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IE: News of My Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Sooo, I'm not dead! Surprise! I can't even begin to cover everything that's happened since 2007, but I'll give a bit of an overview.
I haven't been absent from LJ, believe it or not. When I visit, I spend most of my time logged in as my writing journal (which is this one), and from there, instead of posting fics like I'm supposed to, I've been mostly reading and commenting on others' works. I know several people were following the Supernatural fic I had started, but to be honest, I'm not sure that that will ever get done, despite my hopes to the contrary. I used to be able to just write and not be bothered that it didn't sound as good written down as in my mind, but it's become so bothersome now that it's hard to get through even several paragraphs without getting very frustrated. I'll promise to try my best, but there are no guarantees.
As for personal life, I finished high school! Senior year was a great time for me, though I did get disappointed in not getting into a few colleges I really liked. It was a tough year, because the biggest high school class ever was graduating, and colleges just didn't have room for all the students. I ended up at Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I couldn't be happier. It was not one of my first choices - until I visited the campus. Guilford had been on my radar since freshman year or so, since I saw it in a Newsweek rating piece, where it won "Best Liberal Atmosphere" or something to that effect. And I can tell you, it certainly lives up to that. I was very sad leaving Catonsville and all my friends, since only one was going to college in the same state as I, and most were going to be spread out across the country. Graduation night was filled with both laughter and tears, but I was so proud walking across the stage. I knew that I'd fought to be here, and after getting straight A's for 7 quarters (with one B in the last quarter screwing senior year up :P), I'd definitely come out on top. I worked at the vet's the summer before college, trying to save up money since the first time living on my own was rapidly approaching. I did a fairly good job, and when I moved into college, it wasn't as jarring a transition as it could have been. My roommate from freshman year has become one of my best friends, and I even studied abroad in Munich, Germany with her fall semester of sophomore year. I met five other girls and several guys who have become my family in NC, and who I can't imaging living without now. Sadly, my four year relationship with Ene broke up in January of 2009, by mutual agreement. We had gotten into the relationship for safety's sake, and though we loved each other, and still do, we were denying ourselves and each other room to grow and form relationships that could truly flourish. It hurt, and it still feels weird sometimes to know that we're not together, and that I can't kiss or hold her hand anymore. It was something that just became natural over four years whenever we saw each other, and I know those feelings will take time to go away. She's still one of my best friends, and we hang out whenever we're in Maryland at the same time. We just both realize that we've grown into better best friends than girlfriends.
As I mentioned before, I studied abroad in Munich from the last week in August 2009 - the second week of December 2009. Those few months were absolutely incredible, and hold some of my fondest memories, along with a couple downright nasty ones. It didn't start out the best, however. I went a week early with my dad, and going through security at Dulles airport, my laptop was removed from my bag without security personnel telling me. I found out it was missing somewhere over St. John's Bay, and promptly had a panic attack, since I was already scared of flying for so long over water. We got to Munich and tried to get in touch with my mom, who called Dulles to see if it had been picked up. Several days later, we got back in touch, and I learned that they had the laptop in lost and found, and that if I faxed them papers authorizing her to pick it up, she would be able to send it to me. As you can imagine, I was able to enjoy sightseeing much more after that. The sending turned out to be harder than it should've been but I got it about a month after I arrived. My dad and I took several tours of Munich and one day trip to Salzburg, which were extremely interesting. He left a day after I joined up with my group, but I definitely needed him to be there as I got acclimated.
To get to know each other and Germany, the group spent a week in the town of Berchtesgaden. We went through a crash course in German so that we wouldn't completely flounder, and toured around the town where Hitler had his Eagle's Nest. We could see the Eagle's Nest from our hostel. Berchtesgaden is a mountain town, so we loved to hike together, especially since the streams were so clean we could drink the water right from them. We also went to see the Bunker, which had been mostly destroyed, but the remainder had been made into a museum. The teachers took us on a day trip to Salzburg as well, so I got to go up to the fortress, which we hadn't had time for on the first trip. We also got to see were The Sound of Music had filmed several scenes. Berchtesgaden is probably the place I most want to return to in Europe.
Dima (my roommate) and I lived with two families while we were there. The first was in the suburb of Ottobrun, with Frau Schlick. She is one of the sweetest people I have met, and wonderful for taking us in when our original family had to delay us coming for a month. We stayed with her until the first week in October, and even though it was hard since she knew little English and we were just learning German, we all got along very well and we enjoyed spending time together. There were some very funny incidents of miscommunication; one of the best being when I left a tube of Burt's Bees in my shorts pocket before giving them to her to wash. (Don't think we're awful people - we tried to get her to let us wash our own clothes, but she insisted!). I had another with me, and went down and showed it to her to ask if she'd seen it. It took about 5-10 minutes before we were able to establish I had two, and she hadn't put my one through the wash, she'd taken it out and here it is, you're welcome. Trying to talk to someone without a common language is surprisingly difficult, believe it or not. In October, we moved in with Frau Kastenmiller in Neubiberg, where the rest of the group had families. We had our own flat in on the top floor of her house, which was three floors. Each floor had one flat. It was so cool, and Heidi was an amazing hostess. We had dinner with her several times, and we try to keep in touch now that I'm back in the States. The group was able to enjoy Oktoberfest, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and bier drinking. The first time we went as a group, I went on several rides (and never will again, thank you, they were terrifying!) and we all managed to get a nice buzz going. They serve you bier in 1 liter steins, people, and it's more alcoholic than your regular bier. Like I said, a nice buzz. Which led to me making out with an Austrian, but we won't go into the slutty details unless you want me to! We did actually study while there. I took German Politics and Culture (really it turned out to be a history of fascism, but I was alright with this), German History, Art History, and German 101. Learning the language while immersed in the culture is an experience that I'll never forget, and definitely one that helped when I went on to German 102 that spring. German Politics was tough to hear about, since we had to read sections of Mein Kampf, and visit the Dacchau Concentration Camp. Dima and I went a second time weeks later to make sure we saw everything. It was an extremely sobering experience, but I'm glad I had it. I wish everyone could go to pay homage and remember why something like that can never happen again. History and Art were fun breaks, since both came easy to me, and the teachers were cool. Every week in Art we went to museums or churches, and our History teacher took us to Augsburg.
As a big group, or in several smaller groups, I went the Trento and Venice, Italy for a weekend (seeing the church where the Council of Trent was held, and the castle), Berlin and Amsterdam for fall break (seeing the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery, the Brandenburg Tor, the Bundestag, the Angel of Truth, Checkpoint Charlie, the DDR museum, several monuments and memorials for World War II victims and soldiers, Amsterdam's Red Light District, Anne Frank's house, the Performance Hall - which was right down the road from our hostel -, and the vodka and sex museums), and Paris, France for a weekend, with an attempt at visiting Normandy Beach (which failed spectacularly and we were stuck in Caen. Not a horrible place to be stuck in, but not where we wanted to go). Our trips were surprisingly disaster free until the trip to France. Our train got in an hour late, our hostel (which was outside of the Paris center, so it took a while to get there) was not actually a hostel and would not let us in because they lied about when they closed. Thankfully, we met an American living in the "hostel" outside, and she gave us directions to a bus stop that would take us to Gare de Lyon where there were plenty of actual hostels. The walk to the stop took 20 minutes or so and we were all afraid she'd given us wrong directions when I finally was able to see the stop and we waited for the night bus. It turned out we got on in the wrong direction, but the driver took us to a stop where we could connect to the bus we wanted. Both he and the driver of the right bus let us on without the fare. I'm guessing we looked horrible. On the way to Gare de Lyon, we were harassed by a couple Algerian Frenchmen, who apparently wanted either to have sex with us or for us to have sex with each other. They couldn't get off soon enough for us, but we finally got to Gare de Lyon (thankfully, right across from a train station), and a man at a hotel gave us a room with two beds for the half-price or so. We had five people. We ended up pushing the two beds together and all of us just slept next to each other. It was rather cramped, but by then it was almost 3 in the morning, so we were just thankful we could get off our feet. The next day, we convinced the guy in our group not to leave, and we saw Notre Dame (after a false start), the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc d'Triumph. We went back and climbed the Eiffel Tower at night, going all the way to the top. I was terrified, and Julian and Dima had to give me emotional support. Sunday we visited the Louvre for most of the day and saw the Paris Opera House, and Dima and I went to see the Bastille Monument. On Monday, we tried to go to Normandy Beach.
Apparently, Parisians do not know how to get to Normandy Beach, even if they work in a train station. Neither do travel websites. You do NOT get off the train at Caen and try to catch a ride to Utah or Omaha. The stop for those is one AFTER Caen. Maybe now, someone will actually make it there. Once we realized we were stuck, we tried to go the the Caen World War II museum, which is supposed to be extraordinary. Unfortunately for us, starting in the first weekend of November, they are closed Mondays. We went the third weekend. We were able to see a memorial garden outside, and on the way back we saw a chateau that looked interesting, and we spent a couple hours there until the train would come to take us back to Paris, and then to Munich. All in all, it could've been a better day - or you know, a better trip. Honestly. it was just the transport that was messed up (and the accommodations, which were expensive!) and the actual sightseeing stuff was fun. We were able to forget the crappy stuff when we were hanging out together, seeing new things. But I'm not going back without five different backup travel plans.
We were able to have a clubbing night before going, on the last weekend of November. I got pleasantly tipsy and made out with two guys (one English and one German) and danced the night away. I think I had two mixed drinks and five or so shots. I should mention the drinking age there is 16 (18 for hard liquor). One of the girls couldn't handle the alcohol, and threw up in our taxi to the train station, and two of us took her to the house we were staying for the night at around 4 or so in the morning. The other couple people stayed out a little while longer, but not much.
The last couple weeks were very sad, wrapping up classes and saying goodbye to teachers we'd probably never see again. We had a Thanksgiving dinner and invited all the teachers and families to come, which was so much fun. There were the Christmas markets starting up as well, so the weekend before we left most of us went to Nurnberg to browse around, and we would go after classes to the ones in Munich's Marienplatz. Most of our Christmas shopping was complete before we got home. The day before many people left (December 11th), we got together to have a last drink in Marienplatz, and to say goodbye. You really form bonds with people when you're thrust together in a country where it's hard to communicate, and all of us - including our advisor and his family - felt very close to each other and sad to leave. We had a couple reunion dinners when we got back in January, and would always stop to talk or hug if we saw each other on campus, but I definitely didn't see anyone as much as I wanted.
Last semester was tough, since I was taking 19 credits and the normal limit is 18. I had to add an extra credit to lengthen my flute lessons to one hour. The teacher I had was incredible, and I really feel like I made progress. It was definitely stressful, though, since I had to worry about practicing, lessons, band rehearsals, an Honors philosophy/religion class, and an advanced Abnormal Psychology class, along with German 102. I started college with credits already, thanks to 6 AP classes, so I am supposed to take classes at a higher level than my grade mates. Plus, I'm in the Honors Program. I wasn't able to handle everything so well; for example, I ended up a shut-in most weekends thanks to small papers or response, and one weekend saw me with two big papers, two little papers, and a couple responses. It's no wonder one time I just broke down crying for ten minutes to one of my best friends. I also didn't go to enough of the performances put on by the Music Department, so I'll have to foot the bill for my lessons this coming semester. It's a drag, and I'm going to be doing the same thing in the fall, but hopefully I've learned my lesson about time management.
Now that I'm home for the summer, I work at a restaurant in Ellicott City, which pays decently. My boss is a manic Type A personality, so I've been reduced to leaving work crying once, but aside from daily verbal abuse, it's good! I go back to college in a little less than a month, and I can't decide if I'm excited, or if I want to just drop out right now. I've officially become a psychology and music double major and a criminal justice minor, with specialties in over-achievement and going without sleep! Kill me now, because junior year is what counts for grad school! Luckily, I've so far managed to get a 3.6 something GPA and got all A's (and A-'s, they count for different points in college...) last semester, despite the mini breakdowns, so if I keep my game face on, I should do super!
Hope you all have enjoyed this thoroughly engaging foray into my life. I swear I didn't think I was going to be this long when I started. Bis bald!
Sooo, I'm not dead! Surprise! I can't even begin to cover everything that's happened since 2007, but I'll give a bit of an overview.
I haven't been absent from LJ, believe it or not. When I visit, I spend most of my time logged in as my writing journal (which is this one), and from there, instead of posting fics like I'm supposed to, I've been mostly reading and commenting on others' works. I know several people were following the Supernatural fic I had started, but to be honest, I'm not sure that that will ever get done, despite my hopes to the contrary. I used to be able to just write and not be bothered that it didn't sound as good written down as in my mind, but it's become so bothersome now that it's hard to get through even several paragraphs without getting very frustrated. I'll promise to try my best, but there are no guarantees.
As for personal life, I finished high school! Senior year was a great time for me, though I did get disappointed in not getting into a few colleges I really liked. It was a tough year, because the biggest high school class ever was graduating, and colleges just didn't have room for all the students. I ended up at Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I couldn't be happier. It was not one of my first choices - until I visited the campus. Guilford had been on my radar since freshman year or so, since I saw it in a Newsweek rating piece, where it won "Best Liberal Atmosphere" or something to that effect. And I can tell you, it certainly lives up to that. I was very sad leaving Catonsville and all my friends, since only one was going to college in the same state as I, and most were going to be spread out across the country. Graduation night was filled with both laughter and tears, but I was so proud walking across the stage. I knew that I'd fought to be here, and after getting straight A's for 7 quarters (with one B in the last quarter screwing senior year up :P), I'd definitely come out on top. I worked at the vet's the summer before college, trying to save up money since the first time living on my own was rapidly approaching. I did a fairly good job, and when I moved into college, it wasn't as jarring a transition as it could have been. My roommate from freshman year has become one of my best friends, and I even studied abroad in Munich, Germany with her fall semester of sophomore year. I met five other girls and several guys who have become my family in NC, and who I can't imaging living without now. Sadly, my four year relationship with Ene broke up in January of 2009, by mutual agreement. We had gotten into the relationship for safety's sake, and though we loved each other, and still do, we were denying ourselves and each other room to grow and form relationships that could truly flourish. It hurt, and it still feels weird sometimes to know that we're not together, and that I can't kiss or hold her hand anymore. It was something that just became natural over four years whenever we saw each other, and I know those feelings will take time to go away. She's still one of my best friends, and we hang out whenever we're in Maryland at the same time. We just both realize that we've grown into better best friends than girlfriends.
As I mentioned before, I studied abroad in Munich from the last week in August 2009 - the second week of December 2009. Those few months were absolutely incredible, and hold some of my fondest memories, along with a couple downright nasty ones. It didn't start out the best, however. I went a week early with my dad, and going through security at Dulles airport, my laptop was removed from my bag without security personnel telling me. I found out it was missing somewhere over St. John's Bay, and promptly had a panic attack, since I was already scared of flying for so long over water. We got to Munich and tried to get in touch with my mom, who called Dulles to see if it had been picked up. Several days later, we got back in touch, and I learned that they had the laptop in lost and found, and that if I faxed them papers authorizing her to pick it up, she would be able to send it to me. As you can imagine, I was able to enjoy sightseeing much more after that. The sending turned out to be harder than it should've been but I got it about a month after I arrived. My dad and I took several tours of Munich and one day trip to Salzburg, which were extremely interesting. He left a day after I joined up with my group, but I definitely needed him to be there as I got acclimated.
To get to know each other and Germany, the group spent a week in the town of Berchtesgaden. We went through a crash course in German so that we wouldn't completely flounder, and toured around the town where Hitler had his Eagle's Nest. We could see the Eagle's Nest from our hostel. Berchtesgaden is a mountain town, so we loved to hike together, especially since the streams were so clean we could drink the water right from them. We also went to see the Bunker, which had been mostly destroyed, but the remainder had been made into a museum. The teachers took us on a day trip to Salzburg as well, so I got to go up to the fortress, which we hadn't had time for on the first trip. We also got to see were The Sound of Music had filmed several scenes. Berchtesgaden is probably the place I most want to return to in Europe.
Dima (my roommate) and I lived with two families while we were there. The first was in the suburb of Ottobrun, with Frau Schlick. She is one of the sweetest people I have met, and wonderful for taking us in when our original family had to delay us coming for a month. We stayed with her until the first week in October, and even though it was hard since she knew little English and we were just learning German, we all got along very well and we enjoyed spending time together. There were some very funny incidents of miscommunication; one of the best being when I left a tube of Burt's Bees in my shorts pocket before giving them to her to wash. (Don't think we're awful people - we tried to get her to let us wash our own clothes, but she insisted!). I had another with me, and went down and showed it to her to ask if she'd seen it. It took about 5-10 minutes before we were able to establish I had two, and she hadn't put my one through the wash, she'd taken it out and here it is, you're welcome. Trying to talk to someone without a common language is surprisingly difficult, believe it or not. In October, we moved in with Frau Kastenmiller in Neubiberg, where the rest of the group had families. We had our own flat in on the top floor of her house, which was three floors. Each floor had one flat. It was so cool, and Heidi was an amazing hostess. We had dinner with her several times, and we try to keep in touch now that I'm back in the States. The group was able to enjoy Oktoberfest, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and bier drinking. The first time we went as a group, I went on several rides (and never will again, thank you, they were terrifying!) and we all managed to get a nice buzz going. They serve you bier in 1 liter steins, people, and it's more alcoholic than your regular bier. Like I said, a nice buzz. Which led to me making out with an Austrian, but we won't go into the slutty details unless you want me to! We did actually study while there. I took German Politics and Culture (really it turned out to be a history of fascism, but I was alright with this), German History, Art History, and German 101. Learning the language while immersed in the culture is an experience that I'll never forget, and definitely one that helped when I went on to German 102 that spring. German Politics was tough to hear about, since we had to read sections of Mein Kampf, and visit the Dacchau Concentration Camp. Dima and I went a second time weeks later to make sure we saw everything. It was an extremely sobering experience, but I'm glad I had it. I wish everyone could go to pay homage and remember why something like that can never happen again. History and Art were fun breaks, since both came easy to me, and the teachers were cool. Every week in Art we went to museums or churches, and our History teacher took us to Augsburg.
As a big group, or in several smaller groups, I went the Trento and Venice, Italy for a weekend (seeing the church where the Council of Trent was held, and the castle), Berlin and Amsterdam for fall break (seeing the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery, the Brandenburg Tor, the Bundestag, the Angel of Truth, Checkpoint Charlie, the DDR museum, several monuments and memorials for World War II victims and soldiers, Amsterdam's Red Light District, Anne Frank's house, the Performance Hall - which was right down the road from our hostel -, and the vodka and sex museums), and Paris, France for a weekend, with an attempt at visiting Normandy Beach (which failed spectacularly and we were stuck in Caen. Not a horrible place to be stuck in, but not where we wanted to go). Our trips were surprisingly disaster free until the trip to France. Our train got in an hour late, our hostel (which was outside of the Paris center, so it took a while to get there) was not actually a hostel and would not let us in because they lied about when they closed. Thankfully, we met an American living in the "hostel" outside, and she gave us directions to a bus stop that would take us to Gare de Lyon where there were plenty of actual hostels. The walk to the stop took 20 minutes or so and we were all afraid she'd given us wrong directions when I finally was able to see the stop and we waited for the night bus. It turned out we got on in the wrong direction, but the driver took us to a stop where we could connect to the bus we wanted. Both he and the driver of the right bus let us on without the fare. I'm guessing we looked horrible. On the way to Gare de Lyon, we were harassed by a couple Algerian Frenchmen, who apparently wanted either to have sex with us or for us to have sex with each other. They couldn't get off soon enough for us, but we finally got to Gare de Lyon (thankfully, right across from a train station), and a man at a hotel gave us a room with two beds for the half-price or so. We had five people. We ended up pushing the two beds together and all of us just slept next to each other. It was rather cramped, but by then it was almost 3 in the morning, so we were just thankful we could get off our feet. The next day, we convinced the guy in our group not to leave, and we saw Notre Dame (after a false start), the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc d'Triumph. We went back and climbed the Eiffel Tower at night, going all the way to the top. I was terrified, and Julian and Dima had to give me emotional support. Sunday we visited the Louvre for most of the day and saw the Paris Opera House, and Dima and I went to see the Bastille Monument. On Monday, we tried to go to Normandy Beach.
Apparently, Parisians do not know how to get to Normandy Beach, even if they work in a train station. Neither do travel websites. You do NOT get off the train at Caen and try to catch a ride to Utah or Omaha. The stop for those is one AFTER Caen. Maybe now, someone will actually make it there. Once we realized we were stuck, we tried to go the the Caen World War II museum, which is supposed to be extraordinary. Unfortunately for us, starting in the first weekend of November, they are closed Mondays. We went the third weekend. We were able to see a memorial garden outside, and on the way back we saw a chateau that looked interesting, and we spent a couple hours there until the train would come to take us back to Paris, and then to Munich. All in all, it could've been a better day - or you know, a better trip. Honestly. it was just the transport that was messed up (and the accommodations, which were expensive!) and the actual sightseeing stuff was fun. We were able to forget the crappy stuff when we were hanging out together, seeing new things. But I'm not going back without five different backup travel plans.
We were able to have a clubbing night before going, on the last weekend of November. I got pleasantly tipsy and made out with two guys (one English and one German) and danced the night away. I think I had two mixed drinks and five or so shots. I should mention the drinking age there is 16 (18 for hard liquor). One of the girls couldn't handle the alcohol, and threw up in our taxi to the train station, and two of us took her to the house we were staying for the night at around 4 or so in the morning. The other couple people stayed out a little while longer, but not much.
The last couple weeks were very sad, wrapping up classes and saying goodbye to teachers we'd probably never see again. We had a Thanksgiving dinner and invited all the teachers and families to come, which was so much fun. There were the Christmas markets starting up as well, so the weekend before we left most of us went to Nurnberg to browse around, and we would go after classes to the ones in Munich's Marienplatz. Most of our Christmas shopping was complete before we got home. The day before many people left (December 11th), we got together to have a last drink in Marienplatz, and to say goodbye. You really form bonds with people when you're thrust together in a country where it's hard to communicate, and all of us - including our advisor and his family - felt very close to each other and sad to leave. We had a couple reunion dinners when we got back in January, and would always stop to talk or hug if we saw each other on campus, but I definitely didn't see anyone as much as I wanted.
Last semester was tough, since I was taking 19 credits and the normal limit is 18. I had to add an extra credit to lengthen my flute lessons to one hour. The teacher I had was incredible, and I really feel like I made progress. It was definitely stressful, though, since I had to worry about practicing, lessons, band rehearsals, an Honors philosophy/religion class, and an advanced Abnormal Psychology class, along with German 102. I started college with credits already, thanks to 6 AP classes, so I am supposed to take classes at a higher level than my grade mates. Plus, I'm in the Honors Program. I wasn't able to handle everything so well; for example, I ended up a shut-in most weekends thanks to small papers or response, and one weekend saw me with two big papers, two little papers, and a couple responses. It's no wonder one time I just broke down crying for ten minutes to one of my best friends. I also didn't go to enough of the performances put on by the Music Department, so I'll have to foot the bill for my lessons this coming semester. It's a drag, and I'm going to be doing the same thing in the fall, but hopefully I've learned my lesson about time management.
Now that I'm home for the summer, I work at a restaurant in Ellicott City, which pays decently. My boss is a manic Type A personality, so I've been reduced to leaving work crying once, but aside from daily verbal abuse, it's good! I go back to college in a little less than a month, and I can't decide if I'm excited, or if I want to just drop out right now. I've officially become a psychology and music double major and a criminal justice minor, with specialties in over-achievement and going without sleep! Kill me now, because junior year is what counts for grad school! Luckily, I've so far managed to get a 3.6 something GPA and got all A's (and A-'s, they count for different points in college...) last semester, despite the mini breakdowns, so if I keep my game face on, I should do super!
Hope you all have enjoyed this thoroughly engaging foray into my life. I swear I didn't think I was going to be this long when I started. Bis bald!
