blaaahhhhh

Today......today i am homesick. My problem is i've got too many amazing friends.....damn you guys for making me miss you.

Stalking is NOT the sincerest form of flattery...

Had a few requests to tell my stalker story... I thought i'd already mentioned that, but apparently my story-tellin' skills are lacking :P Alright, well I must keep my audience happy so here goes...

We'll call him Mr. S. for anonymity...although why i should do that i'm not sure, it's not like he had any consideration for me....bah.

Ok, so Mr. S. happens to be the roommate of two of the other co-ops here, who i spend a lot of time with. This guy is from Seria, so our religions, morals, values and ideas on all things important (including women...) are totally different, and to this day i can NOT understand why he was interested in me...but he was. Is. I don't know...either way he leaves me alone now. It really didn't help that the guys were egging him on. That was really inconsiderate of them, towards both him and me, but they thought it was funny and wouldn't listen to my requests/demands that they stop filling his head with nonsense about how to win my affection, until things had gone way too far. Mr. S knew i had a boyfriend, but my so-called friends actually went so far as to tell him that my relationship with my boyfriend was on the rocks, that i was crying every night and that i really needed somebody new to comfort me. With friends like that...who needs enemies.

Here's where the creepy stuff happens. Somebody adds me to msn...guess who it is. Alright...at this point..not a big deal. So i talk to him, ask him how he got my contact info, and he won't tell me. Says "Don't ask me how i get things, I always get what I want." MmmHmmm....creep. I found out later how he got it... the very first day I moved in I didn't have internet connection yet, so I borrowed his computer and logged in on web messenger. He got my address from that. He wasn't even an msn user before...he downloaded it solely to talk to me. So after a few more creepy exchanges that night I block him. I don't block anybody...he's currently the only person on my list blocked. So he creates a new email address and tries to add me again. Could he not take a hint? Apparently not, it gets worse. The next day I was walking home from work and I see somebody peering out a window at me. Not looking out the window, actually peering. Face pressed against the glass, watching. You know who it was. When I was out of view of that window, i caught site of a curtain being whipped open out of the corner of my eye, and looked to see him now watching me from another window. I wanted to vomit. Here's where I decided enough is enough. Scott will be happy to know that my don training and experience with talking to difficult people in difficult situations came in handy here.... When i went up to my room and checked my email, there was one from Mr. S....it was completely empty, except for the title, which said something along the lines of 'stop blocking me because i know you're doing it right now'. Good gawd! I mean some people are thick, but this guy wants to become a doctor....i thought i was sending some veerrryy clear 'leave me alone' signals...

So i talked to him. I won't go into the details of the conversation, but it was very short, and while I was polite and nice, i left him with no room for doubt that I WAS NOT INTERESTED.

He talked to one of his roommates afterwards, and he said he was personally insulted! He wasn't used to it. USED to it! We've determined that this is true, that he really is a spoiled rich kid who is used to getting everything he wants all of the time. He bought his way out of the army for goodness sakes. Anyways, the roommates finally realized that i was super upset about things, and somehow managed to convince this guy that it wasn't MY fault that i wasn't interested in him....that all the things he was doing were very very WRONG. I've had no more troubles since...except for the whole, him inviting himself along on a trip he knew i was going on.... Really, i can't get over the fact that he really expected that he could always get whatever he wanted somehow. There's gotta be a life lesson in all this somewhere... it's just too bad that I had to be the one to teach it to him...

Oberstdorf part 2

I did it again! I went snowboarding this weekend in Oberstdorf, despite sooo many reasons not to go, and I had a super-fantabulous time....of course.

First, why not go? I've got this yucky lung infection that makes me cough and wheeze...yum. And my stalker invited himself along. Yum again. I also had decided it was a good idea to take a two hour aerobic/martial arts class called Body Combat at the gym the day before, involving lots of kicking and punching, resulting in verrryy sore muscles. BUT, alas the alure of the mountains was just too strong, so I dragged myself out of bed at 5:20, put 4 layers on my bottom half and 5 on the top and off I went!

Welll worth it! We went to an easier hill this time (there are *only* about 800 to choose from in this one town...) since Fellhorn nearly killed 3 of my dear newbie friends last time. This was just perfect, considering my Body-Combat-ed-body was in poor condition. Everything was perfect...the sun was out all day, the weather was so warm I reduced to a mere 3 layers on top, with the outmost one unzipped, the trails were very relaxing and the company was fantastic! (Erm, minus my stalker of course, but I didn't see him all day...so that was perfect too.)

