The last year has been beautiful

The last year has been beautiful.

I figured out how to better split domestic responsibilities with Michael and adopted the life-changing weekly spousal one-on-one meeting. I relished no longer having dinner be my problem. I went on daily walks with Maggie and Michael and marveled at the beauty of our home in the San Francisco Bay Area. I biked around San Francisco and enjoyed excellent food with Michael and Maggie, our very good girl. I took a multitude of pictures of Maggie and cut and threw endless pieces of carrots and green beans and radishes for her. I expanded the "foods dogs can eat" list on the fridge. I picked up trash and Maggie's and other dogs' poop at the park. I discovered a great new hike we can enjoy with Maggie. I comforted and distracted Maggie during thunderstorms and fireworks. I had Wellness Wednesdays workouts, dinner, and learning with Michael, Claire, and Maggie.

I took drastic measures to eliminate invasive weeds, built new garden beds, and coaxed the garden to be more like my vision, with strawberries, raspberries, passion fruit, olallieberries, lavender, snapdragons, carnations, blueberries, corn, onions, tomatoes, garlic, green beans, radishes, carrots, potatoes, lemons, limes, pomegranates, plums, apples, avocadoes, peppers, tree dahlias, lettuce, bok choy, nasturtium, cala lilies, camellias, hydrangeas, and more. I sorted a ridiculous amount of objects, mostly trash, dug up in the yard.

I created a baking calendar to make and enjoy my favorite goodies over the course of each year. After Reading How Not to Die, I adopted a vegetarian diet and developed a really healthy and delicious smoothie recipe. I had a delightful conversation with the person in the painting I inherited from my artist grandfather. I meditated and savored my bed. I mourned the decline of Twitter. I set app limits and loved it. I became overwhelmed with all the things I wanted to do. I drew boundaries. I finally processed an email that had been in my inbox for years. I paid someone else to take the headache of taxes for the first time this year and was ecstatic when we filed a few days ago.

I grew as an empathetic manager and cheered on many people at Techtonica. I was censured for advocating for inclusion. I received a raise. I lost a job. I learned about negotiating severance and shared what I learned. Layoffs caused hiring partners to back out of their agreements, so I negotiated contract terminations and found solutions for unplaced grads and launched a new Techtonica program to support past grads looking for jobs. I said goodbye to Techtonica's Partnerships Manager of three years and interviewed and negotiated with job candidates before hiring someone amazing who starts next week. I became the resident feedback expert. I learned about and advised and played Gartic Phone with Techtonica participants. I gathered feedback, implemented changes at Techtonica, and had the satisfaction of seeing participants and staff members thrive. I learned to stop working in the evenings.

I picked up antique woodwork and furniture restoration. I figured out how to safely and effectively strip lead paint through a lot of trial and error while devouring audio books at 2.5x. I acquired a foosball table, Eastlake furniture, and a barrister bookcase. I dusted off my piano skills and the perfect 1895 piano built in San Francisco and learned a song I've liked since I heard a friend play it in Leipzig. I visited lovely historic houses and joined an old house community. I saw a tiny Buddhist temple and learned about the history of Chinese people in Mendocino County. I installed rope caulk, bronze weatherstripping, and portières to make the winter less miserable for us.

After years of mostly business writing, I started writing for me again. I researched my great uncle who died the year I was born and found out some fascinating things about him from past students and schools he worked at, then wrote about him and my grandma. I received a letter in shorthand from my grandma to treasure forever.

I continued to learn about and try to be a better advocate of anti-racism. I managed not to suffer too much from allergies with a dog in the house, but was sick and had a mysterious skin bump and weird allergic reactions to stuff outside. I started having my prescriptions mailed, and was relieved that my doctor could prescribe the restricted daily allergy medicine, Allegra D, that I'd been buying every two weeks for years. I discovered the best non-fogging, sanitizable, breathable mask, Airgami. I lost my keys. I bought two of the most comfortable Duluth coveralls for projects but then couldn't stand to make them dirty.

I appreciated over 100 books, especially A Little Life, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and Ejaculate Responsibly. I was in charge of the monthly family book club, mostly so I could talk to my family each month. I donated to organizations planting trees every month in hopes of curbing climate change. I grumbled about cars and smoke and noisy motorcycles and junk mail and sexism and people painting woodwork and more.

I enjoyed visits and email and text and cute and funny video exchanges with friends and family.

I'm pleased with the life I've built and who I've become and I hope to grow and experience like this over the next year, too.

Tl;dr: Life has been very full in the last year and I'm looking forward to more.

Working for Google

Google AdSense emailed several weeks ago, saying they didn't have the necessary information to pay me. I was confused about why I had been signed up for seven years and had never been asked for this information before, so I logged in and guess what? After seven years, I've finally crossed the payment threshold, $100. Ha ha ha ha. That's about $14 a year. Maybe I can make it there in fewer than seven years next time?

