imagination. Baked eggplant = awful. I'm sure there's a way to bake it that would make it not taste like dirty socks but there are only so many things that I can eat right now and I'm pretty sure that "magical eggplant juice" is not on that list. In a little bit I'm headed off to Meijer to buy non-dirty sock tasting foods. Sigh.

Books are all created equal.

2008-11-20T22:17:00.003-05:00

Tonight the library was super slow. So I went around and was trying to pick stuff up and push in chairs to get out of there as fast as possible. I was cleaning up around the study rooms and I noticed a cup under one of the study tables. I picked it up and it was full of chicken bones. And the cup was covered in what must have been congealed grease or something. The creepy thing is that I have no idea how long that was there. It must have been a few days at least. Thanks, library patrons.

There was an interaction between a patron and a co-worker that made me think about how I was raised and how I was as an early reader. A woman came in with her three girls and they ended up picking up about 20 books or so. The girls were probably eight and under. She somehow knew one of my co-workers (I'm the youngest one working there and most of the women have children) so my co-worker was ringing her up. They came across the book Serendipity by Stephen Cosgrove and the mom told my co-worker, "I don't think I want that one... it looks weird." So my co-worker tossed the book on the floor and distracted the girl who picked it out so she wouldn't notice it not being checked out. Now, I remember reading these books when I was little. After searching through the author's book titles, I can remember more of his books than I thought.

I wanted to be sure that I wasn't censored like this as a child so I called Kathy who was our nanny when my sister and I were growing up. She's a really great friend of ours now and we stay in touch a lot. I asked her if she would ever not let us check books out. She said that we pretty much could check out anything that was at our reading level. When I told her about the exchange at my work, she thought it was kind of weird, too. Kathy also said that as long as it was from the kids section, we were allowed to check it out. If she wasn't sure about a book she would read through it with us but she never just looked at the cover and wouldn't let us get it.

When the patron left, I read through the book to see if I remembered it. It's a story about a sea serpent who doesn't know what she is so she travels the sea to try to find something like her. I think the moral of the story is basically that everyone can fit in somewhere, even if they look different. The serpent, Serendipity, even becomes a guardian of the seas. I think that kids should be able to read whatever they can. Especially when TV is much more prevalent in households than it was when I was growing up. Should kids really be taught to judge a book by its cover? As long as it's within their reading level, they should be able to read it, right? I was especially frustrated because the mom looked relatively young. Within ten years of my age I would guess. It just makes me think about how I would raise my kids, if I ever have them.

Why isn't this week over?

2008-11-19T20:56:00.003-05:00

I hate my job. Well, one of my jobs. I came to this conclusion last weekend and today I've confirmed it. I feel so out of place there. It was different when I worked for the company in Portage, but here, I just feel like an accessory. Take today for example: one of the architects can't organize his workspace. He has old project files everywhere and they're in his way. As a project manager, he should be responsible for cleaning up his files and destroying them. But because he is so incompetent, I'm the one who has to do it. I have to physically read almost all of his files to find the ones he wants to keep and pitch the rest. The worst thing is, my boss won't stand up to him and tell him to do his own damn cleaning. I started doing this for him a month ago and when I started, I had to sit at his desk and ask him, "do you want to keep this file? what about this one?" This is so frustrating.

It's even more frustrating because I want to be able to get a paid internship or a graduate assistanceship but I'm nervous that I won't get one. And I wish that I made enough money to just quit my job. Grrr... I'm frustrated. I just want this semester to end.

Adventures in parking.

2008-11-17T23:04:00.004-05:00

This is the purse I'm currently using. I found it in a box of winter clothes as I was putting my summer clothes away and decided to use it. It was my grandmother's but she never used it. This purse is a lot smaller than my other purse which is partly why I chose it. That and my left shoulder was about to murder me in my sleep for putting too much in my purse. I have this "purse organizer" that my sister got me for Christmas a while ago and the idea is that you just transfer the organizer from purse to purse. This lovely yellow purse is not big enough to fit it all and close it properly. Or at all. So I transferred my essentials to the purse and started using it.

Boyfriend kind of thinks the purse is silly but I've gotten quite a few complements on it and I kind of love it. It even goes with my awesome red winter coat. So every Monday I have my one class that's actually on campus and I wanted to head there early to finish my homework that was due. I left right after I got out of work and after changing. The really convenient thing about parking at Wayne State is that you just use your school I.D. to head into the parking structure. It automatically takes money off your card every time so you don't have to worry about carrying cash (which I don't really do anymore, lest I get asked for money and drugs again). This is a far superior method of parking to Western Michigan where it's basically a free-for-all. The parking structures at Wayne even tell you if they're full or not. Neat, huh?

I'm heading to campus and I'm just about to turn onto Anthony Wayne Drive when I realize my school I.D. is still in my other purse at home! I tried to use my debit card to get into the parking structure but the machines are apparently smarter than I thought. So I drive around a little bit thinking, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," and find a little parking lot that let's anyone in but you pay when you leave. I parked my car and ran up to the little booth and asked the guy if there was a way I could park here or get someone to let me into the parking structure because I left my I.D. at home. He told me that the parking lot I was standing in only took cash, which I didn't really have, so I should leave now if I wanted to really park my car and not sleep in it over night. He said that he could call over to the other parking structure and let them know I was coming and they could help me get in. Then we both realize that there's been a miscommunication... A BIG FAT ONE. He thought that my I.D. just wasn't working but I was really asking him if I could use my debit or a credit card to access the parking structure. He said, "the only way you can park on campus anywhere is either by having cash or using you I.D." Great.

I remember that when I bought coffee earlier, it didn't cost me that much so I actually had a couple bucks! And some change! I drove to the parking structure after scrounging up the right about of change to put into the machine. I start feeding the dollar bills in and they keep coming back out. This happens for a few minutes but it felt like ten days. Meanwhile, there are about five cars behind me and they start honking and giving me dirty looks. Awesome. I was able to get some quarters in the machine but all I had left were some dimes which the machine does not take. So I hopped out of my car and ran to the next car in line and begged the dude to trade me ones. He looked disgusted and was all, "I'm not sure it's going to work." I ran back to my car, squeezed into the driver's side, and THESE DOLLAR BILLS WORKED! But they were in worse shape than the ones that I had. But I finally got to park and feel like a giant douche today. Hooray for Mondays!

Library story

2008-11-17T07:38:00.002-05:00

A young kid, about four, comes into the library with his father.

Father: I want to get my son a library card.

Son: I want a pink one!

Father: You want a pink one?!

Me: Well, all we have are blue ones, is that ok?

Son: Yeah...

Father: Blue is for boys anyway.

Son: Pink is for girls!

I'm learning to be more tolerant of young kids while working at the library. Especially when they're adorable like this kid. Although I'm not sure if I should put "has a new fondness for children" on my resume. Too creepy...

the Detroit Urban Craft Fair

2008-11-15T22:17:00.017-05:00

Today I went to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair at the Fillmore in downtown Detroit. It used to be the State Theatre and sits right across from Comerica Park. My original plan was to park at the Opera House for free and walk the couple blocks there. Unfortunately, it was pouring. So I spent six bucks to park next to the theater.

This event was super fun, although perhaps I spent a bit too much money. There were so many unique handmade items, I couldn't wrap my head around everything. I only spent about an hour there because it was so crowded and I was afraid I'd end up buying more things. Vendors ranged from handmade clothes, jewelry, stuffed animals and paper sculptures. One of the first things I saw was a table full of yards of fabrics from designers like Amy Butler and cool retro fabrics. I ended up buying four different yards. The company was called Crafty Planet. Here are a couple of fabrics I bought.

I thought I could make this into a cute skirt or bag. I tried to find fabrics that matched but I have a hard time picking out things that go together. I really liked the bold flowers and the simple design. It reminded me of "The Royal Tenenbaums" some how.

I can't decide if I want to make this into a shirt or a skirt. The problem with the fabrics only being a yard long is that I'm limited in what I can do with them. But I might devote Thanksgiving weekend to sewing up some cool clothes.

The inside of the Fillmore is gorgeous. I think it's an old theater and it's decorated in the same style as the Opera House, very decadent. I was hoping that by the time I got there at 4:30, maybe there wouldn't be that many people. I was completely wrong though. There were a few times where I wanted to look at something but had to circle around a few other tables and come back when there was a spot. I was also thinking that most of the vendors would be local but there were a lot from out of state. I later found out that one of the sponsors was BUST magazine, an awesome crafty and liberal women's magazine that I love. Another thing I found funny was that I recognized at least two people from the Library and Information Science Program. Library school kids are crafty kids, too.

There was a great booth with a stand up monster but I couldn't get close enough to see what they were all about. One of the reasons I'm happy living in Detroit is there are so many unique arts and craft fairs like this one. This is the first that I've been able to attend and I'm sad that this Urban Craft Fair only happens once a year but I gathered so many business cards for future sales. I also feel more confident in wanted my make my own Christmas presents this year. It also makes me think that if I can get to a point where I can create clothes in a short amount of time, maybe I can sell my own stuff somewhere. I love supporting handmade crafts.

I bought some birch bark earrings from a table called bettula. The earrings were all so unique I couldn't help but want them. Especially since I'll be able to wear them soon. She also sold birch bark bracelets that clasped with a magnet. I think I want to get a better camera because I can't figure out how to focus better. You can kind of see how they curve under a little bit. The back side is a lighter tan, almost white. The girl selling them said the clasps can be worn either way so both sides can be shown.

I also found some vintage-looking earrings from Mimi & Ferne. Again with the camera issues, so I wish the bright orange would show up better. There's also a little decorative piece on the front of the clasp. It's kind of clamshell-like.

The last thing I bought was a cute headband from Talking Squid. I have a weakness for companies that use aquatic animals in their names. And to things with that are bright yellow green. I always say that I'm going to wear headbands. This time I actually mean it.

