Putting the Pieces Together

After a wedding, there's still a lot to do to merge two lives. I started playing the name change game the day we returned fro our honeymoon. We had about 8 hours in RI before flying home so I hit up Social Security where a very friendly an changed my name. He asked if I wanted to keep my maiden name as a middle name which was kind of stressful in the moment. Clearly I had already thought this through and made a decision. He had to remind me of the option I turned down and for a milisecond I thought about saying yes. Then I remembered that my maiden name has 10 letters, my first name has 8 and my new last name has 7, add on the 3 in my current middle name and I'd have to fit 28 letters on every form for the rest of my life, no thank you. Considering I live in a country which requires you to use all of your legal names on everything, I can only imagine what my ATM card would look like if I had chosen to keep both names. unfortunately, I could not change my licence due to the antiquated system that only updates every 24 hours but it's not such a big deal as my licence is due to expire in 2011 anyway so I'll have to get it taken care of sooner or later.

Last Friday, I mailed off my passport to begin the name change process on this side of the Atlantic. Until it comes back, I can't get on a plane or legally cross any boarders so I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new identification. I'm not even sure if I have any way to legally prove my permission to stay without it. When I get my new passport the fun really begins. I'll need to renew my permission to stay in my new name, change my buss pass at an office that always has lines, change my address at the post office, change my name with HR and most significantly change my email addresses! My work email will need to be changed but what about my personal email address? How long can I use the two addresses containing my old name? I'd like to keep them but that can be confusing, especially in a couple of years when I start the job search again. Which reminds me, I'll need to change my resume.

Despite all of that work to change my name, I will still be me. Somehow, I feel like I need to alter my image in order to fit my new persona. I was thinking a hair cut and wardrobe injection, two things I could use anyway. Any other idea? Should I change my email addresses or just leave them alone for now?

Leftover Lasagna

Lately, I've been lacking inspiration when it comes to cooking dinner. While Patrick was on a business trip last week I mostly ate bread and cheese which is fine by me but not exactly full of nutrients. I decided I wanted to get back into cooking healthy dinners, the kind that involve veggies and are warm since it's cold outside. However, I was pretty uninspired on my last trip to the grocery store. I bought broccoli, zucchini, chedder cheese wheels (these are a treat and only avaliable for a limited time), tziki, yogurt, ground turkey, a gurken and bread. All had potential but did not combine so well. I had some apples at home which were the product of an unmade apple pie project from the weekend before and some super delicious squash soup that I burned my mouth on and proceeded to ignore until it went bad and I had to throw it out. As you can see I was not doing well with food planning on my own.
On Sunday, I went into the office for a bit. While there, I decided I would make a nice cohesive dinner with a pasta foundation. The problem was nothing in my fridge screamed cohesive. Broccoli and zucchini? eh, tziki and zucchini sound nice but slightly boring without other vegetables and gurken is only good with salad or sandwiches. I also had a red pepper at the end of it's life, some turkey deli meat, 4 slices of salami, half a package of shreaded mozzarella and lots of cream cheese in my fridge. So, I decided to make a lasagna with whatever ingredients I could find. Luckily, I had to travel through the train station as that is the only place open on Sunday and I needed more shereaded cheese.
I should begin by mentioning Patrick is particular about Lasagna and its ingredients. He believes vegetables are not part of lasagna and ground beef is necessary. So, when I excitedly declared I would make lasagna his first comment was, "we don't have any ground beef." I decided we better call this something else, leftover lasagna. Long story short, it got Patrick's approval with a stamp of awesome and he even came back for seconds. So, now that I rambled on about the ingredients of my fridge, here's how I made the lasagna and what I eventually used. Feel free to improvise, anything works as long as you remember a lasagna can never have too much sauce or cheese. Ingredients: Pesto Lasagna noodles Tomato sauce Cream cheese Salami Zucchini (or other vegetables, muxhrooms, eggplant, peppers, etc.) Shreaded cheese (I used gouda and mozarella) Fresh basil leaves Black olives Pre-heat the oven to a temperature you like (I used 180 C). Take out your lasagna pan and pour a think layer of tomato sauce on the bottom. Add some spices if you are using the plain variety then cover with a layer of noodles. Put a layer of vegetables over the noodles, add shreaded cheese and another thin layer of sauce. Layer on another round of noodles and coat them in pesto. Add cream cheese in clumps, fresh basil leaves and salami. Cover with noodles, cover with a generous amount of sauce, layer on vegetables, black olives, and shreaded cheese. Cover with noodles, coat noodles in pesto sauce, add the rest of your vegetables, basil and cream cheese. Add final layer of noodles, rest of the sauce and rest of the cheese. Cover with foil and bake in the over for 45mins. to an hour, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes if you like your cheese to brown off a bit. Eat. That's my first attempt at a recipie, let me know if you try it out! P.S. Something is wrong with the spell check function on Blogger right now, sorry for the errors.

