Milestone

Since September I have been a PhD student, and working on the topic that I will hopefully be able to follow over the next years to produce a wonderful PhD thesis. Unfortunately after months of research and work-I had found a dissertation that covered my entire chosen topic-it was over 800pages long. So disgruntled I went home in December-with a new topic idea but having very little to show for my work! Of course this sucked! And I was not a happy camper-but upon my return I worked on this new topic-reading and researching-researching and reading and managed to write up a nice proposal by the end of March. I have now successfully defended it and can happily say that I am officially an accepted PhD student that has finished her first milestone :). Except for some reports of progress my only job now is to read all the material and write my dissertation that I may also be a graduating student-as my mother is this year!

I couldn't be prouder of my mother!! And I am happy that I have such a good role model to look up to! My proposal in hand and complete I am sure that I can and I will be able to work at a steady pace on my dissertation and hopefully be able to finish within the next 2 years as it is expected! 

Well that's that for my happy update :)

now the excitement of traveling in a few days! Going home!!! TN here I come

Ash Wednesday-beginning of Lent

So today for the first time in a long time I went to Mass. I have not been to mass for a really long time, and I am unsure what made go today, but I felt like I wanted to. For the last few months life has been really stressful, and I have often unnecessarily stressed myself out, gotten angry at the wrong people, or have just generally been upset for no reason. Partially it was due to time-management, but partially it was due to the fact that I neglected myself in favor of others. Therefore this year for lent I decided that instead of giving something up I would re-invent myself. I would take time in my day and do at least one good thing for me-something that revitalizes my spirit and makes me happy, something that saves me from getting grumpy, and mad at people and things that dont deserve it. Today that something was walking home from school with my friend, and then of course also visiting Ash Wednesday Mass. I am really happy I went, I saw some friends I did not know attended catholic mass here, and realized I never much think about other peoples religious believes. Well all in all a good day :)

Stay happy everyone

And then its February

Where has all the time gone???? I finally managed to visit my Oma-but its February *gasp* I was supposed to go in January-yet somehow that entire month just disappeared. Now I am sitting here on my probably last free weekend of the semester (or at least till April) because on April 11th I will have my proposal defense which means from now until then I need to really step up my game and work hard to finish my proposal. Since its not 100% clear what I will be writing this should be interesting-let the research begin. But first I will enjoy my time with Oma! It is nice to see her happy. She is glad I am here and she is very glad that I am wearing the Mother Mary charm she gave me. I am not really sure why I decided to finally buy a proper necklace for it, but I felt like it was necessary so I did. Okay-i guess thats all for now-I should really practice blog writing-but oh well here is the small update :D

2012

And so another year has begun, and I have still not become a better blogger. Oops. Good thing y'all manage to keep up with me over messenger and phone calls. Still I hope that this year will be a better year for my bloggerness. I am currently at home, enjoying my time with the family. I especially enjoy my scrabble tournaments with my mom!! (Especially when I win). They are oodles of fun, and we always manage to laugh. I had a great time going Christmas tree shopping with dad and then setting it up afterwards, and I am really excited to do some fun things when he has some time off prior to my departure (though what these fun things are or should be I really don't know) But spending quality time with my parents is what is important.

Of course I have also loved spending quality time with my sister, and my little nephew Joey!! And I miss them oodles now that they are visiting with the other grandparents, but at least their husky Lance keeps me company and for the time being I have named him Jacob!! Why is that you may ask-well he kinda looks like a wolf, and I have been listening to the twilight books so that is how that one came to be.

It is also great to see my friends again! Though it seems I have grown apart from some of them, I have come to realize that that is just part of growing up sometimes you just have to let go. This does not mean that I am saying goodbye to my friends, or that I no longer care about them, it just means that for the time being we are at two different points in our lives and we are not compatible, but it is possible that after some time we'll become really good friends again!! Time will tell and I will not worry too much about this, as I have other great friends still.

I especially have some really great friends waiting for me back in Bremen. Some of them anxiously hoping for my return :) this puts a big smile on my face, and tells me that I am in the right place with the right people around me!!! But for now I am enjoying my time at home!

I would add pictures, but it seems my camera has gone mia....If and when it is found I will either update this post or make a new one!

For now I bid you good night and a wonderful 2012!!!

Organized Mind Leads to Organized Everything

Having a Thesis to write, is by all means not an easy task. But as in length it is not too bad, it is not an impossible task either. So why has it been so hard for me to work on? Well after several weeks of doing only a small amount of work, I realized that I was going about this all wrong. I was setting my goals to high and unachievable. I mean saying I will edit this 50ish page monstrosity in 2 weeks seems rather a lot and I could no longer see the buildings behind the big mountain. Moreover, everything was unorganized because I did not have my own place to work in. Well I have returned to Bremen, I am working out of my friends room/going to the library with Meron who is in my program. So it was still really hard to get started and organize what exactly I have to do. Until I had my "aha" moment. Now I ca easily proceed and work. For this morning, my goal was to update all of my word documents-i.e. insert all of the changes that I made on paper. Having successfully completed this I feel like I have accomplished my goal. For this afternoon my goal is to take single paragraphs, not even pages or chapters because for some reason that is just too much, but no I will take single paragraphs and edit them asking myself the following questions: What am I trying to say? Why am I saying it? Can my reader follow my thought process without having read the books? Because finishing one paragraph is a fast and achievable goal. Moreover it will allow me to take a hard look at everything I have written and it will make me focus on my writing style as well as the contents. To some of you this may some like a harder more time consuming way, but for me it is exactly what I need. Small paragraphs one at a time. In the beginning with the first steps, I know that it will be time consuming, but it will get me back into the groove of things the information of what it is I am doing, and I want to be doing!!
I have also set myself another goal, and that is to fix my sleeping pattern. This morning I woke up around 9am which I think is a good time, and I went to bed around 11:30pm. I included a morning bike ride to the post office because tonight is Harry Potter :)!!! And i need cash to pay Steffi for our tickets! The workout got me motivated to work on my thesis and it gave me the energy I needed. So after my great workout I have been thesising!!!!
In a little bit we will be making a scrumptious chicken lunch, and then it is back to work for another hour or two before it is time for the last Harry Potter movie!!! I am so sad it is the last one, but I am glad that I will be going there feeling like I have accomplished something today! I know, that if I follow my organizational methods and continue morning bike rides I will finish editing in no time!!! or well in MY time!!!!
Happy Harry Potter Day everyone!
xoxoxo

Mir fliegen gleich die Löcher aus dem Käse....

...and other such silly things. Often you under-appreciate and take things for granted, especially your family. Perhaps, because you are so close to those you love it is also easy to get into little squabbles or find some of their ticks annoying but at the end of the day this is your family and you wouldn't want to miss them. My momma's visit was great :) specially our daily (sometimes forced) walks yay for walking.
Also being with Oma is great, though that is also mostly under-appreciated or it was until she went back to the hospital now that she is better I realize that she is not something to take for granted :)
I've been spoiling her, cooking tea when she forgets, cleaning the house, doing dishes YAY
mmh...other than that I am just figuring out my future, what to do, what to do????
I'm a really bad blogger sorry O.o
Mehbe I do better next time
till then
Love
Dom

pictures :)

Also-this is my most recent mug shot :D