The craft fair was really awesome. It made me love living on this side of the state even more. The girl I bought the birch earrings from knew about Kalamazoo and I told her how I do still like it (mostly) but that my favorite places kept dying. The sad thing about Detroit is that the middle of the city is dying but there are so many awesome events surrounding it. Hopefully, whoever becomes the new mayor will help it along even further. The craft fair could happen more often, too. I did manage to snag some flyers for some upcoming craft shows. I'm excited to start on my Christmas presents, too. I highly recommend checking out the links I put in here to support these creative people.

This post brought to you by: Jack Daniels bourbon. And the letter Q.

2008-11-14T19:32:00.002-05:00

Wow. This week has been extremely stressful. I have been wrestling with HTML all week long. At first, the server wouldn't work. Then, I couldn't access my page to make edits from the Windows side of my computer. I called in sick Wednesday to work on this assignment but I was not able to get very far. I sent multiple e-mails to my teacher along with posting on the discussion board for this class. Nothing that was suggested to me helped. I didn't go to my internship yesterday to work on this assignment. I called into work again today to work on it. Last night was particularly rough. I couldn't get to sleep until 1:00 am and then I woke up at 5:30 am and I couldn't get back to sleep until 7 am. So... great. I finally got help from my wonderful friend Sarah! And everything is fixed! And I turned it in!

I decided that this occasion called for a whiskey. I'm technically not supposed to drink but that really only means I can't drink beer. I went to this really crappy bar down the street from my apartment. It wasn't quite seven so I figured it would be really easy to sit at the bar, drink my whiskey and go home. The bar was packed! The only seat I could find was between these two old regulars. So I just drank my whiskey as fast as I could and now I'm home. Thankfully done with this assignment. I totally deserved this whiskey. And I'm down a pound since Wednesday! Hooray!

Kids are weird. And demanding.

2008-11-13T23:41:00.007-05:00

First of all, before I forget: I work for a library that's part of this library network. Basically, there are 90 some libraries that are linked through this system to enable users to borrow books from any of those libraries. It's a really neat system because you can ask for a book to be sent from Library A and pick it up at Library B. And you can drop your books of at any of the libraries and they'll find their way to the home library they belong to. One of my jobs is to send the books on their way as I'm discharging books. I have to write the library number and the abbreviation on a tag and wrap the book up to go. The abbreviations are four letters. One of the libraries is the Milford Public Library. I'll let you guess the abbreviation. Find the answer at the bottom of the post.*

Another thing I've noticed at the library is the number of refugees who relocate to this area. Today a couple came in to ask about using the internet and possibly getting a library card later. They were both refugees from Iraq. I'm not certain if this happened in my hometown or not but it's interesting to be aware of it. I can also notice the big difference between how I talk to these people and how my co-workers talk to them. I make sure to be nice and friendly and understand them as best I can. My co-workers immediately start talking ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS AND IN A VERY STERN VOICE. They get frustrated by these patrons very easily. Personal differences, I guess.

I stayed home from the Opera House today because this HTML assignment has my panties up in a bunch. I cannot for the life of me figure out why some parts will upload through the Mac side of my computer and some will only upload through the PC side of my computer. I'm taking tomorrow off, too, to clear my head a little bit and focus all on this assignment. I'm pretty sure I have enough sick time to cover it and school is more important. I feel mildly bad but I need to pass all my classes. Here's to figuring this shit out tomorrow. Maybe I will celebrate with a whisky.

*_{the abbreviation is MILF. i think i'm the only one there who finds that funny.}

Ha cha cha!

2008-11-12T22:24:00.002-05:00

I'm going to make all of my Christmas presents this year. I have some really awesome patterns for some really neat gifts and I'm poor. So people can benefit from my creativeness. I need to get on that soon, though. Since Thanksgiving will most likely be spent with just Boyfriend and I, I'll have plenty of time to get things done then.

There's a craft fair at the Fillmore Theater that I want to go to Saturday. It's called the Detroit Urban Craft Fair and it looks super awesome. I'm excited to find some cute/funky earrings to wear when I can finally wear different ones. I've been feeling so great about losing weight and even though there are moments when my willpower weakens but I really feel great most of the time.

I'm slowly weeding out library positions I do not want. Tonight I went on a tour of the Beaumont Hospital Library. The librarian was very nice and she told us a lot of information but I just can't see myself working in a hospital. There are too many rules to follow and there's virtually no leeway. I was able to get into the special libraries class I wanted to take so I'm hoping that I'll gain some more insight after this semester. I'm still really thankful that this program is working out better than I could have ever imagined. I finally feel like the pieces are falling into place. International Librarianship seems the way that I'm still leaning and I can't wait for next Fall to take a class about that.

I do need to buckle down and finish my homework for this week. I've been wanting to finish my HTML assignment but whenever I try to, the server is down or some other bullshitty reason. Time to go to bed now, though. The Opera House is calling.

Getting to know you, er, me.

2008-11-11T17:21:00.002-05:00

So I lied about posting three times yesterday. It turns out working at the library is quite busy. There's really no down time. And I really wanted to write about this specific thing but I couldn't get my brain to cooperate. So you'll get the half-baked version later in this post. I am happy to report that I got an oil change today. It was a leeetle bit overdue but it's done. And I bought winter boots. There's this vintage store that Boyfriend and I went to and I fell in love with a pair of pink cowboy boots. No, those weren't the winter boots. I really want them, though. Maybe it'll be my "losing all this weight and not having ice cream for months without cheating" present.

The thing that I've wanted to write about for a long time, well, since moving here I suppose, is why I did certain things before leaving Kalamazoo. What I mean by that is why I stopped talking to some people and how that has effected me, blah, blah, blah. Trust me, this is more for my closure than anyone else's. I figure if I finally write about it here, I'll stop thinking about it. Or for those who don't know, maybe it will make you understand a little better. Or I just haven't made any super personal posts. Make up your own reasons.

I'm not really going to go into what started my depression earlier this year, it was a number of things, but this isn't about what, it's about what happened after. It could be said that I have had bad experiences picking friends and groups of friends. People that aren't that supportive or who always see me as an outsider or people who don't really let me be myself or start to leave when I change out of their ideal Lauren. Whatever that is. So let's just say that I was depressed. Really depressed. The worst since high school. And I've always been someone to put people's happiness before mine. I guess this was the breaking point. I eventually started talking to Boyfriend about it and he was supremely supportive and still is. This is how I know we are awesome together. That, and we're super adorable. It's a fact. Anyway, when I tried to talk to one of my closest friends, she didn't believe me. So I shut down. I felt that I couldn't say anything to her because it didn't matter. I tried to talk to her multiple times about things but it never worked. Part of it was that I could have probably found better ways to say what I wanted to say, but another part of it was her changing attitude, I believe. She'd been getting more negative about things and I began to feel left out of my group of friends. I know, I can have this feeling a lot. But when there are people that are blatantly telling you "oh, well, we went to this movie but it was at night and we know you work in the morning so we just didn't bother calling you", it kind of hurts.

What I did next was to do the only thing I thought could save me. I started seeing a counselor to sort through all my thoughts. I had seen a counselor in high school and been put on anti-depressants then so I knew how counseling could help me. The psychiatrist also prescribed Prozac for me. He said that when someone is diagnosed as clinically depressed, it's because there's a chemical imbalance that needs to be corrected. This person can have depression effect them in different ways. My way happens to be cyclical. I can go for months without feeling any sadness or anymore than a tiny bit blue, but then there can be one month where I'm crying at everything and get paranoid. He said that it was my choice to take the Prozac or not to take it. I chose to take it. Because of how it effected me before, and because I was afraid of what might happen if I didn't take it.

I made the decision to tell this close friend what I was going through because I missed her and it was really hard for me to keep things from her. I knew she thought counseling was stupid and that medication was unnecessary. But I thought that because we were really close, it wouldn't matter. That she'd be supportive and understand why I needed to do this. That didn't happen at all. I told her and I felt attacked. She didn't want to understand why I did this and why I chose this. She just thought it was the wrong decision. This broke my heart. Completely. I wanted to change her mind and I even thought that maybe she was right, maybe I reacted out of desperation and didn't really need the counselor or medication. Then I tried to get up the next morning. It was so hard to get out of bed and go to the same job every day where I felt small. It was so difficult to want to get up and take a shower. I knew that I made the right decision for me. And I knew that there were people who supported me and wanted me to be happy, even if it meant seeing a counselor and taking meds. If it stopped me from hurting myself, that's what they wanted.

I stopped talking to her, almost completely. I stopped talking to other people, too. People that were from that same group of friends. I couldn't stand the paranoia of thinking what they must be thinking of me. And I couldn't stand how much my heart hurt that these close friends didn't care at all. It certainly helped that I knew I was going to be moving and I used that as an excuse for a new beginning. I still miss those friends a lot but I can't be around people who don't support me. I can't be the person that supports all of these people and gets nothing in return. That's not who I am. I don't think that was ever who I was. I tried that suit on and it didn't fit comfortably. I need to look out for myself and I think that's okay. I have a wonderful boyfriend and great friends who do support me. I realized who my true friends are finally.

I'm happy to be living on this side of the state and away from all of those bad feelings. Yes, I do feel bad sometimes and I feel like maybe I fucked up, but it doesn't matter. I started to listen to what I want and making my own decisions. I still take the Prozac because I feel that it really helps me sort through my bad feelings I have sometimes. But it helps. And I'm thankful that I found a solution.

ugh

2008-11-10T08:41:00.004-05:00

This was the first weekend in... I can't even remember how long, that I didn't have homework or a million things to do. So I relished it and didn't do anything. Except make food and hang out with Eric. And watch a lot of ridiculous television. The thing about not having cable is that when I feel like just zoning out in front of the TV, it ends up being to something like "Antiques Roadshow". Seriously. And I sometimes think it's interesting. Maybe this library program is getting to me. Or I just really want to own a piece of furniture that's 200 years old. Anyway, to make up for not posting for a couple of days, I'm going to post a few times today. I have some weird stories from the library. And some boring cat stories. Maybe I'll save those for a really slow news day.

