"Hallo! It's myyyy liiiife'

(the above line was sung by a drunk man outside my apartment today).
One might think that if all the hot water runs out right in the middle of soaping your face in the shower, and then you get caught in a fight when you step off the tram and have to be bodily helped around the altercation by a transportation authority, and then you realize some time later in the day that your shirt is on inside out that it might be kindove a bad day. Actually that could not be farther from the truth! This has been a glorious day (so far, it is only 4:18). I had some free time. Well truthfully I made free time. I haven't done that in awhile and I think I needed it. I decided to skip school for a variety of reasons, all of them really good in my opinion. Anyway, while surfing the net and waiting for the downpour outside my bedroom window to abate, I managed to find a well thought out essay on Mugglenet.com on why Harry Potter is not the 7th Horcrux. I am now convinced that he is not. So don't argue with me. Shortly after that I found myself in Starbucks down the street sipping a short white chocolate mocha w/whipped cream. (short b/c I am on somewhat of a budget). I immersed myself in the Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis for a time, long after my coffee was gone... losing track of my surroundings and time, only to emerge into the "real" world at Starbucks on Freisenplatz in My City, Germany. It was a little bit of a shock to tell you the truth.
Trying to shake the lethargy and the feeling that I was still in the middle of Tashbaan, I decided to go to Saturn to see if somewhere in the 4 floors of CD's and DVD's I could find the new Switchfoot CD. No luck. And they are supposed to have the largest collection in Europe! I was then assisted by a wonderfully helpful man named Wolfgang. Wolfgang unfortunately was unable to help me find the two movies I was looking for, but we struck gold with A Little Princess. For me this is one of the rare movies I can watch over and over...a great rainy day movie. So here I am. It is sunny outside now though, but that won't last long. And I am loving my free day. Can you tell? I think you all should take a free day too. Just cuz you can, and life is too short not to.

Cheese Whiz

We don't have cheese whiz here by the way. I am very sad. However a moment ago I was rifling through the fridge scrounging for something to eat for dinner and I realized that between my roommate and I there are 9 different types of cheese in my fridge. 9!!! WHY?

Let It Be......

My friend and co-worker came here on Friday for a meeting and stayed until today. I had a good time hanging out with him as he makes me laugh more than just about anyone I know. He then asked me if I would help him hi-light his hair! Yikes! It actually ended up pretty snazzy if I can say so. He downloaded this "file-sharing" thingy onto my pooter and I am really digging it though I am suspecting it can't be legal. Nothing this cool could be legal. I can't tell you what it is lest I become a stumbling block...however-I now have some good songs like "100 years" and Sweet Emotion at my disposal. What an amazing week. God answered two specific prayers I have been praying for for months, and even in the midst of some other not so good news I was truly able to worship and to trust. I am loving school and after 3 whole grueling weeks I get a two week break starting the first of October. Oh I don't know how I manage.
Has anyone heard the new Switchfoot album? How is it?

whoopsie

The peeves link below has now been edited. It works (really).

Oh where is my hairbrush?

That song is playing as I am typing this. My brain is fried people. Breaded and deep fried. I am so glad I have only 4 days of language school a week. 5 would probably give me a twitch. (think Harry Carrey) And yes I would eat myself if I was a giant hot dog.

I will give the nations to you

Wotcher! (I love British slang!) When I went to London a few weeks ago, I tried my hand at a few phrases..fyi it just doesn't sound the same with an American accent. But you can pretend I have a British one while you read this. (pull out your imagination and dust it off). If you want to know what that first word means, I recommend www.peevish.co.uk/slang/
. I am thinking of adding it to my links.
How are all of you? I have had an excellent last few days. The grill party was fantastic and I was able to entertain almost an entire park of Germans with my somewhat dodgy (look only at the very FIRST definition) badmitton skilz. Gruntin and ha-yah!ing did not help, I am afraid. I made some potential new friends, and got to talk about Harry Potter too, AND JESUS.
I also escaped relatively unscathed from the sleepover. No freakish hair or pukish nails. AND I was able to teach some valuable life skills to two very receptive young ladies: biting the ends off Twizzlers turns them into excellent straws. Note: be careful to discard said straw before it dissolves too much..it is a bit messy.
I started my first day of language school today. Already I am seeing some potential relationships that could form. Or at least several of us were sortove strung out and feeling heavy headed as we left and we all had a famous time talking about it afterwards in the nearby shopping area. (I thought we may have bonded). This class is culturally amazing! (is that an actual phrase?) Literally it is a melting pot of nations. There is not one person who is from the same country in this class! Montenegro ( I think), Albania, Portugal, Spain, South America, American (me), English, Taiwan, Poland, Turkey, and there are more that I have forgotten.
As I flopped down on my bed this afternoon to rest a bit, I was hit wit the phrase from the song..."Ask and I will give the nations to you.." Well I don't remember asking for that many nations all at once- I will settle for one nation- but I guess this is just a good reminder that God's plans are always going to be bigger than mine! God, you are AWESOME.
** and sorry this is so long! :-)

whatever you want to call it

I had a really good time with God today and it was one of those times that just sortove took on a life of their own, not really planned or thought out. I would like to think that it was God "improvising" but I think I am enough of a Calvinist to acknowledge that that is probably not a very theologically sound way of looking at what God does..even though I think God would be an excellent jazz musician, and I don't even particularly like jazz music.
Anyway so tonight our team is having a grill party at Aachener Weiher, or the "uni pool" as I call it much to the dismay of my teammates. We are hoping to do some follow up w/ some of our summer contacts. Tomorrow night my roommate and I have two 11 year old girls coming over (co-workers kids) for a sleepover. I am already bracing myself for horrific things to be done with my hair, and my fingernails to look like they got puked on...but other than that I am looking forward to it. As long as I don't have to talk about boys. I am not allowed to talk about boys for another 1 year and 4 months. Not that I am counting or anything.

I don't think I like peripheries

I was reading an article that my roommate gave me awhile back about adjusting to culture and maintaining your sense of self. This article was really good but it also led to even more questions too. What are the parts of me that should not change in order to maintain the integrity of who I am as a person, and what has to change to be able to live healthily in a new culture? You know what struck me even more? It says that even after you leave the culture and go back to your original environment that you don't go back to who you were before. You somewow remain on the periphery between those two cultures never fully reverting back to your original self again. That is kindove scary to me.

The Vision

At 4:08 am this morning I finished the latest book in the Harry Potter series. So now I am at a loss really as to what to read. Any suggestions?
I have been reading my way through slowly this book by U.K. author Peter Greig called The Vision/The Vow, but it is the kind of book you have to take in portions.
The last part of it is kindove cultish if you ask me (yeah I read the endings first sometimes, gotta problem with that?), the meat of the book is really powerful. I recommend it.
Anybody out there read any other Donald Miller books besides Blue Like Jazz? Thoughts?

Ich liebe Deutschland. Most of the time anyway. Here is to starting a brand new experience with you all...even though we are starting it 6 months into my time here. This morning I woke up and decided that it would be fun to start a blog that way I have an excuse to share my random thoughts, shocking cultural moments (ie. those times a make an idiot of myself), bad hair days, favorite stuff and maybe even the occasional recipe for cabbage salad. Yeah you read that correctly.... I can share this everyday experience stuff with you and not fill up your inbox with my randomness. You can just look me up if so desire... And MAYBE you may even have a paradigm shift..who knows? I hope you will like it and maybe even take the time to post a comment or two...

The twinkie on the right's b-day is September 14th!