Also... Das rothaarige Mädel war schon eine Weile aus Deutschland...

Und bestimmt jetzt wissen Sie, dass ich total unzuverlässig bin.... Ich poste manchmal... manchmal nicht... manchmal warte ich fünftausend Jahren vor ich wirklich überhaupt eben daran denke! Es passiert... ich mein, ich ein Leben (mehr oder weniger) und die Schule ist wirklich schwierig dieses Jahr (in meiner Meinung).... Ich kann auch nicht posten, wenn da keinen Strom ist also könnte ich bestimmt nicht letzte Woche posten.
Der letzte Schneesturm hat viele Bäume niedergeschlagen und damit viele Stromleitungen und so wir waren eben letzte Woche für vier Tage mit überhaupt keinen Strom. Als ich es fand war es total ungünstig, besonders wenn wir schon so viel für Strom bezahlen und wir haben es doch nicht. Ich habe bei meinen Freunden geduscht und habe immer nach Feuerstelle gerochen (nicht, dass das schlecht ist aber es gibt Schmerzkopf nach einer Weile).
Jetzt während ich nicht in Deutschland bin denk ich immer, dass ich leute aus meiner Klasse sehe! Ich vermisse die alle aus Deutschland... und auch die Brezeln und Kürbiskernbrötchen. Und Bier und früh aus der Schule zu kommen. Ich vermisse damals, wenn ich Rad überall fahren konnte oder in der Stadt mit einem Zug fahren und bücher kaufen. Ich vermisse SPÄTZLE! Ich vermisse viele Dinge, wie man alles will, was er nicht gerade hat. Ich werde irgendwann zurückkehren und ich hoffe, alles im Deutschland eben mehr lieben als früher :)

Schönen Tag Noch! Bis später!
Deni!

The redhead is super pumped for:

Harry Potter and  also the Women's World Cup Final: both of which together with meeting my best friend after a year of not seeing her, join together to make what will probably be one of the most memorable weekends and moments of my life.
      My last few weeks in Germany are here, and they are blasting apart and out of control like crazy. Two weeks from today is my going-away party, where I will say a long goodbye to all my dear friends here (who also for the most part all recieved the lovely invitations today), and I shall be leaving the next day for Dresden with my father and be traveling with him for a week before landing in my very own bed in my very own room in my parent's very own house in my very own little Pennsylvania, USA.
      And my heart quickens to think of the smiling faces of my family, the hugs that have waited months, my nephew, my sisters, my closest friends. And everytime I think of it something leaps inside me, up into my throat: my soul I expect, hoping that maybe it could speed up the process. I already know what I want for my coming home dinner: I want corn. I want good, loving Pennsylvania corn on the cob and most of all I want to shuck it myself. Everything else about the meal from my perspective is rather unimportant, althought ribs might be nice and some of my mama's mashed Poh-tä-toes! I can't wait to re-arrange my room, and do something in our backyard. I can't wait to see my puppy-dogs and play with them!!!
      but in the mean time I have to pack and plan and make lists of things I still need to do! Have a hoppin' Harry Potter weekend!


      "... gimme dem chocolate Frogs, every flavor beans,got my permission slip signed, going to Hogsmeade. The Pheonix gives the orders at platform 9 3/4 and after dinner we're gettin' sorted an' I hope I'm GryffinDOR. AWWYEAh: Hufflepuff  know what's up: let me see you gettin' nasty wit yo Pumpkin Juice Cup with your Pumpkin Juice Cup.All these muggles all around me they be actin' like they drunk!"

The redhead has had a fantastic Independence Day so far.

And it is not just because today I handed in my last assignment for NWT (Naturwissenschaft und Technik), which is not exactly my favorite subject.
OHH No.
You see my lovely audience, yesterday I said to myself: "DENI ANNE POOPY-PANTIES TOBIN," (yes this in how I speak to myself in my head) I said,"Tomorrow is the fourth of July! What are you going to do? You can't just go to school like normal!". So I decided then and there that I was going to dress funny so that I looked like an awful stereotype of an American. But of course, that could not work out because I do not possess a super huge cowboy hat at the moment (and it was to late to order one on Amazon), nor do I have a Texan accent..... so that option was sadly extinguished. I asked my Host Family if they had any ideas and bless my luck, my host parents, thanks to both their consecutive exchanges in the United States, both just happen to have each a huge American Flag lying around collecting dust in the cellar (because what the hell is a German supposed to do with an American Flag anyway?).
      So this morning, because I needed to do something obnoxious, I donned the flag happily about my shoulders, and Miss Captain America was born. Many did look funnily, and two of my three teachers asked me if the USA Women won yesterday or something, but of course my english teacher knew a second after he gave me a funny look that it was the 4th. On top of that my cape and Independence Day gave me the choice of what song we would sing in music class (to which my classmates muttered something along the lines of " I thought this was a day that celebrated Democracy?" and to which I have nothing to say except, do you celebrate your birthday with Democracy? XD), so of course I picked "Happy Ending by MIKA because, I mean.... that's EVERYONE's obvious Independence Day song choice! (sarcasm)
      Anyway I hope you guys have a great 4th of July with Hot Dogs and Marshmallows and too many fireworks! And Happy 235th Birthday USA! (:

The redhead can't think of a fantastic title for this post.

Did you miss me?
Well, my gingersnaps, I have been to Corsica and now, I am BACK!
We were there for two weeks in the Pfingstferien.(Pentecost vacation which her is two weeks. For those who do not know: Pentecost is the 50th (Penta = five) day after easter, it is a christian holiday that celebrates and commemorates the recieving of the Holy Spirit by the disciples)
Corsica has very big mountains, very spikey plants, and a very hot climate. The only way I survived their was by clogging my pores with more sunscreen that I can ever remember having to put on in one single vacation and sleeping with any possible windows as open as they would go to catch the lovely breeze of the beach. It was very beautiful: and definitely a strange exotic world from the view of a simple Pennsylvanian. We went hiking so many times and for hours and then swimming in the ocean or one of the fresh mountain streams that are overly-abundant. If you are going to go to Corsica, just please note (if you shall be driving on the island which I guarantee you probably are at some point) that the roads are basically all built onto the sidesof mountains, something that at first sounds pretty but in the end is just VERY narrow, and windy and at times a little scary, in other words, if you are easily car sick DO NOT sit in the backseat of the vehicle or, if it cannotbe avioded, take turns with the person riding shotgun. Also: please be careful of the cattle. Especially around mountain paths and such like that there are a LOT of stray goats, pigs, and/or cows! Don't hit them and go slowly around curves!
Anyway, it was pretty, and the Crousants were excellent considering it is technically a part of France!
In other news I have a 2/3 on my very last German test! (much better that the 3/4 on the one before and best in German so far) I will be ending the year, I believe in pretty good standing in all my subjects apart from Math and NWT...and Music... but I think everything else is great and I am fine with it, I mean I can't exactly change anything now anyway so, yeah.
Apart from that I also am going to Altstadtfest today! Altsstadtfest (Old City Festival?) is in Waiblingen. All my class is going to it and we're going rock it out. It should be really fun!
AND YO. The Women's World Cup is rocking so far: The USA is leading their first round group, having won their last game against North Korea 2 to 0 and are going to be in the first WWC game (on Saturday) that has completely sold out that is two completely foreign teams. (WOO!) I'm so proud of my team and I know we're gonna kick boo-tay!
Anyway, love you all, sorry I've been MIA for a while (sheepish grin)

The redhead is going to write about a favorite poet of her's.

Shel Silverstine has been turning ourimaginations upside-down and inside out since our first days in the school library,since our first days of storytime before bed. The Missing Peice, The Giving Tree, or just silly poems such as Backward Bill--teaching us and making us see things not the way theyare but the way they could be. Because of him and Dr. Seuss and so many other children's writers we learned at that age that words are not just for communication: Words a toys that one can use for almost anything and that you never grow out of. Words are bridges and blocks and musical instruments and there is no limit to them. They extend for miles in every language and because we created the languages, we can always make new ones.

"Listen to the MUSTN'Ts, child,
Listen tot he DON'Ts,
Listen to the SHOULDN'Ts,
The IMPOSSIBLEs, the WON'Ts
Listen to the NEVER HAVEs
then listen close to me--
ANYTHING can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be."
-Shel Silverstine

So thank you: You are one thing in my life that I would be completely different without.

Dem Rothaarigen Mädel geht es sehr gut.