Is there such a thing as too much water?

2008-11-07T22:13:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, I bit the bullet and implemented a "lifestyle change": my diet. I don't really restrict what I eat but how much. I have a food scale, weigh my meat (that's what she said), and measure my vegetables. I make sure to have four servings of vegetables, three fruits, two proteins, and a few simple starches. I'm also taking a multi-vitamin. To make a boring story short, it's been a month and I've lost ten pounds, five and a half inches off my waist, and two off my hips. I feel really great about everything. This has taught me to cook my own food, watch what I'm eating and how much, and not to drink pop and crap like that.

I am wondering if I'm drinking too much water. I'm drinking the "recommended" amount of at least eight glasses a day. But I don't really measure the glasses of water. And I haven't really felt like drinking anything else but water. I mean, after half a can of diet coke, I'm sick of it. I guess it's ok. I'm probably over-analyzing this. But I feel awesome and I'm really glad I'm doing this. I just hope I can keep this up for, oh, the rest of my life. But I do miss beer and pizza. Delicious, delicious pizza.

suzy farbman: on fashion

2008-11-06T22:25:00.006-05:00

I'm going to try and create some kind of theme here. I've been finding these hilarious pictures while doing my archiving and I thought I'd share them here. I have recently finished doing the 70s operas but here's this gem:

I found this gentleman in a folder for... "Don Giovanni" I think. This has nothing to do with opera but everything to do with fashion. In case you can't read the text, it says:

Here's a sample of the the classy man is wearing these days. At right, the herringbone suit never dies. This one is priced at $170; the wool challis tie is $10. Below, the classy man of leisure may wear this toned down casual suit, a military look with matching jacket and pants ($80), with a printed sport shirt ($25).

It also goes on to talk about other pages that I couldn't find. But here's the "classy man of leisure".

You're welcome.

"the times, they are a-changin'"

2008-11-05T13:48:00.002-05:00

Wow, America, wow. 52% of Americans want Barack Obama as president and now it has come true. I could not be more grateful. This does wonders to break down race barriers and culture barriers. Wow.

Things at work were interesting this morning. My direct boss is super conservative and so is another guy who hangs around our department. They started going on and on about how people are going to be sorry, taxes are going to go up (uhh... they were going to go up anyway, dudes), this is not the magical cure for America. Then the guy (not by boss) go up in my co-workers grill and said "it's because of motherfuckers like you that this happened!" Holy crap. Yes, I'm happy. But I'm not shouting at the top of my lungs about it. Yes, I would have been crushed if Obama lost. But I wouldn't go around cursing conservative co-workers. That is not the solution, my friends. That is just perpetuating the same hate and ignorance this country does not need. It's time for us Americans to be seen as more than slack-jawed yokels with extreme power. I want to know that if I ever live abroad, I can be proud of my country for being progressive and correcting its racial prejudice. That's all.

This also means that a vow I took last week must come to pass. I told myself that if Obama wins I would get my ears pierced. So here goes. After 26 years of never having my ear lobes messed with, I'm doing it. Wish me luck!

Election Night 2008

2008-11-04T18:57:00.004-05:00

This is an official badge. So I'm really doing this.

So voting didn't take that long at all. Well, about a half an hour. Then we went to get a free coffee at Starbucks to commemorate the event. And then I bought a lot of vegetables. Awesome. Today also marked my day of being officially ten pounds lighter. Hurray! This "lifestyle change" is really working. I'm going to keep it up the best I can when I'm done with the actual process. It's really helped me to realize what kind of crap I put into my body and how it affects me.

At the library tonight, someone brought back a juvenile book called "Women of the WWE". I had no idea this book existed. Or that kids would want to read about the women wrestlers. But there it was. Another woman checked out a book by Sylvia Browne and I wanted SOOO badly to to tell her that Sylvia Browne is a total scam and her books are awful but I'm supposed to be non-partisan (or whatever the librarian equivalent would be) so I said nothing. But man, Sylvia Browne totally sucks.

I'm off to watch the news coverage obsessively all night. I swear, if Obama doesn't win I'm calling into work tomorrow.

aw, snap!

2008-11-04T08:06:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I totally didn't post yesterday. I'll tell you what I was doing though.

For those who don't know this, I'm attending Wayne State University and I'm in the Masters for Library and Information Science program. I'm just finishing up my first semester and I am excited about this program but frustrated at the beginner classes. So far, one of my favorite things I've learned is how to hand code HTML and CSS. This week I plan on working on that a littler more because it's a giant puzzle. I type in these weird commands and scripts and then it turns into a beautiful website. It's pretty cool.

I had this huge assignment due yesterday for one of my classes. It involved looking up a couple of topics in ten different sources each. All of the paper indexes are in the basement of the library that my classes are in. That's all that's in the basement. I would have been a little more creeped out but there were a couple of other girls from a different class working on the same assignment. So I worked really hard, for four hours today and two hours yesterday, trying to finish this assignment. It totaled 35 pages and then I had to print out page from the on-line sources and make copies of the print sources. I got to class early, giant assignment in hand, and my friend Lindsay said, "Oh, I don't think that's due in another couple of weeks. We had this other assignment [that is way easier and NOT 35 pages long] due." Great. The upside is that I talked to the professor and she was very impressed that I got this done in one week (I just hope it doesn't turn out to be crap) and used it to illustrate to the rest of the class how you would go about starting this assignment. And I can turn the other assignment in whenever I get a chance.

I'll probably post again tonight seeing as how it's Election Day and I'm going to the polls soon but also working at a library that is a polling place later. Oh, the stories!

decisions, decisions

2008-11-02T15:01:00.002-05:00

I called my parents to ask them to vote for Barack Obama yesterday. It turns out that they already planned on it. Hurray! That makes me feel a lot better about the state of things. I know that the whole world wants Barack Obama to win and so do I. I get so sick of listening to the one-issue voters and closet (or, not closeted in some cases sadly) racists. The fact is that he is ready to lead our country. This country shouldn't worry about whether or not gays can marry but that we make sure America isn't going to go down the crapper.

There are some big decisions being made over here. I won't say too much but I'm really excited for this next year to get under way. I think it will change things for the better. Part of me can't believe it's so close. But I can almost get a grasp on my whole life for the first time. Which takes a lot of pressure off these shoulders. I'm also down almost ten pounds due to my lifestyle nutrition changes. I have a lot to go but it's getting easier as the days go by.

Here's to this next week!

Let the games begin!

2008-11-01T19:05:00.005-04:00

Ok, so this is my first post of the month. It's officially November and I'm participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month in case your mind was in the gutter). I have to make one post a day for a whole month. I'm hoping that this will force me to blog more often. On to panda pictures!

This is my face makeup. The regular receptionist said that I looked "scary". Some other people didn't know what I was. I tried to make my hair into two little buns to appear as ears but I didn't get them up high enough. And I usually wear glasses but I had to wear contacts which made my eyes tired. I think next year I will go as Babraham Lincoln, a sexy version of Abe Lincoln.

I wanted to upload a full picture of my costume but for some reason, it wouldn't show up as vertical, only horizontal. Does anyone know some HTML code or something to rotate a picture? It's rotated in my iPhoto but not when I go to the "upload picture" button. I would appreciate the help.

Here's to a month of blogging!

funny story...

2008-10-19T18:04:00.003-04:00

ok, so this girl is driving home from class around 8:30 in detroit when she realizes that she's out of gas. the nearest gas station is a couple blocks south of campus, closer to the center of detroit. she pulls in and starts pumping gas.

it's kind of windy so the long purple flower skirt she's wearing is blowing around slightly. she's very careful to look around her to see what's happening and accidentally makes eye contact with a white male only a few years older than her. there aren't that many other people around at the pumps. a woman in a security uniform gets into her red car and starts to drive off.

the girl has locked the car and is only holding onto keys while she waits for the gas to finish pumping when the young white male approaches. "hey," he says,"my van just ran out of gas and i have no cash and no card, can you help me out at all?" the girl replies, "oh, i'm sorry, i don't have any cash on me." the guy moves a little closer and says, "i just need some change or a couple bucks." she says firmly, "no, i really don't have cash. sorry." he mumbles, "thanks anyway" and walks back to his van.

as she's pumping gas, she glances back and sees the guy talking to customers walking in and out of the store. well, i *do* have a couple bucks i could spare, she thinks. she's been trying to figure out who she is lately, since moving to this big city, and wants to be a good person so she figures that if she gives the guy two bucks, it'll be just a little under a gallon so he could at least get home maybe. she finishes pumping gas and locks her car after getting two bucks out of her wallet. she walks toward the guy, skirt billowing behind her, and says, "hey, i found a couple of bucks you can have." his eyes get big and he starts to smile, "hey, thanks a lot! that's awesome... are you a hippy?" the girl thinks, where the hell is this going?! before replying "well, i wouldn't describe myself as that..." as he's putting the money in his pocket, the guy says "because my fiance and i just moved to town and if you're interested in psychedelics, we have a bunch of acid and mushrooms i could hook you up with." the girl looks around to see if this is some elaborate joke or skit or something. "no," she says, "that's ok."

second coming?

2008-10-10T08:33:00.003-04:00

ok, if this is the second coming of the messiah, this is totally something i can get behind. how cool would this be? although, the fact that this is the second time this has happened in captivity means it might not be. and maybe people would be afraid of a messiah that could eat people. but! maybe this would make more people aware of sharks and then they would love them. wow...

haircut?

2008-10-06T15:19:00.002-04:00

ok, so i think i'm going to cut my hair. not short or anything. maybe just a little shorter. and i think i want bangs! i'll post a picture of how i look before and after.

i just want to mention that i think, for the first time in my life, i'm happy. i still have tiny moments of sadness but i really like where i am in my life. i have a best friend who is my boyfriend. i have great friends i can turn to and i don't have anyone poisoning my thinking. so... i feel pretty good!

hey... remember when i said i'd update more... oops!

