Quote of the Day

"Aaaaahhh, I love being a corporate whore!"
-Shannon in Abercrombie & Fitch yesterday

Early Friday

I declared today (Thursday) an early Friday and skipped 2 of my 3 classes. I feel like such a rebel. But it felt good to sit in Starbucks and read the Wall Street Journal and drink some coffee. Man, I love being a yuppie.

Tomorrow I will be sending off the second letter to o2 begging them to cancel my cell phone contract. Okay, not really BEGGING....but since the "I'm-an-American-exchange-student-going-home" approach didn't work, this time I'm taking advantage of my last name and going for the "I'm-a-German-with-a-funny-first-name-who-has-moved-overseas" approach. Short and sweet. I've moved abroad, please cancel the contract. I'll pay the penalty fees. Please be praying that this all gets worked out soon. I'm very confused because every time I talk with o2 on the phone about this I get a different answer and it's very frustrating. I don't want my credit in Germany ruined.

Wednesday

Supply Chain Management test today in t-minus 3 hours, which I still need to study for. I slept horribly last night and for some reason feel nauseated this morning. I HATE waking up like this. Last-minute cramming for this exam wouldn't be so bad if I at least didn't feel like I was going to vomit.

At least the worst part of the week is over once I get this test done.

Dieses Leben

Tolle Liedtexte aus Julis neuen Single:

Denn ich liebe dieses Leben
Ich liebe den Moment, in dem man fällt
Ich liebe dieses Leben
Ich liebe diesen Tag,
Ich liebe diese Welt

September is so last month

So here we are: the last week of September. Today is Monday. I hate Mondays.

Is it sad that the only reason I really want it to be October is so that I can take down the whiteboard calendar above my desk, wipe it clean, and put up all my due dates and events for the next month? I think that's sad.

Weekend

I love my schedule this semester. Thursday my classes taper off nicely, and I finish at 3pm, followed by a Friday with no classes. It's always the perfect end to the week. I get an extra day to do whatever I want to do.

Today I slept in till 9:30am. It's 11 now, and I think I'm going to go and take a shower. Today feels like a good day to get some non-school related stuff done. It's a day for doing non-school related work in coffee shops. I love days like this; the entire day is out in front of you, waiting to be used....and you have all the time in the world to work and relax in your favorite coffee shop. Write a scholarship essay, maybe read a book. That is my ultimate favorite way to unwind, because it's simultaneously productive and relaxing.

I'm applying for internships in Germany this summer. One with the State Department (imagine working at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin!) and another with a company based in Frankfurt/Düsseldorf. I'm wicked excited.

I can't stop listening to The Perishers. Their song Weekend is such a great song for Fridays. And for working in coffee shops. Three Roots, anyone?

Missing Link?

So they've apparently found an early human child fossil, aged over 3 million years old. They've dubbed it "Lucy's daughter" and claim that the discovery could "fill an important gap in understanding human evolution." Researchers also developed a 3D reconstruction of the skull and face to see what the "child" may have looked like. Oddly enough - and you can verify this for yourself in the photo - the "girl" bears a STRIKING resemblance to a monkey...Researchers were also puzzled by her "surprisingly long gorilla-like arms."

They have GOT to be joking.

Any idiot with half a brain can see that what they've found here is nothing more than a small monkey. Yet just months from now, this "groundbreaking" discovery will be in every science textbok you can find in our public schools. Mark my words.

It's happened, folks. The evolutionary scientific community, in its last-ditch efforts to find a missing - and nonexistent - link between apes and humans, has now actually moved past baseless conjecture (i.e. the Cambrian explosion) and transitioned straight into flat-out denial.

And as the photo here shows, kids, denial is an ugly, ugly thing.

Obsession

Watch the trailer here.
Read the synopsis here.

Reason for Dismantling the U.N. Number #4,592...

Yesterday, in a 30-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demonstrated the full meaning of the word "irony." Not to mention "hypocrisy."

