Going Under the Knife

So I didn't have a good feeling about doing the nose surgery with the doctor who didn't even realize that he hadn't operated on me yet, and a student of mine who is a doctor told me to call this friend of hers. He told me I should really do it in Borna, a nearby city, and answered a lot of my questions so I was comforted (for example, it made me nervous that I would need to stay 4-5 days when it was an in-and-out surgery in the U.S., but he said, "Theoretically, you can leave. But you'd need to come back each day so the doctors can check up on the nose's progress, so why not let yourself be pampered?). He called the head doctor for me, and when I called, the secretary was really friendly to "the friend of Dr. Badack's." We arranged to have an appointment the very next day (Thursday the 27th) and to do the surgery the following Monday (the 30th) so that I wouldn't have to wait until October, when the doctor would be back from vacation.

I got a ride to Borna from my visiting teaching companion, but the appointment went much longer than I thought. We're talking five hours here. The doctor and his assistant doctor were very quiet-spoken men who both couldn't believe I hadn't had my tonsils out yet and said I should do that in a month (at the same time is not an option, I asked). They said they could see the surgery that had been done when I was 12 wasn't very good and shook their heads that someone would do that to a 12-year-old. I felt good about doing the surgery with them, though I left with a lot of questions, like what to bring with me.

(Tangent: Getting back to Leipzig was crazy. The lady at the information desk had no idea how to get back, so I found a bus stop and asked the next bus driver to come by how to get to the Bahnhof. "BAAAAHNHOEWF?" he asked in that way that only small-town Saxons can, and I eventually got there. But the train came to the wrong platform and I wasn't able to get there fast enough, so I had to wait another hour.)

On Saturday, I talked to this girl and found out she is a nurse, and she was able to answer my questions. She was surprised, however, that they're doing the nose first and the tonsils later, because, as she said, the tonsils have a higher chance of being infected in the colder months and that makes the recovery harder than it already is.

So I'm telling you this because this morning is the surgery. Please think of/pray for me. If you really want to call me in the next few days, call 3433210 (with the German 49 dialing code at the start). But only if you're willing to work your way through the German secretary.

The Story of My Master's Thesis

Even before I started really thinking about my Master's thesis, I knew I wanted to write about Mormon mommy blogs. I'd been collecting posts from mommy blogs for two years already (I ended up with a 600-page document). The genre/fad is so fascinating to me because this group of (relatively) conservative women seem to really take to writing about their lives intellectually, humorously, thoughtfully, and one can see the way they love the roles they have chosen. This satisfaction would not be something many feminists (ahem, Betty Friedan) would expect because of the limited community and intellectual stimulation that can come with being a stay-at-home mom.

But after writing my abstract and tweaking it several times, my peers told me I was too close to the Mormon theme and needed to broaden to other mommy blogs. I tried to work it out anyway and finally decided I would try again some day in the future after submitting a horrible version to a conference and feeling completely ashamed that my name was published on something so bad. (Yes, I tried to make it up by giving a fabulous presentation. It worked in some ways--all but one of the follow-up questions were aimed at me. I hoped that no one thought to read the article until I was far, far away.)

So I broadened the theme and turned to a lot of autobiographical studies. I was amazed to find that the blogging form was so perfectly what autobiography scholars had said was needed for women's autobiographical writing. The patterns between men's and women's autobiographical writing were so different. Men wrote of their adventurous public lives chronologically and didn't include a lot about family (except for parents). Sometimes lifelong wives were never even mentioned. Women, on the other hand, wrote about their private lives, even if they had very active public lives (Margaret Mead, for example, skips the twenty years of her life when she did her famous sociological work.) Their subjects were more eclectic. They also wrote based more on subject than on time, included a lot about relationships, and described personal spiritual journeys.