2008-09-29T09:36:00.003-04:00

there's been something on my mind to write about. basically how i've been feeling about a certain situation that happened before i moved out of kalamazoo. the reason i haven't updated this is because i've been wrestling with myself "should i, shouldn't i" and all that bullshit. i think that it will be cathartic and it will help me finally move on. this is not that post. but i have been meaning to update and i still will keep up with it. so... keep watching. also, there's an adorable cat picture up there for those of you who have been wondering where i've been. you're welcome. i'm also going to try to figure out how to add my twitter feed into this blog. anyway, that's what i came to say. enjoy the cat pic!

my wrist hurts...

2008-06-26T15:02:00.002-04:00

Created by OnePlusYou

And there you have it. I'm really good a being caffeineated. Today after work I'm going to my first ever chiropractic appointment. I've been having problems with my right shoulder all week and my lower back has been hurting. Along with the jaw pain that it brough on by stress and the immense work out I got with softball this week, I'd say it's pretty deserved. I might try to get a massage next week as a birthday present to myself. What I really need is a very extended vacation. Like, for the rest of my life maybe? Although in certain ways, grad school will be like that. I'll be getting away from the things that are causing me the most pain. And heading straight for something that might cause me an equal amount of anguish. Awesome.

this makes too much sense.

2008-06-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

technology and me

2008-06-12T09:22:00.002-04:00

so i took this MASH quiz (you know, the quiz where you pick some dudes you want to marry and kids and cars and stuff and see who you end up with randomly?) and wanted to post it to my blog. the formatting was all off so i tried to fix it and then i ruined it. so i deleted it. but i will tell you what the game told me.

i will marry eric arnsman.
we will have one kid.
we will live in a mansion in australia.
we will drive a purple VW.
i will work as a truck driver and we will live happily ever after.

not a bad life, eh?

all hail the killer of plants!

2008-05-21T13:42:00.002-04:00

There's a plant that sits behind me at work and it's dying. I like to think that it was dying before I worked here. Truthfully, it's probably my fault. Because it sits behind me, I never see it. I feel a little bit guilty that I don't take care of it, but mostly I'm waiting for it to die so I can find a replacement plant. At this point, I'm more interested to see if I can find an exact replica and replace it in the same pot without anyone finding out. I tried to complete Operation Plant Replacement while my boss was out of town, as she is the only one that mentions the state of the plant to me. Unfortunately, my local Meijer store didn't have these plants in stock then. This weekend is a holiday weekend so perhaps I can get one then.

I tried to save the plant before. It was wilting and getting brown around the edges and stems so I thought, "hey, I should water this sucker every day!" Did you know that plants can have too much water? And when they get too much water, they start turning brown at the bottom of the leaves? Combined with the lack of water for so long, the once green plant is green, then brown, then green, then brown again. I like to think of it as a zebra plant. The weird thing is that so far, NO ONE HAS REALLY NOTICED. I consider this a minor victory.

kangaroo dream

2008-04-16T09:19:00.002-04:00

i know this probably isn't the most interesting of posts, but i had the strangest dream about a kangaroo last night. there was a kangaroo loose in downtown kalamazoo and the police were considering shooting it. eric and i found the kangaroo and tried to capture it so we could hide it. at first, the kangaroo was resisting and bounded away. eventually, we caught up with him by car where he hopped into the car and tried to bite me. somehow, i was able to calm him down and we all sat by the side of the road talking and laughing. i remember i was telling the kangaroo about a movie i saw and that i thought he would like. then the kangaroo wanted to play peek-a-boo so we did that for a while. for some reason, eric had a radio that was tuned into the police channel. we heard the police talking about how they had located the kangaroo on davis street and needed back up because it looked dangerous. i started screaming "we have to hide you!" and trying to push the kangaroo into the car. i saw the laser sights of one of the SWAT team members' rifle and told eric and the kangaroo to duck. i kept yelling "can't you just use a tranquilizer?!" and the SWAT team said that the kangaroo was too dangerous. i remember making eric and i both hug the kangaroo so they couldn't shoot it without shooting us. eventually, i think they killed the kangaroo or maybe i took it home. i can't remember the end of it. man, it was weird, though.

Way to go Michigan, way to go.

2008-03-28T09:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday it was raining a lot. Then, on my way to the gym, it started to look like snow. "Surely it's not snow," I said. "That would be ridiculous." Then it really starts to snow. Great. Awesome. My friend Christy and I are driving to Wayne State University tomorrow and hopefully it won't keep snowing. She's driving though, so it shouldn't be that bad.

About the gym: my legs are weaker than I thought. Everytime I have gone to the gym, I usually use the elliptical machine or the bike for at least 15 minutes. The leg exercises on the weight circuit have always been easier for me. So when I started this personal training stuff, I said I just wanted to work upper body. Then she asked me the other day if I wanted to add legs. I said, "sure," thinking it wouldn't be a problem. Whoa was I wrong! Those weights are H-E-A-V-Y. It didn't help that I had the foot strap on wrong. I'll have to keep doing the exercises a few times before it stops making my legs quiver. I felt like such a baby. Plus, I was wearing these ridiculously tight pants because I was sick of doing leg lifts and having my pants unravel to show everyone my white, white legs. Needless to say, I felt ridiculous. But there are other people there that wear more ridiculous things. So I'm ok.

bad girl... baaad girl

2008-03-26T14:25:00.001-04:00

Today has been a good day. I had a freak out moment earlier in the work day because people kept coming up to me and saying "Here's this thing to do... I need it now." Normally, this would be fine but when there are three or four people asking this question it kind of makes me nervous.

I will post pictures later. I promise. My oldest cat, Merlin, has to go to the vet on Monday to get some tests done because he has been throwing up and I think he's lost a lot of weight. But he seems to be eating well and drinking. I'm really nervous about that. Especially because he will apparently become a "Senior cat" when he turns seven in August. Seven! I've had him for so long. I don't know what I'd do if something bad happened to him. Here's hoping it will go well.

oh, the things i can do!

2008-03-19T14:00:00.001-04:00

This writing every day isn't working out like I had hoped. Mostly, I blame the sadness. And the sleeping. I should learn how to write while asleep. It would maximize my potential.

Over the weekend, I gave a waiter $3. Because he was complaining to the bartender about how another table, with a bill of $45, tipped him only four bucks. I felt bad and gave him the cash in my wallet. I was also drunk.

I should post pictures of cats and things. But I'm also thinking that my audience (this is you, boyfriend) sees enough of the cats that maybe I won't post that many pictures. But I think my blog looks boring so I'll add some kind of pictures.

I've been accepted to library science school but REALLY REALLY want to know about poetry school. Right now. This minute. My parents are going to Africa next week and I hope they don't get eaten by lions. Or African buffaloes.

weird habits i apparently have

2008-03-10T10:51:00.002-04:00

Something I noticed last week about myself: when there's a pile of out-going mail here at the office, I have to arrange it by shape or it bugs the crap out of me. What I mean is that the biggest envelopes are on the bottom continuing until the smallest on top. I try to do this secretly and casually so no one thinks I'm going through their mail. Because the mail slot is right on my desk, I can't help but see it.

I also have a morning web-surfing routine that is really hard to get out of. I've tried. I always check my e-mail, LiveJournal, and Gaiaonline. In that order. If I have time, I'll check out Facebook. I've tried to change the order, or go to another site entirely and I can't do it. What a weird form of OCD.

The sizing thing also happens when I organize my books in a pile or papers or anything that are similar but different shapes. I can't help it. Piles get so awkward if you just mash things together.

wednesday bloody wednesday

2008-03-05T10:41:00.002-05:00

I almost got into an accident on my way to work today because a stupid car decided it would be fun to spped up and try to merge in front of me instead of getting behind me. I was too busy playing with my iPod (whose battery is dead) to be as defensive as I usually am at this particular intersection, so I didn't hurry fast enough. So he got in. And I honked my horn and gave him the finger. I hate driving sometimes.

THE MAIL STILL HAS NOT BROUGHT ANY SCHOOL NEWS YET! I'm getting really, really, anxious about it. I just want to KNOW! Maybe I'm whining too much. There's also this stupid stuff going on with the Kalamazoo Film Society that is frustrating me a lot. I just wish they would leave us alone and not treat the Western Film Society like babies. I'm getting more and more disheartened with how the WFS is being treated in the community. I know it's out of my hands what happens next year but I still care.

I also added a link to Neil Gaiman's journal. He's talking about a new book of his that I must get. I'm trying not to buy too many books now. I really am getting rid of more this weekend so I shouldn't just replace the ones I get rid of. If I can whittle my collection down to fitting all in the one tall bookcase with some room left over, I'll be happy. Let's see how that goes.

anybody want my crap?

2008-03-03T10:41:00.002-05:00

So I joined this website, freecycle.org, because you can create posts about things you have that you want to get rid of and people will hopefully respond and want to take your stuff. Holy cow, does this work. I was skeptical at first because I just thought "How many people will truly respond and take stuff?" The answer is "A lot." I packed up a box of books I no longer needed (read: I have too many and don't want to pack them all up and move them ever, ever again) and posted it on the site. Within a half an hour, someone responded and said that they wanted them. A couple of hours later, the books were gone. The same thing happened to a lamp, too. I'm waiting to see if someone will respond to the printer I left there but so far the woman hasn't written me back. The good news is, there are tons of others who want this printer. I should mention that I do not have the installation disk for the printer or a USB cord to hook the printer up. This doesn't seem to be a problem at all. How strange. I do have to resist responding to the messages people post on there about pets that need homes. Otherwise, I'd have five dogs and three more cats right now.