Aww man, I'm a spaz... I was going to say check out my photo site, but I've gone and forgotten both my username and password...so I can't recover either. That was a short lived account. So i've just created an msn space...it's faster to upload stuff there anyways. So check out Oberstdorf there! I'll switch everything soon...

There's some gorgeous, pics, check em out!

May Day kicks Valentine's Day's bum

There's a carnival going on in a nearby town this weekend where everybody dresses up in costume and goes a lil crazy...

It's sort of like what they do instead of Halloween.. They never actually had Halloween here before, they just started something like 4 years ago. Wouldnt that be so weird...can you imagine all of a sudden your country introduces a new holiday that you never celebrated before? Same deal with Valentines day, that just came over here about 4 years ago too.

Oh but Nini told me about an even cooler German holiday...it makes Valentines day seem soooo lame! Ok so it's called May Day, and it's on the first of May. And if a guy likes a girl, he gives her a maple tree lol! Not flowers...but a TREE...a big one! It's anonymous, and they'll go out and cut down a maple tree and tie it up outside the girls window or something, and decorate it with ribbons. Now THAT is effort! What is this go to the corner store and buy flowers or chocolate garbage lol....they cut down TREES! And it's even better, because it can be sort of like a competition. Like, if a guy gives a girl a tree, and then another guy goes to give a tree and finds one tree already there, they'll cut the first one down and take it away. So sometimes they'll sit and watch all night to make sure nobody takes the tree away...i can't even believe it! Oh and there's the opposite thing too...if somebody really hates a girl they'll put up a tree covered in tin cans...

These German boys really know how to do it :P So advice gentlemen...next time you're thinking of giving a girl flowers....go cut down a tree instead. Damn that'd be flattering.... Haha oohhh i've got this mental picture of a guy in a suit at somebody's door step trying to hold out a tree to a girl the same way you'd hold out a bouquet of flowers.... what would you even do in that situation?

Natasha's Theory of Continued Evolution

Here is a thought I had the other day when I sat down and tried to write a letter.

I firmly believe that the next step in human evolution, the next big change in our culture, our lifestyles, our physical entities, will not be something like out of the Chrysalids. Sure, maybe someday we'll be able to communicate with think-shapes, but first (and perhaps this is but the first step towards it)....

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!!! .......

We're going to forget how to handwrite. Yep. I think it's true. Now listen to my reasons.

The reason I had this thought in the first place was that when I sat down to write some good ol' fashioned snail mail to a dear friend of mine, it felt positively strange. I think the only things i've written in a looonng time are post-it note reminders. My writing was messy, my style was awkward, and my letter was ugly. I didn't get very far and I was so entirely dissatisfied with it, that I decided to start over, only this time I would type it.

The minute I sat down at the keyboard something magical happened. I felt comfortable. As I typed, the feeling of awkwardness totally disapeared, my normal style resumed, and life was good again.

Think about it. The first thing that's going to go is cursive writing. It will soon be "the new calligraphy". How many people write in cursive writing when they even bother to write at all? The only think I write cursively is my signature, which consequently looks the same as it did when I was in grade 7 i'm sure. Even in school these days, sure kids learn to write early, but then all their stories and reports and assignments are done by computer.

What about doctors? They are some of the most educated and respected people around today, and who can read anything they write? Think of survival of the fittest....the theory (law?) of natural selection --> only the smartest/strongest/fastests/best creatures evolve and survive...surely doctors must be in that group?

When I was trying to express myself in the letter, I found myself needing to use the syntax for all the emoticons commonly used in msn and emails. :) ;) :S Soon everybody will put everything, including reminders into electronic devices like blackberries and palm pilots. Eventually, the post-it note, paperclip, and pen companies are all doomed.

Think I'm crazy yet? Or brilliant? :P

Very Important Phrases

I'm embarrased to say that I haven't picked up very much German yet...but i'm going to i swear!

Right now my roomies are focusing on teaching me what they consider to be "Very Important Phrases".

The phrase of the night, I decided I just have to share with you... It was explained to me that if somebody is annoying you, you say this:

"komm wir gehen in den wald, dein gesicht vergraben"

They couldn't translate it for me, so I stuck it into babelfish.com, and the direct translation is

"come we go into the forest bury, your face"

HA! Those german people don't fool around :P

On a sidenote...check this link out, you won't regret it! It made me laugh my face off:
http://www.youtube.com/w/Jay-Leno-Phony-Photo-Booth?v=vEWLwz6JRNE&eurl=

Birthdaayyy!!

My birthday was super-fantastic-amazing! Honestly, leading up to it I really wasn't so excited about it. I'm not sure why, I'm usually (always) one of those people who gets so pumped up about it like an entire month before, but this year I just wasn't feeling it. I've thought about it a little, and I think maybe it was because this year I knew I wasn't going to be with my family and best friends, and of course, that other super-special somebody i'm missing so much. But it turned out to be a really happy day for me, I smiled a LOT.

It all started at midnight. I'd gone to bed already but woke up when I heard a knock at my door. I just rolled over and decided to ignore it, but then I heard my door open... weird. And THEN as I'm rolling over to see who it is I hear SINGING!! Julian, Friederike (roomies) and Matthias (neighbour) came in with this cute cake and candles and little hearts on the plate and sang me happy birthday in english! It was the sweetest thing ever, and the biggest surprise, and the perfect start to my day!

So I got up, we ate some cake and I went back to sleep for a little while. A short while later, on the train on the way to work in the morning Cora pulls a little cake out of her bag! They stuck a candle in it and lit it and all sang me happy birthday on the train! Another huge and incredibly sweet surprise for me! Some random german guy I was sharing a seat with laughed at us and wished me happy birthday, it was cute.

So there, it wasn't even 10 a.m. yet, I'd already eaten 2 cakes, had two super sweet surprises...you can imagine i was feeling pretty good :)

NEXT! I'm sitting at my desk at work..probably pretty absorbed in whatever I was doing so it took me awhile to notice the next surprise. Weird things were happening...Cora walked by my desk and asked if i'd liked my cake on the train and i told her of course! I loved it, it was super sweet! She said even though it was small? Of course!! Everybody knows size doesn't matter right? So I thought this question was a little odd, but just figured she was trying to make sure that I liked what they'd done...whatever. Then I noticed a few people looking at me a little more often than was normal..whatever. Ok then it was too much. Everybody at my table was looking at me, some people were standing up....so i couldn't help but break my focus and ask what was going on? Now that I was actually paying attention, I noticed this huge gorgeous white and orange cake sitting on the table not too far away from me! HELLO! Now i understood all the weirdness! They'd gotten me ANOTHER cake!!! These people are ridiculous, and I told them so... I couldn't believe how sweet everybody was to me! They also gave me a warm scarf and mitts, since my scarf is one of those pretty, but not very functional ones and I needed a warmer one for snowboarding. So thoughtful!!! And soooo much cake! Felt very very fat at the end of the day lol. Here are the three cakes!

After work we went "grocery shopping" for party supplies...food and drinks! But when we tried to get on the train to go home somebody had jumped in front of it further down the line, so the train wouldn't leave. We were stuck at the station in the cold for almost two hours! But like i'd let a small thing that get me down ;) If we couldn't go home and start the party, then we'd start the party right where we were! It was cold...so we turned to liquid warmth and ate and drank right in the train station... Which also lead to me laughing so hard I cried. Almost no beers here have a twist off cap, so you need an opener. This proves no problem at all for all the German folk, they can open a beer with anything. When Julian had his birthday party he passed me a beer, then when I asked for an opener he handed me an enormous meat cleaver with a totally serious look on his face! I think my eyes just about popped out of my head, but then somebody took it from me and used the handle to pop the cap off no problem.. It's a trick I must learn before I leave. Here's Cora, Jarrett and I getting our party on at the station, and me, determined to get into my beer later that night. Annyyyways, why did I laugh so hard I cried? We've seen people here do this trick where you use one bottle to open another one, so Jarrett decided to try. If i'd only had a video camera..! It was the most ridiculous thing ever, he was stradling the groceries putting sooo much effort into trying to pop this cap off, like 70 people also stuck at the station were staring at him/us but he had nooo idea and just thought me and Cora were laughing at him! Two different people came over and helped us out...I guess it was probably painful to watch :P

Overall, it was a good night! A couple other Canadians I've met decided to duct tape my front door shut on their way out...that was fun :P Friederike had a great time trying to get out in the morning since she was the first one up haha.

I got a ton of messages and some really sweet e-cards. Thank you daddy, I love you :) Thanks for the kind words everyone, and thanks for making my day a special one :)

(P.S...thanks for making the day after my birthday special too babe, you're a sweetheart)

you can find more pics if you want...just follow the link over there on your right to "My Pictures" ;)

much love,