Not cool at all

It's only the third day of school and I already don't know how I'm going to be able to finish everything in such little time. I miss everybody, I have a stomach ache and I feel strangely lonely. Finishing this thermo hw and getting some sleep is probably gonna make me be a little more positive...hopefully. This weekend should be fun though. Cause I love climbing outdoors and I have missed it so much over the summer. But I already made the decision not to go out climbing every single weekend because otherwise I'm gonna go nuts...seriously. Enough complaining, I'm gonna finish this hw and then go to bed.

Climbing Club

Wow, wow and wow. We had such a massive turnout for our climbing club meeting tonite it was insane. Three times as many people showed up for this meeting than normally. It was crazy. The wall is always packed as well. I'm kinda hoping that not as many people show up anymore. It makes it more fun. But the Datil trip this weekend is gonna be fun, especially since I get to try out my new sleeping bag. :)

I also changed my blog because the sunflowers dissappeared on the other one and I could never figure out where they went. So I just got a new template even though I really liked the sunflowers. Oh well...

Otherwise nothing much is going on. Classes are like usual and I'm getting back into the school routine. I do like it but at the same time I wish it was summer again. It's only been 2 days and I already miss all my friends I hung out with the last two weeks. That's probably because I never call. I should just start calling people on the way to class cause all I do is walk anyways. Yes I should most definitely do that, because this last weekend at the lake I realized how much my friends really mean to me. And not just my friends I went to the Lake with but all my SWE girls, my climbing buddies etc. There is just so little time to hang out and see all of them. Oh well, it's hw time.

My SSN

The BCIS finally processed all of our Green Card papers and now I'm offically allowed to work and I will get my very own social security number. I'm totally estatic about it ,except for the fact that I now have to start looking for a job which I have never done in my entire life. :/ I guess we'll see how that goes. Otherwise, life has been great. This weekend at the lake was awesome. Tons of floating and laying out and scary dives. First day of school wasn't too bad either. I think I can handle this semester. Ok, time to do hw and trying to stay positive about it.

Sunflowers

Somehow the sunflowers dissapeared but I'm not in the mood to figure out where they went. So just imagine a bunch of sunflowers for now. Otherwise life has been great. I finally have everything in my room where I want it to be and I have had so much fun hanging out with all of my friends. Speaking of friends, to my amusement I have noticed over the last couple of days on more than one occasion that events and stories change quite a bit depending on who you talk to. Anyway, I gotta get up early tomorrow so I'm going to bed.

The path up and down
is one and the same.
~HERACLITUS

Eternity is not
something that begins
after you are dead. It is
going on all the time.
We are in it now.
~CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

Sitting in the library

I'm sitting in the library and surfing the net for probably a couple more hours. Not having the internet at the house is not too bad right now, but that will change pretty quickly once school will start, so I'm estatic that I'm finally gonna be online on Monday. Otherwise I'm basically done moving in and organizing my stuff even the curtains are finally hanging although they put up quite a fight. And we gotta get a kitchen table, cause Heidi took it with her when she moved out. So I have been sitting in the living room watching the Olympics while I'm eating breakfast. Speaking of the Olympics...the Germans are finally starting to win a couple of medals and the German Soccer women are playing the US in the semifinal on Monday. All I can say is that we better win.

Couple of random thoughts:
My sister moved into her dorm at U of H today. It's a strange feeling that she is now going to college too.
Bought my books today and spend an insane amout of money again.
Gotta go the Student Engineering Council leadership retreat all day tomorrow. We get free food, so it won't be that bad.
I should go to Barnes & Nobel sometime this week because I'm out of books to read. As a matter of fact I'll go right now, cause I have nothing better to do.

Coldfront

It's 9:30 in the morning and the temperature is only 76 degrees with 64% humidity. The high for today will be only 88 degrees. I love this weather, it has been like this for the last couple of days and it feels so good. I know that everybody is laughing that this is called a cold front but for August down here the weather is fantastic. Ok, gotta eat some yummy breakfast and then start packing cause I leave tomorrow morning for Lubbock. Wohoo. I can't wait.

Random Stuff

I'm finally done with my painting project and it looks pretty neat. We'll see how many more projects my mom can give me before I leave. I think there are a bunch of pictures left that I'm suppose to hang up.