I listened to the newest "Learn German" podcast this morning. The guy talked about Guatemala! Apparently, he's taking a trip there and thought it would be a good idea to rattle off information about the country in German. It was... educational? Kind of interesting. It just reminded me of a text book I used in a class a while ago. I guess I learned something, though. And it's letting me hear German more often. That's good.

I was having problems with this iTrip thing for my iPod. I figured it out though. I found the manual as I was cleaning and read it for a minute. Apparently, you're only supposed to have the volume at a maximum of 70% on the iPod. I'd been turning it up all the way, so I wouldn't have to monkey around with the volume on my car stereo too much. Now that I've done the opposite, it works way better.

Later tonight, possibly tomorrow, I'll post pictures of funny things I found in thrift stores this weekend.

book hiding and pod listening.

2008-02-27T10:36:00.002-05:00

Because I haven't had a chance to keep up with my German (read: I'm lazy and feel weird talking to myself) since I'm living in the US again, I recently subscribed to a few German podcasts. One of the is called "German Grammar Pod" which I mainly chose because of the cute name. It's taught by a British lady who speaks very, very deliberately. It's nice to have a refresher course in the grammar and I know it will help if I keep listening to it. Right now it's kind of boring. So is the second one I've listened to. That one goes through scenarios one might encounter in Germany. The episode I just listened to was "How to reserve a hotel room." The good thing about this is the host is German and sometimes slips into German speaking when he is explaining the situations. I think it's just nice to listen to German often. I haven't listened to the third one yet but it's from Deutsche Welle and is mostly news. I think (hope) I'll like that one better because I will have to listen really closely to understand what they say. My biggest problem right now is my ipod. It doesn't seem to want to stay charged for very long. I'll listen to it for about two hours and then the battery is low. Is this normal? I want to get a new one anyway, but can't exactly justify buying a new one until the summer. I want to get a new computer, too. We'll see what happens with grad schools before that becomes a real idea.

I joined this website today calle BookCrossing.com. Basically, you register your books and hide them around your town, country, whatever so that others may find them and read them. I figure it's a creative way of getting rid of the books I don't want anymore. I'll have to find a way to print off labels. And where to hide the books. Although that can be almost anywhere.

let's see how this goes, shall we?

2008-02-26T11:53:00.003-05:00

This is a new... "project" I've decided to take on. I used to post stuff about my happenings while I studied abroad. It's been almost two years and I'm not in Germany anymore. I wanted a place to write often (daily might be asking too much right now) so this is it. I can't promise there will be great literature on here but I may post poems on occasion. Hopefully this will entertain someone.

paris (finally!!!)--sacre coeur, arc de triomphe, and the louvre

2006-09-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

this is a picture of the train on the ride to paris. it was a four hour train ride and the way there we got to be in first class! that was pretty exciting for me. they even served us a lunch. the train was a french train company so it was slightly different than the german ones. if i had thought about it, we could have taken a much, much cheaper flight. but i thought the train would be easiest because shilo doesn't like being on planes. but we could have saved money. oh well. next time, i'll remember that.

this is a shot of this really pretty cloud i saw shortly after we arrived. we were on our way to see sacre coeur and i looked up and here was this cloud. so this is what the sky of paris looks like. more or less.

this is only a part of the million of steps we had to climb up on our way to the basilica. sacre coeur is the second highest point in paris, next to the eiffel tower. there were so many steps and it was so hot. by the time we got to the top all we wanted to do was sleep and drink massive amounts of water.

this is staci and shilo in front of sacre coeur. i tried to get them to take my picture a few times but neither one of them is very good at using my camera. so you'll see very little pictures of me, if any.

this is a better picture of the basilica. it's very beautiful.

this is the moulin rouge. it's pretty touristy. shilo was super disappointed when we got there. the original building looked nothing like this. it's kind of sad how touristy some parts of europe are. especially paris.

the next day we went to see the arc de triomphe (here) and the louvre. we tried to go shopping but we weren't having any luck. there were a couple times in paris where we wanted to do something but things were either closed or it just didn't work out. i'll have to go back again and visit the things i missed this time around.

this is the bottom half of the famous pyramid by i.m.pei in the louvre. here's a tip: if you want to go into the louvre, use the underground entrance. we didn't have to wait at all. and you can always go out the big glass pyramid way. it's pretty impressive either way you enter it, though.

you can only really take pictures of the sculptures in the louvre. there are some places where you can take pictures of paintings but only one or two places. these are some statues i thought were really nice. i can't remember what they were called or much about them but i have a book that probably says something about them. i don't know what this one was called but i found it pretty impressive.

not sure what this one is called either but i think the guy in the back is apollo. but i could be wrong. all of the sculptures were pretty impressive.

this one is called milo of crotona. i know this because it's in my book. he's being eaten by lions but in the real story, they were wolves that ate him. just so you know.

i found this one to be very impressive and interesting. i think bronze sculptures are really interesting, especially when they oxidize like this one. yup, i'm a dork.

this is part of the ceiling in the sculpture room. in case you didn't know, the louvre was a palace and became a public museum in 1793.

this is the famous venus de milo. they say that if her arms were still intact, they'd be able to tell who she was supposed to be because the arms are what shows the characteristics of the person.

these are two pictures of my favorite thing in the whole museum. it's called "the winged victory over samothrace" and it stood on a cliff so that everyone sailing into port would see it. it was so amazing. you had to walk up these steps to get to it and it took my breath away. staci's, too. it's just so huge and impressive.

this statue is called "psyche revived by a kiss from cupid." i think it's so beautiful.

and this is the outside pyramid. it's in the courtyard of the louvre. there are some cool fountains (one that is pictured here) around it and way, way too many pigeons. although i miss pigeons now, kind of.

anyway, i'll update more later. but later this week or something. i promise.

oh yeah....

2006-08-21T23:55:00.000-04:00

i'm home in america now. i've been home for a while but i've been busy adjusting to america and working. i have to upload paris photos which i mean to do sometime this week. i hope no one thought i was dead. sorry if they did. i'm not dead.

BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-07-07T09:52:00.000-04:00

all right, last week i had a birthday. and i promise i'll only post a few pictures of fish. but there are way more to be seen when i get back. and a couple of small videos. but i'm sure you guys can wait.

SEEPFERDCHEN!!!!!!! they had a bunch of little seahorses. here's one of the best pictures i have of them.

here are some jellyfish. i wish the picture turned out better but they had a black light so you could see the jellyfish, that's why that one is glowing. but black light doesn't like to be photographed.

that little thing is a dogfish shark. there was this big pool where you could look over the tank at them. because there were so many people in the room, the sharks and rays kept poking their noses out of the water. i had my head a little over the edge to stare down into the water when one of the tiny sharks came halfway out of the water right in front of me. if i hadn't breathed and scared it away, it would have touched me. that would have been so cool.

and this is a sting ray. one of them almost touched me, too. it was really funny and weird to see them stick their noses and bodies out of the water. super funny.

and this is me on a dolphin. emily kept trying to make me wear this hat that we bought for her birthday but i kept taking it off. notice i'm not wearing it in this picture. in fact, i only have one picture where i'm wearing it. it was really ridiculous. i kind of regret getting it for emily... i didn't think she's make me wear it...

the we went swimming. this is a picture of the cheesecake that emily made and sheree brought to the swimming pool. for about a week before my birthday, emily kept talking about how she had this really great surprise thing for my birthday. and this is what it was! see, mom, you should make me one when i get back. and emily didn't think it was too hot outside to make a cheesecake. and we don't even have air conditioning here....

after swimming, we went to rheinkultur, which is the biggest free festival in germany. they have five stages set up and it goes all day long. there are tons of bands playing, too. the cool thing about this night was that one of my favorite bands, death cab for cutie, were playing. FOR FREE! it was pretty cool. but this picture just shows how many people were at the festival.

these are all the people i dragged along for my birthday: laura, martin, sheree, emily and katie. i tried to get them all smiling but someone thought it would be funny to make silly faces.... thanks.

this is a picture of death cab.

and this is another picture of death cab.

my birthday was really fun, as i said. i've been really busy with school finishing up and i haven't been going any cool places really. but in a ocuple of weeks i'll be in paris! and hopefully i can update this thing before then and also before i come home. which is really, really soon.

rhein boat cruise and the strokes in concert.

2006-06-27T10:14:00.000-04:00

last wendesday we went on a boat cruise, arranged through the international club. it wasn't that exciting except we got one free drink and free weird sandwiches. i'm really excited for when i get back to america and can have normal sandwiches. not that i don't like these weird sandwiches, but i like american ones better sometimes.

this is a picture somewhere around königswinter.

this is definitely a picture of königswinter. you can see the castle ruins in the background. they look a lot smaller from down here. it's also a picture of part of the siebengebirge.

this is me, hanna, and sheree. hanna is from finland and is awesome. i want to go to finland now. she knows about five languages....

this is sheree, laura, and emily. laura is also from finland and is also awesome. like i said, finland must be a great place to live. and their language has *no* articles. not one "the" or "a". the only thing i've learned to say in finnish is "i am a bug". very useful.

last night i went to see the strokes, one of my favorite bands, in concert. it was SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!one this is actually a picture of the opening band, the eagles of death metal, who were ok but they're name is a lot better than they are. but the lead singer has got some really awesome moustache. you can't tell from here, but trust me, it's awesome.

ok, these are the strokes playing. i tried to pick the pictures that best showed that there were acutally people on stage. i couldn't get close enough to take better pictures due to the fact that the average height of the audience was eight feet, nine inches. ok, perhaps that's an exaggeration.

this is another picture of them. i was really excited to see them and to dance because i haven't danced in a while. i didn't mind so much being in the back because it gave me more room but i think there was a couple standing behind me that weren't amused by the dancing. oh well, they moved.

the lights at the concert were really cool, too. i should have taken a little video but my camera can't record sound so it would have been weird.

these last two pictures were probably the best that i took.

that's all for now. saturday is my birthday (sigh) so i'll have pictures from that soon. i definitely going to the aquarium and there's a free concert that day, too. neat.

