My friend Keinst introduced me to (ie showed me pictures of) possibly the hottest Japanese actor I've seen, Takeshi Kaneshiro. He was in House of Flying Daggers, and though I heard the movie wasn't that good...I'm seriously thinking about seeing it now!

Endlich! Thanksgiving photos!

The American students had a special dinner on Thursday night at the Mensa (the cafeteria here). I was a little skeptical, since I've eaten at the Mensa during the day, and the food there is definitely nothing to write home about. But they actually worked hard on this meal, I could tell! There was a first course of salad, with lots of yummy fresh vegetables, and then the second course was turkey of course, along with all vegetarian sides: corn, REAL mashed potatoes, green beans, and some squash dish which was really yummy.

And the best part of the night? It snowed that night! We were all dressed up in our dresses and suits, but it didn't matter--the Californians were too excited about the snow to care about how cold it was! The Germans were probably all watching and shaking their heads.

The group

The centerpieces that I helped design! Haha, we call it a "modern" look

Me being excited (and hyper) about Thanksgiving

Our Sears family portrait (yes, they already had a Xmas tree up in the Mensa!)

My German teacher Herr Beilein, learning to play thumbwars. If you knew him, you would understand how hilarious this was. Herr Beilein is like the most stereotypical German--he's got a really dry sense of humor, and he's very quiet and intimidating in a lot of ways. But obviously still cool enough to try thumb wars!

SNOW!!!!

View from my window the next morning.

Next up: Christmas! :)

Twenty years of spending Thanksgiving with my family, and this year I'm breaking the tradition. I miss them, but at least I'll get to see them for the "big" holiday--Christmas!

Excerpt from an email from my dad today (need I say more?):

Hi, Kate!

Are you OK?

Please say you are OK.

Pretty please!

You know we want to hear it!

To tell the truth,

Having you overseas

At the holiday

Nearly makes me

Krazy!

See? I even

Goofed up

In spelling a

Very simple word.

It's

Not a good sign.

Goodness! --

Why, I just saw that if you read the first letters of the lines above, they happen to contain a secret message just for you! Can you figure it out? I bet you can if you try! What a funny coincidence!

Whaddya wanna bet that Angelina Jolie's adopted son, Maddox, is going to grow up and write some tell-all memoirs book about how crazy she was?
Just a random thought.

Ah the joys of having two presentations over with...and Thanksgiving tomorrow! Or the closest thing to it, anyway--the cafeteria at the school is cooking dinner for us tomorrow night. It'll be interesting to see how they make a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner! Especially for the vegeterians...should be interesting, I'm trying not to be too worried about it. :)

And along with the See's chocolates, my mom sent me the CD's that I missed, since I didn't have the brilliance to copy all my CDs onto my iTunes. So now I'm listening to Big Boi and Dre Present..., which I never thought I'd miss so much! Hehe. But hey, I need variety....

And now, in honor of my free time tonight, and the fact that it is way too cold for me to go outside tonight (no bar tonight for me, thanks!), I will now do a survey.

Feel free to stop reading now. :)
I deleted all the questions I thought were lame/clichéd

---------------
1. Your name spelled backward? llirruB etaK (that was really hard to do, lol)

2. Last incoming call on your phone? Cindy

3. Who sent you the last text message in your inbox? Haha I deleted it...don't remember. Probably Cindy or
Janelle

4. What's your favorite restaurant? Well, in Germany I like the "Cuban" restaurant a lot...in the US, basically ANY good ethnic food sounds good right now--maybe the Thai restaurant on Myrtle Ave. or the Udupi Palace in Little India, or Taqueria Guadalejara in Davis...I could go on.

5.Last time you swam in a pool? Probably in San Clemente during the summer

6. Have you ever been in a school play? I was in the school musical! Guys and Dolls and Joseph, good times

7. How many kids do you want? An even number...probably two

8. Type of music you dislike most? Probably either gangster rap or pop country.

9. Are you registered to vote? Yesiree Bob!

10. Do you have cable? At my parent's house, but not in Germany or Davis

11. Have you ever ridden on a mo-ped? No. Is a vespa a moped? Because I want one!

12. Ever made a prank phone call? Probably in fourth or fifth grade

13. Best friends? Yes! I believe in those! :)

14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? I would go sky diving, but bungee jumping looks pretty dangerous to me

15. Furthest place you ever traveled? Probably Japan or Thailand, in terms of how long the flight was

16. Do you have a garden? haha i have fake plastic grass and one real potted plant in front of my window

17. What's your favorite comic strip? I have two: Calvin and Hobbes and Mutts

18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Please don't make me go through the whole song in my head! I'm pretty sure I do.