Then I read a lot of narrative theory about how people are their stories and identity comes from the narratives they create. Sometimes I would spend time trying to decide how to design my future layout (I wanted to include some century gothic and some dots, both of which turned out very nicely). After a loooot of preparatory reading, I would sit in the train and stare at my notes and try to make outlines. I wondered about the patterns I saw and what they meant, and thus was my argument born. The writing process refined it until it basically and finally turned into this:

Mommy blogs show a satisfaction that stay-at-home mothers want to share and that would not have been expected by Betty Friedan's research (published in The Feminine Mystique in 1963) because they fulfill the centuries-long need for a women's fitting autobiographical genre, provide a varied and broad community from within the home, and are whiteboards for identity formulation.

Early in the process, I made this list to remind me of why I should be motivated:




I got the brunt work done (with the chapters on The Feminine Mystique and the history of autobiographical writing and women's writing patterns) while I was in Switzerland (thanks to the Lochers for letting me stay at their house and for being progress-monitors). I was lucky to get another wrist brace for my carpal tunnel and a student gave me a mouse so I wouldn't have to use the finger pad all the time.

Getting those last chapters with the heavy stuff done was the hardest and if I were to be given another year to complete my thesis, I think I'd focus mainly on those. I spent hours and hours sitting at the desk trying to get a few pages done, and then hours and hours laying on the couch until my computer ran out of battery still trying. Sometimes I'd try out writing in the kitchen, but I felt bad about my stuff being everywhere.

Each evening, I thought, "Tomorrow I can easily get five or ten pages done," but the process was much slower than I thought. I had foreseen that it would be hard to have motivation, but the problem turned out to be time. There were so many distractions and interruptions--church activities, doctor visits, meals, emails, and work. Not to mention that while trying to focus, I had the best ideas come to me for completely separate projects, it was like I was suddenly a genious in every other category. I tried to get rid of as many distractions as possible, meaning I turned over some church responsibilities, put off working on my health, rejected most calls asking me to fill in, and even turning on my email's automatic reply function (which ended disastrously because my mom thought I was dead or something and then when she wrote she got this reply and thought I was mad at her for some reason and was really upset. Sorry, mom, and Sica, thanks for the SMS that let me know.).

I aimed to get done by the end of June so I could take another two weeks and revise, but I was getting extremely stressed out because my Grandpa was really sick and I was so far away. I finally decided to book a ticket to go see him and spent all the money I've earned in my job since it started. I booked the ticket a week in advance which was already pretty tight timing, but unfortunately he died before I left.

While in Utah, I really tried to work on my thesis because I didn't want to have to worry about it during EFY and during the YSA conference. However, one doesn't pay that much money to go write their thesis somewhere else while surrounded by family for the first time in a year, so my professors nicely allowed me to have an extension until the end of August.

After being an EFY counselor and attending the YSA conference, I set out to clean up the last two chapters and include some more close readings. At this point I ended up with some hardcore health problems all at the same time, including carpal tunnel in both wrists. Ow. My physical therapist suggested I get an extension on my thesis, but I said no way and asked what else I could do. So I ended up wearing braces at all times, doing stretches often, and icing both wrists every couple of hours. I also started sitting on two books, resting my feet on my art box, and wearing the most supportive shoes I have around the apartment.

The revising and finishing-up part went relatively fast and I even thought I would be able to turn in the thesis a week early, but what I didn't anticipate were all the formatting problems. Let's just say that Word and I are not on speaking terms. Well, actually, I want to tell you the details because they're crazy. First, one of the four images I had in the document kept moving to a different page without its caption, and I'd have to track it down. But every time I moved it back, it would snap to the top of the page, no matter what setting I tried. I spent a whole afternoon and evening working on the problem and no suggestions I found on the internet or from facebook friends helped. Everyone said I should have done the whole thing in Open Office, but it seemed a little late to change at that point. The next day, I cried out in frustration and my roommate suggested I put the image in a text box. Voila.

Then the page numbers kept changing to different fonts and starting over with each section. Once I got that fixed by scrolling through a billion times and making changes, I realized that the headings I had spent hours getting to switch between "The Mommy Blog" and "Michelle Glauser" had changed to only one of them in the page-number process. I could get them to go back to every other page, but they kept appearing at the start of the document where the title page was and such. Ack!!!