Another thing I find hilarious is that the thing that has boosted my Google AdSense the most is the embarrassing exercise video I made to help others survive a broken foot. It's gotten over 40,000 views now! I still get comments on the associated blog post: "How to Survive a Broken Foot" and I always try to answer. 

My First Three Months as a Web Developer

I passed up my three-month mark as a paid techie at Get Satisfaction two weeks ago. Do you know what that means?

1. I got this fancy envelope from Hackbright:




There was money inside. A lot of money. Refunded tuition money for working three months at a partner company. Wedding money.


2. It's time for an update about working as a web developer.

Overall, Get Satisfaction has been a great place to be.

Every day, I marvel at how surrounded I am by talented, smart people who can collaborate well. Every day, I also spend at least a couple of hours staring at my screen trying to figure things out. Sometimes my questions are so general that I can't really share them with anyone, like, "How do I use PostgresQL?" and other times, all I need is for someone to spot that one ridiculous missing bracket (or to tell me to just paste the code into Sublime Text 2 so I can line them up!). I've loved learning about CNAMEs, SSL certs, and single-sign-on, and each time a light bulb turns on, I love that our platform allows me to post about what I've learned in our community to build up our customers' available and searchable knowledge base.
 
I also am so appreciative of pretty flexible schedule that allows me to go to doctor appointments and run errands without feeling guilty. It's fun to see ideas develop as we work on our new platform, and it's nice that everyone's opinions are valued.

And listen to how cool this is--last week, our CEO, Wendy Lea, invited all the female employees to her home. (Do I ever admire Wendy--when she speaks, I want to take notes, and often I do. Sometimes I even tweet what she says.) We mingled and snacked as we marveled at her view of the ocean and the sunset, then Wendy started a discussion about being women leaders in tech.  The discussion was positive and helpful, and I think we all feel really united from that evening spent together.

Like anyone else, sometimes I get annoyed or frustrated by questions or tasks. Sometimes, my brain is fried and it would honestly be better if I just went home (sometimes I go, sometimes I don't). Occasionally I get discouraged when I think about losing my Python skills before they were ever really strong, and there are still so many technologies I want to learn that I don't use at work, so I try to do a bit of hacking on the weekends.

I've been a Firefox fan for years, but Firebug just has not been enough and Chrome has become my hero for development purposes. It was amazing to realize this week that I have learned enough to help my mentee with some front-end development. Hurray!

So there's your update.

Why I Currently Never Want to Go to Target Again Even Though I Love the Place

I've had bad luck with Allegra-D. When my mom said it had helped alleviate her allergies, I asked my doctor for a prescription and was shocked to pay over $100 for a month's supply. When I found out less than a week later that Allegra-D is now available without a prescription (and thus cheaper), I was, to say the least, annoyed that my doctor hadn't known that.

Unfortunately, Allegra-D is still restricted, meaning your license has to be scanned and you are only allowed to get 20 pills every 10 days. Since 20 12-hour pills take ten days to run out, there are never extras--you have to go to the pharmacy on the tenth day if you want the small amount of relief that Allegra-D can give (I have yet to find an allergy pill that really helps). A box of 20 costs $23.66, meaning each pill costs more than a dollar.

To try and stretch my dollar a bit, I only take a pill once per day. In other words, I use the 12-hour pill to get me through 24 hours. And it doesn't get me through. I wake up during the middle of the night, unable to breathe, with eyes so itchy that I'd rather have black circles under my eyes for the rest of my life than not scratch.

Taking all this into consideration, imagine my consternation . . .

I took the kids to Target, bought some Allegra-D at the pharmacy, assigned James to carry the Allegra-D and Sadie to carry the goggles, looked at a few other items, and then went to the register to purchase swimming goggles for Sadie. As we started to walk away after receiving our receipt, the lady in line behind us said, "Don't forget your bag," and held out the small paper Target pharmacy bag. "James," I said, pushing him forward, "You forgot the bag." He grabbed the bag and we returned home. A couple of hours later, I decided to put the Allegra-D away in the medicine cabinet, and grabbed it from off of the dryer by the back door.

To my shock, the bag was empty.

I looked in the garage we had walked through and all over in the car, to no avail. All I could think was that the box must have fallen out some time before the lady handed the bag to James. Why, oh why hadn't I looked in the bag? Why hadn't I held it myself in the first place even though my hands were full with other things that I didn't end up purchasing?

I called Target and explained, only to be told that I'd have to come in and have the security guard look at the security videos. I figured I'd go there on the way to institute, but I ended up being at Target for an hour and 20 minutes!

