More pics from the week

I thought I would include pics of Jan and I riding. I even wore a cowboy hat for effect. What fun! And there is a pic of Lex and I. Can you tell we're related? lol.

Go go Speed Racer

Sadly the week has flown by and Jan is flying back to Frankfurt. After SLC and LAX. hee hee. It was a good week, however. I especially enjoyed having the week off of work.

Well, after our lovely weekend in Des Moines, Jan and I drove back to KC. I had studying to do, so the nice German that he is, Jan offered to drive. And he was doing a swell job until he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "um, Kate?" At which point I looked up and saw flashing lights in the rearview mirror. Oops.

I told him to pull over and then Mr. Stick Up His Butt Highway Patrolman pulled us over. Jan handed over his driver's license (totally in German, mind you) and I offered to translate, but Mr. I'm Too Cool Policeman said it was unnecessary. He then preceeded to assume Jan's place of birth was his middle name. Reject.

I'm sorry to say we did in fact get the ticket. A whooping $115 for going 14 over the speed limit. Well, I'd not had a speeding ticket before so at least it was interesting. Jan was a bit disappointed. He had hoped for more excitement. I told him he's lucky, b/c more excitement might have meant handcuffs and being hauled to a police station in the middle of nowhere. lol.

The rest of the week we chilled, saw family, saw the Plaza, and went horseback riding b/c Jan had never sat on a horse before. Crazy, huh?

Oh, he also went to class with me, and got up the nerve to speak up in class on the last night. That was fun. We were arguing theory and it was quite enjoyable.

That was my week. Next week I have my interview for my scholarship. That should go well, it's on my birthday, after all! And since I'm probably the only person who applied for any Uni in Deutschland.....lol!

Das ist's. Tschuess!

Besuch in Des Moines

Jan is visiting, and once I got the message that he was on another flight and I had not, in fact, lost my German as I thought, things went much more smoothly.

We headed up to Des Moines early Saturday, toured the Sherman Hills old homes (very nice), then went to the Oktoberfest where we had lovely German food. Mmm! Wienerschnitzel u. Spaetzle! I was in heaven. We also drank just a bit.

Then we toured some bars, played some pool for American culture, and went to more bars.

Today we slept in, had a lovely breakfast with croissants and coffee (ahhhhh), walked around, got F&O's (I'm practically drooling just thinking of it), and went out to the Somerset Winery for good wine and fun music. It was a great day weather-wise, and we sat there for a few hours. Now our roast is almost ready. It really does sound like we've spent the entire weekend eating! lol.

The pics: Jan and I road-tripping it, me in Auntie's garden, me in Iowan vineyard-age, Auntie at the winery and the cool old maple tree outside of Auntie's.

Ok, dinner's ready, I'm off. What a fabulous weekend!

: )

German Eval

The German evaluation at KU went beautifully! The lady said I spoke with "near native fluency", which means she was being awful generous, b/c I would never say that! And she also said she highly recommended me for the scholarship. That was a plus. Next up it's the mandatory tea time (feel free to laugh, I did) on Friday, before I pick up Jan.

I'm a bit behind with school work still. If only I didn't need to go to work, I could sit at home and study all day! But money must be made.

On an entirely different note, anyone want to comment on what the Pope said, really meant, and if people ought to be so outraged? I find it interesting. I will hold my opinions to myself for now, however.

Einen schoenen Tag an allen!

: )

Argh!!

Those are my sentiments about the weekend.

First my computer died on Friday. So after work on Saturday (which went over, grr) Dan and I spent 7 hours trying to fix it. We had to delete everything and start from scratch. It was so sad. I lost some documents and all my music. Sadness. Luckily I had backed up old documents and pics, or else I would be one way sad Kate. Still, there is work to do on it, and I just don't have the energy.

Then I tried to print the readings for this week at Mom's, but then the printer went haywire and I couldn't fix it, and then Mom's car broke down and I found lots of little bugs in the rice. (ok, so that sounds a little crazy, but it's how the day worked.)