I finally figured it all out, but what should then appear as I scrolled through? Three weird places where there was no text, just a white space. I thought there was a paragraph break or something and tried to delete the empty space, but nothing helped. I finally realized the problem was that the heading on these three pages had made itself huge somehow. So I should have been able to just drag it back into place, right? No! That changed every other page to have weird formatting and words on top of each other. Nice. This time, however, no amount of time fixed the problem. I spent a whole day wanting to pound my fists on the desk or break something and another day waiting for someone to answer my emails for help (I'd sent an S.O.S. to all the computer-savvy people I know). You have to laugh in bitter frustration when someone who works at Microsoft says they've never seen that before and don't know what can be done.

Finally, I did the inevitable. I imported the entire document into Open Office, which messed up the heading and page numbers again. Amazingly, though, Open Office learned from my actions. After I made a change twice, it made the rest automatically. Hallelujah, success. Then I just had to change the Table of Contents because the pages were somehow a bit different.

But the one problematic picture turned out really unclear and pasting it or importing it again only made it about as big as three lines of text. Stretching it obviously didn't help. I finally got it to be fairly clear, saved the whole thing as a PDF, and leapt into the air for joy, clapping my hands and declaring I would print it the next day.

You knew there had to be more complications, didn't you? That night, while I was laying in bed, I thought of some things I would like to change, so I got up really early the next morning. I added one, I repeat, one sentence to the document. The page numbers changed. The problematic image leapt to a completely different section and took another image with it. The headings went bonkers, and this time, Open Office didn't learn a single thing from me. I had to teach myself how to make different page styles for even and odd pages, and even then it didn't work for every section. I could have gotten rid of that one sentence. But actually I couldn't.

I got to the copy shop about an hour and a half later than I said I would be there. Somehow, even though I had saved every document in the A4 format, when they opened the thesis on their computer, it was in American letter format. We decided it looked okay printed like that and stuck with it. However, when they printed out the color pages, I knew something would need to be done about that problematic image. It was simply too unclear. So, I tried to duplicate that one page in Word, but the headings were different in Word and I couldn't stand for one page looking different. I finally faked it and played with spacing until it looked fairly normal, but the 1,5 spacing wouldn't cooperate and I ended up typing out the whole page again. Luckily they were patient. Right as I finally got it right, I realized that very page had an orphan I had somehow missed. I wanted to die. But I didn't. The other pages had already been printed. I bit my lip really hard and looked the other way.

Then I realized that I had wanted to write an acknowledgments page. Luckily, I had left one of the opening pages blank, so I just needed to add a paragraph there. It took me five minutes to think of the word "acknowledgments" in English, another five minutes to think of how to spell the darn word (okay, I used spell-check), another five minutes to type out my thank yous, another five minutes to justify putting the page where the blank page was (it would have been better before the abstract), and then I let them print it (the employee there asked how to say "acknowledgments" and I realized for the first time in my life what an awful spelling disaster that word is--or maybe it's a pronunciation disaster).

I picked out a fabulously rich red for the soft covers and the only red they had for hard covers--a deep burgundy--for the copy I was printing for myself. They told me to come back in a few hours, so I went to the market to pick up vegetables for my trip that evening and allowed myself to get a treat at the bakery.

As soon as I got home, I felt so thankful, I had to kneel down and let out my praise. It was at that moment that I realized I'd forgotten to thank my Heavenly Father in the acknowledgments! Ack!!!!! I immediately called the copy shop, but the bindings were already done. I then had to kneel again and apologize, and then I thought that He counts as family, though I think He really deserves to be specifically thanked.

Turning in the thesis was great. I picked up another goodie at a different bakery on the way home and thought about how I wanted to make some changes to the PDF before I sent it to anyone, but figured I'd do that in a week or two (if you want a copy, let me know).