Luis, the Guest Services guy, looked through the lost and found bins, though I told him that the medicine didn't have my name on it and would have just been brought back to the pharmacy. "Can you ask the guy who rang up the goggles?" I asked, producing the receipt and describing what he looked like. "Maybe he saw the box or if the bag was empty." "Sorry," Luis answered, "there's no way to know who that cashier was, even with this receipt." He was really nice and obviously wanted to help, but he didn't seem to have any power, so he took me to Crystal, a supervisor. She asked for a description of the cashier and said she could ask him. Then she told Luis to talk to Victor at Security. Victor came back and said he saw the lady hand the bag to James, never saw anything fall out, and couldn't tell if the bag was empty or not. He then took me to a supervisor named Amado to ask about what to do next. Amado never once looked at me while Luis and I explained what had happened, and then he said that he didn't want to make a decision when Crystal might make a different one, so he sent us back to Crystal. Crystal told Luis to go ask the pharmacy if they'd had anything turned in. The lady there said no, but I was concerned that maybe someone else had accepted the medicine and not told anyone. We went back to Crystal, who decided she wanted to go ask the pharmacist herself. As Luis and I waited, a lady waiting in line heard what was going on and when Crystal came back, she said, "They should just suck it up and give you a refund or something. It could be anywhere in the store." I asked if I could get a store credit so I could buy some more. Crystal said, "We have no proof that you dropped it anywhere," but she encouraged me to talk to the pharmacist about getting some more. "It's not allowed," I said, "because it's a restricted item." "I'll talk to her about that," she said. When she came back she announced, "The pharmacist isn't sure how much you can get, so you can go ahead and try. And ask her about getting a credit." Then off she went. Luis apologized for not being able to help more and left as well. I stood in line for several minutes before anyone could get me another box of Allegra-D and try ringing it up with my license, which failed as I'd suspected, because I'd just bought a box the same day. When I talked to the pharmacist about the credit, she said, "You mean an advance?" "Well, more like a gift card." Though the pharmacy had just closed, she went into a back room to call up Crystal. When she came back, she said, "We have no control over the law for this medicine, so we can't give you an advance."

"Oh! No, I didn't want you to just give me more medicine. I'd never ask you to break the law. I just meant credit so that I won't have to pay again when I'm allowed to get more in ten days." So she went to call Crystal again, who came to talk to me. "We don't have any proof," she said, "because the security guard couldn't see anything fall out of the bag." "How high-tech are your cameras?" I asked. "Is there any way he could follow us before we got to the register?" We were then interrupted by another customer and I ended up waiting alone for several minutes. As I waited, I heard her voice coming from every employee's walkie talkie in the whole store as she instructed the security guard to search the video. Finally, she came back and told me to go wait at Guest Services. I stood there, waiting and waiting, while my ingrown toenail throbbed and my stomach reminded me that I had missed dinner. As I waited, I thought about how if the employees would just believe me, I'd be a dedicated and loyal customer forever. I thought of how if I were to get some kind of credit or something and then found the box in the parking lot or who knows where, I'd return the credit without a moment's hesitation. A lot of time passed. I was beginning to think I'd been forgotten. Amado walked by, never acknowledging me, and I wondered if I should ask him if he could find out if Victor was done scanning the videos. Finally, I saw Victor come out and waved to him so he could find me more easily.

He said, "I saw you guys leave the pharmacy and I saw you at the watches, but our cameras aren't high-def enough in the other sections you went to for me to see anything." I thanked him for looking and asked if I could still somehow get a store credit. "I'll ask Crystal for you," he offered, and he grabbed his walkie talkie. "Tell her please and that I'll be the most loyal customer ever!" He gave a weak smile and walked off to confer with her for ten minutes on the other side of the store. "Any good news?" I asked as he re-approached. "Unfortunately, no," he answered. "She says that since we don't have any proof we can't do anything for you," he apologized. I in turn apologized to him for having to be the conveyor of bad news. Shouldn't a supervisor do that rather than a security guard?

An hour and twenty minutes of being passed around and having to suggest the next steps of action to employees so that I could be disappointed, out almost twenty-four bucks, and aware that though the last couple of weeks had been full of hardcore hayfever, the next ten days were going to be even worse. I admit it, I cried a little as I left the store.

I walked out to the parking lot and checked every inch of the way to the parking spot we'd been at earlier that day. Nothing. I checked the car and garage again when I arrived home. Nothing. My one consolation was that maybe the box would turn up while the store was being cleaned at night, but then I realized that with the way things are communicated there, even if the Allegra-D were to show up later, no one would say anything and it wouldn't ever get back to me anyway because no one had wanted my contact information.

So there's my long, drawn-out vent. I still love Target's selection, good prices, bright/cool/filtered-air stores, and clean designs, but I'm currently harboring bitter feelings. Even though I know I'm to blame for giving a five-year-old the responsibility to carry a bag, I feel cheated out of the benefit of the doubt that it seems like Target would want to give to its customers. That is more disappointing to me even than knowing that I will be wanting to cut my eyes, nose, and sinuses out in the next few days even more than I do now. Oh, Target. I'm sure I'll go back, but maybe just not to that one. And I'll cross my fingers that I'll never have to deal with customer service again.