20. Best movie you've seen in the past month? In the past month? Seen some pretty crappy movies...nothing profound for sure. But Harry Potter IV was definitely good times!

21. Favorite pizza toppings? Cheese, feta, garlic, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts

22. Chips or popcorn? They're both pretty nasty--chips are better tho

23. What color lipstick do you usually wear? don't really EVER wear lipstick!

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? I didn't know you could

27. Who were the last people you went out to dinner with? What qualifies as "out to dinner?" I went to McDonald's with Vivian and Janelle last Sunday to get ice cream, which was basically my dinner, haha

28. Favorite type chocolate bar? See's Chocolate! And I really like Milka chocolate bars, and Ritter Sport.

29. When was the last time you voted at the polls? 2004

31. Have you ever won a trophy? Back during my karate days! We got second place in team kata, for anyone that knows what that means! haha

32. Are you a good cook? NO, as I have discovered since moving to Germany and having to cook pretty much everything from scratch

33. Do you know how to pump your own gas? One of my many points of pride

42. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? my mom

43. Did you have a lot of hair as a young kid? Um...I think I had a normal amount, haha. I wasn't bald, at least!

44. What message is on your answering machine? A really boring one where I sound pissed off/bored because I recorded it at about 3am

45. Where would you like to go right now? Well, I don't think I'd like to go home to Monrovia, surprisingly. I guess I'd like to either go to Davis or just somewhere else in Europe, like maybe somewhere warm, like southern Italy or France!

46. What was the name of you first pet? Awww...Myra

My mom sent me a box of See's!! I asked for it for Christmas, but she sent it to me over the weekend! You have no idea how excited I was. They can say all they want about German chocolate, but nothing compares to See's. Especially shipped specially in a box all the way from the US, from your mommy! :)

Sometimes all I do on the weekends is sit in front of my computer and woooorrrrrrkkkkkk....
At least that's what it feels like.

Saw my first movie in the theater tonight: Harry Potter IV, in German!
I've never been a big fan of the movies, but I have to say, this one was really good, in terms of how well it made the book's plot work as a cohesive, involving film in its own right. I don't think I could sit through it again, because it felt REALLY long, but at the same time, I was really involved in the story.

And the special effects were amazing! The Quidditch tournament, and all of the Tri-wizard competitions, were really cool. AND I was able to follow it surprisingly well in German! Definitely glad I saw it.

[add: And Ralph Fiennes played Lord Voldemort! What?!]

We had a "Flur Essen," or floor dinner tonight with my hallmates. It was actually pretty fun. Not amazingly exciting, but considering that it was 9 of us that just happened to all live in the same hall eating pizza (that I helped make from scratch! wow!) and playing a board game together, it was pretty fun.
We played this game called "Activity" (I love the name), and it was basically like a lame version of Cranium--you have to either draw the word, act it out, or explain it verbally. I was really lucky, because both times that it was my turn, I got really easy words, so it wasn't stressful. My team still lost, but at least it wasn't because of me, haha!

And now I should got to sleep. Aargh, I'm getting (am?) sick. It's so annoying!
Oh, I have a question for anyone that knows anything about this kind of stuff (bio majors, perhaps?):
I bought these multi-vitamin pills which I later realized are meant for people over 50 years old. Should I think twice before taking these pills? Or do you think it won't make much of a difference? It seemed like it just had more of everything in it, as compared to other vitamin pills. But since I just started taking them and woke up today feeling kind of ill....

And the weather finally (kind of unfortunately) feels like winter here! They actually predicted snow for today, but sadly we didn't get that novelty, and instead got really cold rain!

I just checked the weather report: Today the high was 5 degrees Celsius (isn't that about 40 degrees F?) , and it's supposed to snow next week! How EXCITING!!

I think this is funny; according to my dictionary, the German translation of "the middle of nowhere" is "Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen."

That literally means, "Where the fox and rabbit say goodnight." I guess it's like a place where only the wild animals live. Isn't that cool?

Two random posts/thoughts:

-Cammy's team won again! Hooray! They're one of the "Sweet 16," and moving on to the third round! Everyone cross your fingers for them this Saturday!