After taking a picture for your viewing pleasure, I set my thesis on the table in my room and thought of how when people come and ask what it is, I can say, "That? Oh that's just a book I wrote." Then I showered and let all my thesis worries wash away.

Thank you to everyone who supported me in any way throughout the whole program!

Here are some things I wish I'd known/done:
-ask for one chapter at a time to be read for feedback
-set up firm appointments for group feedback
-learn to skim for the important things first
-deadline for first draft so there would be more time for revisions

Though I'm already sad to think that I'm not really a student anymore, now I can focus on a lot of other things that have been building up on my list of things to do and I hope to get my health in better shape.

Overwhelming Amount of Links to Love

You've never seen so many links in your life. I'm posting them all now as a celebration of having just turned in my master's thesis! Wahooooooey! (I almost screamed in the street as I rode away from the copy shop.)

(Oh, and I'll give you a tip: right click on each link and then select "Open Link in New Tab." Then you can be like me and have a billion things open. But if you don't have a Mac and your computer crashes, don't blame me.)

Artsy (Crafts, Architecture, Styles, Music, etc.):

I. want. this. umbrella. skirt.




Two lovely wallpaper uses.

Colorful nature art on musical staffs by a Mormon artist.

Doesn't this girl ever run out of cutesy ideas? Silhouette portraits.

Art made with greasy burgers. (Thanks, John's Facebook wall.)

I am blown away by this factory-worker church remodeled to be a house.

Creative architectural art installations.

Someday when I have a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, I will take pictures of it jumping into the air with joy, like these photos. Then I will put a red ribbon around his neck, like these dog bowties.

I'm lusting after this apartment. And the business cards are cool, too.

How to get in a Sartorialist picture.


Black dot short film.


Dainty scherenschnitte city maps (London and Paris included). (Amanda, good for you.)

Post-it Note Romance:





Here's the mysterious French music that was playing on my computer:

Edith Piaf - Ne Me Quitte Pas

So I saw this mix of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" by Jon Schmidt and Steve Nelson (who was in my old ward) several months ago, but I didn't know how big it would get. Here's an article about it.

What a cool dress made of peacock feathers.

Indian/Mexican wedding. (Cool dress!)

Nice art.

Nice Mormon art.

Could you eat food that looks this pretty?

Out of all these floral patterns, I think I would like to use "Fall Apart" as a wallpaper.

Hilarious office artwork. My favorite is the one with all the dots from a hole puncher and the descriptions for the different kinds of workers.

Vintage underwater photography.

Johnya's YouTube opera suggestions.

A good example of how to survive in a tiny apartment.

Recycled business cards. (Just stamp it on used materials.)

Rotating circular kitchen, and in a nice red I like, too. This looks awesome but makes me wonder about the magical triangle that all interior designers consider for kitchens. Would it get old going from fridge to sink to stove? Or would you just rotate it?

Quilling? I didn't even know what that was and now I love it.

I'd like to try to play with clouds in my photos.

Weather Girl Art.

Letters to everyone in a town.

Colorful soap bubbles. (One of the patterns looks like my sinus passages.)

I love Iron & Wine, ever since I was introduced to them on the way to and from Havasupai. This girl's version is nice:

Cinder & Smoke from karmaticoma on Vimeo.

Picture gallery wall interior idea.

Cool wee see (baby einstein for designer babies).

Simply pretty, French art by Stephane Dauthuille.

Artsy tape that would make my mom drool.

Stephanie Levy art.

Colors in awkward family photos. Ha ha.


Literary:

Fascinating article about a word-count linguist.

25,000 books checked out from the library since 1946.

Justify your love for literature.

Your life on a postcard.

Help this awesome writer write a bestseller. (It may require a LOT of help and patience.)

Library ice cream.

Seven meanings to one sentence.

Someone asked David Sedaris to sign a kindle. Here's what he wrote.

Sylvia Plath's note in The Great Gatsby.

Postmodern book list. (This list made me shiver with joy.)

The adventures of two milk teef. Random.