(The redhead is very well)

Why? Well let's see:
Though the redhead's soccer team did not win their big game last saturday, they fought hard and worked together as a team and tied in the bi-polar Weather. I call the weather bi-polar because it was really fracking hot and then at half time it began suddenly to rain, without warning; though this was fantastic, it was also very strange because as I say, it was really sunny and really hot. As far as I'm concerned we won because we fought as hard as we could and we could never have stopped the one goal that went in because after all it was a really dumb one. But as I say: we tied and because we tied and the team that was one place below us lost, we are in third place for the season, baby!! But every good part is accompanied by the bad: and because I am so proud of my girls here and I will be sad to leave them and miss them for sure next season.  : (
I have been planning my next month or so and have realized that I have ABSOLUTELY NO FREE WEEKENDS LEFT. Everything is so crazy. This next weekend my family and I are going to Korsika (a tiny island that belongs to France in the Middle Sea.....I mean Med. Sea!) and going to cover myself with WAY TOO MUCH SUNSCREEN because we know what happens to pale little Deni in sunny weather (and the reminder is still viewable on my poor wittle back), then the next weekend I will be going to this cool Medieval Fest in Waiblingen with a friend of mine and chill, the weekend after that I shall be off hiking with some friends, then the weekend after that in Kassel (and we will be watching HP7 part2 at midnight!!!!!!!!!!), and then my father comes. That's how close it is! My father will be here six weekends from now as my time ticks slowly away, down to the home-bound arrival that I both don't want and yet long for.
Now I will stop babbling at you because I got things to do and essays to writing and time to enjoy!
You should go enjoy yours!
Deni

The redhead has things to say.

But first: Happy June! and Happy Father's Day!
I shall be calling my father later tonight. (I wrote it on my arm so that I DO NOT forget.)
Today I awoke at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and had to rub my eyes a few times before I was convinced that I hadn't read the time wrong. I had been sleeping for 12 hours! I had no idea how I could have possibly done that, but I got up and changed and ate brunch, finding out that my host family were a little worried about me and how long I slept. But I'm fine, just tired.
Since this morning I think I have discovered why I slept so incredibly long this morning. It starts with a strange victory of yesterday that sent my goody-two-shoes, american concious into a perfuse sweat: I bought my very first beer in a super market. Alone and with my one money--and I was so proud of myself.
I bought two Beck lemon and lime beers to bring with me to a little grill party that our class was having at the YMCA center (here YMCA is a different bunch of four letters but I forget what they are: anyway, you get the point.). So I brought them with as well as much appreciated marshmallows (because what is a fire without smores?) and a few Rotwurst for myself. It was quite a nice evening, just sitting, talking, laughing. We ate cookies and played on the nearby playground a little to, because, let's face it, Swings are the BOMB.
We also started telling riddles at one point starting with this one which I will write in German and English because in German it sounds a little better:

Der blaue Punkt geht ins Wasser, der grüne Punkt geht in der Wiese, der rote Punkt geht ins Feuer. Wo geht der gelbe Punkt?
The blue dot goes in Water, the green dot goes in the grass field, the red dot goes in the fire. Where does the yellow dot go?
After a rather long time contemplating it in actually seriousness no one knew andwe asked our friend who told us to give us the answer. And he refused, something that made this particular riddle a Plague of the evening consuming almost everyone's thoughts. So we tried to distracted ourselves, we played other games like 20 questions, we ate the marshmallows. Eventually we started playing campfire songs which reminded me horribly of home but also reminded me how awesome my friends and my experiences are here. But finally the yellow dot was getting to be quite annoying because no one could solve it and noone would give the answer. We went on likethis for an hour until we decided to leave and were all quite annoyed that the answer was "Der gelbe Punkt geht auf die Nerven" (The yellow dot gets on your nerves.).
During the course of this nice little get together I managed to drink both beers, because I was thirsty and they were good, but I showed really no sign of it, because I ate things in between and drank them sparingly (as they were the only drinks I had with) the only sign of me drinking them at all were the empty bottles and, I suspect, my 12 hour sleep.
In other news we started reading "the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon in English and I think it is a fantastic book. If you havenot read it yet, I would highly reccomend it.
Anyway, thanks for reading and subscribing! Keep a smile on (:
Deni

The redhead sometimes really doesn't like being a redhead.

     And it is rare--but at those small rare moments I find slipping through the cracks of my pride I lose it.
I can barely ever hide from things physically because my hair is like a huge flame throwing eyes immediately to it, making old ladies stop me in the street to talk to me about how they had hair just like me when they were little and you know, I'm fine with that. Afterall, most of the time, I'm lost and when I'm not I always like compliments on my parents genes going around and I like sweet little old ladies (Who doesn't? They're adorable!).
     But this rare ginger hating moment stems not from my actual hair, oh no no no, it stems from the indications of my hair to my skin color, which is not JUST white bread, it is like bread bleached in cream cheese, it's like a blinding, flourescent-light-shoved-up-your-eye-socket white, a white that will never get darker no matter how many times I TRY to dance my sweet small-town behind like a black ghetto booty can or tan or rub dirt into my skin--well actually i can't say that one, I've never tried it--but you get the POINT! And I do not shame in my skin color or my race. I am far from it! I am white and nerdy and you couldn't do anything to changeme! I have never had, nor will ever want to be something I am not except for, maybe, in times of EXCRUCIATING PAIN. And let me tell you honey, not being able to sleep for three nights or painlessly wear a bra is wearing me down.
     I have a sunburn--a sunburn as red as the Kool-Aid man. A sunburn almost the whole length of my back, but, my dear readers, it FEELS like a football field. IT HURTS when it comes in contact with ANYTHING. It hurts to lean back, lay down, turn around, run, wear a bra, or even stand with good posture!
     And I understand the concept of sunscreen, I do, I swear, I even put some on on the said pool day that led to this disasterous yucky pain. I will admit however that, though I should be for the sake of my skin, I am NOT a sunscreen extremist. I am not one that thinks about it all that time or that has a stop watch for my effing suncream, because sunscreen is gross and oily and I hate having it on my skin and clogging my pores and I want to ENJOY MY LIFE not worry about things. And so, on this day, in this cranky sleepy mood, with this paper-skinned back, I am done. I HATE being a redhead and I HATE having pale skin, in this moment, for this one thing. I am done.
      In the future I will remember this and be more careful, I will sunscreen it up, and maybe make a dance that is called "Das Einschmieren Tanz". Sunburns make things complicated and painful and not fun. I don't want them, but being a sunscreen nazi doesn't make anything enjoyable either. I will try my very best and hopefully find the balance that makes my life the most convenient to enjoy. Thank you for reading my silly rant about myself and my superficial mistakes. Have a pleasant day and week.
Love, Deni

The redhead analyzes.

       To analyze: is to separate (a material or abstract entity) into constituent parts or elements; determine the elements or essential features of; (opposed to synthesize): to analyze an argument. (Thank you dictionary.com)

      How many things do we analyze? Well for starters we could analyze the word "analyze": The word analyze sprang from a latin word: Analysis. This word is still the noun in English. The spelling of the word "analyze" varies from British to American English where in the former the word is spelled with an "s" instead of the latter's "z", but they are both at the end pronounced "-ize" as in "size". And depsite all the good intentions meant in this spelling, it never takes away from the fact that the word "anal" is in it, and well... that's just hilarious. It's like saying the word "duty" you just can't help it, childishness is a necessity that no one can escape.

       Today we were analyzing poetry in German class, which seems surprisingly unpopular with almost all the students I have met so far in Germany. I'm not sure why that is, but I think it might have something to do with the abundance of poetry from the Baroque Period, Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and all the upity-dupity fancy language that is sometimes even spelled at least a little strangely and the rather less amount of more contemporary poetry that is easier and directer. I might be wrong about that, but at any rate we never really study slam poetry in class, so forget about that. I sort of understand the not wanting to think too deeply into words, it can create headaches if you aren't a wordy type of person. But I LOOOVEEE Poetry, and analyzing it. For me analyzing poetry is that feeling a scientist gets when they are finally allowed to pull something apart to see how it works.
         But poetry and literature aren't the only things that can be analyzed-- what about a situation? Like for instance how I should have probably better analyzed my situation while I was at the Stetten pool on Wednesday and immediately applied sunscreen and done it every two hours, so that I would not have gotten huge cow splotches of tomato-red burn on my pale, papery skin in awkward formations. But alas, this type of analysis is not my most proficient: is it not that I cannot do it well, it is that I simply forget to do it sometimes or decide not to on a whim. On this particular afternoon I thought, "It can't be that bad, I will just wait a little while. I will put some on later, eventually, when I know I should, afterall the sun is warm and big and happy and I want to dose quietly in it's smiles." But God, who knew I should have been studying for Chemistry at that very moment because I had my test the very next day, handled fate how he felt, on his whims and left me for days unable to sleep comfortably due to the awful pains upon the collision of anything with my skin.
            Or how about scientific anaylsis? I have only one solid problem with scientific analysis, I do not speak scientist, I speak DENI ANNE, a language that is simple and sweet and loud and has no real boundaries of politeness. For example: Why the hell should I have to say " feces" or "fecal matter" when I could just say "poop"? I mean seriously? Are you uncomfortable with the word "poop" Mr. Biologist? Then why the hell are you trying to everything harder than it is!? I swear if I am ever a biology teacher (unlikely) I will NEVER say fecal matter or feces, I will say poop, because then everyone's on the same page and no one need get uncomfortable about such words! Same with sex, "intercourse"? REALLY?
             Or you could analyze further that it seems to be part of the American culture to shut out and make uncomfortable and unacceptable everything normal and natural about our bodies and our processes. And I don't know maybe it's me, but undressing around other people in the US always seems unusually awkward in comparison with here. Not just at Locker Rooms, I mean, even at sleepovers!!!  I have never had a public shower in the US, but here, I take one after almost ever soccer game we have. Even discussing such things is awkward when you make it that way. But why?
              WELL I HAVE NO CLUE! I'm done with analyzing for now, you can analyze further in the commments if you want.
Have a happy weekend and summer for those of you in America who now have the whole summer off (who I am angry at)!!!!!