Followed by My Epic FAIL

...at returning to this blog that is. I promise, I really am coming back now that the wedding is over. Maybe I'll bring some photos, maybe I'll find something else to write about but first I need to finish a few PowerPoint slides.

My onion infested husband is taunting me at the moment but I will be back soon for real.

I'm currently trying to think of a new sub-heading as I've just begun year four. Suggestions?

My Big Come Back

Since I am completely bored with wedding blogging as evidenced by my lack of entries and dying to get back to documenting my life as it unfolds I decided to come back to the world of normal blogging. In my head, I have continued to compose blog entries that never made it onto the keyboard. To ease back into this blogging thing I will start off with a rant in the form of a letter to the German Post office. Dear Deutsche Post, I would like to mail my wedding invitations to our German friends and relatives but you are making this so difficult over a measly 0.02cm. I would even say 2mm if that helps to illustrate the ridiculous aspect here. a standard letter can travel anywhere in Germany for 55 cents. I sent off six of my "oversized" invitations with carefully chosen 55 cent stamps and 5 of the 6 never returned. I know for a fact that one arrived at its destination and one came back to me. Today, I went to the post office prepared to buy new stamps for the rest of the invitations at 90 cents each. I can deal with 90 cents, it is still less than 1 EUR. However, when I spoke to one of your mitarbeitern, he informed me that it actually costs 1.45 EUR to mail each one because I want to send over sized (by 2mm) letters! I was shocked and flat out refused to buy the stamps. Do you realize that I could have sent them from the US to Germany for 90 US cents?!? They would have traveled across the Atlantic ocean one by one creating more work for the USPS and I could have saved about 65 EUR cents on each considering the exchange rate! It would have been half the price to mail my invitations easily 10 times the distance. Any intelligent person can see that this makes absolutely no sense. If I had the time and didn't have to use Deutsche Post to ship the envelopes back to my mom, I would completely have her mail them from the US! This is seriously robbery. I think I will try to mail a few more with 55 cent stamps and cross my fingers for nice postal workers who will deliver them despite their 2mm height difference. I now understand why Germany use email to distribute invitations. Sincerely, J.

Things I Don't Like Part Duex

I've been asked to write another post on things I don't like. I feel like this makes me seem kind of negative and judgey but I'm only doing it to satisfy a request and because I have seen a pattern developing lately that I just don't like. Adults on scooters. I'm not talking about Vespas (those can be super cute) or Segues, but tiny little Razor like scooters. In recent days I have seen multiple men and one woman wearing a suit and scooting along. I thought the worst was the guy in a suit and tie and helmet and then today the woman sitting in front of me on the bus (sometimes I ride the bus because it is faster than the Strassenbahn) stood up to get out and revealed her scooter. Dressed in business attire complete with loafer heels she mounted her scooter and rode the 50 meters to the train station. There are so many things wrong with that picture I almost don't know where to begin. First of all scooters are for children aged 13 and under. Second, scooters are a mode of transportation, if you are riding the bus to the train station and then taking a train do you really need a scooter to travel between the two? Third, do you really think scooting is more efficient than walking? Answer that again as you balance your briefcase/purse in one hand hold the scooter in the other and try to get out of the bus door, mount your scooter and use one foot to scoot, one hand to hold on and the other hand to hold all your stuff all while dodging the pedestrians in front of the train station then dismounting and carrying the scooter through the station doors because you can't scoot in the station. Really if you don't like to walk, get some Heeley's for the commute, you would at least look more coordinated. Adults do not belong on scooters. FYI: I can't even find a picture from Google to illustrate the ridiculousness of an adult riding a razor scooter to work and everything exists on Google.
Oh also, I don't like this constant rain we've been getting. May was full of grey clouds, umbrellas and wet sidewalks. I can only hope those were the April showers and now we will get June flowers and have a beautiful summer. It's torture to read Facebook updates and see that my RI friends are spending their days at the beach or in the sunshine and I'm wearing a sweater and carrying an umbrella everywhere I go.