Michelle Glauser, Discount Landscaper

Paul to me: "You should start a landscaping company."

Time for yet another shift in career?

By procuring root barriers, trees, weed cover, and workers (myself included), and by finding a cheaper garden supplies place for the bark and rocks, the total cost of a recent yard project for Paul and Amy was at least $4125 cheaper than the estimated price. How happy to accomplish such a huge task so successfully. :D

New trees that will eventually provide shade to a window-filled kitchen:




A cited-by-the-city park strip before I worked on it:




Same park strip after, with weed barrier, landscaping rocks, a cleaned-up weedy hill, and bark chips:




Weed-surrounded, empty garden boxes (this picture is actually from 2010, so it's not quite true to the pre-project situation):




Turned into this, with weed barrier, bark chips, landscaping gravel, and a thriving and varied crop:




Yay!

Spread the Word: For Sale

Ich habe ganz viel zu verkaufen (und ganz billig):

Englische und deutsche Bücher, Kleidung, Kerzen, Küchenzeug, Badenzeug, usw. Bitte sagt Freunde Bescheid! Ich brauche €Geld€ ganz dringend.

If anyone from America wants to buy something, they can, but I'd have to add shipping costs.

Dreh Die Heizung An

Why did I show you a part of my e-ticket from 2 years ago? Because the night before February 19, 2008, I got home very late (I'd forgotten an important book at a friend's house and had to go back in the muddy night), turned off the heater, climbed into my bed, and slept for a couple of hours before heading off for an adventure in New York and then in Salt Lake--my first time back in the States since moving to Germany.

While I was in the U.S., I got an email from my roommate, saying we'd gotten a bill for a Nachzahlung, meaning what we had paid each month for heating hadn't been enough and we had to pay a whole bunch after-the-fact. The whole bunch was so much, in fact, that in the time since February 18th, 2008, I haven't ever turned my heat on again. Yesterday evening was two years since I've heated my apartment, and every friend of mine knows that we have had two freaking cold winters (I'm pretty sure I've pulled off below freezing temperatures in this room of mine) and I was always freezing even before I went anti-heat.

Well. You know I do weird things like that. I've learned not to complain as much about the cold and to put up with friends saying, "Dreh die Heizung an!" I've learned to put on several sweaters and use a rice bag on my feet and to hold glasses of hot tea. I've learned that I definitely want heated floors in my house some day.

You know I like to reach goals. And I think two years is a pretty darn good accomplished goal. And now I'm going to turn it back on.

Job Interview

I really enjoyed my interview last week, and it sounded quite like I'm going to get a job. The only disappointment is the fact that the boss thought I needed more experience and would only offer me the assistant position (which means less responsibility and much, much, much less money--even less than I made at the FHL when I started part-time, if you go divide the monthly wages into hours). I keep thinking that with so much education, you'd think I'd be able to get a real position. But the promotion chances are good, he assured me. So now I just have to decide if it's worth it to stick it out in the lower position until I have the experience I need. The company looks really cool and I'd really like to work for them.

Oh, and I also have to try to forget the fact that my side-effected dry mouth caused my lips to stick to my teeth as I was trying to answer questions. Awesome.

Here is the company. They do internet media, communication, marketing, etc. for companies.

Joshua Radin

Though I've been a fan of Joshua Radin for several years, I've never been to one of his concerts. So when I got the email saying he was to perform in Berlin tomorrow, I got really excited and tried to think of who would like to go with me. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that I go to non-classical concerts mainly to be able to say I've been there, and that the lameness of being in a crowd that is likely drunk or high does not make up for the great music. Most of the time, you're not even close to the performer anyway, so it's just like squinting at a screen and hearing music through speakers, both of which I could do at home. For free.

So, tomorrow, I will not be going to see Joshua Radin. I may just buy his CD on iTunes that I don't have instead and listen to it. And be happy.

Meat and Cheese Sandwich

When you find a meat and cheese sandwich in your backpack four days after you made it, do you still eat it? I debated.

Potential Facebook Stati of 11 February 2009

Michelle . . .

doesn't want to sell her plasma anymore.

wondered last week what to do about her shrinking bank account. This week, she has four jobs. (Plasma, Kindergarten, English, English.)

got to push four little kids around in a preschool stroller thingy and talk about animal sounds, names, and colors in English and German.

has no time to write her Master's thesis.

gave some hardcore ("throw it all away and buy everything I say") fashion advice.

had to order an official background check from the police.

got "tschüssed" by an investigator.

is wondering when she's going to have time to get ready for the "Michelle sacrament meeting" this week--organ, musical number, talk.

went to zone conference for an hour.

did her visiting teaching!

baked cookies that turned into cake for dinner on Sunday and baked eggless orange juice cake for dinner tonight.

can walk fast now with pain. Or without pain, if she limps. Or she can just walk slow.

is wondering how to get to the Valentine's dance in Mittweida.

can't understand the articles she's supposed to read as sources for her essay. And they're in English.