<3 

The redhead freestylin'.

    Where stone towers in wild spikes into heaven like a bread knife, the clouds sticking between it's wobbly teeth. Where your feet carry you too fast and your eyes never have enough time to really see and the steep slopes grumble their morning mishaps into hiking boot souls; the grass sighing contentedly.
     This is where I see everything, where I've found a second home: a world where valleys roll out like dough colored alive and vineyards spike the wild too-tall trees. This world here has wrinkled eyes, and knowing hands that see the way that life just spans... forever. And the things I tend to think at times like these are how hard it will be to please my two-tongued soul: for every tongue comes with slight differences in taste.
     Germany spoils me like a clueless child, the (grand)fatherland with kisses and tones so mild, love so wild, that being ripped from it's soil may cripple me a while.
     You see, I just want both with all of the people, the language, the food. But then again together, were neither the same--it would be a rude immitation without the same name.
     And I love the US, believe me, I do. I often sing undertone of red, white, and blue. My sweet apple pie promise, a silly illogical world, it needs some help, maybe, but you gotta love it's twirling heart, swinging in open circles and looking at the sky, just wants to get dizzy, never meant to lie. It is warm and big, and proud, big mouth too--it's thinking for the good, it tries to sing on the right key, and it's not always right on but eventually, I believe it will find that with practice.
      I love these two places, miles apart. Both homes, both beautiful, both made with the hands from the heart.

The redhead had her math test today.

    And as far as i can tellit went rather well, I think it was my best Math test so far. (YAY!)
    But besides math things have been hopin'. I've been stressin' about testin' lately, but ya know, testing ain't so bad when it's over... then I can fall onmy backside and enjoy the sun for three seconds until the next one curls up around my spine when I wasn't looking.
     But I got over the big ones that were to happen directly after the spring break, so I am rather satisfied.
     Today for me was tiring but also a very good day. We had Gym after Math (and just if you didn't know how badly I can no longer speak english, just notice how I keep randomly capitalizing my nouns... : P). We worked on the long jump and then after did this awful sprinting exercise that only three people in the class completely finished. I was the last one that was made to leave, but after that I was done, I was tired, I had an energy level of zero point zero zero. Somehow I just managed to slump through the geography period to lunch, but we also went to the bakery much closer to the school than our normal bakery even though it is more expensive because none of us to go further to be honest. We sat for our lunch hour in the quad throwing bits of bread in the pond and watching the fish devour them in crazy ripples like iron shavings being sucked to a powerful magnet. We talked and looked at the pictures in the clouds or lay quietly, almost asleep. We named ourselves the queens of grass or flowers. It was chill.
      Aftersuch a good lunch break returning to the dreary building was like being unwillingly swallowed by a very unpleasantly yucky slimy thing. Biology was not such a big help in distinguishing this metaphor either, inthe fiveminute break I nearly fell asleep on Caro's chair while she talked to Amelie. I felt like a drift dust mote, I just needed a little corner to float to, to fall in to, to be forgotten.
      In other news, shout out to Löki Gale Tobin who I believe should now be visiting home: I love you, hope you have a great time in the good old US of A and I would also like to express my complete surprise at the victory of Azerbaijan in the Eurovision competition.... it was a little strange. (:
Have a great week!

The redhead has been thinking about the research.

This is the internet. If you are reading this, you are on it, you are a part of it, giving and taking. The internet is a new form of media, bursting from socks and hats and hidden places we never knew were there.
    Good, now, with that in mind, in elementary school I learned how to use a library. We had to learn the Dewy Decimal System. We played a game of it, running from the bookshelves to the card catalog, the first to find all the books on the list and have it checked by the teacher won. I still remember my elementary school library, the tables, each with eight chairs, the shelves at front were the fiction section, Harry Potter always hovering behind the librarians right leg as she toldus stories. The books about mythology (a very small collection that I read very quickly) was at the other end of the library and around the corner, the biographies in the back. I could probably go in there and still know exactly about it all, if it hasn't been changed around (which i'm sure it has been).
     I remember once we had to do these presentations about animals and everyone was assigned an animal. Everyone wanted to do the presentation on a cheetah or lion, I wanted to do mine on the black bear, but somebody else pciked it first and I cried. I got howler monkey instead, which was actually ok. We had to learn about them in the library using the books and then talk about it in front of the class with a special puppet that the teacher had for each person to use. Before I left the fifth grade to go to the BIG SCARY MIDDLE SCHOOL, I was allowed to make a cover for my favorite book in the library-- I made one for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.... I wonder if it is still there.
    But we are off topic!
    I realized yesterday that I wouldn't know where to go for research today if there were no computers.... if i have a question I ask google or bing or ask.com (what was once ask jeeves, but as of now has no jeeves which saddens me thoroughly). I am so ridiculously dependent on computers that I can't even believe it. And I've been starting to feel guilty about it, like it is an awful habit, like I have no idea how to have fun or operate when it's not through this damn machine. I like day when I have been computer suspended, where I can go outside and breath air and move my body ormaybe just read a book, climba tree, talk to a PERSON.
    There are obvious benefits to the internet and computers of course, it is now easierto get information than ever before, but also makes it easier to get false information than ever before instead of the right stuff. The internet is democratic with voices spewing everywhere, but if the information that they recieve in the first place is wrong, how are wesupposed to have any valid opinions or words? How are we supposed to act correctly? Everyone seems to be running away with technology! Even books are being digitalized! And I ask myself what happened to paper and pencils? What happened to a bibliography that you slaved over for hours writing out by hand?
     But overrall I do love the internet, the internet makes communicating across an oceanmuch easier, makes communication in general much easier. Love andmiss you all at home, hope you have a great week!
Deni

The redhead isn't sure what she thinks.

    Where do we get our opinions from?
    Well, I think that we get our opinions from our own beliefs and feelings and knowledge, but our opinions are also very heavily influenced by our parents and our friends-- people we look up to, people we believe in. And this is the partisanship of humanity: Humans are trusting. Humans (for the most part) want to trust, want to believe everything, want the world to be unlying and pure and pretty and true (and at least at the beginning they believe that it will be). Who wants a fake world? Life is not made of paper and plastic lies held up with toothpicks.
    But, how do we know anything is true? How do we even know that when we sit down to watch the news, that things will be true? Well, we don't, not entirely. We can never be completely sure. Because though people like to trust, people also like to use that trust, to corrupt the trust.
     I trust in my family, and my friends. I trust in myself. andin this trust and this influence they have on me, I tend to see things the way that they do. I tend to like eating seafood. I tend to like wearing converse sneakers. I like to make up silly words. I tend to be of a more politically liberal mind. And I don't know if I would do those things, would be this same person that likes seafood if it weren't for them, because they are a part of me and I trust them and their judgement.
       Being seperated from them and their opinions, and being suddenly in an entirely different country gives you different people to trust, different opinions to draw on, and different eyes to see through.
      And here's the thing. If I were in America at the time that Osama Bin Laden died, with my friends, my family, and all the people who's eyes are easy for me to see out of, I would have high-hived someone, I would have probably whooped. Awesome! This dude, who killed thousands of people that one day that I was in first grade and ruined storytime is FINALLY dead. That guy who I can only think of with the undertones of kindergarten memories turned sour: sitting on the bus next to my dosing father as our class took a trip to New York City, my first trip, and I craned my neck to see those two ginormous buildings far in the distance. They were bigger than big bird, they were taller than my dad times five thousand, but they were just dominos we stacked on one another, and another, and another. They fall just as easily. And the sound of his name has meant nothing to me than a New York City I barely knew before it came crashing to it's knees. A name I have heard since my childhood as frequently, or perhaps more frequently than Bugs Bunny. A name that order the death of thousands of innocent, unaware Americans who just on their way to work, to get money, to feed their family, to live their life.
        But here, I'm not so sure. Here we talk more abouthow he wasn't armed, how he was with his own family, living peacefully in a house in a country that America has no (or should not have) power over to just seize residents and kill them point blank. They talk about how no one really wanted him anymore anyway, how he wasn't hurting anything or anyone. they talk about how his wife ran at the man holding the gun shielding her husband and was accidentally shot in the leg. And I wonder what she said to them in her language, if she pleaded that they let him go, that she loved him, if they understood her at all. I wonder what his children thought as they shot him, if later in life they will always remember that day. I don't know. And neither does any one else really. No one cared to ask.
          Is freedom what the USA stands for? Freedom for them to carry their revenge thousands of miles to a country they have no place to be in, let alone give orders in. And....
 I don't know what to think.

But whatever happens, if we tell them that they need to take the hatred off their shoulders, that means that we must do the same.

The redhead is SO TIRED.

           There is a part of your brain called the Brain Stem! It runs from the thalmus to the spinal chord (No idea where the thalmus is? Click the word Brain Stem in the line above to see a picture of the brain!) and has three little tiny pieces that, despite their physical size, are hugely enormously important to the operation of vital functions of the body! The three peices are the Pons (latin for bridge), the Reticular Formation, and the Medulla.
            The Pons is the bridge between the two halves of that silly brain of yours, without it you wouldn't be able to understand yourself, let alone the world around you!
            The Medulla is the bottom part of the Brain Stem, closest to the Spinal Chord, and makes sure your body does things like breathe, and also that your hearts beats, your blood pressure stays stable, and regulates wakefulness so that you don't just randomly fall asleep in the midst of everyday activities (because that would be embarrassing).
            And finally we come to the little peice between the Medulla and the Pons called the Reticular Formation! This little worker sorts the information sent to your brain for the important stuff that needs to be passed on to the Thalmus as well as managing your digestion, your blood circulation, your patterns in sleep, your attentiveness, and arousal (Growwwll :). Just gotta say, that is a pretty damn funny combination of functions to be squashed all together in one small peice of your brain.
             But anyway the reason we are talking about this at all is because this part of the brain (the Reticular formation) is also the same one that scientist believe is why we yawn! Basically, if your little information sorter starts getting bored because he's not recieving enough information to sort he just goes all "your are getting verrrrrrrrrry sleeeeeeeeepppyyyyy" and you yawn.
              Other funny facts: There has been an observed relationship between errections and yawning (probably because both actions are managed in the same tiny section of the brain), it has also been noted that castrated animals yawnless frequently than uncastrated! There also seems to be a connection between them since an errection is a reaction that through stimulus is functionally independent-- it just happens when this or that happens, spontaneously--and well, so does yawning. When another person yawns across the room you yawn too most of the time! It's contageous!
               There was once a woman hospitalized formonths because of "relentless yawning". She would yawn eight times every minute, something that seriously disturbed her breathing pattern, but because one deep yawn can supply about all the alveoli (part in the lungs that takes in oxygen to your blood!) with the oxygen they need this condition was not incredibly deadly, just, as I imagine, super annoying and fascinating!
               In your cheek there is a concentration of mutiple veins so that when you yawn the the muscles in your cheek that stretch effect the circulation so that more blood is available for oxygenating!!!
               (:

(I got my information from these websites: http://www.baillement.com/recherche/askenazy_reticular.html
http://neurons.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/the-brain-stem-pons-medulla-reticular-formation/ )

The redhead's Mommy is no longer in Europe.

      I've been ignoring you my lovely blog. i've been ignoring you because of the physical presence of my mother in Germany. In this time we traveled together to meet distant family, see Munich, and spend time of course in Stuttgart! We spent most of her time here as well with my oma and my aunt.
       And I have learned lots of things, I've found lots of answers and more questions. The only thing that was slightly dissappointing was that during the whole time my mother nor my oma or aunt met none of my friends my age. I was planning to bring her to a soccer game but learned too late that it was an away game and I had no way of transporting us there (I thought it was a home game!). It's too bad, but then I guess some of my german friends will just have to come visit me in America (I'm not kidding when I say that I would gladly take an exchange student next year, both my sisters are grown up and our house is empty!).
       Some of the funniest moments include our visit in Munich at the Hofbräuhaus (which if you didn't know is one of the freakin' most famous beer houses in the world) where I had a light Weißbier in one of the ginormous Munich beer cups and was a wee bit tipsy (for the first time, in front of my MOM). They sure thought it was funny.
        We also noted the how every single goddamn Banhhof in Germany has the exact same billboards featuring the same two new types of ice cream that were themed with the tragic stories of Dr. Schiwago and Gone with the Wind (click on each respectively to see this lovely ice cream) saying that you could buy these ice creams and finally have a "happy ending" to the stories... or something along those lines. Anyway, my aunt became very curious as to how it tasted after we saw thesame billboards five bajillion times and then in turn determined that she needed to try this ice cream and have her happy ending (oh advertising, how effective you are at times). So we searched for it, not very actively until the last few days, when we finally found our happy ending in the Rommelshausen Edeka and brought it home to devour, and oh did we devour. Between the six of us (Myself, mom, aunt, oma, Christian, and Katerina) we finished both containers because advertisement isn't the only thing that makes a product good, so does it's yummified- ness. It was pretty great.
        We had a great week, packed and happy and eastery. Chocolately above all. Jesus was a pretty cool guy with some cool ideas (my best friend often likes to call him "the first hippie") but nomatter what you call him, or ifyou worship him or not, you gotta admit-- he was a pretty selfless guy convincing a ginormous bunny to hop around for miles a few days after the anniversary of his death and distribute chocolate to the people of the world. From me, thanks Dude-- your the rockin'est.

The redhead needs to have a serious talk with her country.

So here goes:

      Dear American Public,
              DONALD TRUMP? Are you KIDDING ME? May I have any documentation that could possibly prove your sanity at any level? I understand, politicians can be very dramatic clowns, but a tv-celebrity millionaire is a bit much, don't you think? I looked at what he has to say (which hurt my eyes to read/watch, but was the fair, bi-partisan way and he said on the Today show,"The world laughs at us, they won't be laughing if I'm president."
.............
               Really? Really? You don't think they will be? NOOOO, I mean how on earth could they laugh at the USA after they have elected a tv-show millionaire celebrity with the number one show on NBC, who is really just doing this stunt to boost his ratings (I hope)?! I could never see that, could you?
               Yes, america, yes I'm pretty sure EVERYONE would be laughing. Ha, and my host family was scared about you electing another Bush, oh pleeeeeaaaase, they didn't give you enough slack, when is everyon going to realize that America is sooooo much more creative than that.
                But on a serious note, this is a plea from a tree-hugging sissy liberal to the beautiful country that I came from and I love: if you care for America, if you love America, if you want America to live a long, healthy life, at the very least, do not even fathom such a revulting idea as to elect this man. (Note that I can't even manage to put the word "vote" and this man's name in the same sentence because it causes me physical pain.)
       Concerned for your health and hoping you are getting better,
Deni
 PS: I have more serious messages coming your way very soon.

The redhead cleaned her room partially on sunday...

...but the results of this "cleaning" that took placed have not last two days.... or at least, not very well.
I think I might have to change my living habits....
     You might be asking yourself, "Deni? Room cleaning? Why?"(... afterall, it is a rare occurance) But to that I would have nothing to say but "TOMORROW IS WEDNESDAY!" Why is Wednesday improtant again? OH RIGHT, Deni's mommy comes on Wednesday the 20th of April in Stuttgart Airport!!!
      (HAPPINESS!)
       So Yes, Deni has to face up to the sloppiness of her existence-- and who knows? Maybe in the next few hours I will learn a good enough concealing charm to make everything seem tolerably liveable!
       In other words the Easter Break started today (YIPEEE!) after a schoolday and a field trip to the Rosenburg Museum in Stuttgart (which was rather lovely, despite my cravings to fresh air and sweet summer heat that was readily available outside the building.), I was free..... I went home, I read and finished "To Kill a Mockingbird", which was quite a lovely book, sat outside, and juggled. The most eventful moment of the day was probably when Janne (my host family baby sis) decided it would be fun to choke on a peice of Maultasche!! (EEK!) She is now fine, but at the time it twas of course rather scary. Luckily, however, every person within this house can do the baby Heimlich Maneuver!! Which just goes to show you how really freaking important it is to learn these things when you have a baby. Trust me, it the best idea ever.
       But of course, being the baby she is, janne cried a little, but afterwards was immediately hungry, which I wouldn't be, and wasn't the one time that I did nearly choke to death. She's smiley and not even sore in the throat. She is now sleeping and I am the man with the monitor (that is to say, the young lady with the babysitting responsibility) which is just fine with me because we just borrowed the new DVD of the first part of Harry Potter 7 from our neighbors and I can see it for the 3rd time! (:
        Shout outs to those of my lovely home that our currently in Disney World singing! And shout out to YOU, whoever you are, thanks for reading!

The redhead thinks it is very cold today...

... because, I mean, come on! it was almost like we were basking in summer. And now? I'm freezing!
      I have a few things today, however, that warmed me up considerably.
      The first is that I took my science test today and it wasn't soooo bad and it's out of the way. (If I am right, I believe we only have one left) the best part about studying was that I could do it with my class on the computer! Don't worry parents of the world, I know what you are thinking, "Oh, right, she was "studying" on the computer" but it's true! We have a closed group page for our class on facebook where we can discuss stuff and... I don't know if you've ever heard of etherpad, but it is the bomb! So *SIGH OF RELIEF* that's over, now I just have to study for my history test on monday and clean my room for my mother's arrival and everything should be fine.
      Other happy things warming me up this cool friday afternoon: The governor of Montana.
      Governor Brian Schweitzer, a democrat who last election suddenly found himself with a majority republican House and Senate, has registered a cattle-brand with the Department of Livestock. However, this brand, that leaves the word "VETO" clearly upon it's prey, is not headed for any animals, unless of course you count the the many "frivolous, unconstitutional," and public opinion contradictory bills, as he described them, that have suddenly landed upon his desk. On Wednesday he took the bills out, branding them before a large crowd with his new hot iron.
      And all I can say to that is... "Oh America, how I miss you."
      Your crazy people and your fantastic characters, your problems and your great ideas, this exchange has given me so many reasons to love you and hate you, but overall, the want to make you the best for the people who stand by you.

