Check It Out

I found this little gem on my BFF Wikipedia today. I just thought it was a sweet pic and worthy of sharing:

Welcome my friends, to the world of False Morel. It looks like a brain, eh? And it's sorta poisonous, but apparently people eat it anyway.

Sweet.

Assorted Awesome Possum in Kassel

Germany/Kassel is full of things that kinda made me shake my head and wonder. Like these:


Designed to make the Karlsaue Park more handicapped accessible, the city added a wheelchair ramp. Unfortunately, it's at like a 45 degree angle, so anyone in a wheelchair would probably not be able to make it up the ramp on their own, even if they were an Olympian.



The trendy way for students to eat. Studentenfutter literally translates to Student Fodder, like we're bloody horses or something. Also, this stuff, while tasty, is expensive enough that NO student could ever afford to live off it. Unless of course said student was a millionaire. So really, no student could afford to live off it.


The Man's Cookbook. Although, I think that if a guy was to offer to make me dinner, but then leave such a huge ass mess in my kitchen afterward, I would rather just cook the meal myself.


And last, but definitely not least: From the company that brought you favorites like Menopause Barbie and the unforgettable Bitchhole Barbie:

Maternity Barbie:


Maternity Barbie comes with all you see here, including assorted bits and bobs for baby. Also included is a removable stomach casing so your little one can make Maternity Barbie deliver by C-Section at any point during the day's play :)

It was only 5 Euro, but still- what the hell does anyone need a creepy ass barbie for???

The Orangerie

Meg and I went for a wander on saturday down to the Orangerie, which is situated right along the Fulda river in Karlsaue Park. Again, here are some of the highlights:


Meg and Aslan


The Orangerie


Now these next ones, Meg and I got all deep and artistic for. In the Orangerie there are plaques with the planets on them, showing relative distances. So we went hardcore on them. Please enjoy.




This is us stepping on the earth figuratively AND literally.


Everyone loves Venus :)


This last one I included just for kicks. I have NEVER EVER seen quite so much booty on any statue in my life. Observe:


GHETTO BOOTY ----->

Things in Kassel

So last weekend I hung out with Meg in Kassel. It was good fun. Here are some of the highlights:


Meg with the random fashion show in the background. It was a lame show, with ugly clothes. Also, one of the guy models (who had done some weird/random dance moves on stage- hopefully as part of his contract) made weird eye contact with me. So I frowned at him and let him know I was not impressed by the terrible dancing and then Meg frowned at me for frowning at the overly friendly model.

Part of the Orangerie park.


Meg enjoying the sun on her balcony


Part of the Orangerie Park

Meg trying to pick up Hercules' hammer (the hammer is a result of Dokumenta, the story being that Hercules threw it from his place on the Oktagon above Wilhelmshoehe Palace- long story short- you can check out Kassel here )

Gerry Rigging

Slatted beds suck. They break easy and are tough to fix when you are just looking for a quick/ cheap fix.

Here's mine and Meg's attempt to fix hers:

Yeah- I know- SUPER ghetto.

On a random side note, when I tried to explain to Daniel what Meg and I had done and why I hated slatted beds so much, he interrupted me to ask how I spelled that. I was really confused, but after spelling it out for him, Daniel looked way less offended- turns out he had thought that I was calling them "slutty" beds.

Wednesday Night Out

Last thursday was a professional development day at my school and I was conveniently not invited, so I went out with some friends.

Me and Nick took the university kids doing their practicums at the school (Stefan, Manuel, and Dom) bowling. It was pretty good fun and 3 games and shoe rental ended up only costing me 11 E. It was pretty decent :)

Dom, Manuel, Nick

Dom, Stefan, Manuel

Afterward we all went to the Irish Pub a few blocks down and chilled. After a bit, one of my 11th grade classes wandered in with their teacher for their pub date and we all sat together and chatted and drank. It was weird to drink with people that aren't 18 yet and are my students, but it was yet another example of how different Germany is.

Some of my Grade 11s

More of my Grade 11s with Nick

Me and Daniel (the 11s' teacher)

It was a great time :)

A little Dane

Some jokes just never get old.

Not Dead.

Hi. I'm not dead, but I have been away for a few days and am desperately tired. I will try to blog about it all tomorrow.

What's In a Name?

Yes, indeed, according to Shakespeare, names don't matter. What matters is what something is, not what it's called (citation).

Bullshit.

After 6 months of being constantly referred to as the token native speaker and other than this ignored for the most part, I find myself looking around in confusion when people call the name that I was actually given at birth.