BRUSSELS!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-21T04:43:00.000-04:00

last weekend i went to brussels. it's about a three hour train ride away and we left early in the morning. when we got to brussels, i took this as a good omen: batman!

this is the mannequin pis. the story of this statue is that a nobleman and his young son were walking around when his son got lost. the nobleman looked for his son but couldn't find him. a day, or a couple days later, he saw his son peeing on a street corner. he was so happy at the return of his son, he decided to put up a stautue in the exact position his son had been found in. now the people of brussels dress it up sometimes for special occasions.

this is a bunch of lavender bushels. brussels is known for lavender apparently.

this is a statue in the courtyard of the old city hall. we couldn't actually go in the city hall which was kind of a bummer.

this is the city hall.

this is a statue for all the martyrs. there are a bunch of names (i'm assiming of martyrs) listed on bronze panels below the statue but i couldn't figure out how to get down there to get a better look.

this is the crazy chair thing in the church of notre dame de finistère. it's completely made out of wood and is awesome.

this is the cathedral in brussels. because we went there sunday morning, we could go inside the church but couldn't walk around or take pictures because there was a service in progress.

this is the front of the palace in brussels. again, we couldn't go into the palace which was a real bummer but we did get to have a look around the old palace ruins under tha palace. the cool thing about going to see the ruins is that you have to enter this code to go through the door so we felt like we were spies or something. that was fun.

this is a really cool fountain. the top part spins around, probably due to water pressure.

so... brussels. not really that interesting of a town. we probably could have been there only for a day and seen all of this. but we did go to a really neat art museum on sunday. anyway, that's all for now.

berlin zwei (warning: this is a very long post)

2006-06-20T04:15:00.000-04:00

the next day we went to wannsee, where the wannsee conference was held. this is the building. in case you don't know what the wannsee conference was, i'll tell you. the wannsee conference was where the heads of all the different nazi departments came together to discuss "the final solution". for a long time, no one knew what to do with this house or the papers held inside because some of the people in politics had been former nazis and they didn't want to bring it to light. then it was a summer camp for underprivileged children. finally, someone decided that it would be a good place to have a memorial site. what i found particularly interesting is that it had histories of all the men that were involved in the meeting and what happened to them after the war. i should also point out that the tour was in english because the woman said she wanted us to really understand what happened there and we would be more apt to do so in our native language. interesting.

and now for something completely different. this is the fan fest, where they had five giant screens showing the games. we went there to try to watch the first game, which was a germany game.

unfortunately, this was my view. we could have squeezed through the crowd but some of us were hungry so we just went to a bar/restaurant and watched the game there. it was still fun.

hey, remember when i said i had a picture of that pretty building at night? this is it. they were showing some kind of soccer-themed thing on it. you can't really tell by my picture that it was moving, but it was.

then we stumbled into a park-type thing where we watched this guy do juggling tricks. he pulled pu my friends neal and bill to help him earlier and even though i was trying to hide behind my friends, he picked me, too. which meant that i got to throw these flaming torches you see here. it was stressful.

the next day we had our pick of three museums: the checkpoint charlie museum, the jewish museum, or the pergamon museum. i picked the jewish museum because it seemed the most interesting to me and mom and dad said it was neat. the architecture was really cool. this is one of the inner walls of the museum. i wished i stayed longer but we didn't have that much time. poo.

these are a dried shark and a dried fish. this man, mendelsson, was one of the first people (i think) to record findings about fish from dried specimens. i found it interesting.

after the museum, we walked around the city a bit. this is a church in one of the centers of town. it was bombed during the war and they rebuilt parts of it after but not to look how they did before, but as a kind of remembrance. we didn't actually get to go in it, though. i think i'll have to come back to berlin sometime and spend more time there.

then we went to KaDeWe which is an absolutely humongous store. KaDeWe stands for "kaufhaus des westens" and is rivalled only by herrod's of london. it was pretty cool and i got my picture taken next to big penguin stuffed animals.

this is a picture of KaDeWe.

the next and final day we went to potsdam, which is a small city outside of berlin. we visited sanssouci, which is one palace in a park with a bunch or palaces in it. this is one of the palaces. not sanssouci, though. "sanssouci" means "without pity".

this is a windmill in the park.

and this is me in front of the palace sanssouci.

FISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is the fountain and sanssouci. this is also where the fish live.

there, now i'm done with my berlin pictures. whew. that was a lot. there are a lot more but people can see those when i get back. next i'll post pictures of brussels.

berlin I (i would stop making segemented posts if i stopped going to cool places)

2006-06-16T16:36:00.000-04:00

this past week the international club took us to berlin for four days. it was really six days but the first and last days were spent in a bus. fun. i really liked berlin a lot but i wished we had more time because there were a millon things i didn't get to see like the berlin cathedral and the only ramones museum in the world. ok, so i was really the only one that wanted to see the ramones museum (mostly because none of my friends knew who they were! aaaarrrggghhh!!!!) anyway, i did manage to get some cool pictures so enjoy.

this is a memorial to the six million jews killed in the holocaust. it has rows and rows of cement (concrete?) blocks and the ground beneath them is lower in spots, like this one, so you feel like you're in a maze.

this is what the memorial looks like from the front... or back... or.... side.

this is the brandenburg gate. behind the gate is a giant stage they have set up for the world cup. apparently the night before the opening game, there was a big music concert. i was kind of sick in berlin so i mostly slept a lot at night and stuff instead of going out. that and the pollen in berlin was UNBELIEVABLE! thanks allergies, thanks.

this is a giant soccer ball with a soccer exhibit inside. see that twisty silver thing to the left? we all thought it was a slide so we went inside to try to find it but it turns out to be an emergency exit only and the security guys wouldn't let us go down anyway. poo.

this is the famous checkpoint charlie....

... and the even more famous snack point charlie! it took me more than a few minutes to stop laughing so i could take this picture. next to snack point charlie is the mysterious czech point charlie. we're not sure if it's a czech-style restaurant or what but it, too, was funny.

these are parts of the berlin wall mixed with some educational panels. these particular segments are in potsdamer platz which was a desolate place when the wall was in place as it was between wall parts and soldiers mainly hung out there to kill people from escaping.

this is a really cool building. i think it's a bank. or a something else. i liked it. at night it lit up. i'll post a picture of my attempt to capture that later.

this is a picture of one of the giant screens behind the brandenburg gate where people could watch the games. this area was called "fan fest" and had five screens over a giant area, the whole of the tiergarten. it was crazy when the games were happening.

this is the reichstag building, germany's governmental seat. it's really, really neat and impressive on the outside.

and this is the temporary stadium in front of the reichstag. this one cost three euros to get in, compared to the fan fest which was free. but this place actually had food stalls and seats i think. i still think it's funny that they have a temporary stadium in front of their government building.

this is the glass dome of the reichstag from inside. we got to hear a little presentation about the history of the building and the room. it was neat.

this is a picture of the room where Really Important Meetings are held. the eagle is a national symbol of germany.

this is sheree and i in front of the glass dome on top of the reichstag. it has this double ramp thing inside it so traffic isn't going up and down one track. i thought that was a great idea. they also had an ice cream stand there. i also thought that was a great idea.

this is it for this time. i'm on my way to brussels this weekend and when i get back, i'll post the rest of the berlin saga and then the brussels story.

munich part two: in which i drink a very large beer

2006-06-13T19:49:00.000-04:00

this is a picture inside neuschwanstein. i was totally allowed to take this picture. yup. totally.

look at the mountains!!!!!! look at them! this was the view from the castle.

this is sheree and i with the castle. there's a little bridge where you can go out and get really awesome pictures of the castles and a cute little waterfall. the bridge was kind of scary but not as bad as i thought. it still made me want to throw things off the bridge though. things like my camera. luckily, i resisted the urges.

this is the big glockenspiel in munich. what isn't visible from this picture (or any of the following ones really) is that IT WAS RAINING SO BLOODY HARD!!!!!! my shoes were soaked! it was really annoying.

this is one of the many lions adorning munich. i like him. he's a festive bavarian lion!

this is me in front of the FISH FOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can see that i'm holding an umbrella but that's the only real evidence that it may be raining. trust me. it was raining.

this is sheree and i with our giant one liter beers at the hofbräuhaus. we came there to dry ourselves. i want to point out something: my hair is a bit shorter now than in this picture because i went to get a trim and she ended up taking about four inches off. that made me sad.

and this is just me with a giant thing of beer that was really, really heavy. it's probably good that they don't sell beer by the liter in america. that would get out of hand maybe.

this is the empty beer glass.

this is the oompah band at the hofbräuhaus. pretty bavarian. there was also some impressive facial hair there but i couldn't really take a picture of them without the people noticing.

after the beer hall, we went to the english gardens and we saw a lot of ducks, geese, a swan, and some weird birds that i don't know. i took a lot lot lot of pictures of them. i also took short videos of them. don't laugh.

more water fowl.

that's it for the munich trip. soon i will post about my berlin trip and i don't think there are any animal pictures from that group. interesting.