needs help: "Identity claims are not necessarily the intentional referent of the account, but only that system of self-knowledge necessarily actuated (and reproduced) while accomplishing an account of one's life."

is going to team up with a sister in her ward to bake Christmas-turned-to-birthday Stollen tomorrow.

changed her facebook settings to German.

is desperately trying to break a habit in order to reward herself this summer.

likes to sleep, but wishes there were some way to go without it in order to get more done.

is wondering why Germans have such strict internet privacy and copyright laws that she can't watch The Office, but they have nudey pics of themselves in online ads?

gets more done when she has a whole free day. Like that ever happens.

re-added "Preach My Gospel" to her daily scripture study routine.

was told that her hair had been "stripped of its cuticle." Can that be repaired or does the hair have to be cut off?

likes getting long, personal emails.

is either getting worse and worse at riding her bike, or the bike is getting rustier and rustier.

didn't doubt for a second that John would get into NYU. Now he and Tanya had better get to live in a neighboring country!

hasn't seen any roommates for a few days, just evidence thereof.

delivered some secret valentines tonight.

Belated Gratitude

So the unclassy second half of my post yesterday has got me feeling bad. I was quite ungrateful; what a horrible thing to be on the day before America celebrates Thanksgiving.

My money has not run out. I guess there are a several things that have me scared. First of all, simply living without any steady money coming in is scary. Then, getting to the conference in Istanbul is important for my academic career, but it's not going to be cheap. Additionally, applying to get a PhD is not cheap and may not pay off. Because of visa stuff, I have to move somewhere next year, which is going to be extremely hard if I don't find an apartment that is already furnished (which is highly unlikely), and the places I'm looking at are much more expensive than Leipzig--at least quadruple as much for rent. However, these things don't give me reason to be ungrateful or to start begging when I'm so blessed.

My life is actually quite comfortable when I think about it--I live in an apartment that has everything I need, including bookshelves, couch, desk, armoir, mirror, washing machine, dishes, utensils, internet that works sometimes, etc. I can't imagine where I would be at financially if I had had to purchase all of those things (or similar items) last year. What a blessing it is to be able to live here and experience so much! Leipzig is not expensive, even travel is amazingly cheap (for Salt Lakers, think of getting a ride to Pocatello for five bucks). Additionally, I'm not starving and I haven't gotten sick of the basics yet. I'm medically insured. My health is usually pretty good. I have many supportive friends here. Opportunities to earn a little bit of money show up here and there--on Monday, I'm even going to start selling plasma twice a week.

More importantly, my family is well and I have the gospel.

Faith + tithing + thriftiness + gratitude will do the trick.

So, to apologize for my ingratitude and to distract you from it, here are two pictures to show 1. how I've become the layering queen to stay warm in the cold (in the first picture, I have on the following: wool socks, normal socks, thermal pants, jeans, fleece pants, undershirt, shirt, dress thingy, zippy jacket, a heavy sweater, coat, scarf, fleece gloves--the second picture acts as contrast) and 2. my cute little bandage from my appointment at the plasma place. Instead of first taking blood from my finger, they took it from my earlobe, which I think is brilliant--it doesn't hurt as much (then or later), and my fingers are always cold and thus hard to get blood out of. The lady there told me to eat heftily and to drink "up to here," signaling the neck, before coming to my appointments.
















Also, here's a nice Thanksgiving clip from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (oh how I used to love that show, and as an American Studies student, it could totally be some good material) wherein Johnny Cash sings.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank You, Aunt Syd!

After my shameless scheming for money aunt Sydni found out that 1. I needed shampoo and 2. I was chatting with our friend Susan Parkin, she added me on chat and said we had to figure out a way to get me some shampoo. She ended up transferring money to my PayPal account--brilliant. (Just another reason to love the internet.)

Keeping my promise to use the money on necessities, I stopped by the nearest store and picked up the biggest, cheapest, best-smelling shampoo there. I now own a new bottle of Schwarzkopf shampoo. So, Aunt Syd, here is a picture of my clean hair just for you (wow, I look kind of crazy in this picture):













Sorry it took me a while to get this post up, I've been sick the last couple of days.

So why not continue the scheming? ;) For your own thank-you post, send money to my PayPal. The following items are up for donations for me to purchase:

-new Sunday shoes (a girl at church on Sunday stopped me to tell me my shoes were too big--they're really just stretched out)
-Skype minutes so I can call my family here and there
-a new case for my MacBook since the fake laptop cover I've been using has a ready-to-break zipper
-money to have books transferred here from other libraries for my thesis (not free in Germany)
-deodorant (Not like I'm sweating here--I still haven't turned the heat on and it's snowing outside, with a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius. The snow's actually sticking. That never happened last year.)
-money for my doctorate application fees

Or you can send:

-Natural Ice chapstick (the original kind with the red cap is the best!)

Thanks, I love you!