It's a bit demeaning, to have all meaning taken out of the name you have carried for almost 23 years. It's gotten to the point where I am about to start introducing myself like a crappy bond wannabe. eg: My name is Speaker... Native Speaker... I'll have my verbs infinitized, not conjugated, thank you.

I will do my best to NEVER EVER talk grammar again upon my return to the Promiseland.

A Golden Age

Seriously. The Golden Age of New Country? Definitely the 90s. That is some wholesome, soul filling music right there.

Makes my day every time :)

Was That Really Necessary?

Ugh. I am so irritated with Quentin this morning. After feeling like complete garbage all weekend and sleeping terribly last night, I was awakened promptly at the stroke of 6.30 when his extra loud alarm rang for 5 minutes. Then, after finally getting up and shutting the damn thing off, he proceeded to slam his bedroom door closed on his way to the bathroom. Then coming back from the bathroom and reentering his room, he slammed the door behind him AGAIN.

Now. I am not sure WTF his problem is- maybe he is just a typical jerk off teenage boy, or maybe he is angry at the world because he has to get up so early. I don't know. Frankly, I could give a F* less. Is it too much to ask from this shithead kid that he not be so outrageously loud before everyone else is up? I already have to deal with the fact that he constantly leaves a disgusting mess in the shower we share. And it seems that no matter what I say to him about either of these things, no matter how polite, he always shrugs it off and says whatever.

I'm not gonna lie here- this kid is about 2 seconds away from getting some sort of nettles in his sheets or the infamous exlax brownies. As much as I'd like to do the brownies thing though, I figure that it prolly will just give that self-centred, whiney, little bitchhole the opportunity to make yet another mess for me to clean up.

Yet another moment where I feel the need to run up and down the hallways yelling, "Contraceptives are a GOOD thing, people! USE THEM."

Thank you for hearing me out. Now, have a good morning, free of the Quentins of your life :)

Ripped Off

I finally bought some more Tylenol today. The knockoff brand anyway. What kind of made me sad is that it cost only 1,38E for 20 caplets.

Why does that make me sad? Because in September, when I was suffering from debilitating stress migraines, I went to the store and picked up some headache medicine. After even specifying that I just wanted to cheap stuff that was still capable of doing the job, I walked out the door carrying just 20 caplets; they cost me 4,20E.

I had always kind of wondered if they had taken advantage of me and how bad my headache was. Now that I know you can buy it for way cheaper, my question becomes- did they take advantage of me? Or was that really the cheapest medicine they had there and I just happened to wander into the world's most expensive drug store?

Something New and Different

Guess what it's doing today?

Raining. Wow. Something new and different for Germany!

Although, it does make me worry a bit- It's raining buckets today, it rained like that yesterday as well, and it may continue to rain as heavily all weekend. That means that the chances of the river flooding the bike path again are kind of high. ugh. I'm not looking forward to that at all.

No Cheese :(

I had this big grocery shopping expedition planned for yesterday to the actual supermarket in Ahrweiler instead of the crappy half-assed one I usually go to. And the whole trip went well, except for the cheese. I like cheese, I eat a lot of it, and I had managed to buy things that I was going to eat the cheese with (like bread for grilled cheeses and sausage for sausage, cheese and crackers), but I didn't actually remember to buy cheese.

Now I am faced with a conundrum: Go out in the rain and buy some or just wait til monday?

I think I may just wait. It doesn't feel worth it to go to so much effort only to grab a chunk of cheese.

*Side Note: It somehow didn't seem like such a waste of effort to blog about the no cheese. how does that work?*

Oops

Letting the chips fall where they may was not 100% successful. I ended up meeting up with Nick and Kerstin for lunch. But, I am a giant idiot (as previously stated many many times...) and instead of hitting save on my phone when I put Manuel's number in, I am pretty sure I hit cancel. Because when I went to call him to let him know where we were meeting up, his number was sure NOT in my phone :s

Ironically, about halfway through lunch I was telling them that I had lost his number and Kerstin (who is doing a teaching practicum at Nick's school) asked who it was exactly Manuel was. Anyway- long story short- they know each other and Kerstin even had his cell number. Yeah- that's kinda what I thought too- I definitely did not see that one coming.

And yes, I did send him a text to explain what had happened. I also apologized for it, cause i did feel like a jerk. So on the whole, a looser grip on control yielded a 75% success rate for today- 3 out of 4 people actual made it to a lunch date I had brought up and then not adequately planned for :D