During his speech, Ahmadinejad called the Islamic Republic of Iran "a symbol of true democracy." Interesting. I didn't know that in a true democracy, you get suppressed free speech and gross gender inequality as well as a less-than-sparkling human rights violations record.

My personal favorite morsel from his tirade: "Today, more than ever, nations need constructive, positive, and honest cooperation and interaction in order to enjoy a dignified, tranquil and peaceful life based on justice and spirituality."

THIS from the man who has publicly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," declared the Holocaust "a myth," and remarked that, perhaps one day, we will enjoy a world "without the United States."

Well, he's got the HONEST interaction part down, I guess.

Heimweh (Homesickness)

Homesickness is really quite a beautiful thing. I miss Germany a lot, I really do, but honestly I'm enjoying it rather than suffering it. Why? Because the fact that I feel homesick for a foreign country is just so unbelievably cool.

Don't get me wrong, I love being back on campus here at ASU and I'm having a great time. At the same time, though, I'm at the point in the being-back-at-home phase where I have pretty much adjusted back to my native culture. This affords me the opportunity to really sit back and reflect on my time in Germany with a clearer mind; to discover what it is that I really learned about myself and about life in general.

So lately I find myself looking at my pictures from Germany and just taking it all in, reliving it in my mind. I loved Germany before I left for last year, but after living for a year there, I fell even deeper in love with it. It's become my one, all-consuming passion. And the odd thing is that I couldn't even tell you WHY.

There is something beautiful about that country in the littlest, most insignificant details of life there. The air smells and even feels different; it is heavy with thousands of years of history. I miss the ancient houses, the buzz of the marketplace, and the chic, hip European feel of the big cities. I miss the trains, subways, and streetcars. I even miss my 3-hour lectures in the university.

The more that I think about these things, the more determined I become to return as soon as possible. Let me reiterate: it's not that I don't like my life here in the States or that I'm not happy here; I am. But ask anyone who has lived abroad and they'll tell you that after doing that, your life splits. It's no longer bound to one continent. I'm here, at home, but I'm also away from my other home in Germany.

Who knows how long it will be until I go back and for how long it will be; it could be as soon as next August or September depending on where I get a job. For now, i'm going to let the chips fall where they may, allow God to lead me where He wants me, and enjoy life here and now while enjoying the bliss of my memories of Germany.

Oy.

So it's......busy.

The thesis is still in gridlock and the deadline already passed. Despite that fact, I remain calm and have actually moved this to the back burner momentarily. I refuse to rush into something that will consume 9 months of my life without picking a topic that at least MODERATELY interests me. Hopefully it will take shape by the end of this week. I'm working on it, slowly.

School is consuming most of my time, but the proportion of time that I spend studying is decreasing as I acclimate to an academic environment with set homework schedules and multiple-choice tests that are almost entirely B.S.-able. The most important thing for me to remember that will allow me to preserve what piece of my sanity I have left is that it doesn't have to be perfect.

Random Fact of the Moment: I've decided that I'd really like to get a dog when I graduate.

As far as everything else....life is good but tiring right now. God has been doing some pretty great things in my life over the past few days, teaching me to surrender parts of me that I didn't even know I was holding back and to open up more. Being more open, just going with the flow, feels good. Ironically exhausting, but good.

Currently Reading:

I highly recommend this book. It's a really fascinating account of how globalization is affecting the way we do business and live our daily lives. I spent 2 hours at Starbucks today (how yuppish of me) reading it and I still can't put it down...my schoolwork is going to start suffering if I don't finish soon!

I Looooove This Company

Apple's done it again. They've updated the iPod nano, introduced iTV and a brand new iPod Shuffle. And best of all...

They've sexed up iTunes.

MmmmmmHmmmmmm.

Make It Stopppppp

Seriously, I'm drowning in academics. Drowning. Has it always been this insane at ASU, and I'm only noticing it now because of the contrast with Germany? Or is this semester just one of those insane semesters?

Fridays are Awesome.