Thursday

This is my entry for Scribbit's November Write-Away Contest. It sure would be great to win this month's year supply of hair and beauty supplies as I'm to the point financially where even the most basic necessities are lacking, such as shampoo! Turns out thinking I had enough money for two years was 1. wrong, 2. not very smart because at the end of those two years you have to have money to make it somewhere else. With most things, you can really just keep using them until they've completely given out (like the pair of brown Sunday shoes I have that my feet come out of with each step--at least I still have those), but with shampoo, there's only so much you can do. Like only shower now and then. But I'm sure you've all seen through my scheme. You and I both know with all the people who enter this contest, and with my, er, interesting writing skills, the chances of me winning are slim. So you know I'm really just begging. What I need are mostly things that can be easily gotten here, like food. There's just lack of funding to get them. Anyway, on to the entry:

Thursday

On this Thursday of all Thursdays, I waited for a peep from my neighbor who is an American freak. Don’t worry, although the word “freak” sounds intense, as it was adopted into German, the negative connotation got lost in the transfer. It just means someone who is obsessed with something, an enthusiast. The first time I heard the term, I thought, “Well that’s not a very nice thing to say.” But now I can say with confidence of not hurting anyone’s feelings, my neighbor is an America freak. It took me a while to realize it. Of course, one might have noticed his obsession when he chose to be friendly to me when no one else could really catch his interest. Or when he only wanted to speak English and had to be ignored for a while until German was back into use. But what really brought it to my attention came after his return from being a summer camp counselor in Michigan. His picture-showing session lasted several hours with every little detail explained, including names of people and stories behind each photograph. All his t-shirts had American universities and teams splashed across the chest. And last but not least, his door had blaring and permanent visitors: a Michigan state poster, a Hayowentha sticker, and an Obama ’08 sticker. They are the first things I see when I pass his door.

But the day started normally, with nothing special in my inbox, no knock on the door. After my morning run that did little to warm me up, I was disappointed and only mildly surprised to find that only the water was unfrozen in the bathroom, causing goose bumps so extreme they hurt. I layered sweaters and jackets as I waited for my chamomile tea to cool down, but a look at my watch made me abandon the effort. Fumbling on a pair of gloves, twisting a scarf around my neck, and packing my laptop into my bag, I ensured my iPod was charged and set it to “random.” In the train, the people around me were weighed down with ignoring each other. I looked at my calendar and sighed. Just another day of trying to stay on top of things.

Class was long, as usual. My to-do list threatened to cause me great grief, as usual. I accepted the cold wind and limited hours of sunlight reluctantly, as usual. Though I had my phone with me all day, I checked repeatedly for missed calls but found none from my neighbor. After resigning myself to my daily fate of never finishing all I hope to accomplish, I walked to the train stop and stood, shifting from leg to leg, knowing that the metal bench would only make me colder. The warm ride home seemed long as the train left the city center and passed foggily-lit streets lined with old Gründerzeit apartment buildings and bare trees.

Walking to my apartment, I wearily made my way up the stairs, only to run into the neighbor I’d anticipated the entire day, the American freak. However, no particular attention was paid. Only the normal questions, “Isn’t it cold?” and, “How’s school going?” Clicking my door behind me, I left behind the politics and sports, English and universities. As I got ready for bed, I thought of talking and working together in a warm kitchen with extended family, of sharing the beautiful truths of life with each other at the table, of passing around the food until we were all ready to burst, of trying to decide which of Grandma’s pies to try first, of snacking on stuffing as we put leftovers in Tupperware and split them up.

That’s the best of America, I thought, crawling onto my smaller-than-a-single mattress. I pulled my two sets of covers up to my chin and waited for the sheets to warm up. “Happy Thanksgiving,” I said.

Consumerism

I'm taking a class on consumerism this semester, which I've found interesting. Here are two articles that we read that I enjoyed. The first, I realized there was a very critical point of view about the richer people spending all the money on luxuries, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, "I would do that too if I were rich. Of course people think that when they have the money they will use it to make their lives better, isn't that why people aim to earn money?" The second one was superbly written and brought up all kinds of questions about culture, which made me think of my recent review of Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and writings of John Stuart Mill.

I definitely think that we need to take into consideration the needs of the whole world and be less selfish in our use of resources and luxury items, but it's hard to know how to help and I also think there's not one person who can really encourage everyone to do that. Again, we're waiting for the Second Coming. Until then, I'll work on it individually and hope that makes a difference.

Retirement Fund Down the Drain

Of course things will get better. I have 50 years to go. But if the stock market pulls its tricks again in 50 years, I certainly won't be able to survive on less than what I started the retirement fund with.

I guess I'm just glad I started that fund when I did, because there's no way I can contribute at this time in my life. It will get better. It will get bigger. And hopefully some day I will have a job and I can add money to it.

I am glad to hear, though, that where I have my money in Germany is really safe.

