2010 Survey

With 2010 Coming To an End:
1. Have you had any relationships this year?
nothing serious.

2. Have you had your birthday yet?
August

3. Kissed two people in the same night?
no

4. Pulled an all nighter?
yeah but it was on a plane...doesn't count.

5. Puked at all?
yees

7. Went Camping?
no..would be nice though!

8. Bought something(s)?
how do you NOT buy stuff?

9. Met someone special?
I met lots of cool people

10. Been out of the country?
several times

13. Hugged someone?
obviiously

14. Slept in someone elses bed?
ya

15. Got a job?
sadly no

16. Loaned out money?
I don't have money to loan

17. Gotten in a car accident?
no

18. Gone over your mobile phone bill?
no

19. Been called a slut?
not even close. But I'm not exactly getting around lately so it would be hard to.

20. Done something you regret?
slightly, but not that much.

2010: In The Beginning
Where did you go on New Years?:
I was here. I hosted a party

Who were you with?
pretty much most of the Berlin crowd

Did you make any resolutions?:
Yes: see post about resolutions.

2010: Your Love Life
Did you break up with anyone?:
Not exactly. He just stopped calling and I didn't make much of an effort to call him either.

Were you broken up with?
see above

Did you meet anyone special?:


Did you fall in love?:
didn't really get the chance.

2010: Friends and Enemies
Did you meet any new friends this year?:
yes

Did you dislike anyone?:
there will always be people you don't click with.

Did you make any new enemies?:
I don't really make "enemies"

Did you resolve any fights?:
I only had small fights; they were all resolved

Who was your closest friend?:
hard to say

Who did you grow apart from?:
a few people

Do you have any regrets when it comes to your friendships?:
sure. I wish I wasn't so bad at conversations and that I didn't talk to much.

2010: Your BIRTHDAY!
What did you do for your bday?
went for dinner at Delicie d'Italia

Did you have a party?:
dinner

Did you get any presents?:
yes

If so what was the best thing you got?:
I got nice things...I don't want to pick a favorite :)

2010 Wrap-Up:
Was 2010 a good year?:
yes!! :)

Do you think 2011 will top 2010?:
it has potential

Frustration

Ok, so if you've read my Facebook status updates today, I probably come across as really cranky and slightly evil. I am kind of cranky today.

Background: I ordered something from Amazon on Monday evening. It's a Christmas gift of sorts...I used some early Christmas money to buy the stuff. I'm an Amazon Prime customer (a service I pay for) so I get Prime delivery, which usually means next day, or the day after if you're ordering on a Sunday or after business hours. I was promised that, despite the holidays, my package would be here on December 22. It's not.

But that's not exactly what's annoying me. I didn't clarify that very well. Sure, it sucks, but stuff happens and the weather is bad and it WAS Christmas. I do think that German cities and highways could do a better job clearing the snow (I swear, every year it's like "what's this white stuff coming from the sky?") And I think that courier and postal companies should be hiring extra staff to deal with the high volume of the busiest time of year. But stuff happens and that's life.

What bugs me is the complete lack of information. It's left Amazon so it's not their responsibility really...it's in DHL's hands now. I think though, as a customer, I should be informed of the fact that my package could not be delivered on time. I know that they probably have a lot of late packages, but I don't feel that's an excuse. A little bit of customer service goes a really long way, and if you can't live up to promises as a business, it's your responsibility to notify your customers. This is marketing 101 people (really, it is!)

So, in a nutshell, it's not the fact that I didn't get my package on time that bugs me. It's that I was not informed about it.

Doppelganger!

I was watching Meet Me in St Louis this evening, and I noticed that the actress who plays Rose looks an awful lot like Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf)!!





Styled very old-fashioned (40's meets 1903, when the movie is set) and a few years older, but look!

Snow Cat

Snow cat
Originally uploaded by DanieMarie

Petz thought he wanted to go outside....he was wrong.

I did put him out there. If he whines to go outside for long enough and wont give up, I put him out there so that he knows why he doesn't want to be there after all.