A variety of bookshelves.

James Joyce invented the blog?

A witty look at the meaning of postmodernism.

Peek at other people's books.

NPR's three-minute fiction. Worth a few reads.


Technological:

Someone had a lot of time to make a fancy printer advertisement.

I love to see people use technology to improve the world--texting 911.

Pocket cemetery on your iPhone.

Since as long as I could remember, people have asked me how I can walk and read at the same time. Although it makes for a bit slower walking and a bit slower reading, I call it quality time-saving. If you hold the book just right, you'll never have trouble seeing if someone or something comes in front of you, even if your eyes aren't focused on it. Well, this tool is good for texting and walking.

Is this not creepy how well they can make digital babies?





Microwave oven physics.

Google, thanks for the reminder about finding emails.

What is so fascinating about these "Will it Blend?" youtube videos that Jesse told me about? I don't know, but I watched about ten already. Here's the light sticks getting blended (and yes, now I want one of these super-expensive blenders):







Re-Captchas. So cool! I, you, we are digitizing books!


Mormon:

Talmage's Jesus the Christ in MP3 form (I've been listening to it on my way around the city.)

Will the Great Mormon Novel ever come to be?

Holyfetch.com disspells Mormon urban myths (perfect for Uncle Scott).

Lightning hit my secret dream husband Angel Moroni?


Everything else:

Amazing Holocaust love story.

Picture psychology quizzes.

Have you ever had a squirrel pop into one of your pictures?

10 most extreme places. Oddee.com has some awesome lists.

Interactive chart of how Americans spend their time each day.

More outer space colors.

Personal experience of a stroke.

Cool pics of the solar eclipse.

Classic laser backgrounds with portrait photography. (You know you liked them.)

Homeless man with $4 Million.

Nifty anti-smoking campaigns. (Thanks, Vilja.)

Apple pie.

Turkey finally banned smoking. I guess I went too early.

Surprise wedding reception.

A day of Abbey Road video:





Staring contest (kind of like March Madness).

Dangerous, those snocones, especially when you mix up cleaner and flavor.

Waking up in a body bag.

Whack a kitty video. Ha ha ha.

Did you know bubbles tear when they pop?

People fighting on Google Maps? So random!

Do you want to travel? This Joobili site asks you when and tells you where. So cool.

If you got this far , I congratulate you and thank you. :)

Joghurt

I loooove German yogurt. The cheapest kind is amazing. I have to sit down and really enjoy yogurt, which reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres making fun of Gogurt because it never took that long to eat yogurt anyway.

Other people tell me they really like yogurt, but I don't think that's true because I've noticed a pattern: I seem to be the only one who really uses their spoon to get as much out of that cup as possible. This picture is proof.



Every time someone eats one of my yogurts and then hands me the cup to throw it away, I think of cleaning the rest out for them.

Not only is yogurt pleasing to the palate, I read somewhere that yogurt can be used as a moisturizing mask for the face. One day I used up all my yogurt and then realized there was still enough on the sides of the container to make a mask. I tried it out, and though I smelt like sour cream, it felt lovely.

From October to January, there's an apple-raisin kind at Aldi that's amazing. Jeff knows what I'm talking about. Now in the summer season there's a lovely lime-mascarpone flavor I've fallen for. If you come visit me, I promise to buy you your very own yogurt.

Until then, here I am enjoying it:

90-Second Rule

Have you heard of the 90-second rule?





I just barely learned about it. I think it makes sense and have been trying to remember to make those first 90 seconds count in every encounter.

I think what I like about it is that I have a goal. It's not that I don't love people, I just get so goal-oriented that I forget to be personable as well. Well, now my first goal is to be personable.

Wrists, Knees, Noses, and Voice

Well, there are a lot of great things to post about, but I think I'll wait on a few of them. Check this out:



What do you do when you are suffering from carpal tunnel in both wrists, only have one brace, and have a master's thesis to write (it's coming along nicely, thank you)?