This morning we went to IKEA and managed to walk out spending less than $150. I am proud of myself. The biggest item on my list was a $60 bookcase, which was sorely needed. You can only use those cheap wire cube things for so long before they begin to go south on you. I also invested in a much-needed extra lamp and a nightstand. I am very pleased with how amazing the room looks now:




As if the day couldn't get any better, I went and met with my advisors to ask about graduation and thesis stuff. Turns out the thesis deadline is "soft" - meaning they really don't care WHEN I turn it in. Meaning I have all the time I need now to get the topic, and the director, sorted out. HUGE sigh of relief. Also, should it be necessary, I can always start the thesis work in the spring and defend it in the summer. And there's also a great chance that even though I won't be done with everything until summer session, I can appeal the dean to be able to walk in the graduation ceremonies this spring.

(Hallelujah chorus)

What a great Friday. I should go out and paint the town tonight.

Pack the Good and leave the rest

Supply chain management was awesome this morning and Eddie gets cool points for talking about German manufacturing in detail. I'm hoping we have the makings of a good thesis director or at least a reader here. Meeting with Eddie tomorrow will determine that.

Thesis topic is going moderately well in refining. Email to contact at T-Mobile has gone out, and if all goes well there will be an informational interview via telephone on Friday. Hopefully further success is forthcoming.

I'm finally used to the new Facebook News Feed revision, and I have to say that I like it. Call me a stalker, I LIKE seeing every little dirty detail of your lives, people. It's cool. Saves a lot of time that would have been spent aimlessly wandering your profile pages.

I've been buoyed all day today daydreaming about living/working in Germany at some big corporation. I think that's a sign that I'm a nerdy business major and a complete Germanyphile. And I love it. I love that feeling of having a "second home" that I know I'm totally comfortable in - and it's not even on the same continent. That just rocks. I miss it, yes, but it's awesome being back in the U.S. of A and on campus too.

Met with Lucia and Adrienne for coffee today at the business college Starbucks (yes, our business college has its own Starbucks. We rock that hard). Hilarious conversation topic about the pretentiousness of the W.P. Carey School's courtyard atmosphere, which, again, just shows you how hard we business majors rock. I always wanna walk through there with my cell phone to my ear and saying, "Look, I'll have my people talk to your people . . ."

And as if the day couldn't go any more slendidly, there is now a group on Facebook entitled "Angela Merkel rocks my world." I think it's supposed to be a joke but I joined anyway because she seriously rocks my world. She is awesome. Wooo Merkel.

Quote of the Day

"Amateurs built the Ark - professionals built the Titanic."
-Unknown

I'm Either Crazy or Brilliant. Or Both.

I still don't have a thesis topic. I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what on EARTH I could research and write about in the realm of business or German that would, as the professor I talked with put it, "get my juices flowing."

And then, tonight, while sitting at Starbucks brainstorming, I had an idea.

Why not write a fiction novel? We're allowed to do pretty much anything we want with the thesis project. I could try and get it published at the end of the year, and honestly, when else am I going to have a chance to set aside huge blocks of my time to write like this? Certainly not after I graduate and dive into the real world. I could come up with a premise, write a book proposal, and the meetings with my director would serve as deadlines for chapters and drafts and outlines and brainstorming and editing. For the final touch, I go to a publisher. It's just crazy enough that it might work.

The most encouraging thing about this idea is that the moment it came to me, I shot up straight in my chair (nearly knocking over my coffee in the process) and started scribbling ideas in the notebook in front of me that, up to this point, had a list of halfhearted thesis topic ideas on it.

Christian Fiction. A thriller, like Ted Dekker's stuff.
Historical Fiction. Set in Germany. World War II.

I rushed home and pounded out a draft email to a professor in the English department, who I will contact tomorrow. This is one of those moments in life where you realize

a) you've finally snapped under the weight of all the stress and totally lost your mind (a novel from scratch to publishing in 9 months??) or
b) you've just had the best idea you've had in a loooooong time.

Visions of Tuebingen

The final video chronicling the year in Tübingen is finally finished. Without further ado, here it is: