The Farmers Market

This weekend I did something wonderful!!! I went to the farmers market-and by golly I had forgotten how much I love the farmers market-you can get so much fresh fruit and fresh vegetables-and in the end it's so much cheaper than going to the grocery store!!! Enjoy some pictures of my loot :)

who doesn't love Wirsing?? and some lettuce :) 

amazing for salads yumm yumm

have to wash those mushrooms-don't want no bugs and dirt

broccoli and cauliflower 

this ones for my Mami :) 

Zucchini taste good in anything!!!!

Power is knowledge and knowledge is power

Without any knowledge-we don't go anywhere in life. And nowadays finding the right information might be a little overwhelming. There isn't just one small library, and three fact books. No there are tons and tons of information, tons of dieting, weight loss, health tips. These can be found as books, as blogs, as programs etc etc. And every person then has to make sense of all  this information.
In the end there is not one "change your life" perfect program. Some people do better with low carb, vegetarian/vegan, or calorie counting others need a program to follow such as weight watchers. There are many ways to go about this. But before such a decision is made I think it is important to find information. One should never just follow one persons advice on losing weight, or on being healthy. Though there is not one right way, there are definitely wrong ways. I myself have read tons of books-some about this new vegan trend, others by fitness gurus popular today. When it comes to knowledge about healthy eating I think I have it, (so much so that I can even tell my friends why the gym going they are doing is not giving them the adequate results...)! Now what do I do with all this knowledge-I have to turn it into power-power to change my life, power to be healthy and to ultimately be the me I want to be.
The number one rule is that change cannot happen if you do not have a goal in mind. There has to be an end goal, but also an attainable in between goal. It is here that I often fail, as I do not give myself little goals-however I have found two perfect goals that I want to attain, and a reasonable time in which to do so :)
Goal 1: I have a pair of jeans that I love. They are awesome, and looked really good on me-but now they are about 1 size too small. So by the time mom comes for vacation to Germany I would like to fit back into these jeans. That's a month and it's possible.
Goal 2: To do 5 real push ups. In my entire life I cannot remember ever being able to do a real push up (Army Style) By August I want to be able to do 5! I think that is more than doable and it's a goal I can work for!
I need to use my good health knowledge to empower me, instead of just others and that is what I am doing :)

Don't let a setback, set you back

This week was overall pretty successful, I did my exercises every other day (more often and my muscles wold ache like none other) and cooked semi-regularly. Overall, my eating had improved-and honestly I already notice improvements in my health. For one the dark circle around my neck is getting lighter, and my head itches much less both signs that my body is recuperating from bad eating :).
However, as nice as this progress report is, I did have some setbacks. I had a day were i was kinda eating a lot, and did not want to work out. But I did not let that damage all the progress I have made. Instead I got up the next day, and continued business as usual. It is the one thing that used to screw me up, I would start wonderfully for two or three days-screw up and then not continue. The thing many overweight people say-"my diet will start tomorrow" something I repeated for many many years, and what I would say post-screw up. Except I never went back to said "diet." Hence, this time around I am making a healthy change. I want to eat healthy, exercise moderately and overall just feel better. If i have a day of setbacks, well then I will just get on my horse the next day. Perhaps, I want to get to the point, were a screw up is just a small meal, not a full day.
Whatever the case don't let setbacks set you back!!!!
This week has been productive and great :)

Eat Real Food

So a week is up, and I've done moderately well. hehe. I did eat my fruits, and didn't let any of them go bad-so that's awesome. And I cooked a couple of times during the week which is also always awesome :)
What exercise is concerned I did not do so good. I did do my physical therapy a couple times in the week, but not every day as I should so that will have to be my goal this week-to really do it every day. Perhaps I should set a time, such as doing it every morning after I get up. Actually that sounds pretty smart. I shall wake up, do my physical therapy exercise and then I shall follow that by doing some yoga every other day. The reason I think I should do yoga is because I have really bad posture, and my physical therapist told me that the reason why my shoulder hurts so much is because I have learned to set it in a wrong way, in order to stop the initial pain. Except this new way of holding my shoulder makes it even more painful, ouchy. So the initial injury is long gone, I've just been nursing a new one ever since-Amazing right? So this week, physical therapy exercise followed by yoga!

Another thing I wanted to talk about is food. There are so many diets, rules and regulations on how to best lose weight blah blah blah. But as I said in my first post, this is not about losing weight, this is about being healthy-and I think though calories in, calories out is important what is much more important is eating real food. What do I mean by real food-if it grows on this earth and you can see the shape it came in before you consume it that's good. Fresh or frozen vegetables, fresh meat, and eggs-even yoghurt is okay. But say nay to the processed food. As a university student, living on my own I am the queen of processed food-but that is not healthy and not really what I want to put into my body. So for this week I want to cook at least 3 fresh meals during the week. This can either be set aside for dinner, or for lunch or even both :)! In order to be able to cook meals, and know what will be on the table planning is necessary. Never go to the grocery store without a shopping list (however I tried that and lost mine on the way-bummer right?). I went to the grocery store earlier and got what I needed to make chicken curry tonight, my girlfriends are coming over and we're making it a girls night!! It's always lots of fun to do that and to get together! Then because I could not remember what else was on my list, I decided I really want to make chicken noodle soup. My friends have all been getting sick left and right, and though I've been able to avoid it for the most part, my sinuses are constantly sniffly and threatening me with a cold-and there is nothing to beat a cold like chicken noodle soup. So that is already two meals. For everything else I will have to go shopping again, but on the bright side I will be able to go shopping for cheaper-as I will not need something specific from the expensive supermarket. Okay that is my post for this week, I hope you are enjoying my updates :)

It's time...

...to start blogging again. I know some of you have been waiting for a new post since November and here it finally is.
In previous blogs, I was trying to be Vegan on a budget-well that ship has sailed. I have figured out for myself that being Vegan is not the best path-and that I have to find a better way to improve my eating habits. I have recently had a doctors appointment and we did the usual check-ups and he told me I am healthy and nothing was off. He was happy with all of my blood results, my blood pressure was fine, and after checking my organs he was happy as a clam except for one minor issue my weight. This has been a sore subject with me for years, almost as far back as I can remember. And I think that it is time to honestly talk about it, and to make a healthy change in my life. It has taken me years to accept who I am, and the way I look-this does not mean that I am always happy with the way I look, I do have my off days but for the most part I am happy. However, I know this is not a healthy lifestyle for me and I know that even though it is not yet so, it could have repercussions in the near future. I have to make a change for myself, and I know that in order to do so, I need to change my physical activity, as well as my eating habits and I need to want to make these changes. So I decided for the sake of accountability I want to share with everyone what I am doing, and how I am bettering my life in order for those check ups to keep coming back with good results.

Rome wasn't build in a day. This is an old saying, and a perfect one to start off this journey and my blogging about this journey. I read somewhere that it takes 4 weeks, for you to establish a new habit. If this habit is positively reinforced it is easier to keep it up. So bear with me, and with the mistakes I will undoubtedly make. No matter what in life you are trying to change, it all has to start with a goal, my major goal is to be healthy and happy-however, I also need small easily attainable goals. So every week I intend to have a new goal, something that I can achieve, and celebrate. To start this week off I have two goals one being that I eat more fruit. I often buy apples, grapes or bananas and except for the bananas it seems that I am always throwing away rotten fruit, I think this is a bad habit, I should remember to eat a piece of fruit everyday. They make a great snack, as they both keep you satiated and hydrated (due to their water content). So the first is more fruit. My second goal is to do the exercises from the Physical therapist daily. These are important for my shoulders health and they will get me started with exercise.

I realize these goals are very small, but I want to come back with a definite success-it will keep me motivated in the starting days/week, as this is often were I fail setting the bar too high. Now I intend to write weekly updates, and new goals, so if you are interested in following what I am doing, please remind me if I have not posted a new updated on Friday.

Lastly, every journey has trials and tribulations no matter which one it is a new job, budgeting, health no matter what you do it will not all be easy, and handed to you on a silver platter. It is very likely you will have an off day, and as I heard Dave Ramsey say in a lecture "You will screw up" but when you fall off that horse, get right back on it. Don't let one small screw up, destroy all the progress that has been achieved thus far.
This is a journey of becoming healthy, not a journey of weight loss, not a journey of looking a certain way-but a journey of feeling good, of having energy and of knowing what your body needs.

I hope you enjoyed my post and are excited about the posts to follow :)

Of Turkey's and being Thankful

This year, for the first time I made a Thanksgiving Turkey. I had a whole feast with my friends. And let me tell you I was scared out of my wits-because quite honestly I never had made a Turkey before. But after various facetimes with my father, advice from grandma and my aunt I just had to close my eyes and hope for the best. I powered through. And you know what my Turkey was awesome :). My stuffing was legendary, and the cherry cobbler was to die for. When a friend, who usually only eats one portion, eats 2 1/2 you best believe that it was delicious.

I am extremely thankful that when I decide to cook something so intricate and difficult that I manage without any trouble. I could've failed miserably but instead it was a success. I am thankful for my father who had the patience to deal with my 50thousand questions, and my mother who kept re-directing me to him. And because this reminded me how much I enjoy cooking/baking I decided to make a lemon cake today for my friends Llea's birthday and I hope it also turns out delicious.
Something else I learned, when after the party you are left with a mound of dishes-it is best to do said dished immediately! I decided last night that if I waited I would wake up and feel that daunting feeling of not being able to do anything until the work was done, but desperately looking for other things to do, instead I did all of the dishes immediately and I woke up refreshed and happy :)!
Sometimes it's the little things in life-now I will begin counting down the days until I get to fly home!! I'm super excited to see my family :), though I think this thanksgiving my friends were like my little family and I'm a pure ball of happiness!!

Accountability

Today I want to talk about a little word: accountability! What does it mean to you? To me it means that you have to answer to yourself for your actions. Of course there are other people we answer to: our boss, our teacher, our parents etc. but in this case I want to talk about answering to yourself. When I was younger, my daddy always told me: You can lie to me all you want, but you cannot lie to yourself. Yet that is exactly what we do oh so often. If you want to change something, then you have to be able to be accountable to yourself, if you want others to depend on you, and look to you for answers, you first have to answer to yourself. So I guess what I am getting at is, that lately I have not been so Vegan, or even Vegetarian for that matter-not at my house and not outside my house, yet I spend all this time telling myself, no no this is just a small slip up. Well no more, I decided I needed to get back on track and that starts now-with me making sure that I answer to myself, I do for myself what is best for me!
One of the reasons I write this, is because I have seen some changes since I've had a few "slip-ups" the biggest is that I've had migraine like headaches (though only 2 thus far) both have come with problems in my vision, making everything blurry and my prescription seeming to be a totally different one. There are many reasons why this can happen, however, as my cousin pointed out to me this weekend, and my optomologist before it can have something to do with your blood sugar levels. If all I eat is crap, and I don't keep a good schedule, and on top of that overdose on sugar-should I really be surprised by these headaches? I don't think so...this is why I will return to my old new eating habits. In order to get up to a new and good start tomorrow-I have put some overnight oats into the refrigerator (if they turn out yummy I'll give more on that) and I made vegan banana bred for snacking. Though I will not be able to eat vegan all week-as it is Thanksgiving and I am making a big Turkey, with stuffing, mashed taters, and cauliflower I will do my darndest to stay healthy until then. If not vegan at least I need to be conscious about what I am putting into my mouth-though I think that I prefer the vegan/vegetarian diet for most of my meals!!
I will be accountable to myself, and if I don't feel well-I should probably look at what I've eaten (is that a food diary in my future? who knows...)