Make your own brace using a bent fork (we had more forks than spoons so I felt less guilty bending one), a hair elastic, and an ace bandage. (Yeah, be careful with that fork sticking out there.)

Oh, and my amazingly knowledgeable physical therapist who has been chasing my knee pain around and around with exercises, massage, and ultrasound, told me to take a break every couple of hours and ice both wrists. That, the braces, sitting on some books so my elbows are level with the table, tendon exercises, and sport cream are making the pain tolerable (though my neck is paying for the looking down at the screen).

I wussed out yesterday when I was supposed to schedule an appointment for my deviated septum surgery. Tell me, should I do local anesthesia or the full deal? (I think I'd rather be completely out, but is that dangerous?) Plus, what is the deal with them saying I'll have to stay in the hospital for 4-5 days? I don't remember it being that long last time, it may even have been a walk-out surgery . . .

I met my voice therapist today. She is b.u.b.b.l.y. When I scheduled the appointment with her on the phone, I thought, "Yikes, either she's desperate for business or she just really likes her job." From what I can tell, she loves her job. We have yet to begin the rolling around on the floor and singing. Sounds like fun.

Mezuzah

I used this website to find out about the mezuzah I got from Grandpa. It is now hanging sideways in my entrance as it should be. I remember when Grandpa wrote a letter to the editor about tolerance and understanding between religious groups and talked about the mezuzah. Although I didn't know much about the mezuzah, I transferred a kiss from finger to mezuzah whenever I left his house.

Though everything about this inherited mezuzah is not according to Jewish custom, I like the symbolism. It stands as a reminder to me of Grandpa's example, of the covenants I have made with God to keep His commandments, of my love for the Lord, of a focus on passing the gospel on to future generations, and lastly, of the blessings attached.

You can read the scriptures in the mezuzah here (4-9) and here (13-21).

Doctor Day

So, I figured it was time to get on with getting my health in better shape, especially after the constant misery last week of having a lot of activites available to me and not being allowed to participate.

I got to do all sorts of fun stuff at the voice doctor today. I did a hearing test (the same lady who did it did my sniffing test in June), sung really loudly and really quietly, read a story about an ant and a seed aloud, called to imaginary people in imaginary parks, pretended to count to a classroom, and had a camera stuck in my mouth so I gagged. Apparently my American English speech patterns are in my throat, which doesn't work for German (and Americans are always saying that German is so guttural. Not true!). That, combined with the fact that I started teaching, speaking German, and singing in a choir all at the same time without vocal training all came together to cause my throat problems.

I scheduled an appointment at the voice therapist to learn how to speak and breathe correctly. Then I scheduled six appointments with the physical therapist for my knee. Finally, I made an appointment to pick up a transfer slip for the new quartile so I can go to my pre-operation appointment at the ENT next week. Then I emailed the guy who taught the back-school at the conference to email me some exercises to shorten the back-shoulder muscles and neck-to-shoulder muscles. Maybe I will even fork out the bucks to become an ergonomical computer user so that my shoulder, neck, and wrists will stop hurting. The dumb thing is, that would probably mean buying a mouse pad, a separate screen or a separate keyboard, which seems to defeat the point of the convenient laptop.

Now I just need a plant doctor. I'm trying for the second year to grow tomato plants. The poor things. Last year, the roommates gave them too much water and they drowned while I was gone. This year, they have gotten pretty big, but they are really weak and I can't seem to kill all the bugs that are floating around them. I tried spraying them in the shower, vacuuming them, squishing them with a kleenex or with my shoe . . . I don't think these sad plants are going to be capable of producing any fruit.

I'm going to go look at my thesis for a while. That calls for one more doctor. Thesis doctor, anyone?

Werbellinsee YSA Conference 2009

Although the first day of the YSA conference this year, I didn't want to be there at all, it turned out fabulously. The Lord really does know me and what I need and when to give it.

After my success at spreading the love for Perudo at EFY, the game only went farther to touch even more hearts of YSAs (thanks Heidi!).