The redhead is impressed and stressed....

(OMG Rhymage!)
I am impressed with... YOU GUYS!
Here's the deal with this blog thing: This month is the most popular month for my blog since... well November. I have collected 154 views in the last 14 days! (craziness)
My audience is over all mostly from US but in the last week and during this month so far Germany is winning.... I guess my classmates are reading my blog.... which is silly, but makes me happy.
Other than that there appears to be quite a few people from Japan reading... which is also rather silly, but makes me happy too.

Now for the stressed/excited part:

1. 1. I have a science test tomorrow that I have spend most of the afternoon studying for and freaking out about, respectively.
2. 2. I have a History test on Monday that I'm not sure how much i should study for because, dude, last time i learned everything and used NONE of it because our History teacher just made us read a text and answer four questions about it (<---silly + pointless).
3. 3. I am starting on Saturday in a home game... ON THE FIELD. I'll be playing the left wing! (I'm so excited but also scared that I will totally suck...)
4. 4. MY MOTHER IS GOING TO BE ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, IN THIS COUNTRY, IN THIS HOUSE, BY MY SIDE IN FIVE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Internet, please tell me, I KNOW you are excited for me that I can FINALLY cuddle my mommy after MONTHS of seperation. I just can't wait to show her this little world that I live in. It is so funny to think that she knows nothing of a world that is so familiar and homey to me. Just a few hours until the weekend! (:

The redhead has been brainwashed...

        I mean it in all seriousness. You know that post I did a few days ago about earworms?..... Well this is worse. If you are a parent or an onkel or aunt or older brother or sister you will know what I am talking about when I say:
             I HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED BY BABY BOOKS.
        You know what I'm talking about. That one or those couple books that your child/little sibling loves. the one you have read 6324593874596230475092834759734 times a billion and counting to them?
         The brainwashing began in my earlier days as an aunt in which I loved to read to nephew. It was a distraction technique and became a loving short colorfully drawn literature. I would sit on the floor, legs crossed as he plopped down comfortably in the crevice between my knees and because this tiny baby boy (that I miss so dearly as I describe this) was still so tiny, I would set my head over his shoulder and whisper the secret codes that built stories into his smiling ears. He would always sit in awe throughout the story (unless it was boring in which case he would throw it on the floor or skip to the last page as I attempted to read) and then clamber up to retrieve another vollume from his tiny book shelf.
          The first book I memorized was "I am a Bunny" by Ole Risom (which is a very funny name). It began "I am a bunny. My name is Nicholas. I live in a hollow tree. (next page) In the spring I like to pick flowers. (next page) I chase the butterflies and the butterflies chase me." and so on. Once was never enough for this book. Oh no. In fact the story was so inexhaustable that I must have read to him no less than 5 times within each sitting, over and over. Elijah read many books this way and as he grew older they changed and he would point and began to say the words. But around this stage I left leaving him with a small stuffed black bear with a brown nose that was later dubbed "Deni-bear".
          But in losing my nephew in physical presence, I got a hostfamily baby sister. Reading to her was barely different aside from the fact that the majrity of the books were in German. And it was with me again. In the midst of the day i will find myself needing to tell someone about Bär und Tiger und die Tigerente (Bear and Tiger and the Tiger-duck, the characters of a popular children's author Janosch) or I will recite "Wenn kleine Tiere wütend sind" (when small animals are angry) to a passerby. There is, however, a strange difference between our fairy tales at home and the fairy tales of Janosch and, in discussing it with my host family, we have found no other explanation but that the great artist Janosch was most likely high when he wrote these books 
             I'll give you an example. My host family sister's favorite book to read with me is called "Wie der Tiger lesen lernt" (How Tiger learns to Read) (You can click here to read the original text with me in german). At a certain point in this book we always read a part that in english is something like:

"My father is a clown, but my father says 'I am a bear, I am a bear!' and my mother calls 'Come, let's play bear and tiger', my father is the bear, my mother is the tiger.... My mother calls 'I am a Tiger, I am a Tiger.' and springs upon my father. My father laughs and growls like a bear. Then my mother starts to sing!"

           For the life of me I don't understand how any of the book fits together at all, but I mean, whatever maybe you have to be high to understand perfectly.
           Or how about "Das große Vorlesebuch" (The Big Book for reading aloud) in which the first short story is about a man who calls himself Birdman and catches bird because he is jealous of their freedom and ability to fly. In the last few paragraphs of the story he is granted a wish by the the King of the birds to be a bird and, because he wasn't specific enough, he is turned into a penguin. Then, because the Birdman lives in the desert and penguins need fish to survive, he dies and then years later the scientists find proof that there was once water in the desert because a penguin had lived there. AND THAT IS IT! He just dies and is (false) scientific data! Like, what the heck?!
             There are of course normal german kids books, it just seems that Janosch has pretty strange ones sometimes, no idea. but anyway, I love you guys, hope you don't stumble upon any brainwashing books (or do I? (do blogs count?))!!!
              THE ADVENTURES OF THE REDHEAD TO BE CONTINUED............

The redhead would have posted yesterday but....

           But yesterday the internet wasn't working in our house AT ALL. I think that Christian, my host dad, could have fixed but I also think that my host family were secretly trying to starve me of my internet drug because they felt it was unhealthy.... which, well... I understand. I do have a problem.
            The last few days the weather here has been intoxicatingly summer-like. It makes me wantto break free of school... it makes me feel all hippie-like. I mean, WHY IS THE MAN HOLDING US BACK FROM OUR MOTHER EARTH, MAAAANNN? However today it is rainy and coldish which is bad for my mood but good for my productivity (I have a science test on friday (bleckkk)).
            As far as new things go, there aren't many. I've been chilling with friends and going to school. I'm excited for Saturday this week because supposedly I will be starting!!! We're gonna kick butt.
            I also volunteered in history class on monday. We're talking about Galileo and the progression of science in the MiddleAges/Renaissance periods and how the church wasn't too thrilled about it. At any rate, we read this text written by Galileo (well, written by him in his language which was then translated in german) about how Science was not the opponent to Religion but in fact the opposite.
            Humans have always and will always be lookeding for answers and meaning in everything. In result of this human trait we first had Religions, stories and ideas of how the world worked and why things were the way that they were. Giving the powers of the universe to more human-like beings to relate ourselves to nature and the earth more effectively such as Zeus in greek Mythology (or Jupiter in Roman) who controlled weather with his thunder and lightning bolts. It gave a purpose to storms (Zeus is angry and wants to punish us). Religion and Mythology (the way I view it) were the foregrounds for science, they were imaginative theories about everything, the only problem was that there was no real "proof" for these claims and ideas except for maybe word of mouth that some distant relative had seen it happen or that the gods were so mighty or so humble that they would never show themselves to mortals for fear of this and that. When science arrived on the scene it was a new way to discover things so that there was also proof!
             So we read this text right? And my history teacher looks up at us all and asks us if Galileo was a religious person. Noone was paying any perticular attention to anything except theirown doodles and books and eraser soccer, so I was like,"Hey, what the heck? why not?" I raised my hand......is that proper english? Somehow "raised" sounds weird... ok I put up my hand (how's that?). When he called on my I explained in the best way I could that I thought Galileo thought himself religious in a different way from the church but also kind of the same, because the church worshipped God and God made nature and science came from facts about nature, so in that sense God was the same as science. I think Galileo was right. He also seemed really cool. Too bad the church didn't think so.
            So finally after I said all this and was finished my history teacher was kind of astounded and then complimented me on my answer saying that it must of been rather hard for me to come up with with my lingual disadvantages, which I know he meant nicely and encouragingly but I couldn't help feeling a tad bit annoyed at the way he said it, I mean, I'm not dumb, I just can't always express myself the way I would like to.
            AGHH. I really should go study or else I won't get a good grade on this test! (GR)
            My Mommy will be here in 8 days! GAH! I so excited (:

The redhead has an earworm....

Ohrwurm. This was one of the first words I learned upon coming to Germany, mainly because I have songs stuck in my head SOOO OFTEN. It can be fun though. What I love is when they take you one strange trains of thought.
      For example: tonight I had "Yellow Submarine" stuck in my head by the Beatles (uhmm.. DUH) andI'm perplexed as to how one can have neighbors in a land of submarines... and also how they knew the sky was blue from underwater... and how many people own yellow submarines just because of that song, I mean, if I owned a submarine, it would be yellow.....
       What I really hate though is when you only know a small tiny little peice of a song but it is so addictive that you revisit it and revisit it anyway. Like in this song by Kina Granis, I have had nothing but the "I will love youuuu, I will love youuuu, I will love you" stuck in my head all day with nothing else to conjure from the depths of my memory. So then I just pick a different song to distract me that I at least know all the lyrics too. Maybe "somewhere over the rainbow" or "Ghost of a Corporate Future" by Regina Spektor.
        The White Stripes or Kimya Dawson are also always nice to get stuck in your head. Or how about German rap? Peter Fox is good, Prinz Pi sometimes too. maybe Die Atzen.
        Either way it's all good when one is in a certain mood and needs a song, and it can always annoy when it's all you can think.

The redhead wore a sundress to school today.

Because here it is about 24 degrees celsius, which is rather warm, almost like, summer warm!
       I know America, you are severely jealous, but I mean, you guys get out of school for summer vacation two months earlier, so don't be whinin'. (at this moment I am sticking my tongue out at you)....
        I'm usually not a big proponent of dresses of any sort, or at least I wasn't until I learned the secret of wearing dresses comfortably from my best friend: wear a pair of shorts underneath! Wear very short shorts and you can do whatever you want without worrying about your knickers (heehee, british word) showing! Plus you can come up and flash people you know who are very proper so that they think you are actually going to flash them with yo underwear, however in actuallity it's not a big deal. It's funny.
          But even with this rule I have strict reservations to dresses:
                          1. I must be able to move freely in it.
                          2. It must be at least down to the tops of my knees.
                          3. I do not wear high heels, so it needs to be a dress that goes with comfotable footwear.
       I don't really wear dresses. I refused to when I was little, but then again I also screamed my lungs out when someone tried to give me pony tails, and I always pretended I was a boy named Denis.... I hated barbies to the point of intense violence towards them (such as decapitation) and I hung with boys, I played hot wheels and lego. I wanted to be big and strong and fearless, and, not that I couldn't have done that as a girl but it always seemed to me that at least in books and TV shows and Movies the boys were strong and the hero and saves the girl and falls in love with her. I just didn't want to be girly, and dresses were girly and girly seemed to mean weak in those days.
       The main reason I really hated dresses for a while though, was because of the first time I ever wore a dress of my own free will.
       I think I was probably around the age of six. The dress in question was a tank-top purple dress that was covered in various smiley faces. It was really hot outside, mid-summer. My mom was coming home soon and I decided I would dawn a dress for her afternoon home coming. It wasn't a particularly special day, I just felt like it. I went out with my sisters in our backyard, waiting, and as I waltzed out to the edge of our steep orchard hill a bee landed on my hand and stung me. It took effect immediately I began crying and yelling because, well, it hurt. We got into the house and put some ice on it but my hand was swelling to a Hagrid-worthy size (Harry Potter reference Hagrid is a half giant), an unsafe size. All I remember is that everyone was freaking out and someone called emergency people and they came and treated my and I was better. But I learned that day that I was allergic to bees, something that I grew out of, but was very scary in my early days at recess.
        I guess my brain just connected dresses and deadly bee stings, but I grew out of that too now. in a dress I can be just as strong as I want to be and happy and jumpy and independent. YAY!
Have a smiley weekend!
Deni

The redhead wonders what feminism is.

I know the original meaning and definition that feminism has. A feminist supposedly believes in gender equality, they believe that regardless gender or sex (there is a difference between the two) all people should be treated equally!
         Under this definition I am a feminist.
         My classmates probably saw this title and rolled their eyes, "Great, she's talking about feminism again."
         Just wait, be patient, it gets interesting I promise.
         I should start by mentioning that not all people who refer to themselves as feminists do not act as feminists. These people do not actually act for the equality of sex or gender, but want and work for matriarchy (the opposite of patriarchy or a society where women "rule" over men). They treat feminism as a revenge mechanism on the male population to equal out all those years of patriarchy that women had live through.
         This is not feminism nor was ever feminism, it is an extremism that cannot be tolerated. Two wrongs does not make a right, that is, revenge is ugly and perhaps worse than doing what was bad in the first place that suppposedly "deserves" this revenge, because those who put it into effect have seen and felt the original pain of the original state.
          When I was growing up, I was obnoxious. I was loud, and thought what I had to say was the most important. I was a kid, an only child taught that everyone loved and thought I was cute and funny and wanted to hear what I had to say, so I said it. I was selfish and proud and prejudice. Some might say today I am the same, obnoxious, annoyingly know-it-all. I will not say that I am not loud, or eager to share my opinion because as I am myself, I can be biased, however I would like to think in the last few years, if not the last few months in Germany I have learned better to listen. I used to be intolerant to undecideness towards feminism, I knew many a girl that did not want to say she was a feminist, I would bombard until they gave in, I would angrily glare at those who uttered sexist jokes against women, but laughed whole heartedly at those against men.... I was unrelenting, and incredibly hypocritical. Veerrry stubborn- I'm still very stubborn, but I understand the undecideness towards feminism. There are many women who are "feminists" and display it in an aggressive attack on men (perhaps I was one of them, in which case I apologize), who wants to be part of that?
          I like making sandwiches for my friends, for my family. Sometimes the people you love deserve a well-made, loved, and cared PB&J after the hard day of work. I would not blink before doing such a thing for someone I love. I have made sandwiches for men, and in the future I intend to as well. But then again the people I do make sandwiches for don't yell at me to "make them a sandwich, WOMAN, why aren't you in the kitchen?" or if they do it is always playfully intended and not maliciously. sometimes we just have to be a little less sensitive about things, breath in, breath out, live on.
          I don't mean shove things down peoples throats anymore, I shall never do it again. I do not want to fight a grown-up debate by whining and screaming and pushing and acting like a child that doesn't have their own way. It is crude and dumb and political, and I am not a politician, I am a person.
          Hope you guys had a great weekend! Here is it 24 degrees Celsius, which is actually rather hot. (Where did the new warm spring days go, it seems like we sprung from super cold to super hot!? Ick : P)

The redhead has some questions.

Recently I heard a few questions posed.
Interesting questions.
The first was: "What motivates you more, love or fear?"
      Now at first look, I would say love. Love for my family, for myself, for my world, and so I want to make a better life for all of them. Love is my motivation for my life in general. To meet people I can love and people who can love me. But isn't it the same?
      I love my family and because of that I fear that something might go wrong. I fear a bad life for them, for my friends, for me, because I love them. If someone put a gun to my friend's head, what motivates me to hurt that someone, to want him far away? It is love for my friend, it is fear that he would be gone.
      Love motivating the betterment you want for that love, the safety, the strength of the connection. Fear motivating the destruction of that which causes the fear or destroy the trgger inside yourself that makes you fear it. They are two entirely seperate entities that follow one another like dominos, if you have love, you have fear, if you have fear, you have love, and so I am motivated by both, as they come, often, together.

second: "What is the meaning of life?"
       To me, the meaning of life is to leave things behind that matter. To change things somehow, maybe just in a small way that changes life for someone else. But I feel that there is no general meaning of life, because meaning of life is relative to the life it is talking about, in other words, everyone has there own meaning of life that depends on what they believe it is. I might have a different one than you, you from him, him from her, and so on. We are every changing beings living in an ever changing environment and so through these conclusions the meaning of life is different like the people and places and takes on transformation like they do over years or seconds. What is yours?

The redhead enjoys strawberries!!!!!

So... first off, if you haven't noticed, my page has a new look! (If you haven't please get your eyes checked.)
The Spring is here, and if you live in Germany, and you were unsure about the whole "spring" thing yesterday, you know quite assuredly today. Today was NOT a spring day, no, no, today, was SUMMER DAY.
     So like any good little German-American I broke out the Birkenstocks and H&M jean shorts (:
     I bought strawberries and raisins and walked a little. I have a game today at 2. It will be a perfect day for something of that sort, my only problem being that I might actually need to use sunscreen today! (*Gasp*)
     In other important news, I am not sure if I have mentioned, but I AM SOOOO TOTALLY STOKED FOR THE WOMEN'S WORLD CUP!!!!!!! Today the USA Team is in Britain for a warm up match against the UK and this June/July the women's world cup will be hosted in good old, fantastically beautiful Germany! This is one of those things I can really bond and fight about with my soccer team, because of course, they can't accept the truth that the USA is gonna smoke every single one of those teams, I mean really, let's be honest.
      For my birthday I asked for nothing but a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and a USA Women's Soccer Jersey for the Frauen WM (Weltmeisterschaft=World Cup)! And I am still waiting anxiously to recieve this beautiful jersey my parents have sent me. It is not their fault, it just seems that piority mail goes really quickly from continent to continent but takes three weeks to get from Frankfurt to Stuttgart. This is 1) very annoying and 2) very expensive! If you ever send me things first of all, say it is a gift!! (or we have to pay extra to recieve it (if it's something expensive anyway)) Secondly never send priority mail, it takes so long anyway that it's not worth it.
     Hope you guys have a great weekend! And watch the soccer game today! SMILES (:
Deni

The redhead is a fan of babies.

....or Toddlers...or just kids...
      Why?
       Kids are very easy to connect with, especially here. Sometimes  I can't express myself properly in a conversation with an adult. I just... don't always have the vocabulary to vocalize my opions of my ideas, and I always try, but that never guarantees a connection. Kids are miles apart from adults. They are not especially interested in poltics or morals or huge important conversations. In fact, I at least as a child moaned at the thought of the news or a conversation where I had nothing to say. It was boring. It was like being forced to listen to the conversational equivalent of spinach... blechhh.
        To connect with a child, you have to smile at them, show them that you see them, maybe play a quiet peeking game, where you hide your face as if you are shy and look up every so often to see if they are looking at you and if they are to hide quickly. Children just want to play, they see everything as a giant sugar-coated possibility, they see the potential of things that adults would never think to contemplate. Like how a blanket is a cape that makes you suddenly a super hero, because really all you have to do to be a superhero is to believe that you are.
         Everytime I have met a child here I have always gotten on with them incredibly. All they want is attention, all I want a simple human connection. So I play, playing is simple. Playing does not really need words, it does not have defining rights and wrongs. When you are playing you cannot look stupid.
         And maybe that is why I love the sandbox, maybe that is why I build castles out of legos, and be a superhero. Because no matter what I do, no one will tell me "no", no one will laugh at me for doing something unusual, no one will realize that I "don't belong". We will play, and we will sing and stomp and smile and build and destroy and talk about colors we like and adventures we hope to go on.
        Quote of the Day: "Hi Deni, I want you to meet me at my house, ok, bye!" - Elijah Finn, my nephew on the other side of the puddle.

The redhead is not a fan of sore losers.

Today, my soccer team had a game against a team that had not lost yet the entire season. Notice I said "had". We won 2 to 1. Our team played excellently and everyone was on their game. After the two goals we made in the first half, however, the other team began getting very unnecessarily aggressive towards us. I was not in for five minutes in the first half when somebody had tripped me and I had a bloody knee.
     So we won, we were happy, we sang a song. "Wir sind schwarz und wir sind gelb. Wir sind die geilste Club der Welt. Wir sind schwarz und wir sind gelb. Wir sind die geilste club der Welt!" (We are black and we are yellow. We are coolest club in the world! x2) It's our theme song. Maybe it was mean, but at least we tried to shake hands with the other team after. We got to shake the coachs' hands and the hands of 6 girls from their huge team. The rest ignored us.
      This game was a home game, that means they changed and showered on our turf and before they left they decided that to show us just how bad they are at losing, and left the showers on. Jeeze. Thanks for the sportsmandship. Funny how that really would never happen where I live in America.
       Hope my team at home is doing well, heard you guys had your first game! Tell me how it was, who won? How are the new freshmen, etc.
Love <3
Deni

The redhead is currently yawning her face off.

What? Don't judge. Haven't you ever yawned so hard you felt like your face was gone?
I, regrettably, did not go to sleep as well as I would have liked to but the good news is that today is a Friday.
     In Germany, there is no such thing as TGIF (Thank goodness/God it's Friday) but everyone is always happy about the weekend and gladly express it.
     This week and last week I had barely any school because of Abi. Abi is the short version of "Abiture" which is this really big scary test that all German students take to finish Gymnasium. They are the German final exams, except, from my perspective they seem much scarier because the test last hours and hours. I heard from one of the girls that took the final exam for German class and she told that it would be for six 45 minute school periods. UGH. Could you imagine? But at least this week it was nice for me, leaving me with only one day of afternoon school in the last two weeks (SCORE!).
     Today in German class we got a book called "Am kürzeren End der Sonnenallee" (or "On the short side of Sun Alley"). It's about a boy living in east Berlin on a street named "Sonnenallee" which is a very long street but for some reason the very last little peice of it was cut through by the wall and this boy is stuck on the Soviet Union side. It's saitical and kind of funny. I like it so far. I read it until I fell asleep in the Green House today. The cactuses and I, you know, just chillin'.
     I'm baking cookies with a friend this weekend and it's also my MOMMY'S BIRTHDAYY!!
     I'm going to have to write her an email.
Hope you all are good and dandy. Many smiles.
Deni

The redhead contemplates Patriotism.

       Before I went across the super-sized puddle from the second state ever inducted into the union to Southern Germany, I could not have been decribed as very patriotic. I never really enjoyed saying the Pledge of Allegiance because it felt exclusive and cult-ish to me, especially as I grew older and out of elementary school where we all seemed so much more enthusiastic about everything. I felt a bit brainwashed by the amount of patriot jargon they injected into our glorious system of public education. As a child I loved my country, saw none of it's flaws and all of it's advantages and beauty. I had nothing to compare it to, I barely knew that there was any other place to be or to live.
      As adults grow into their "acquired tastes" or the things that in childhood you always categorized as "yuck" they also grow into criticism. They become more balanced in view (notice I said "more balanced" not "completely balanced") and see that it is not perfekt, it is not all sweet and colorful and sing-along. Some of the world is ugly. As I came to the rebelious stage of my life, I didn't really learn anything new, I mean I had had two rebelious teenage sisters. What I did do was begin confirming the exoctically wild claims that they as teenagers made and making my plan to change the world. Along with this came disparaging loss of hope in our government and all institutions.... the "MAN" if you will. (Please note that this phase of life took part in the term of George W. Bush and therefore was rather logical in that...) So patriotism was not the biggest on my list, in fact I kept hearing about places, other countries and continents where things were different and asking myself why we weren't like them.
      But as I arrived in Germany, I learned two things (well a lot more than that, but I learned two important things relative to the idea of patriotism) those were that I liked some things in Germany and some things I didn't liked. (revolutionary as a thought, I know) Germany was smaller, more city-like, their buildings are as tightly packed together as the people in the public buses are at 7 am! You can ride your bike to the store, you can freely go almost whenever you want, whenever you feel like it. Germany has bakeries, Germany has really kick ass board games, Germany has the German language!
       But sometimes, like those nights walking back from soccer, I miss things like the stars. The open heavens, one of the original natural wonders of the universe, winking at us every night, but the light pollution of Europe makes it hard to see those stars as well as one would from say, my three-acre backyard. And there were more. Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, the possibility of already being a learning driver, my mother's american pancakes on a Sunday morning! They are a connectedness that, despite some of their faults and stupidities, they are the smell, the taste, the familiarity of home. And that is why I am a patriot. Not because I love everything the United States has ever done, or will do. Patriotism is not about politics (although having Obama as a president is pretty rocking), patriotism is about home, about the people, about the food and love, and though I do love Germany and consider it, as of now especially, at least a second home, it comes only after the place I was born, the place I grew up, the place I now in it's mysteries and faults.

The redhead likes Mark Twain...

     I haven't actually ever read a book by Mark Twain, but I have read his critisim of the German Language and on one point he and I can agree whole heartedly: German is a very complicated language for an english-speaking person to learn. Like gender articles. I had and Mark Twain definitely had a problem with gender articles at first. I mean, why? Why does one need to categorize everything into it's own gender and section of the table? (Or maybe that's just my liberal mind seeing the German language as a metaphor for society....)
     But nevertheless, it can be annoying... what was even funnier (as Mark Twain also expressed in his critical peice "The Awful German Language" ) was that words like "Rock" (in english "skirt"), and "Uterus" (in english "uterus" (duh)) were masculine while the word for girl, "Mädchen", is neuter.....
     Or how about the fact that the word "sie" can stand for six different englisch words (as Mark Twain also pointed out). "Sie" can refer to "she", "her", "you" (polite form), "it", "they", or "them" in a sentence. Mark Twain went angrily on to say:

"Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger."

     Now, on this subject I tend to agree with sometimes being confused as to which meaning is a sentence is being used, but instead of seeing it as "language poverty" as he put it, I see it as a lovely guessing game, albeit, sometimes an annoying guessing game,  but either way, it is in no way an indication of poverty.
     But I noticed that Twain never turned the tables on his own english-speaking mind to that of a german-speaking one. For example, imagine an exchange student coming to America (or England, NZ, Aussie, whereever) and the student is suddenly being forced to learn (for the umpteenth time, I might add) about the reproductive system of the human. Then, this poor confused exchange student will be forced to learn that the canal between the uterus and the ovaries is not something logical, like say "Egg Canals" or "Egg Tubes" or something, but instead the simple "Fallopian Tubes". Why English? Why?
         (If you really want to know why you can click here to learn about a guy from Italy who supposedly "discovered them (because you know, it's not like they were there before....))
       In German the word for these magnificent Canals is "Eileiter" or "Egg Leader" (sort of), which apart from being logical always makes me think it means "Egg ladder" because the word "Leiter" can also mean "ladder", but enough gabble-di-goo. I only know these things because of my Biology class today, in which I learned about Codoms, the Period, and other controceptives to stop pregnancy, because in Germany they don't just tell you to abstainf rom sex. I must say the best part of the video was probably when the cheerful, couragous Boy with the 80's style haircut bought his comdoms at the local store and then threw they up and caught them again celebratorially with a cheesy smile. It was rather hilarious and made stay for afternoon school not so terrible as it normally is.
     Other than my day, I would strongly suggest reading "The Awful German Language" by Twain (which is linked above in the second paragraph) , though the title bothers me (because german is fantastic), it is quite funny to read and very well written in general.
     Have a pleasant day.