Und was auch nervt sehr, ist wenn Maenner einfach ein SMS nicht lesen koennen! Manchmal sind sie so bloed, es ist unglaublich. Ich entschuldige mich zu den guten Maennern, die gut lesen und aufpassen koennen.

Tomorrow is KU. (Cat, it's the German evaluation for the scholarship I'm applying for.) Hopefully I can get some studying done, I'm quite behind at this point. Darn it!

Ok, sorry for all the negativity. I did, for awhile, decide I needed to de-stress, and I wore Mom's cowboy hat around. That got a good laugh.

Meegan, your inbox is full. Empty it already. ; ) I can't leave you more messages until it's empty! hee hee.

A lack of satisfying salsa

Last night after work and school, I headed over to Mon's to go salsa dancing. We were going to go to Skybox, but it got canceled there so we went to NV. Well, it was a nice club, great music (live band!), but it was mostly people who are in a dance club together and mostly dance with each other and like they are rehearsing for competition. It doesn't look like they are having that much fun. I would rather go and just relax and have a good time. So we only stayed for about an hour.

We then drove by the other place where salsa was supposed to be happening, but sadly it was not. So we went home, put on our pjs, ate food we shouldn't, and watched t.v. Ahhhhh. Bliss. I love hanging with Mon. I think we're trying the salsa-ing again on Saturday.

School is going well, keeping me busy. I have a language evalution on Monday at KU, I actually have to drive to Lawrence and try to figure out where to park and where this building on the huge campus is. Goodness gracious. I mean, come on, like my German would be a problem! Sheesh. hee hee. Stinking hoops.

I think that is all the news, I am still trying to figure stuff out job-wise.

It is definitely fall here and I am loving it. So beautiful.

: )

Fingers Crossed

Ok, so I finished the rough draft of my app to study at the University of Hamburg next fall. I want to write my thesis there. I'm planning to do it on Turkish immigrant integration into German society. KU has a scholarship for ONE grad student to go to the Uni next fall. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Other than that life is busy. I'm trying to work in more tutoring, I may have a position dealing with intercultural communication and diversity training in the near future, though only part-time. How exciting!!!!!!!!!! And tomorrow night Monica and I will dance our little hearts out at the Madrid. Good stuff.

I love my 701 class. The prof is awesome. Tonight he made a point about the modernizing world and how there tends to be a lot of lonliness for those of us following our hearts and dreams and bouncing from place to place, leaving behind family and friends. It just rang so true. Funny that it was brought up in class.

I hope everyone else is doing wonderfully. Big hugs!

: )

A not so sleepy KC

Monica and I went out Friday night (which I waaaay needed) and hit First Fridays downtown, where the art galleries open up and the street performers come out and it so reminded me of Europe! I loved it! We saw lots of modern art (a personal fav) and heard awesome music. I almost lost one of my favorite sweaters, but this nice musician found it for me.

Then we hit the Plaza and got a delicious coffee drink. I don't think I should be allowed so much sugar and caffiene that late at night! Poor Monica. It was a blast though. The next morning we got up too early and hit the big farmers' market, ohhhhh. I love that.

This weekend Auntie was in town. We fought viciously with a very cool yet complicated ceiling fan and we thought it was going to win, but in the end we got it hooked up. Whew!

Tomorrow it's more studying. I just can't get enough!

Sadness in Kate World

E and I broke up today. I think I've spent a good deal of the day in tears, sadly. But it will be all right. I really want him to be happy and hope everything goes wonderfully for him, and I'm sure I will feel better sometime soon.

Tonight Monica and I are hitting the First Friday art thing in KC and I think it will be awesome. And this weekend Auntie is coming to visit. Yay!

Uni is keeping me busy, had a great class last night and some of us went for drinks afterwards at Barley's. Always great fun!

I hope everyone has a fun holiday weekend!

: )