I once was a writer...

I don't know why I used that phrase - I hate it, and I'm not sure I quite get it. But I'll give it a try. Why must we (or is it only me?) have the need to have our cake and eat it too? Why can't we just let the cake be, knowing that the cake is ours. Why must we eat it? To not make the analogy more complex than it needs to be, why do I want to get married?! I live with a wonderful guy who loves me, who cooks deliciously, and who pays for all my expenses while in a foreign country (that last bit of information is sadly important, right?). Yes, we live in sin. But for all intents and purposes, we're married. Minus the document from the Holy Church. We do what married couples do: we sleep together (fully clothed, of course, just in case my parents are reading this!), we eat together, we go out together, we don't see other people, we don't behave ourselves inappropriately with other people; we go shopping together, sometimes I even manage to dress in the s...

When a conversation begins with, "Do you have a fear of heights?", you should already know that whatever comes next is not going to be good. Unless you have the opposite , some kind of acrophilia. Neither are my case. My answer was, "I have fear in general , but not specifically of heights..." --and I should have left it there, but I proceeded to ask, "Why?" I was then invited on a climbing trip  to a Kletternpark, or Hochseilgarten. Of course I said yes, because I was sure Honey would say no; it was to be on a weekday, and Honey works. In my mind, it was a perfect plan. Only that Honey took the day off and, before I realized what the heck was happening, a couple of days later a young, handsome man was asking my name while attaching my harness, my rope and my carabiners. "You do speak German, right?", he asked, because I was not answering any of his questions (which were, "How are you?" and "What's your name?"). ...

It's not every day that you turn 23 for the fifth time. It is, in fact, a very special moment. It's been a long run, a nice one, but 5 times is enough. I have no idea how old I'll be next year, so I really have to make this last one special. But how? How do you make a birthday special? Is it special because you get to eat things you usually wouldn't eat? Is it special because you have "permission" to drink more than usual? Is it special because you get gifts? Well, yes. I love gifts. But is that really what makes it special? It's only a little special because it's my first birthday in Germany. It seems as though I'm collecting birthday locations: Barranquilla, Bogotá, Miami, Augusta, Atlanta, Lampang, Rome, Madrid, Kiel... was noch? I have a million plans, a million resolutions of sorts - but then again, I kinda suck at resolutions. The whole "I'll go to the gym more often" and "I'll eat healthier"... yeah, that'...

The Problem with the German language is not the language per se - it's us , those of us who don't speak the language fluently, who think that everything in German is over-complicated... when it actually is quite simple. Like, the food-processer that you more than likely have in your kitchen - what does that actually do? It's a machine that makes food smaller. That's exactly what it's called in German: der Verkleinerer . It's not a machine used to process food, it's a food-smaller-maker. But my issues with the German language go way beyond kitchen devices. I have made a fool of myself many times, with help from no one. While I was in the hospital last year, I kept trying to ask for a nurse who spoke English - even a little bit. The doctors kept telling me that my sick sister would come very soon. Nini (my sister) was in fact sick at that time (something with her eternal flu or something like that), but how did the doctors know that she was sick? And if ...

My friend Julie recently survived an attack from a horrible, enormous, human-eating sea creature while swimming in the Cayman Islands (to see the creature, click  here ). My friend Stacey also recently survived a terrible, near-death experience with a deadly cobra-viper-anaconda in her bedroom (to read about her experience, click here . Trust me, you want to click on the link). That got me thinking that perhaps I have friends who are just too adventurous - you know, swimming in the open waters of the Cayman Islands and wrestling deadly black mambas at 4 a.m. But then again, that got me thinking that perhaps my friends are just freaks who can't really admit that they're ridiculously fearful. Exactly as I am.  Perhaps the reason why we remain friends to date. So these past few days it's been really warm in Kiel. So warm, that I'm about to openly admit that there is actually summer in Germany. In Kiel, at the very least. So warm, that I've been riding my bike to ...

I had quite an adventure last week. Although, now that I find myself trying to organize my ideas to write down my awesome adventure, it seems that it was not so awesome, and also not so much of an adventure. In any case, what happened afterwards was cute. The bus on which I was riding home last week crashed. It was a little scary and very, very stupid. It was not our driver's fault: the other bus actually came into our lane and broke the window of our bus with his side-mirror. Busses here are so long that the driver did not hear the sound of the glass crushing; thus began the most funny process of communication. "Hey, tell the bus driver he had an accident", said someone at the very back; "Hey, tell the bus driver the window's broken", said someone closer; "The window's crashed, tell the bus driver", said someone else. OMG. The message was drawing closer to me. So I started thinking: Window = die Fenster . Broken = gebrochen , but a window ...

As my birthday comes nigh, I find myself trying to decide how old I will be between July 14th, 2011, and July 13th, 2012. For the past 4 years I've been 23 (which is funny, because when I actually turned 23 I claimed to turn 24, and when I turned 24 I went back to 23... so I guess I wasn't technically 23 for a little while, although it was the only time I actually was 23...), and I don't know that the fifth one's the charm. And turning my real age - well, that's just NOT an option. In trying to stop thinking about what age to celebrate, I started to ponder, wtf is my problem with age? And I realized two things. First, I have ridiculously high standards as to what one should have done by the time one is my [real] age. As far as I know, only one person has accomplished what I wish to have had accomplished - but (a) he's 5 years older than me, and (b) he's about a million IQ points smarter than me. Damn Engineers. So, in normal-IQ-people-world, that leaves me...