MUNICH!!!!!!! (but not the movie)

2006-06-04T17:54:00.000-04:00

ok, this is apparently going to be a two part post because the internet doesn't want to work with me but i thought i should upload something before i left for berlin in a couple days. so.... i'll update more munich photos later and then even later, berlin photos.

a couple of weekends ago i went to munich with some friends from here and some friends that were visiting. it was really fun except for all the rain. and i wished i had more time there. but, you can't have everything.

we went to castle neuschwanstein, just outside of munich. this is a picture of the castle from the bus stop. there is another castle in this same area but it cost extra money so we didn't go. i have been to neuschwanstein before, back in high school. but it's nice to go back.

this is me in front of the very beautiful alpsee. the water was so crystal clear, like in one of those books where they talk about how clear the water is but you've never seen a lake that clear in your life so you think it's just a clever writing thing. but no, it really existed. i would have loved to go for a boat ride or swimming in it but we didn't have enough time for either.

this is the front entrance to the courtyard of neuschwanstein. i'm sure that i'll have lots of repeats of neuschwanstein from my last trip but oh well.

parents in germany, part three: the conclusion

2006-05-24T06:14:00.000-04:00

this is the cathedral in freiburg where mom, dad, and i went two weekends ago.

there was a tower that you could climb up but i got nervous because the stairs were really, really skinny and there was two-way traffic so this picture was taken from inside the gift shop area which is still pretty high up.

this is a picture from inside the church. they had really pretty stained glass windows, too.

we walked into this little garden area that had beautiful flowers. there was some kind of kid festival going on and there were tons of kids and activites to do. we had some delicious fresh crepes too. yum...

freiburg is in the black forest and we took a cable car up into the forest to walk around.

we walked all the way up to where this observation tower. it is HUGE! the stairs were wider so i was able to climb all the way up without being nervous.

this is me on top of the tower. there was actually another part you could walk up that was maybe twenty steps higher but it was super super windy but i think dad went up there.

all of the streets in freiburg had really pretty mosaic tiles. you can kind of see it here.

there were also all of these tiny rivers through the city. i can't remember what they were called but they have been there since the middle ages when they used to use these as drainage rivers. but today they're clean.

and this is a bacon man. actually it's different kinds of meats arranged into a man. it was for sale. i didn't buy it but it was funny. this was in the marketplace. i wish the market here in bonn had bacon people. oh well.

frieburg was a really pretty city and it's a university town so i could always go back to study there. the black forest is really, really nice. anyway, that's the end of the parent adventures. they are back safe now. i think this weekend i'll be going to munich, assuming everything gets arranged in time. hopefully everything will go well.

parents in germany, part two: augustburg schloss (bruehl) and parent pictures

2006-05-16T18:07:00.000-04:00

this is the palace augustburg in brühl. unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside. but this is what the outside looks like. there's something with german buildings painted yellow. there are tons of them.

this is the garden of the palace. it's super pretty. and apparently it's a place where people go jogging in the morning. go figure.

these are the palace ducks. there are also fish in the palace pond things but i couldn't really get a picture of them. but a heron ate one and so did a crow. so i know they're there. somewhere...

these are the statues outside of the max ernst museum in brühl. i could have taken pictures inside with no flash and i might just go back and so that since they didn't have any print books or anything. i have decided that he is one of my favorite artists. apparently i like surrealism. which may explain lots of my dreams.

and, because someone requested parent pictures....

these are the parents on the observation deck thing in königswinter.

this is dad eating a fig newton (of course). he'll be really excited to know that i put this on here. really excited.

this is mom and dad on a park bench in königswinter.

and this is mom looking really excited to be up this high. about as excited as dad will be to see his newton picture. very excited.

in the next post: more animals?!? (also, freiburg, not frei*berg*)

parents in germany, part one: drachenburg schloss (mostly)

2006-05-14T16:49:00.000-04:00

so my parents are in europe. they really like it here. this is a story told in three parts. i will update more often, too. well, whenever i think of it i guess. the weather's been super nice here so i haven't had computery things on my mind.

remember a few posts back when i said that i would upload more königswinter pictures when i went back on a nicer day? this is that day. well, last tuesday was that day. this is a picture from way up high in the königswinter hill things.

see that tower thing hiding in the mist? that's the deutsche post tower in bonn. that's right, i could see bonn from way up there. it was windy, too.

this is a picture of the castle-type ruin that we eventually climbed up to. it's pretty neat looking even though there isn't much to look at. i think dad thought it was cooler than i did. that architectness i suppose.

donkeys+pferdchens= tons of pictures taken by lauren's camera.

this is a part of the drachenburg schloss. as you can see, it is under construction. as is half of everything to see in all of europe practically. they would only let you go through the parts that had already been renovated so that meant only the tower. but, if you're sneaky like i am, you find unlatched fence doors and take pictures inside for a bit.

this is the tower from the ground. trust me, it's a lot higher than it looks. there's some part of it that you can't see from this picture or any of them, really, because it's hiding above one of the parts here. it's tall. and the staircase is tiny.

this is the inside, or what i could see of it through these glass panes. you couldn't actually go inside for some unknown reason. even though it looked like you could and there were at least three doors just taunting us. stupid renovations.

this is one tower of the palace from the other, newly renovated one.

this is proof that my parents are here. well, dad at least. this is us (dad and i) on top of the tower outside. it started raining while we were up here. and it was windy. and i thought i heard owls. everywhere. clearly, i had been up there too long.

this is a picture of an outdoor swimming pool way in the hills. i have made it a mission of mine to swim there soon.

stay tuned for parts two and three: where will (did) we go next? what did we do? did i find more animals to take too many picutres of? find out next time on "parents in germany" a BBC special.

rainy weekend trips.

2006-05-03T16:37:00.000-04:00

this weekend i went to the cologne zoo. what the pictures don't show is that it was 43 degrees and raining off and on. but we were determined to see animals.

ROCK FISH!!!!!!!!!! it really seems like i was in the tank doesn't it? but i wasn't. sheree and katie wouldn't let me. party poopers....

these are a bunch of carp. there's a bigger aquarium in the near by town of königswinter so i will go there later to satisfy my "needing to see fish" thing.

this is a jellyfish. i thought it was a kind of starfish at first but i was wrong. i need to build up my german sea life vocabulary i guess.

PENGUINS!!!!! this is one of the reasons i went to the zoo. i have to go back with jürgen, my sprachtandem partner, because he really wants to see penguins. i think i can handle seeing them again....

these are baboons. i don't even want to talk about what the baboons were doing that we couldn't stop watching them for fifteen minutes. baboons are CREEPY!

do you see the baby otters?!?!?! they are so cute! they were making these really, really, really, really, terribly cute noises. like "too cute they need to be outlawed" kind of noises.

MEERKATS! or, as they're known in german: "erdmännchen." that basically means "little earth men." also terribly cute.

LLAMAS! actually, i think they're alpacas. but same general family. maybe.

well, i have way more zoo pictures than anyone wants to see. i took over 100 pictures. i also went to königswinter on monday because we didn't have school but it was also cold and rainy and my pictures aren't very pretty. so you don't get to see those until i can go back in nicer weather. but it's really impressive. basically you can travel up into the siebengebirge (seven mountains) and see for quite a ways. we could see the deutsche welle tower in bonn from there. even in the fog. anyway, that's it for this time. sorry for all the animal pictures.

pictures actually of bonn

2006-04-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

since i realized that i haven't really put up pictures of what this beautiful little city looks like, i took some time yesterday to show you people.

this is popplesdorfer schloss. "schloss" means palace in german. this is owned by the school and i think some of the science classes are held there. i was in there once for an informational meeting. it was exciting. ok, not really.

this is the beethoven statue in münsterplatz. that lovely yellow building behind it is the post office.

this is the alt rathaus. or, if you prefer english, the old city hall. i haven't been inside but i don't know if i can go inside. it is pink. i find that funny.

this is a pretty tree. there are tons of these trees. all of a sudden, they all started blooming. and shedding their pretty pink petals. i had never seen them flower before the day where they all seemed to burst into bloom. it was weird.

this is the university of bonn. where i am currently a student. i only have one class in this building though. this building used to be a palace. who else can say that they go to school in a palace? huh? anyone? didn't think so.

and that is my beautiful city. well, not mine, i don't own it. but you get the idea.

amsterdam, part two.

2006-04-19T06:57:00.000-04:00

this is the station we got stuck at waiting for a streetcar to take us to cologne. in the middle of nowhere. and it started to rain.

this is the hotel room that we stayed in for free. i found out later that the hotel cost 77 euros per night. ha ha... i'm awesome.

this is us (finally) in amsterdam. in vondal park. it's a really beautiful park.

this is the infamous pirate sign. for the full story, visit my LJ.

this is the view from madam tussaud's wax museum in amsterdam. it was really fun. i have tons of pictures of the wax figures and me but i'll only put a few up so no one gets too bored.

this is me with david bowie.

this is me with sean connery.

and this is me with humphrey bogart.

then we went on a canal cruise. that was really neat. this is the science building that we really wanted to go to but couldn't because it was closed on monday. the tour guide also said that the science museum was silly to have in amsterdam because no one was interested in science. i am, i am.

the funny thing about amsterdam is that a lot of the houses are crooked due to the fact that the whole city is on a bunch of canals. i hope that this picture demonstrates that. the tour guide said that the crooked houses have been used in cartoons to show houses singing and dancing. that immediately reminded me of a favorite film of mine. can you guess what it is? also in this picture: the smallest house in amsterdam. i think it's a little over a meter wide and one person lives there. also, all the houses have furniture hooks close to the roof because that's the only way to move stuff in to the top levels. how strange.

monday we went to the van gogh museum. this is what it looks like. it was really neat although there were tons of people there. but i would say that i enjoyed this trip to amsterdam more than my first one. hopefully next time, i can find somewhere else to go. maybe actually to london this time. or somewhere else.

cologne.

2006-04-09T17:47:00.000-04:00

even though cologne is only a half an hour or so away, we waited until this weekend to go because starting april first we get to take regional trains for free.

this is the cathedral in cologne.

this is the top part of the cathedral.

some stained glass goodness.

organ!

this is the area of the church where you can light a candle in prayer. i'm pretty sure those things in the cases are possessions of preists that used to work in this particular cathedral.

this is from the other side of the cathedral. look at all that buttressey goodness!

BUTTRESSES!

this is a coat that i really, really, really want but it's like 159 euros. the reason i want it is....

IT HAS TINY SHARKS ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is a picture of emily and i next to a giant cat statue. yes, we are huge dorks.

i went to amsterdam this weekend...