The redhead has learned shocking things.

Today, I learned that the German company Nutella is going to be sued by an American mother for being unhealthy.
....

What's that sound I hear? Oh, right, it is the sounds of me... BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST A HARD SURFACE REPEATEDLY.
Nutella, a CHOCOLATE spread, is UNHEALTHY? NAHH, really??!!
    My question for you all is, WHERE THE HELL DO THESE PEOPLE COME FROM? Why is it that the people who tend to do things like this always end up coming from America?
Answer choices:
a) These people are everywhere, the only difference is that people in America are more loud-mouthed.
b) New Jersey
c) These people are not entirely at fault, in fact, it is American society that teaches the American people from a young age that you can have anything you want and be anything you want with total disregard of others.

Alright, let's dissect.
a) Could be. There are uneducated, crazy people everywhere, every country has their share of dousche bags and dumbasses, that is balance of existence, without an opposite, things cannot exist. (It's the whole Yin-yang deal.) But on the other hand, it does seem that their are a lot more of these people in my good old homeland. This could attribute to the loud-mouthed tendencies of it's Natives or perhaos that everyone tends to assume Americans will do things like this so everyone pays more attention, or it is just simply true that their are in general more of these people in my country. Though I cannot exactly scientifically prove any of these completely.
b) Yup. (Nahh... I'm just kidding.... there are A LOT more dousche bags in Texas....) (dontkillmedontkillmedontkillme!)
c) DINGDINGDING. I believe this answer, though more annoyingly complex than blaming it all on Texas, has quite a lot more truth to it than many of the others. The American culture is one centered on the American Dream, a thought that was nice at first but in time can have repercussions.
When we think "American Dream", we think people who escape tyranny to come to the freedom and choice that is America where they shall live in the suburbs because they have a good paying job. We think of stories like Levi Strauss, the man who created the first pair of jeans in the old, wild west and became an insanely rich entrepreneur with his great idea. We think of having big things. Big houses filled with lots of kids, and big vehicles, limos, fancy stuff.
But America, let's have a reality check: How many of those people coming to America with the so called "American Dream" were ever happy victim to it's good repercussions? In fact, how many of those suffering from tyranny who came to your open friendly statements and arms and was actually admitted into and our country and accepted?
We need to begin realizing that we DO NOT own the world. We CANNOT have everything we want at the snap of our fingers and be living like we have because we have the "divine, sacred right of the American Dream". Someday, America needs to wake up from it's dreaming, because dreaming too long can eat one's life away and wanting something so badly that will most likely never occur is foolish. We cannot snap our fingers and recieve our life like a golden, certificate, we do not have royal blood lines that endowment is passed down into. In America, you have to look, work, you have to use your brain (*GASP*), in America you should know better than to sue a company for being unhealthy who's ingredients stand quite blatently upon the label. America should not spout excuses, it should change so that it must not tell them.

Das rothaariges Mädel zieht Sprachen lernen in Erwägung.

     Wenn Man in einer anderen Sprache zu sprechen lernt, befindet Man sich in einer komischen Welt inzwischen seine eigene Muttersprache und seine neue Sprache. Ich bin gerade da. Ich kann nicht perfekt Deutsch sprechen, nein, überhaupt nicht, aber jeden Tag geht es besser und jeden Tag probier ich mich zu verbessern. Ich kann nicht mehr. Nein, deutsch ist nicht das Problem. Das Problem jetzt ist Englisch.
      Englisch: Eine Sprache, die mich aufgezogen hat! Meine Englisch, jetzt entweder eine Mischung mit Deutsch oder ein leerer Raum, wo mein Gehirn sich nach ein Wort oder Zitat erstreckt und nichts findet. Es ist ein ungeheimliches Ereignis. Wie wenn Man etwas sucht, velleicht einen Schlüssel oder eine Uhr, nichts besonderes, und sieht es, weißt wo es letztem Mal war, aber es nicht findet. Und ich fühl mich wie Dori aus "Findet Nemo". Ich vergesse wightige Wörter und manchmal jetzt wenn jemand mich ein englisches Wort fragt, kann ich ihn nicht antworten.
      Ein hilfloses Gefühl.

The redhead has the FREAKING HICCUPS!

      And it is making me so (*hic*) angry I could freaking (*hic*) bite a hippo's (*hic*) face off and/or (*hic*) kick an innocent man in the (*hic*)... oh you get my point.
  (*HIC*)
   Let's talk about a few other (*hic*) annoying things.
   But first let me (*hic*) drink some freaking water or (*hic*) else I'm going to (*hic*) hurt myself (*hic*hic*hic*)
   (*Quickly empties the half of Nalgene Water bottle and waits patiently....*)
   Ahhh.... thank goodness.
   Now. Annoying things.
   The most recently annoying thing that happened has to do with my school here. It was not sooo bad but at the time all I could think coherently was "this would NEVER happen at my school".
   So in Germany, the schools are different. I have probably explained it before.... but the brief overview is we have a different set of subjects everyday and sometimes, depending on the amount of subjects, we can get out at noon and go home and sometimes we get out at 5 in the afternoon. The other important thing to remember is that substitute teachers DO NOT EXIST HERE. If a teacher has off one day or is sick or has a flat tire or just plain can't make it, we don't have that particular class. Yesterday the last two periods before lunch "fell out" because our geography teacher wasn't there. Now this can be alright normally, but it wasn't yesterday, the Tuesday, the 15th of March, because on Tuesdays we have afternoon school, something no one likes with good reason and to top it off it was THE most gorgeous day any one had seen so far, it was like summer. The sun was bright, the sky was sweet light denim and you could hear the day light hours falling through our hands.
    Sometimes it happens that a teacher can move their period so that it is earlier, in the time that we would normally have whatever "fell out". Our class representative went and tried to see if we could move our biology class that would normally take place after lunch break to the period where Geography should be. It didn't end up working out because though the teacher was there for the two periods half the class had already left for McDonald's.
    GROAN. The students rushing back were too late and teacher told us it would happen later like normal and everyone became angry at him for wanting his period when it was usually. More than half the class decided that they would just skip bio and leave while ten of us stubbornly remained behind.
    Now, I understand both feelings of students. I wanted to leave too, it's not as though I wanted to stay at school for another six periods and only be learning for two out of six, that's fruitless Zeitverschwindung (time wasting). But I wasn't going to just skip a class and punish a teacher because another teacher didn't want to or physically couldn't come to school that day, that is injust. It is good for the students sometimes to have more power to express problems with a teacher and be heard, to leave the school ground for lunch, etc. These are great and important priviledges that make me love the German school system, but I also love the American system in all it's capitalism because it is simple: You go to school, you stay in the school at all times, you attend all your classes. There are no aversions of schedule and the teacher is in control of all happenings within their classroom from the moment you enter the door. When the students have more power, they abuse it, just like every other human being would on a nice sunny day, causing rebellion where it was not entirely appropriate, and forcing a teacher preach to a classroom population that you can count on your fingers.
    Oh the capitalism of American public education, where art thou?
    The most positive outcome of the day however was introducing some friends to hackysac and in return being educated about German Hiphop and Reggae by the ones who know it best: my friends.

The redhead is showing her ugly face.. again!! *gasp*

Sorry I'm such a flakey blogger.
I need to work on that a bit.
    Today, I forgot the English word for the opposite of "rural" (which is "urban" if you were having troubles with remembering it too). Forgetting peices of your native language is tough to cope with. I find my self stuttering on words and forgetting "t"s and sometime I pronounce things with a strange accent that sounds like a stranger. But all I need to do is let a hard core "YEAH!" and you know immediately where I come from. No stranger could mistake a USA "HELL YEAH!" if their life depended on it.
     Among my language issues I also hate it when I feel like I want to express something and know there is a way to say it in German but can't remember and it is completely unmöglich (word of the day=impossible) to say in English.
     I've been reading a lot. My book shelf is full as of now, but then again the Mehrheit (second word of the day=majority) of the books have been dug out of my guest families basement and slowly devoured by my hungry eyes. I have started reading Mansfield Park (by my homie Jane Austen) but lately it has been over shadowed by the sudden appearance of first "Paper Towns" (a John Green book, which if you haven't read you should and if you don't know who John Green is you FAIL) and then later the "Millenium" series by Stieg Larsson!!! LOVEE.
        Lisabeth Salander is not someone one would want to grow up to be (because let's face it her situation is pretty shitty) but I definitely want to grow up to be as brave as her (or as bad ass (or as both)).....
        But other than books my life is well. My juggling is steadily becoming better, more consistent and more confident (if you want to see that or just me in general you can check out my youtube channel). My grades are pretty good the way I see it. I increased a whole grade level in my last Physics test! (YEAH!). And I have been writing some good poetry and as always, perfecting my German, or trying to anyway.
         Hope you guys had a great spring break. I'll post more, I promise.... maybe that's my lent thing, I will increase in my blogging! (Because I mean it's not like God has anything else too important to read, right?)