Budgeting 101

So I found out recently, that due to change in administration by contract will not be fully extended. I will keep half of my hours, but loose the other half, this means that I also loose half of my money. Of course I am searching for a job to make up this money-but in the case that I am not immediately successful I have to keep a close eye on my money.
I have noticed recently, that I do not pay much attention to how my cash is allocated. It does not make a difference wether it is actually cash, or money from my card. I have a ballpark idea how much I have left but I do not always now how much I have spend and what I am spending it on. And as anyone who has read anything about budgeting and keeping track of your money knows-step 1 is to write down every little penny you spend. So instead of using budgeting apps on my ipad, as I originally planned a year ago-I will start with exactly that as of now I will write down every cent and where it is going. This way I will hopefully be able to look at what I have spend, and why I have spend it and where I need to improve my expenditures. If I am successful with just this one simple mission-keep track of the money I can follow that up by allocating money to specific needs. But as with everything start small. If you start too big, it is easier to feel overwhelmed and give up and now more than ever that should not be an option.
Wish me luck :)

You Are What You Eat

It is amazing how after weeks, months of eating semi-health conscious-and predominantly vegan, one weekend of meat filled foods does not make you feel good. I have talked before how I'm enjoying the veganing, and at least mostly eating healthy meals-but a couple of weeks ago I went to go visit my grandmother, and it seemed easier for her to just leave my diet as it always was, eating whatever she put on the table. After the first 24 hours I felt tired and sluggish, and by the time I got back to my own place I was simply exhausted. I have not needed so many naps, and so many hours of sleep in the lasts months as I needed that weekend, so I guess the saying "you are what you eat" rings true. I am not saying that vegan is the one and only answer to healthy happy living, but I am saying that a diet high in fruits and vegetables is.
In order to eat such a diet, I have started browsing the frozen vegetable section as well as finding cheap but good fresh produce. Most of my produce comes from a little lebanese shop down the street from me, but if I want more variety I will have to go to the local market-good thing that it runs three days a week! Though, I have learned that frozen is also good, and sometimes even better. For instance, I have recently acquired a taste for brussels sprouts-yes I know shocking. But these little beasts are hard to cook, and if you do it wrong they taste bitter-however, if you have frozen brussels sprouts it takes away all of the bitterness as they have been pre-cooked in a certain way. Let me just tell y'all yummm-o.
Another thing, when eating well-and mostly vegan is that I have to constantly cook. Cooking on my current schedule is not really easy, but I do have a favorite new meal that is quick easy and extremely filling. Whenever I do not know what to do, or I'm in a time crunch I make myself peanut butter sauce with broccoli, brussels sprouts and spaghettis, and when I have them I toast some fresh peanuts-it is one of the most delicious and easy meals to make!!!!
That's all for now

The Not So Vegan Weekend

So it turns out, that Vegannism is not easy.
The purpose of eating Vegan, is not for me to be Vegan forever. Instead it is for me to form a better relationship with healthy food, and healthy cooking. Believe it or not-making vegetable curry goes a lot faster than making chicken curry. However, during stressful situations (such as a presidential election for the Graduate Student Association) it is a lot easier to not go shopping for food and instead go out for food. Oops! And once I finally went shopping, because stores are closed on Sunday in this wonderful country-I went to the wrong store that barely had any vegetables, especially not fresh ones-and no tofu. So I ended up with some frozen vegetables and frozen pizza. Not the healthiest option but for this weekend it will do-next weekend deserves some prior planning.
On some different news-I started doing martial arts on campus. The teacher is a win tsun expert, and does  a lot of self-defense. But he lets my friend Samaneh and I do a lot of Tae Kwon Do moves and it feels really good to use my muscles again! I have missed martial arts more than I realized. We also went to a Verein, where next Friday we have a Schnupperkurs-idk if it is a good idea to sign up as I have so much going on at Uni already. If I do then I will make it a mandatory schedule, and whatever comes up instead I will have to decline. After all, I cannot dance at every wedding!
I will keep working on the Vegan on a Budget, thus far I am still stretching my money too far-but I am getting better at anticipating what I will need and what I will eat :)