-My family is the best family ever! I talked with them for the first time in two weeks, and it was just so nice to hear everyone's voice. Especially my dad's, when he told me that he would send me $400 dollars for the rest of the month, even when I just asked for another $100! That's real love.
And my mom cried apparently, after I talked with her on the phone, because she missed me so much. I'm glad I wasn't there, or else I'm sure I would have started crying too. But I get to see them all at Christmas, which is just around the corner!!

CONGRATULATIONS to my best friend Cammy, whose soccer team at Dickinson made it to NCAA level (national level), which is awesome in itself--but not only that, they also won their first game today, making their team the first team EVER in Dickinson history to make it past the first round in the NCAA's! So they're pretty freakin' GOOD!

Good luck in the next game, Cammy, and remember: you're always a winner in my heart! :)

“When I was 7 or 8 I went canoeing with my folks and I hung a plastic dinosaur over the lip of the canoe so that it could swim in the river, as miniature plastic dinosaurs are wont to do, naturally. Anyway, soon the current became too much for my weak grip to handle and the dinosaur flew from my fingers to a watery grave. This was far too much drama for my poor mind to comprehend and the incident ruined the rest of my day. No amount of "We can get you a new one" would ameliorate my bewildered and heartbroken soul.
After all, I had a strong emotional attachment to that dinosaur of uncertain lineage—indeed it wasn't even a proper Triceratops or Stegasaurus, instead it was some hybrid of the two that I don't think ever existed. Nevertheless, that toy was mine and we had taken baths together!
He came from China, or at least that's where he was born, and I don't care how many million brothers and sisters he had, THAT one was the one I wanted. I almost wondered why my Dad hadn't jumped in the river to rescue him. In fact I nearly considered asking him to do so, pronto.”

A deeply-moving anecdote Dylan sent to me in an email recently—I hope everyone else finds it as entertaining as I did!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Life as I know it is rapidly collapsing around me. What's going on? Where have all the morals gone? Has true poetry ceased to exist? Can you handle my infinite nature?

Ok, I stole that last line from a movie. But seriously, a crisis has occurred. My all-time favorite band, The White Stripes, has signed on to do a commercial for COCA COLA.

Says Jack White: "I've been offered the opportunity to write a song in a way which interests me as a songwriter."

WHATEVER, Jack. There are no excuses for your behavior. I always thought you were cool because you were AGAINST hawking lame commerical products just to get some cash. . . what happened?

I will NEVER get over this. *

*Well, maybe I will. Give me a week or two.

We had an American breakfast today for the first time in over three months! Michele, Vivian, and Cindy cooked fried eggs, fried tomatos, pancakes, French toast, bacon (ew), and hash browns for all of us! I have to say, even though I think German breakfasts are awesome, this was definitely a delicious change!

And so begins the procrastination....
Halloween photos (a little late, ich weiss)!


Me and Meredith as fellow hippies


Me and Will, who was basically dressed as white trash.


Cindy was a dominatrix, whip and all--our personas for the night kind of clashed


No recollection of what we're laughing about here (I wasn't drunk), but maybe it's at Stephen's costume--he was a self-proclaimed "gay FBI agent from the 50's."

Yes, I'm in all the pictures. What can I say? I'm my biggest fan. But it was a good Halloween weekend--I dressed up as a hippy, and I got a cute dress out of the deal, and I even got candy on Halloween day, thanks to Michele, who bought candy and brought it to everyone's room in a kind of reverse trick-or-treating fashion.

And today, to top off an exciting week, I had to clean the communal showers! Haha, I even volunteered to do it (stupid!). Actually it wasn't that bad at all, it just took over two hours, since it was only me and this girl Helene, who luckily is really nice and tolerant of my broken German, so we bonded over our favorite music and movies. Even though we don't really like the same movies and music at all, lol. Her favorite group is A-Ha! and one of her favorite movies is Top Gun...but it's alright, we can still be friends.

Ok, it's time for me to do some last-minute reading before a weekend full of READING! That's right, I have 4-day weekends now! Woo-hoo! Too bad I have enough reading to fill up every day for the rest of this semester....

Gute Nacht!

One more thing: Dylan was a banana for Halloween! So funny! I wish I could say I'm posting this pic to embarrass him, but I don't think Dylan gets embarrassed that easily!

Ouch! Jack White is sixth on a list of the top ten most egotistical celebrities, according to Teen People. He's not egotistical...he's just misunderstood!