Credit Card Charges Concern

Sica texted me last week, saying that my credit union had called about some charges on my card. I called the lady and left a message saying that yes, they were my charges, and could she email me about why there was a concern?

This is what I got:

We didn't have a travel note on your debit card through our card company. Anytime they see unusual charges they will block the card. I now put a message on there that you are in Germany. Do you know how long you will be there and if you are traveling anywhere else, please let us know. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me. Thank you. I unblocked the card.

Wow, after a year of living in Germany, they're just now noticing. That's comforting. You'd think that when I was withdrawing the max amount every day in order to open a bank account and get a visa, that would have sparked some major concern. Nope. I guess it's still better than paying to have a credit card in Germany. Weird banking system (why should I pay you to make money off me?), though it's great that everyone transfers money. Now I just wish that there was a worldwide banking association that made all banks able to work with each other. (I guess this goes along with my world correlation opinion, with things such as the metric system and the word "football").

I Passed!

Just another reason why I love the internet: I'm going to make a little bit of money to make up for the lack of a job 1. this semester, and 2. in America.

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for completing the Training Simulator Test. We are pleased to inform you that you passed and have been accepted as a ChaCha Text (SMS) Guide. You can now receive real queries!

Now start texting more queries to ChaCha! (242242)

Okay, update: man! This is interesting but sometimes tedious and impossible work, hardly worth the pay. Maybe I should care less about the quality of the question. You try finding out which gym from Jasper won the All-American United Cheer in 2007. Impossible! I got 15 cents for about ten minutes. I guess my $6 so far is better than nothing . . .

Leipzig to Munich to London to . . . London?

Don't criticize the photo. You would look like that too if you'd been through what I have today/the last few weeks building up to today. Many probably already basically know the drama of my day today. For those of you who don't like to hear details/don't like me, just know that I missed a flight and had a miserable day. For the rest of you, let me give you a detailed play-by-play of the nightmare. After all, I have the time.

This story starts earlier than today. In preparation to leave before classes were over and essay-writing and test-taking began, I posted a lot of blogs ahead of time in order to try to write my three final essays while still attending classes, which has been murder (or should I say suicide?). My sleep as well as my social life have been limited, and I took on carpal tunnel syndrome in the process. So the last four weeks have been C-razy.

Within the last two weeks, four people have contacted me to see if I could bring things to Utah for friends of theirs. "Sure," I said, being the usual willing helper that I like to be. I planned on bringing just my backpack, mostly empty, because I have clothes and everything I need in America. To make a long story short, I have a carry-on completely full of chocolate and other items, with another box of chocolate at the bottom of my backpack. And if you haven't thought about it before, think about it now: chocolate is heavy.

Last night, after packing and losing miserably at two games of Settlers (which I could blame on the fact that I was still working on my least-wonderful essay), I stayed up until my computer was almost dead. That way I could plug it in to charge while I was sleeping and the battery would last longer while I was traveling. When it got sufficiently low, I attached the plug. Then I realized I had given Mike my handy, so I didn't have an alarm clock. I set the online alarm clock to 5:15 and went to bed.

This morning, around 5:55, I looked at my watch and leapt out of bed. I quickly realized why the alarm hadn't gone off: I hadn't plugged in the other side of the cord, so my computer was dead. Luckily I made it to the train on time, which made it to the airport on time, but I was made at myself for having been so stupid.

At the airport, I played the usual "Yeah, so you've seen my American passport and you want to speak to me in English but I'm going to always answer in German" game, which was fun, but a painful wrist made it hard to swing my backpack onto my back and lift my suitcase.

I tried to make a phone call, but got cut off in the middle of talking to my professor, but then I had to board. The flight went well. I got a lot of good reading done (the first purely pleasure reading in a loooooong time) and even fetched some shut-eye that rejuvenated me enough to eat my delicious sandwich.

When we landed in London, a surprise waited for me: I had to go through customs since I had booked flights through separate companies. The line took a while, and I was the last one left there. The woman spent some time talking about how she hadn't heard of Northwest before and didn't know which terminal it was in and she even lectured me on printing out this information, though I had the flight number and times. Then she sent someone to find out which terminal. (She asked me if I was Mormon upon seeing the contact cards I keep in my passport. I offered her one, she declined.) The other lady took quite a while and came back without an answer--she told me to go ask at the information desk myself once I'd retrieved my baggage. I also asked how to get to that terminal and went through mazes to find the connecting train. I hurried onto it and found it was the wrong one, but I was able to get back to the starting point. However, I paused to listen to someone else who was also looking for the right train, and the guy pointed as it left. The next one wasn't due for 22 minutes! (Wouldn't you believe it, in my stress, I gnawed at some potatoes I had boiled yesterday. I bet people thought I was eating raw potatoes.) Then it was announced that there was a signal outage and the train would be late. Needless to say, I ran to check in and was told I was too late, though the plane didn't take off for another 45 minutes.

