On Friday I went to a concert by a German "ska" band, Mutabor. I had completely forgotten that I had agreed to go to this concert over a month ago. I went to the concert not really knowing what to expect. Here is a link to one of the last songs they played:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq5JbFXQ6dU&feature=related

It is call "Love does not exist" roughly translated.

So after the opening band my boyfriend, his friends and I were relatively close to front of the stage. Everything is dark and the band members come in wearing headlamps, walk around a bit and then find their places on the stage. They take the headlamps off and then there is a bang and the lights on the stage come on the music stages all at that instant. And also at that instant everyone around us started "dancing". And by dancing I mean jumping around like crazy people and pushing each other into each other. And this went on for the entire concert. The one Italian girl who was with us and I looked at each other like we both had no idea what just happened. After I finished my beer I went in and joined the crazy dancing. It was lots of fun and the mood was a very positive one. As soon as a person almost fell they were immediately pushed back up by someone one the dance floor. The concert had quite a happy mood. I ended up getting my feet stepped on several times and elbowed and what not. I was also up at the front of the stage a lot of the time... it was not that big of a concert. At one point a bunch of balloons came onto the dance floor and people just continued the jumping around and crazy dancing while keeping all these balloons in the air. After the balloons came the confetti there was SO much confetti that when I came home there were left overs in my pockets, bra and underwear. Throughout the entire concert there were people crowd-surfing and at one point one person even went over the entire crowd sitting in an inflatable boat. Towards the end of the concert I was seriously running out of energy and spent a lot more time in the back with the less crazy dancers. This concert was truly a surreal experience, something I never thought I would do but I had lots of fun and if there ever is a next time I will be more prepared and wear contacts. I would say the whole thing was definitely a surreal and memorable experience.

So now that I live in Germany I am allowed to vote, which is exactly what I did yesterday. There was a Landes and Bundes (Provincial and Federal) election. Germany has quite a different voting system than in Canada. You get two voices, one for the candidate and one for the party. In the end I kind of like that idea. For me it was quite difficult to form an opinion on who to vote for, especially since I have not had much on an interest in politics in the past. I am not convinced that the decision I made was the best decision for me but I made it anyway. I was far from having investigated all the candidates and making a very well informed decision. By the next time I get to vote I am sure I will be a lot better informed and my ability to read German will have greatly improved so that I can make a much better decision (a lot I have a feeling that it might not change much or at all). The results of the election however did not match how I voted and how the majority of my friends voted.

So a few people that are relatively new in my life and are just getting to know me have looked at my blog and commented on how I only seem to post when I am feeling down or lonely. I find that that is true, that it tends to be a lot easier to post when I feel down and/or lonely...

However, I would like to report that at the moment I am quite happy... things are really good. I am really starting to have a pretty great group of friends in Kiel, TaeKwonDo training is mostly pretty awesome and I live in an awesome apartment with great roommates. In the last month I have to a workshop in Dresden, Germany, Prague for a weekend, Bavaria to visit some family and to Copenhagen to watch a TKD tournament and have a quick visit to the city. To top it off... I have recently met someone pretty amazing and we have been together now for over a month (however due to our travel schedules we haven't seen much of each other but there is still lots of time for that). If only now I can get lots of excitement towards my research, but I feel that since the workshop in Dresden the motivation is starting to come back.

So last month when I went to England I bought JoJo some catnip tea. Surprisingly she enjoyed drinking it... now we have a small problem. JoJo is starting to steal tea from my roommate's teapot when she makes tea. Silly cat!

So I think every girl has this list in her head about the things she wants in her ideal guy. I think it is unrealistic to expect to find a guy that matches the criteria... here are 10 things from my list which I consider important (I have left out the standard, honesty, trustworthiness, kind, etc...)

1. Playful I think that possibly the most important thing for me is to have someone that is somewhat playful. By playful I mean someone that you can tease by maybe pushing, throwing a playful kick at, wrestle a bit with or tickle and they would laugh and potentially do the same thing back. Not only playfulness in the physical sense but someone that is also playful through what is said in emails/online chats.

2. Stable Having someone stable is pretty essential, I make mistakes sometimes and I don't want to live in fear of making a mistake. Yes making a mistake is probably not good and the partner should be upset but unreasonable/scary reactions is not good. Feeling scared about making some false move and potentially setting some unreasonable action off is not fun.

3. Geeky Must score at least 10% on the Inner Geek Test. jk... but I am a geek and it is nice to have someone understand my geeky tendencies. I don't want someone who would be scared away by my geekyness.

4. Active I am an active person so it would be nice to have someone who is also active. I like going a trips, biking for longer amounts of time, getting up earlier sometimes to do something interesting, etc.

5. Generally Good Person Someone who is generally a good person is important. It is not acceptable to for someone only to be a nice person to the person they are dating and not other people. I hate meeting a really nice person and then seeing them be rude to a waiter or one of their parents or something.

6. Intelligent I enjoy having someone who is intelligent and hence you can have good conversations with. It is not necessary for them to be university educated but that is definitely a bonus. However, if someone mentions to me that they have a physics, math, computer science, etc degree it automatically adds bonus points.

7. Attractive In my eyes the person need to be attractive, for me attractive usually is someone who is not too big but not to scrawny either, not a big fan of the super blond guys or guys with lots of accessories (a little bit is ok though), I like guys taller than me but not too tall... once they get too tall then they just seem unnatural though. I have tried dating someone I didn't find that physically attractive and we had lots of good times together but the kissing and being physical with each other just didn't work, kissing just felt really awkward. So yes I need to be a bit shallow but that's ok.

8. Chatty I like to chat so my ideal guy should also like to chat so that we can have lots of two sided conversations.

9. Ambitious I am ambitious and I want to get somewhere with my life. I need someone else who also wants to do things with their life and does not just talk about it but also does things towards it.

10. Party/Calm So I consider myself quite a social person but I have never been a party person. I think I need someone that is ok with me being socially active, occasionally drinking, occasionally going to discos and that enjoys going to pubs with me. But not someone who is always drinking and is drunk a lot, the ideal guy must be able to have fun without alcohol. I also like calm time where I stay home and just have a quiet night, and me wanting quiet nights at home typically outweigh the nights I want to party.

There are lots of other things but I think these are some of the most important.

So I currently live at 54°20′ N and I have noticed a big difference in the daylight here. Just before leaving for Canada for Christmas I was having to turn on the lights in my office around 3:30 pm. This was surprisingly early. I feel quite happy now that I was able to bike to TaeKwonDo yesterday in daylight (~5:30 pm). I was told that the here the seasons are a lot more noticeable in the amount of daylight we have. I am already starting to really look forward to having nicer weather and more sunshine. Just from the changes since December I am finding it easier to get out of bed. In December since the sun was so low in the sky it felt like it was very early morning when it as already 11:00 am. Anyway... I am really looking forward to the sunshine and the warmer weather, I have been really wanting to do TaeKwonDo outside lately but it's a tad too cold for my comfort.

So it has happened a few times now that I have been asked to give a training at the TaeKwonDo club I currently practice at. I am lacking a bit of self confidence for teaching things at TaeKwonDo which since I have given training a few times is getting a lot better. Another thing is that teaching TaeKwonDo in German can be another challenge, somehow talking in front of people makes me stumble over my words a lot more and forget some words I would normally know. Last night was a night where I was asked to give a training shortly before it was supposed to start... I felt a bit more stressed than normal about giving the class and was a bit idea less of what to do. I had some ideas initially and I went with them but by far not enough to cover a full 2 hour class. Then I just went with what came to mind first and it turned out extremely well. Towards the end I stumbled over my words quite a bit but everyone understood what I was trying to say which was good. I can say though that that class last night is one that I feel quite proud of, what I did lead to something that kind of had a nice ending to it and several people told me that they had lots of fun. I hope that I can continue to feel this good about the trainings I give. :)

I think I have been single too long... I am starting to just feel very uncomfortable when I am around a couple. I feel like I start to act oddly like I am really uncomfortable to be there. And yes I think I do feel uncomfortable and I know I shouldn't be but my brain automatically puts me in that state. I feel pretty certain that my past is behind me and I'm ready to try again. I might be feeling uncomfortable because I am envious of the people that get to be in a couple. I only seem to get this feeling if one part of the couple is someone I know... if I just pass by a couple walking along the street holding hands I'm fine. I worry that maybe I am putting across a message that I am interested in the guy in the couple but I really am not (almost all of the time). I just have a silly head I think.