The Sound of Music

I was watching it this afternoon, and it's making me miss my family. My mom always cries at the part where Christopher Plummer sings this song at the end (unfortunately the clip from the actual movie is not available, so here's the Vienna Boys Choir instead), and apparently I do too now. My dad hates the movie, but I have really fond memories watching it with my mom, and it usually plays on or around Christmas on TV in Canada (or maybe it's an American channel?) My Oma loved it too....it combined two of her big loves: musicals and the Alps. The movie reminds me of her a little bit and always will.



Missing everyone in Canada!

Thankful #2

I'm thankful that I've gotten back the ability to laugh myself to tears.

Holidays

I'm on a self-imposed holiday of sorts. I think it's important to organize my studies, and I plan the occasional break from course work into that as well. I still do reading and review but I stop reading course guide books (these are the written material that replace lectures in my program). Doing correspondence requires that you create your own structure, after all.

Anyway, it's been somewhat of a nice holiday. I've caught up on my Gilmore Girls reruns, did some crafts and slept a bit more, but also caught up on Harvard Business Review articles, articles I missed in Economist back issues and my mountain of books to read (though I admit I've procrastinated a little with doing accounting exercises like I meant to. I'll still do it I swear!) I managed to do a bunch of research about MBA programs, which is a lot to take in but informative. And I've found the time to cook, blog and watch an internet video series called "Very Mary Kate" (see last post). Anyway, in all, not half bad!

Very Mary Kate

http://verymarykate.com

Is it wrong that I find this so hilarious? I don't even think she resembles Mary Kate much, but the character is pretty funny as an original.

What Would Doc Brown Think?

I was watching Back to the Future tonight (ahhhh the joy of sort-of winter holidays!) and in the beginning of the movie Doc Brown wants to go 25 years into the future....


...Which would have landed him in 2010! What would Doc Brown think? In the end, he ends up going ahead 30 years instead, which places him in 2015, not too far off, and when he comes back the DeLorean can fly and it's powered by garbage fuel. While I don't know about 4 and a bit years in the future, but at the moment, while there are some cars that manage to be powered on kinds of waste (there's a car in my hometown that runs on old deep fryer grease) they're sort of still working on the flying car thing. Would Doc have been disappointed? Or would iPhones and the internet be fascinating enough?

Texty

I still can't believe that Mathias texted me on Saturday. For those of you that don't know, I dated Mathias in early spring this year. He couldn't commit, and he stopped calling. I haven't heard from him in 8 months, and he thinks he can just text me? Does he think I'm desperate and/or easy? That he can just text after several months of zero contact and that I'll somehow respond positively? I didn't answer, but I was just really tempted to text "You've got to be kidding me" back. Some guys...

Advent Calendar

Advent calendar
Originally uploaded by DanieMarie

You're never too old for an advent calendar!

2010 Resolutions

Ok, I realize that 2010 isn't -quite- over yet, but it's close enough that I think I can post about the progress I made on this year's New Years resolutions.

Before I start, I want to mention that when I make a resolution, it's not really an empty thing I do because it's New Years and everyone else is doing it. When I make them, I intend to stick with them. I don't save goal-setting for New Years as well either...I make goals throughout the year, some of them short-term and some of them long-term; however New Years is a convenient time to set new goals because of the "new start" symbolism that goes with it. Anyway my resolutions were:

-Spend less time on the computer
-Get back to the healthy diet I kept in the summer of 2009.
-Quit buying books on Amazon.
-Save money.
-Learn better housekeeping.
-Practice French.