Things I don't like

Some things I recently observed which I don't like include faux leather leggings or as I tend to call them, plastic leggings. To my knowledge these became popular via the Hills (since LC left I am not sad that show is being canceled) and Heidi Montag circa 2008, which is reason enough to hate them. Well, they have recently trickled down to Mannheim and I'm sure they are in all the trendy shops because I see them on someone every time I walk through the city. However, my biggest gripe with these plastic leggings is that they are nearly impossible to pull off without looking cheap. First, you must be tall and have sticks for legs - thigh differentiation is an automatic fail. Second, the leggings must be of a certain quality to not look like, well actual plastic. Third, they are very night time if you are not incredibly trendy or living in a large metropolitan city. Finally, you kind of have to wear them as pants which breaks the leggings are not pants rule but they just don't look good under most skirts (some ultra minis may work). In general leggings should be black and that is the only good thing these have going for them - I've never seen them in another color. Today was the worst sighting thus far, an overweight, unkempt, middle aged woman wore them under a floral dress and I think she was on her way to work.
Overly preppy boys. You know the ones with the constant popped collar, side parted long hair and multiple pastel colored sweaters. This may be surprising because I love preppy boys but there is a strong line that should not be crossed. Generally, dressing like you just walked off the Ralph Lauren runway every day of your life is crossing the line - use discretion when adapting fashion for life. Also, boys who carry LV satchels cross that line.
People who don't use the space bar or punctuations. I can excuse a lack of punctuations online but if you are handing me an academic paper for grading it better be properly spaced and have 95% of the punctuations required by the laws of grammar. While you're at it, please also include your name and the course section so I know where to file the attachment you sent me. Oh and when you ask me for advice, don't answer your own questions because if you do that you're wasting my time and you're going to do it wrong. When you come to class and see an empty seat with a bag, binder and bunch of loose papers, sitting in front of it, it's probably taken, please don't just decide to dump your stuff on top of my papers and sit there.
lick slime.

The Life of a Grad Student

Today I really feel like a stereotypical grad student beginning the moment I stepped out of the house wearing a cord blazer. I proceeded to whip out my binder of student presentations for correction on the Strassenbahn and got through most of my work in time for my stop. Thursday mornings are, perhaps my favorite because, every second week, I get off at a different stop than normal in order to get to my course. This stop is right near my most favorite coffee shop in all of Mannheim. On most days I don't drink coffee but, every second Thursday I allow myself to indulge and it gives me something to look forward to when I leave the house at 7:30. Today I was particularly early and had work with me so I sat inside and had a leisurely coffee while reading case studies. In the spirit of spring, I ordered my first ice blended concoction of the season. You walk in and are always greeted with a chipper hello, usually in the form of Morgan!, by the barrister. Since the barrister(o?) is always the same man, I guess he may own the shop. His accent gives away that he is Italian and the way he foams the milk and pours the espresso into my latte/cappuccino/iced mocha demonstrates his passion. The reason I've never had a bad beverage is because every thing is made to order with love. Maybe I read too many Nespresso cases this morning but I really notice the difference in coffee quality and overall experience. Even if you take your coffee to go, you get the same friendly greeting and service and everyone gets a ciao on the way out the door. Two weeks ago, while waiting for my caramel macciato, a man walked in. The barrister knew him and asked if he wanted his usual cappuccino to which he replied, he would take two today. Apparently this man met a woman on the Strassenbahn and offered to buy her a coffee. As he explained, a giddy expression over took his face and the barrister shared in his joy like an old friend. Clearly this place has a lot of regulars and I long to be one but it is just not close enough to my office or home for daily visits and I don't really need a coffee habit. Back to my day as a stereotype, I put my blazer back on and left the coffee shop, stood in front of a class of bachelor students and proceeded to sit on desks and ask thought provoking questions. Maybe that is not so much of a stereotype. Once the course was over, I headed back to my office for a day of research. As I unlocked my door, I learned from a colleague that we now make more money. Before your celebrate for me, in typical University fashion, it's not a significant change, about 5 EUR per month which results in close to 3 EUR after taxes, but it's enough to buy a coffee.