Just to rub it in some more for all the people that don't have a beach. The beach was awesome on Wednesday. At first it didn't look like it because when we drove over the huge bridge going to Surfside we couldn't see a thing because it was raining so hard. The wind was pretty intense as well and my mom and I wondered if we had missed the news about a hurricane coming in. We then turned around and drove to Quintana Beach which is only ten minutes away. It wasn't raining there and the sun came out later on. It was fantastic. Because of the storm that came through we had some pretty awesome big waves. The body surfing was sweet. Later on we found some craps and started chasing those around. Man, I love the beach.

My brother started school yesterday. He is a freshman now at B'wood. I asked him how his first day went and all he said was: "Tomorrow I'm bringing a jacket, it's freezing in there." Good thing I never had school in the fish tank. Otherwise school is pretty much routine again, except that Alex and his friends ended up in the girl's gym while going to soccer practice. But that' s my lil brother for ya.

Otherwise I'm just gonna be chillin today. I might start packing but I still have the weekend. I also have to wash my car sometime before I leave, because parking it under a 100 year old pecan tree makes it pretty nasty.

Beauty

Got up early today to work on the paintings. It's taken a lot longer than I expected. But they will be done by the time I leave on Monday to drive back to Lubbock. I'm excited, I get to move into my new house and my sister and my mom are coming with me. Yea... And I'm going to the beach today. :P

Call me Picasso

My latest summer project is coming along pretty well. My family finally agreed on the design of the paintings and I will start painting them tomorrow. Wohoo. I like art as long as I only have to paint squares and triangles cause I suck at painting landscapes or people. I'm already working on my signature so that I can sign my masterpieces later on. :)

Otherwise I have been chilling a lot. I have been to the beach a couple of times. We saw tons of jellyfish and mullets, a bunch of craps and the coolest thing yet, a stingray flying out of the water about 3 feet in front of us. It was pretty sweet looking. Of course everybody freaked out and fleed out of the water. It was pretty funny especially with the recent shark attacks we had down here. So that why everybody loves our pool. We go swimming in it daily. It's like a bathtub since the temperature is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. But just yesterday I was sitting in it slurping a strawberry smoothie. It felt like I was on vacation. I love it. So I'm gonna enjoy it as much as I can before I drive up to Lubbock in a week. Btw speaking of smoothies, I wonder if the Smoothie King on 19th and Memphis is open yet. Hmmm

Peanut Butter & Summer Project

My mom and I gave up pretty quickly on our summer project to clean up and organize the garage once we discovered yet again that August is the hottest month of the year especially down here in Lake Jackson. We then looked for a different project and decided to hang up all the old family pictures by the stairs. It took us two days of sorting out, getting new frames and hanging up the pictures, but it's finally done now. Our next project is to create some own artwork for the living room. We bought a couple of canvases and some acrylic paint and we'll shall see what the result will be.

This morning I got up pretty early. I guess 8 o'clock can be considered early during summer holidays. I swam a couple of rounds in the pool and then laid out for a bit. And I absolutely love it. It's still reasonably cool and laying out in the early morning sun just feels fantastic. Peanut butter is fantastic too. It's quite strange now that I think about it. I used to hate peanut butter. One could chase me all the way to the moon and back with that stuff. But now I can't get enough of it. I eat at least one peanut butter toast each day. Yummy.

Sears Call Center

I woke up this morning with the sun shining in my face, at the same time I heard it thundering and raining outside. It was one of those really funky rainshowers. I then ventured downstairs to make some breakfast and found my mom talking on the phone. Every so often she would say "Repair Service", "Dryer" etc. I figured she was talking to the Sears automated call center to get someone to fix our dryer. Then she started yelling "Help" and "It's not the pump, it's the belt" into the phone.  After a couple of more minutes my mom just slams down the phone and makes this weird annoyed face. I just burst out laughing cause it was so funny. After agrueing a couple more times with the automated call service my mom finally gets someone on the phone. By that time my sister, my mom and I can't stop laughing. It was just way to funny. These automated call centers are simply stupid.

