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.

Travels

I feel like I was just in the US even though I've been here in my new apartment for about a month now. Not that you could tell if you saw my kitchen-less, half painted, still partially boxed up living quarters. However, I'm about to head back to the US next week. It's kind of bitter sweet. On the one hand, I'm super excited to be going and beyond happy that my paper was accepted by a conference. On the other hand I really wish I could get this moving in stuff settled. Not to mention, I have a lot of work to do this week before leaving on Monday. Back to positives, I did work some vacation into this trip. First, a good friend from college who I haven't seen since will be meeting me in NOLA for the 2 days before the conference including Mardi Grais. I'm excited to spend time with her exploring a new city and with a little bit of luck, we may even be able to celebrate the new Super Bowl champions after today! Then after the conference, I'm flying out to SOCAL to spend a couple of days with an old friend who recently moved across country. Initially I was going to spend these post-conference days in RI but my mom pointed out the likely undesirable weather in RI in Feb and I was just there in Jan so I decided to take this chance to see the West coast and hope for a bit of sunshine. My ideal itinerary for my first trip to the west coast would include the San Diego Zoo (I've wanted to go since I saw it featured on Sesame Street as a child), dipping my feet in the Pacific and hanging out by a fire on the beach. above photo is from such a random website I have a long week of work ahead of me then some fun, my first academic conference and a lot of flying but there's also a lot of ocean so I'll be happy.

Wedding Blogging

Since my dad was shocked to find out I was keeping another blog and he was reading this one, complaining about my infrequent posts, here's the link to the wedding related blog (dad you need to click on the words to get the link). I also realized since he does not have a Blogger account I can make fun of my dad on here and he can't even comment ;) Anyway, for now, I'm off writing about wedding related things and chronicling everything that we did last month in RI. I'd love some feedback so feel free to pop over and leave comments.