Today is one of those days where I really feel that I am missing certain people that used to be part of my life. Moving does that I guess. Wednesday for now is my evening off, where I don't go to training or anything other activities typically. Today I am feeling a bit lonely at home... I'm sure that probably next week I will be happy to have an evening to myself.

Am I ever happy I am not at my parent's place right now... since yesterday it's been wind chills below -35C and it looks like it won't get much better* for at least another 5 days.

* where much better is defined as above -10C.

Death is part of life... I guess. It kind of sucks but it exists. I found out today about a friend from Kiel that died over the holidays. He died while snowshoeing with his brother along one of his favorite snowshoeing routes. He wasn't a close friend, I didn't even know his last name but I liked talking to him a lot. He was a good friend of my roommate's and he enjoyed board games very very much. We played together a couple of times. Other than board games I would run into him quite often after TaeKwonDo practice at the gym and we always had little conversations. Last I saw him was before Christmas... he had recently found out that he won a big scholarship and was able to follow his dream to become a PhD student in New Zealand. I am not really sure how to react... I feel quite sadden about what has happened. But on the nice side... Jens was very happy the last time I saw him and things were really looking exciting for the next part of his life. I think it's better to have it end while being happy then in a time of your life when you feel really down.

Late last night I made it to Tabusintac, New Brunswick, Canada (I should have probably said early this morning. I feel pretty lucky to have made it since it seems like there are so many people stuck in airports trying to get to their families for Christmas. I was quite worried at first about taking a flight that had a change over in New York but everything worked out. I had the silly idea to stay up all night my last evening in Kiel which gave me a total of about 46 hours without sleep in a bed. I was in transit for 27.5 hours to get back to Canada.

I wish that everyone who I have read journals about being stuck in airports and what not makes it to where they are going soon.

So I really suck at posting... I always have ideas of what to write about but never really do it since I usually want to post an update about what's been going on in my life first.

Anyway... it's almost Christmas and it's different in Germany than what I'm used to from Canada. The one and only thing I think I really miss from Christmas in Canada are all the lights. In Germany people still put up lights (and more just white lights, which I think is much prettier than color) but they don't put up nearly as many lights on the houses. However I think I like the mall decorations here a lot better. Also, there seems to be a lot less annoying Christmas music, it's not played as much here (at least the places I have gone to. The Christmas stuff here starts about one month before Christmas on Nov. 24th.

The best thing about Christmas in Germany are the Christmas Markets... I love them. They have lots of little stands which sell toys and decorations and other little Christmas related things. There are also stands with food... but best of all are the glühwein stands... glühwein first of all smells SO good. It's basically warm wine with spices, it tastes really good too. The Christmas markets open one month before Christmas (Nov. 24th). I went right on the first day and loved it. I really like walking through them and see all the little stands of Christmas-y stuff and the smell of the glühwein. I think I'm really going to miss them when they are gone when I get back from Canada after Christmas.

Other than that I'm no where near ready for Christmas... I have barely just scratched the surface of my Christmas gift shopping list. I am really out of ideas for this year and I only have 5 days left in Germany :S.

So probably a lot of you are wondering how life has been going in Germany since I haven't updated in a long time. Here are some of my thoughts and how things are going:

( Ramblings about my life )

I knew this was going to happen... the day were the lack of happiness for being in Germany kicks in. Not that I'm not happy that I made the move here. As the people that I have been chatting to much lately know that I have been missing my life back in Halifax. This last week really did it... it started with hearing that my friends in Halifax were doing a thanksgiving party... made me feel quite down. The long conversation I had with Mark that evening was nice but after wards I just felt like I miss him a lot more. I spent a lot of the week feeling down about not know everything I feel like I should as a PhD student, black belt in TKD and well just negative. This week was quite busy and tonight I was really looking forward to going to the pub. I showed up at the pub at which I was supposed to meet some friends they weren't there anymore... I was later than expected getting there from TKD. Other things that added to exhaustion happened over this last week as well.

Anyway... this last week just ended up to me feeling really overloaded and down tonight... I haven't felt like this in a long while. I knew it was going to happen it was just a matter of time. It will pass but that might take a few days. My friend Doug was great for talking to me when I felt at my worst. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to move somewhere again where I will be mostly alone and need to recreate my social life.

Don't get me wrong I'm mostly happy with my life at the moment. It's just easier to write when I feel down and lonely. I will try to make some happy posts too. Maybe I should post a list of all the things I'm looking forward too over the next while, the list isn't that short.