At the ticket counter, I was told that they couldn't get me on a plane until tomorrow and I would have to buy a new ticket. This was bad in many ways: I already couldn't afford the first ticket so my dwindling amount of American dollars wouldn't cover it, I would miss my flight from California so I'd have to re-book that too, I didn't want to sleep/sit miserably in the airport for a night, and I would miss the wedding shower that I was supposed to be throwing and had already delegated to my mom. After the hardest academic last few weeks of my life and little sleep, I couldn't help it; I bawled. A couple of guys tried to see if they could help me somehow, but they left saying they were sure the ticket agents could figure it out for me. Then another guy let me use his phone, but I couldn't get a hold of my parents. Besides, I don't think they can afford it either. Finally, my dad answered and kindly gave me his credit card number and promised to check his email often for info. But how to pay him back? The lady then told me he would have to book it at a KLM/Northwest counter if they were going to bend the rules and apply the tax I'd already paid to the new ticket. She said there was no possibility of flying me directly to Salt Lake. There is no ticket counter for them in Salt Lake, she then told me. I was still crying when I told the lady I would think about it. The guy who leant me the phone tried to buy me a phone card, but the machine wouldn't take his money. He generously gave me 25 pounds and called his agent about transferring his miles into a ticket for me, which didn't work out. I assured him I could find a place to use the internet and I would figure it out. I thanked him and gave him a Book of Mormon contact card.

The HotSpot at Starbucks didn't work, but I bought 24 hours of access from "The Cloud." I couldn't think straight; crying had worn me out. I looked through a lot of websites and got nervous as my battery ran out and no outlet was in sight. I called Paul to ask about nearest airports, he gave me good advice about checking Virginatlantic.com. I chatted with my sister and debated the benefits of turning around to go back home. Finally, my battery (and my bladder) could take no more, so I walked to the bathroom. I found an outlet outside of it and somehow managed to show my adaptor into it. Using my suitcase as a seat, it also served to hide the fact that I was mooching power from the airport, whether acceptable or not.

What do you know, an hour or so later, a nice-looking young man came up to me and said, "Are you member of the Church?" You know, "the Church" said in a way that leaves no doubt in your mind which church. "Yes, how did you know?" He pointed to the contact card with Jesus in my computer case. We chatted for a bit. He was from Pool, he'd served a mission in Manchester, he knew one of my friends in Leipzig, and he was at the airport to pick up a friend from his mission. He introduced me to two others before they went off to eat something.

Back to the drama, I decided that the price the lady had quoted me was the best I was going to get, and there were cheap enough flights from San Francisco to Salt Lake, though they had ridiculous numbers of transfers and some were overnight if I wanted to make it to the shower on time. I called Northwest and you won't believe what happened. The guy said he could work it out, but when I asked about the price, he said it would be $4,000. No, just kidding. You thought it would just keep getting worse, but I'm here to tell you it has to get better some time. He said it wasn't policy to refund the taxes (what the lady at the counter had promised), but if I could hold he would see what he could do. He came back and told me an even lower price for a new ticket, a ticket that leaves twelve hours earlier than the one the others had found, a ticket which would get me to San Francisco airport two hours and 15 minutes before my original JetBlue flight leaves from Oakland. I'm glad Amy was online. With her Bay Area expertise and willing taxi skills (she told me her driving would be faster than me walking or even swimming across the Bay), she advised me not to book another flight to Salt Lake. We're gonna try for it. I just might make it to Salt Lake at the same time I was going to since I had planned a day in San Fran. If I miss the flight, I think I may just give up and go for a drown in the Bay. (Okay, not really.)

All in all, I'm a few more hundred dollars out (though debates from friends are going on about fundraisers and donations to my checking account), 25 pounds richer, the acquaintance of a few more British Saint friends, ready to sit in the airport (I don't have M'Kynzi's number and I think I'm done with transit for today) instead of sleep at Amy's house, and haunted by a sore back and wrist and that feeling you have in your eyes after you've cried.

So, here I sit on my red, chocolate-filled Swiss Gear suitcase against a random wall outside of the bathroom, with the noise of the escalator running on my left (it squeaks every time it gets to a worn-out part of the hand grip) and an electronic ad circulating on the right, my adaptor stuck into the wall, and my stomach grumbling. 11 hours to go. The Cadbury vending machine is calling my name (I'd always heard addictions were harder to resist during stress), but at least I have internet and my computer to keep me busy. I'm going to make it. I hope. Pray for me (and make checks payable to Michelle Glauser).

Global Rich List

I found this site interesting. According to this site, I am the 838,800,589 richest person in the world. I'm in the top 13.98% of income in the world. The only thing this site doesn't take into account is the fact that compared to what is needed to live where I live, my amount is horrible. Why don't they just put, "You should move to Africa and then you could eat whatever you wanted and have a nicer apartment and buy a bike."

Did I mention I took my bike to get fixed Tuesday and the nice man declared it a piece of junk that wasn't worth fixing?