I had a tour of the Reichstag but found the political infos not as interesting as the architecture itself. (The higher-backed chair on the left-hand side of the podium is where Chancellor Angela Merkel sits.)











Pirate night was really fun, especially for the new fans of Perudo, who said "Arrrr" and "Dudo" to me when they saw me. I was inducted into the band of official pirates when I tied a complicated knot in less than thirty seconds, hammered in five nails, drank a half liter of nasty brown water and ate two pieces of zwieback in record time. (I even thought of a new joke. What holy ship do pirates want to steal? The ARRRRK!) I also got to meet a fellow pirate who reads my blog (you know who you are--I was so glad to meet you. And hey, leave a comment!)





I enjoyed a nice barefoot walk on a moor, or solid-looking ground that is actually soggy but firm. Very cool. When we jumped, the trees shook.





Luckily, I didn't get any ticks. But Andy did.





The talent show went great though I was scared out my wits. I performed the minute waltz with an enormous timer ticking down the seconds above me on the screen. I didn't miss any parts, or have to start over, and though there were a lot of precision mistakes, I ended with ten seconds to spare, even slowing down at the end to play with the audience a bit. There were a lot of other great performances, too, including some break dancers, composers, comedians, and improvs.

The area where the conference was held was obviously a rich vacation area. Houses looked like this, with the best-kept lawns I've ever seen in Germany.





And the lake was fabulous.





But the best part of the week:

Germany Food List

I'm not usually a tag-doer, but Andromeda tagged me to name 7 German foods I love and 7 German foods I hate and I've decided to do it because I get a lot of questions about food in Germany. One problem with this list, though, is that a lot of things I have learned to love here are just as existent in the U.S., I just never got to know them because of the eating habits of my family (my mom is a great cook, but she stuck to her classics and didn't push us to accept a lot of exotic or vegetable-filled things).

Like:

1. Nutella. But most readers know already that I have given up chocolate (and I include nutella in this list) until further notice.
2. Weisse Wurst. These white sausages have gotten the best of me even before I knew to take off the outside layer and despite my dislike for a lot of meat. I mostly only see them in Southern Germany, though.
3. Rouladen. Again, the meatiness of this food surprises me. It is flat pieces of pork (I think?) rolled up with pickles and mustard inside, cooked for a long while, left to get cold, and cooked again.
4. Leberwurst. Spreadable meat. What is with the meat here? Yum.
5. Klöse. How can I describe these? Extremely gooey/sticky potato-dough dumplings that go well with pork gravy and rotkohl.
6. Rotkohl. I remember using rotkohl for a science experiment assignment in junior high and not being able to believe from the smell that people would eat it. But it's a bit different here, kind of pickled. I love it.
7. Peppers. I never knew I liked them. And I never knew they were sweet. The red, yellow, and orange ones are the best.
8. Raffaelo. Yes, I know I'm up to 8. These little balls of joy also surprised me because I don't like cocoanut and I don't like nuts. So a cocoanut shell with cream surrounding a nut seemed like a no-go. On the contrary.

Don't like (this list is so much harder; you're not picky when you're a student):

1. Thin gravy. This has almost nothing to do with the taste (unless it's too salty). I just like it thicker. I don't know if this is a German thing, though. It might just be a Mike thing.
2. Toastbrot. Somehow, though Germans complain about Americans' wussy bread, they have the worst bread I've ever seen to make toast with.
3. All drinks that involve carbonation. And that's most of them. Why, oh why? I'd really rather drink from a bathroom tap than drink carbonated drinks. (That goes in America, too.)
4. Cigarettes. Okay, so they aren't a food, but for an awful number of people here, they seem to be. (I've heard people make jokes that Europeans are thinner than Americans because they smoke more.) And not like I've ever tried them, I've just suffered through chronic throat pain because they are everywhere. And I'm deeply hateful of that fact, and that the offenders also litter the streets with them.
5. I'm stopping at 4.

I'm tagging anyone who wants to be tagged who reads this blog.