then the dog went to the store and ate green bananas for a little while before he yawned and walked home.

I was trying to get Word's auto-language to switch to English, and this was the sentence I typed off the top of my head. Just thought I'd share, since I'm a little proud of it. And putting off work, of course.

Warning! Lots of pictures in this post!

First of all I wanted to post a pic of me and Hannah, my awesome German buddy from back in the high school days, and a good friend of mine that I don't get to see very often. We met up in Berlin for two days this extended weekend, and got to catch up a little. It was really fun! Here we are in a famous cemetery (Invalidenfriedhof) in Berlin:


Now the rest of the pictures all have to do with the same subject: SOCCER! Or really Fußball, as the Germans call it. I just want to convey how much Fußball-Fever there is in our small town of Goettingen:

The Mexican team is being housed in Goettingen, so there's a lot of "Willkommen Mexiko!" stuff in shops...I love how seriously this mannequin is wearing not-so-serious garb.

Soccer/German flag candy

Soccer display at the entrance of the Karstadt department store. There was a TV behind the display showing big soccer moments or something like that--notice all the men watching it.

Soccer books

Soccer toiletries: lotion, soap, makeup, etc.

Soccer dishware

World cup perfume and cologne.

"Sadness tissues" for if you cry while watching a game.

Cindy and Vivian showing off the soccer pasta, soccer ball pillow and soccer ball print toilet paper.

CRAZY!! But it's really cool to be in the midst of all this obsession; I've never experienced such a unified excitement for one thing!

Going to Berlin tomorrow (for my 4th time! Do I get a prize?) to meet up with my best blogging buddy, Hannah! I haven't seen her since last Thanksgiving, when she was in Davis by coincidence and we went to Crepeville...mmm the memories.

I'm a little sad rain is predicted pretty much as far as any weather report can predict...but I'm still excited!

My little sister was in her last high school musical last week; they did Into the Woods, the rather weird play that makes fun of fairy tales. (Remember when we saw it at Davis, Corie?) Leah was Cinderella, and apparently she did a really good job (as usual!), and since I didn't get to see it, my parents sent me some pics. And I decided to share them, since they're pretty good. (Click to see full size)

With her friend Danielle, who plays the Baker's Wife

With Prince Charming

With the cast

Singing the last song of the play

Cammy graduates from college today! (I almost wrote she graduates from high school.) This is crazy. I am not supposed to be this old. I mean, I guess I'M not the one graduating yet, but...time FLIES! And my little girl is growing up....

Congratulations Cammy!

You are one of the awesomest people I know! And now you are even more awesome, because you are a college graduate!

Who needs sunshine when you've got lots of reading to do anyway?

PS-Da Vinci Code movie...not so great. But I found Tom Hanks strangely somewhat attractive with his longish hair.

Look how disgustingly healthy my lunch was today:


That's right! Natural and wild rice mixed with baked tofu and fresh arugula! All organic! Sometimes I'm so proud of myself that I post about it on my blog.

L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back

Refer to our discussions, confirm the terms of our love affair
I exercise all options, and I know I'll see you there

BA-BA-BA etc. etc.

L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back

Not withstanding provisions of clauses 1,2,3 and 4
Extend contractual period, me and you for evermore

You're the Legal Man, you've got to prove that you're no liar
I'll render services that you may reasonably require

L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back

Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime

--Legal Man, Belle & Sebastian

This is unfortunately a very sad post, but I just felt that I should share the news with everyone who knew Vivian. Vivian's mom passed away from cancer on Saturday, after a very long and painful battle. Anyone that knows her mom knows what a sweet, kind woman she was to all of Vivian's friends, and she will be missed by many.

What I if I do this for my summer job?

My blog is officially three years old! Actually, its birthday was on May 8 (which happens to be Kaylan's 21st birthday too), but of course I forgot both birthdays until several days later. I'm pretty bad about that.

But happy birthday to both!

This is a prime example of typical "Germanism":
I get a note in my mailbox saying that I owe the housing people 30 cents for a new lightbulb, and I have to pay within a week. I don't remember when I needed to change a lightbulb, but it's kind of lame to argue over 30 cents, so I manage to make time to get down to the student housing building (which is open only 3 hours a day), and pay the 30 cents. And I don't just pay it; they have to write out a whole receipt showing what I payed for, when I payed it, and signed by me.
It's just freaking 30 cents!!

PS-Jack White is a father! They named the baby girl Scarlet Theresa. I'm proud of him for choosing a relatively normal name!

Oh man. Today was a reenactment of all those horrible years forced to play soccer/frisbee/touch football in PE during middle and high school.
Played ultimate frisbee and then soccer with the Americans, Germans, and a couple Brits today out on the field...and managed to hide in the background most of the time. Although I DID make a great catch, stopping the soccer ball with my hands (and no, I wasn't playing goalie, lol). Luckily the people that I played with were not hard-core at all, and were able to laugh it off.
Now I am back home where I belong, hunched over in front of the computer screen!

You know you have too much music when you hear a song you like at a club, research all the info about it, only to discover that you already have the song on one of your CDs.

But at least you already have the song!

I am an avid follower of Jay Leno's "Headlines," which are posted on his website. I just wanted to share a couple of "For Sale" ads he showed that I thought were really funny:

Beck is playing in Davis on May 24th! If only I were there....
Not that it would have mattered, since I hear the tickets sold out in about .5 seconds.

I can however console myself with the fact that I am going to see BELLE & SEBASTIAN in Hamburg on May 12th!!! I love those guys. I think the concert will be extremely mellow (too mellow?) but I am very excited nonetheless.

I copied Hannah's virtual paper doll thingy, and this is the one I made. (Notice the chihuaha with the snot bubble; it's my favorite part.)