Update :)

It seems that Vegan on a Budget only works at home...right now my friend Amber is staying with me, and as long as we are in the confines of the apartment, or just going shopping our Veganism works awesomly. However, as soon as either of us goes to school or to visit someone else we seem to forget that we were planning on Veganism. I think the solution to this is pre-planning. But since I am always on the go between work and GSA stuff it is hard to find even an extra minute to pre-plan. But having sandwiches prepared for work and some nuts, or dried fruits to snack on is always a good habit to keep-so this is my goal to start pre-planning. On the bright side there is tofu marinating in the fridge, we have leftover rice and veggies so what the house is concerned we are being very healthy!!! I guess one step at a time :)
On another note-I've been asked by a Professor to translate one of his articles. This is a great honor, and I hope that I manage to do a very good job, one he can be proud of and I can too!! I think such confidence in my work is brilliant! This weekend will be schedule time, as I will need a strict dissertation and translation schedule to not fall off the wagon-after all I am still at University to write a dissertation and get a PhD at some point (soon :)).

Vegan on a Budget

Hey Everyone,

It's me...I know I know it's has been a while-actually forever, it seems my ability to blog regularly is actually impossible. But some updates on the new stuff going on.
As everyone knows I just moved to a new apartment and it is great!!! I feel so comfortable here and it is nice to know that no one else can enter without permission! Due to a new semester starting, not everything is set up the way I would like it yet-but it is getting there.
So now to my actual reason for blogging on this beautiful sunday :) As most everyone knows I decided before my move to do the Vegan challenge for 28days, this was very fun but not as fulfilling as I had liked because I did not have my own kitchen to use, now that I do I decided I would start over! This time I have a German book which is the 30 day Vegan challenge-and I want to be able to do it on a budget! And in order to encourage me to write and update regularly I decided to have at least one post a week that is Vegan on a Budget! So wish me luck everyone :) till next time

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

On Going Home and Coming Home

As you know I went back to the States over Christmas. And quite frankly it was the most wonderful time-minus the procrastination and paper writing. It is wonderful to be able to go back home, where your parents are and just be at least partially a child again. Of course a lot has changed, after all for the first time I had been independent and living on my own, this somehow changes the dynamic of things..but at the same time it doesn't because to your parents no matter how old you are you are the child. Daddy does always say I'm his baby, and I will always be his baby even when I'm 50, and even though that at times is weird-there is something very soothing about knowing that you will always be someones precious child :)! It is something I used to never think about, and take for granted-but being away I do realize that I love my parents so so much and I miss them! The same of course goes for my sister-some things stayed the same, but it seems that we kept the arguing to a minimum, as a matter of fact one of the favorite things when I was there was us going and painting a picture for New Years! Also road tripping to Kentucky!! Awesome :) and now I get to be an auntie to a little well who knows but it'll get spoiled :D!!!!! Well once I am done with school and have a job, but still-everything changes but I think from going home some things will not! I love going home.
As for coming home-I missed my little apartment in Bremen.It is wonderful to come of the plane and have a friend waiting for you, someone who will take you home, wait for you to shower then go for food and shopping :)! Since I've been back I have seen all of my friends on many occasions and I realize just how lucky I am. I had friends in the U.S. but except for a fair few, which I will not specify, they were mostly fake-the friends I have made here are real, they care about my well being and that is awesome! I wish I would never have to leave, but graduation is approaching therefore I am writing my thesis and steadily applying to different programs as well as to teaching jobs such as teach for America. I am also considering the Peace Corps. We will see what pans out. For now I thesis write and enjoy my friends company. They are quite brilliant and always there for me :) I shall try to keep you updated
xoxo