2006-04-03T15:52:00.000-04:00

this is the wax museum in the main square in amsterdam. we didn't have time to go but i think i'll go back there sometime and go there. i've never been to a wax museum.

this is a church or something in the main square. i say "or something" because it looks like a church but it has signs saying that there's some exhibit for something which makes me think it's not really a church. i should learn what things are before i post pictures of them, huh?

this is one of the many canals in amsterdam. this one happens to be outside my friend sheree's parents' house. i'm so jealous that they have a canal.

this is a clock tower. it tells the time. that is all.

this is the national monement in the main square. it was pretty neat and impressive.

i thought that amsterdam was a good place to try out the "night" setting on my camera. this is a random street in amsterdam. i think it looks really cool, even if you can't really tell what was in the picture. i like the lights.

the second day, we went to the anne frank house. this is a picture of how long the line was to get in. it was raining. in case you didn't pick up on that from the umbrellas. the museum was really interesting and kind of eerie. it was a neat learning experience.

this is the front of the anne frank house.

ok ok, this was one of the highlights of my trip this weekend: carrot balls. i'm not kidding. it's a little snack bag of perfectly round carrot balls. i would go back just for these.

carrot ball up close. THEY ARE SO AWESOME!!!!!!!

AACHEN!!!!!!

2006-03-28T17:48:00.000-05:00

because html code apparently hates me, i'm describing things here. this first picture is of a shrine that holds charlemagne's bones. the second is stained glass in the aachener dom. i should point out that "dom" is german for "cathedral". the third is also a stained glass window. the fourth is a shrine that supposedly holds the cloth that john the baptist's head was wrapped in. the fifth is an eagle/bat music stand.

i had this really beautiful post but i hate html code so this is what you get. sorry. i'll return to my normal format later.

the architecture post

2006-03-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

the story behind this picture is funny. i wore my contact lenses today and ya-ling and ying-tsu (who are on the right of the picture), two girls in my class really wanted a picture of me because i looked pretty. the other girl is janet. then we spent about ten minutes taking pictures of all of us. i thought i'd spare you most of the pictures and just give you the one of the four of us.

this is the city hall building in aachen. aachen is on the border of belgium and germany. i really want to go to belgium for some reason. a couple hours after this picture was taken, there was a big demonstration having to do with children's rights. a big group of women and men with strollers came through town. it was interesting to watch.

this is a picture of the front of the aachen church we visited. isn't it pretty? i thought so.

the reason we went to this church is because charlemagne's remains are there. and this may or may not have been his throne. apparently, it's from the same time but no one knows for sure. oh well. it's still history.

this is a picture of the tower to the church. i think it looks more important from this angle.

there are more pictures i'll add later; the site is being weird and won't let me put up more.
until then!

st. patrick's day and beethoven's birth house

2006-03-19T17:27:00.000-05:00

this is the bar we went to for st. patrick's day. it was so busy. there were a lot of americans at this bar, too.

this is me and martin and tanner. martin's from australia. i seem to have some sort of weird look on my face. ignore it.

we met these really nice young german girls who said we spoke german well but they might have been lying. we're not sure. the girls are the two girls that are not me, sheree, or martin. in case you couldn't figure that out yourself. i should point out that my shirt is wet because someone spilled a drink on me. i won't say who, but it most definitely wasn't me.

this is the band that we was playing that night. there were actually two bands, one upstairs and one downstairs. it was pretty fun but we were all packed in there like sausages. i ended up winning a free drink somehow. that was pretty neat.

saturday, me and some of my friends went to beethoven's birth house. i thought it was really interesting but i think my friends thought it was boring. this is the front of the house.

we couldn't take picutres of the insides. this is the back of the house.

this is a statue of beethoven in the courtyard. it was fun and it was a pretty relaxing weekend. which i needed.

i'll post more pictures later of the city when i finally remember to bring my camera when i go into the city. some day, some day.

my trip to an old farm, or: goats and the awesome poster justin sent me.

2006-03-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

ok, so we went to this replica of a 1700s farm or something. i don't know. it was pretty boring honestly. our tour guide kept going on and on about stuff that i didn't really find interesting so i zoned out most of the time. sorry. i'm a bad student. anyway, this is a picture of a building and a thing there. the whole place was basically like that. the only time the group got excited about anything there was for the animals. you'll see in a minute....

this was in the schoolroom. i like it. it's cute.

i seriously took about 20 pictures of the goats. this is one of the best ones. i have some "blurry goat pictures" if anyone's interested. goats move too fast...

i'm probably going to get bird flu from being this close to these chickens.

and then we found the cats....

CAT!!!!!!!!!

ok, admittedly, this is a pretty cool picture. but since we're being honest, i mainly took it for the cat. i'm such a bad student....

this is a picture of the TOTALLY ROCKING POSTER that my friend justin sent me to make me feel more at home. IT'S SO AWESOME!!!!!! i put it on the wall opposite my bed so it's the first thing i see in the morning. thank you james young and co., thank you.

and that's the update. i think you'll agree that these pictures are more lauren-like. and hopefully more interesting. stay tuned next time for "conclusion of the mystery of the flaming pole".

marksburg and a wine tasting.

2006-03-12T07:38:00.000-05:00

this is the castle that we went to in marksburg, a medieval village. it was pretty cool and it high up in the mountains.

these are the steps leading up to the main part of the castle. if you look to the right, you can see a little bit of our tour guide's arm. the tour was completely in german but there were a lot of us who didn't understand a lot of what he said because of his accent and the fact that he was talking about medieval things that we didn't know the words for. oh well. it was neat anyway.

this is the smallest cannon the castle had. it was a pretty neat view.

this is the view out of one of the windows. i'm pretty sure that's the rhein river.

they made wine in this castle and these are the wine barrels. there were drawings on the wall next to them that showed different steps in the wine making process. some of us were joking that they were the directions.

medieval torture devices. because no medieval castle should be without them.

can you guess what this is? i'll give you a minute....

no? a chastity belt. when the men went off to war, they would put these on their women until they got back. this was the one thing in the tour EVERYONE understood. pretty funny.

after the castle, they took us to a winery and gave us a tour and we had a tasting. this is a bad picture of the vineyard. they went almost all the way up the hillsides. it was really interesting to see an almost vertical vineyard.

this is the group of people i sat with at the wine tasting. from left to right: me, bill, nick, sharee (australia), lindsey, andy, patricia (spain), and paulina (poland). most of us were from michigan. that's why i didn't tell you where they were from.

well, that was a really long post. sorry. i'll start updating more regularly. it's not like i can go outside and do anything. it's too cold.

the mandatory "what the rest of my room looks like" post

2006-03-07T16:57:00.000-05:00

this is what one of my walls looks like with the posters up i brought with me. they keep falling down. and i want more posters. i can't take the white walls.

this is the bathroom. it's so tiny. although not as tiny as the dressing room i was in today. i could barely turn around! yikes!

this is the toilet. you know, in case you forgot what they looked like.

this is my "kitchen". and when i say "kitchen", i mean "a small stove top, refrigerator, and some cabinets". and if you think about leaving while i'm getting something out of the fridge, you can forget it. one thing at a time, man.

cereal. this is what i've been eating for breakfast. it looks nothing like the picture on the box...

...see? brown. very, very brown.

ok, ok. i promise to start taking pictures of the city. and pigeons. well, not too many pigeon photos.

my weekend.

2006-03-05T16:22:00.000-05:00

technically, the chicken was part of my weekend but i felt that he deserved his own post. so here are more non-chicken pictures from my weekend.

this is me in front of the rhein river. i accidentally walked along the rhine from city center to my dorm. it only takes about a half an hour but i didn't mean to walk that far. oh well. now i know how easy it is...

this is the rhein river and some buildings on the other side of the river. i've only been over the river once and it was on accident. because i took the wrong bus. oops.

this picture is funny because the name of the boat is poseidon. and it says it's a party boat. i sure don't want to party on that boat...

the whole reason i bought this juice is because of the brand name. i will try every flavor of hitchcock juice.

CHICKEN!!!!!!!!!!

2006-03-04T17:08:00.000-05:00

hahahahaha! chicken! the little white tulip-looking thing is a tip cup. after i took this picture, the chicken played a little tune on the accordion. i love that chicken. the funny thing is that it was sitting near a restaurant called "hähnchen" which means "young male chicken". chicken.

BONN!

2006-03-03T17:36:00.000-05:00

now i'm in germany. so you don't have to look at some cat pictures. although they are some mighty fine cats

this is the view from my room. i think those are apartments.

this is one corner of my really bare room. i haven't put posters or anything up but i will tonight. i will also take a picture of the other side of my room and the bathroom and kitchen area. because it's hilarious.

this is at the welcome party. there is a whole group of taiwanese kids here, too. i met some of them and then i went back to sit with these girls pictured. i couldn't remember how to say "it was nice to meet you in german so i just said "tschüss!" (pronounced "ch-OO-ss") and they said it back and it was SO CUTE! anyway, these girls are (from left to right) janet (her real taiwanese name is hsiao-ching huang), sharee (she's from australia but her family just moved to amsterdam and she said she'd take me there sometime when she goes home to visit), lindsey, and me.

that's all for this one. i'll be updating more often now that i have internet.
bye!

more cat pictures. and a picture of a cake.

2006-02-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

i promise that in a few days i'll have more interesting pictures.

the awesome, awesome cake my friends made for me. the translation is "this is the girl that i love" and it's supposed to be sam neill saying that. this cake has everything that i love: batman, sharks, and sam neill.

merlin looking cool. as usual.

isis again. and in case you wondered, that's my laundry basket.

cat pictures/ testing my digital camera

2006-02-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

now you can see my cats. and how cute they are. and how i'm still not good at using a digital camera. this is isis.

and this is merlin. i am such a dork.

2006-02-22T01:10:00.000-05:00

this is just a test. to see if it works. see the glorious image?