I did pretty well. I'll list progress in point form:
-I do spend less time on the computer, and the time I do spend is used more wisely (looking up and printing articles for school, doing other research that could be helpful to my studies, such as a growing interest in demographics, blogging, writing other stuff).
-After I made my resolutions post in January, I went on a fat binge that especially got larger after I went to Athens and decided that copious amounts of olive oil makes food taste AWESOME. By the summer, I had gained 15 lbs and didn't fit into any of my "fitted" clothes. I decided to renew my commitment to eating healthy, exercising and losing weight. It was a slow start at first because I had just made progress on the exercise and not the diet to go with it, but after I got sick in September I was able to change my eating habits and moderate my cheese and olive oil intake. Today (yes, TODAY) I weighed myself and I've hit my weight goal! Go me. While weight isn't everything, I also fit into my clothes again, and the mirror is showing me my good work as well. so yep...check!
-While I never -quit- buying books on Amazon, I do buy significantly less of them than in 2009. As a reader I'm always tempted to actually OWN all the books I want to read, but I've learned to just buy some of them and put a halt as I catch up on actually -reading- them and be more content with keeping a wishlist on Amazon should I decide to read more later. I also check my online spending on other products by avoiding impulse purchases and only buying things that fulfill a specific and genuine need, and I still compare prices both on and offline before I make them.
-I've assessed my spending and cut some things, and in the fall I reassessed my budget. Unfortunately this reassessment showed me that even on my basic needs, costs are more than I had originally budgeted. Trying to cut this further is proving difficult. for example, basic food doesn't really do it for me. For one, because of my allergies I have to eat meat at least a few times a week to get enough protein, and I can't seem to curb buying nicer, high quality foods. I do buy seasonally and this saves me money, and gardening in the summer helps. Though, these things don't seem to make a massive enough impact to help my budget all that much. My household costs are also higher than I originally thought. Going into this place being a first-time homeowner, I didn't really think of all the expenses that I'd have for maintenance and such. Things like deck oil every year (3 cans for 2 coats, over 90 Euro) to protect the balcony...stuff like that. As a renter I never had these expenses. Anyway...
-I HAVE learned better housekeeping. I'm still no Martha Stewart (or even as nitpicky as I was in Canada) but my house is cleaner and tidier than it was this time last year and I'm working out better long-term organization solutions for my stuff.
-I enrolled in a French class in the fall. I intend on continuing in January!

So...not half bad!

I have to think of what my resolutions should be for 2011.

Miss/Ms/Mrs

Dear Germans,
When communitcating/corresponding in English, and you're speaking to a woman who is either unmarried or you don't know her marital status, you use "Ms" not "Mrs." And if I'm talking to you and correct you, don't tell me that in Germany you say "Mrs" and continue calling me "Mrs. Griffin" because we are speaking in English, and that's not how we roll. For a country that's so concerned with English ability, it just amazes me that people wont accept this.

For some reason it bugs me. When we learn German, we learn that "Fraulein" is outdated, and that you just use "Frau" regardless of marital status. It's a cultural difference but sometimes these come to play with language and etiquette. Now, sometimes someone just doesn't know, and that's fair enough....maybe they didn't learn enough English to get the subtle differences with these things. I get that, because I run into it with German still...sometimes the little things count and it might not always be something you learned in class. But I think if someone corrects you and their a native speaker, you shouldn't argue with them because that's what's done in your native language. I've had this happen a few times. And for people using a high level of business English, you should have learned this already. No excuses.

Mondays

Unlike Garfield, I do not hate Mondays.

I kind of like that feeling of starting the week. It's like New Years Day, on a much smaller scale. Whatever went wrong last week has a chance to be redeemed or forgotten, and whatever went right has a chance to grow.

Cats on the Internet

The joys of Facebook turned up this tonight: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cat_vs_internet (You'll have to copy and paste this into a new window....hyperlinking hates me right now).

I laughed. I love cat humour. I love it so much that if I stay home on a Friday night to "study" I'll spend at least some of that time looking at LOLCats or something similar. I'm curious though; how come there are so many cat pictures and videos on the net and so few dog ones (at least relative to cats)? Dogs are hilarious in real life, but somehow they're less funny on the internet. I don't know why, but somehow this makes me go "meh":



and that was the funnies dog picture I could come up with in a quick Google search. But this makes me LOL:

http://edwardcheever.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cat-internet-failure.jpg

or this:



Who am I kidding? A quick Google search of Cat + Internet yields a lot.

Damn you distracting internet cats!

Baby, it's cold outside

Let it snow!

Snow

It's freezing, but lovely