If you want to make your own (come on, you KNOW you want to waste time like me!) here's the site: Candybar Doll Maker

Today I had a minor cooking disaster. But it was probably the biggest cooking disaster I've ever experienced! I left some rice on the stove at medium heat (BAD idea) for half an hour, expecting it to cook in that time. I come back, and the kitchen is literally filled with smoke! I couldn’t even get to a window and open it without running outside again to get some fresh air; my eyes were tearing up and I couldn’t really breathe in. But eventually I was able to open both windows and the door that leads go outside...thankfully I was the one that found the food first instead of one of my floor mates, or else they probably would’ve hated me!

After about 10 minutes one floor mate Marinella came in, and when I apologized for the smell, she was really nice about it, saying, “Welcome to the club! We’ve all burned something in here!” So I felt much better, especially when she gave me a piece of the pizza she was making (since my food was burned to a black crisp)!

Springtime is definitely here! The trees are finally starting to grow leaves again, but that's not all....
-I have swallowed bugs several times in the last week while riding my bike. (The bugs are back with a vengeance.)
-It was 70 degrees today! And the sun wasn't even out for part of it, but it was still nice and muggy! (Hey, it's still better than being cold!)
-I have my beloved ring tan back! My hand was paler than pale during the Winter; the skin on my hand matched the skin under the ring I never take off. But in the shower today, I realized that I have a slight tan again! YES!

I hope everyone else is enjoying the arrival of Spring as much as me and the other Americans in Goettingen! (Except for poor Dylan, who is now heading into Winter in Chile. But he already got to have his freakin' warm season.)

I hope people have been hearing at least a little about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. My dad drew my attention to it recently in an article saying what an urgent and serious problem this is, one that shouldn't be ignored.

If you have time, please look over this article, and as for getting involved, I would recommend email Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and Senators Boxer and Feinstein. (That's what my family did, anyway.) There are also a few organizations that I've found that at least can give you more information about the crisis (see upper-right corner of my blog).

Never Again, Again

By BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY
April 13, 2006; Page A12 (The Wall Street Journal)

Too bad for the TV networks in the U.S. and Europe, but the event of the moment is neither the crisis of regime in France nor Berlusconi's defeat. It is not even the latest casualties and the latest vicissitudes of the war in Iraq. Rather, it is the news coming from Darfur indicating that the war there, already three years old, and nearly half a century old in the whole of Sudan, is on the verge of the utmost savagery and horror.

We already knew that villages are being leveled by planes from bases in Obeid and Port Sudan. We knew that the Janjaweed ("armed men on horseback") come, after the bombers, to finish off the survivors by hand. We also knew -- as I myself attested in 2001 after a stay with John Garang's guerrilla army -- of the use of mass rape, as in Bosnia, as a weapon of war and conquest.

Finally, we were not unaware of the racist, purely racist, nature of a conflict that no longer has the "excuse" of a religious war -- since the Zaghawa and Massalit tribes rebelling against Khartoum are also Muslim -- but simply offers the image of a war whose sole motive is the hatred, on the part of the North's Arabs, of a population whose crime is having skin that is too black.

But there are new elements that we do not know so well: the way the Khartoum regime at the last minute banned a visit by the top U.N. relief official; the harassment of European NGOs, especially the Norwegians, who were keeping the humanitarian pipeline open against all odds and have been forced to pack their bags; the cynicism with which the militias enforce the Feb. 20 law prohibiting any "foreign organization" whose activities constitute an "interference" in Sudan's "internal affairs" and thus encroach upon the "sovereignty" of a state that claims the right to exterminate as it pleases.

The new development, in short, is the frightening warning from Juan Mendez, the U.N.'s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, that this policy of the forced withdrawal of NGOs could signal that the regime has embarked on the last stage of its plan, where there cannot and must not be any witnesses.

And this is when there are those who, faced with the atrocity of a massacre and perhaps genocide, denounce the very principle of an intervention which they condemn in advance as "neocolonial": Such is the case this week of the Arab League.

There are those who are plainly uninterested in this war at the end of the world, this war of faraway peoples, that does not pit the rich wicked West against the impoverished meek of the Third World. Ah, these neoprogressives who are so talkative when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict! Ah, these anti-imperialists who have nothing at all to say when it comes to a war with 500 times more deaths but where neither Israel nor the West has the least role!

* * *
There are, in the U.S. as in Europe, organizations who, though presumably having the duty and speciality of defending black minorities against discrimination or historical denial, are conspicuous by their silence. Is it because this war between Arab and non-Arab Muslims complicates, yet again, the old schema? Is it because the war is a terrible confirmation, by fact and fire, of the historians' thesis that the massacre of African blacks was an African and especially an Arab crime as well as -- and before -- being a Western crime? In sum, there are all those who each have a different reason for feeling inconvenienced by this drama in Sudan and who would therefore like President Omar El Bashir to do whatever he has to do quickly, and in silence.

But what about the others? All the others? What about all those ordinary people who, like you and me, had sworn "Never again Auschwitz" and then "Never again Bosnia" and then "Never never again the shame of Rwanda"? What about Kouchner, my friend Bernard Kouchner, who invented the right to intervene? And Mandela, the great man in whom human conscience and nobility were incarnated? And the United States? And France and its African diplomacy? And all those everywhere who have made themselves advocates of the cause of blacks and from whom we so much want to hear?

I acknowledge that the problem is not simple.

But it also must be acknowledged that it is a hundred times less complicated than the removal of Saddam Hussein. Telling Khartoum to stop would not take more effort than was required 10 years ago, after five years of procrastination and cowardice, to stop Milosevic.

What, then, are we waiting for? Every day that goes by is a day of shame and defeat.

Mr. Lévy is the author, most recently, of "American Vertigo" (Random House, 2006). This piece was translated from the original French by Hélène Brenkman.