Today is chill day at this house. That means I get to finish reading "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. Awesome author. Bad thing he has only written 4 books so far and I already read 3. But my mom has this awesome bookshelf with tons of books. It's like heaven. Tomorrow we'll probably go to Astroworld and Saturday we will finally for the first time ever go the to the famous Clute Mosquito Festival. :) We'll see what that's all about.

Tubing and Pilates

So a certain friend and roommate of mine always talked about once she transferred schools she wouldn't be doing her homework or anything but instead would be tubing down the river all day long. I have been keeping a close look at her blog and noticed that she always plans but never actually ends up going tubing and she has been there about two weeks now. I think this is just hilarious. Geez Audrey freaking go tubing since you always talk about it. Oh man this is making me smile. My indecisive roommate. :) Love ya girl.

Another funny thing happened today when I went to my Pilates class. I tell ya that class is killing me. My stomach and my shoulders never hurt so much. Bad thing is that my shoulders are not suppose to hurt... *shrug*....*ouch* But back to the funny part. My instructor, her name is Joannie, could be Lauren's sister. She totally reminded me of Itz. The way she looked and talked and the way she could just burst out and do something totally funky at any moment. It made me smile but that smile quickly faded away when Joannie made us do the 20th corkscrew and my stomach cramped up. Good thing is though that I already lost 2 pounds. Wohooo, go me.

Quotes & Random Stuff

Yesterday my brother's friend Ben from Germany arrived. He is gonna stay for about 3 weeks. This is gonna be interesting. Two 14 year olds in one house for that long ;)

I'm back on my workout plan. I went to Yoga yesterday and it almost killed me. I hate being out of shape. :/Today my sister and I are gonna go try out Pilates.  And then it's probably gonna be some running on the weekend and Pilates on Sunday and Yoga on Monday and so on and hopefully I'm gonna lose those 5 pounds rather quickly.

After I picked up my lil bro and Ben from the skatepark yesterday we saw this absolutely ridiculous truck. It was a red F-150 with a cover on the bed. But the ridiculous part was the rear spoiler on the cover. It was hilarious.

To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.
~STANISLAUS I
 
I would like to beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms orbooks in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
~RAINER MARIA RILKE
 

Germany

Finally back from Germany and wow I didn’t know this much could happen in two weeks. I think in a nutshell this year was the suckiest and funnest trip to Germany ever. It all started when we finally for the first time ever left the Amsterdam Airport. For years now we had been changing flights in Amsterdam but never actually stepped one foot outside of the terminal. Everything went rather smoothly until we got to the country with the worst post office clerks ever and the worst traffic ever: Belgium. That day was just simply horrible. My dad had to deposit money in a Belgium bank for the Visa the next day. But no bank in the EU-Capital wanted to exchanges dollars for euros. My parents ended up exchanging it at an American bank and then deposited the money at the post office. A nice post office where you draw number 115 and the number now serving is 23. My dad ended up going there twice which was cause enough for his dislike of Belgium post office clerks. This alone took a very very long time since parking spaces are nonexistent in Europe and my parents had to walk everywhere. Add to this extremely horrible traffic and the fact that you have been up for 30 something hours and all you want to do is sleep which my sis, my bro and I did for about 3 hours in the car parked somewhere in Brussels. The next morning we went to the US. Embassy to get our Visas which was no problem at all. The tricky part then was to get out of Brussels. It took us an entire hour to find the right Autobahn. At one point in time we were stuck in the middle of an intersection with cars all around us honking. Nobody cared if it was green or red or where the lines were. It looked like on of those chaos traffic scenes out of a movie. It was absolutely ridiculous. Before we could head back to Germany we had to stop by the Amsterdam Airport to pick up my dad’s credit card he had forgotten there.

In Hamburg we visited a couple of friends, went shopping, ate currywurst and had a wonderful surprise party for my parent’s 25th anniversary. The party was absolutely fun. My parents were totally surprised and even more surprised to see a couple of people at the party they hadn’t seen in years. Of course they hadn’t seen me in years either so it always was. " You are Gaby’s oldest daughter. My gosh in don’t believe it. You are so big now. " But all in all it was a very fun party.
We then drove down to stay with my aunt near Cologne. I finally got to see my second cousin Celina for the first time since she was born last December. She is soooo adorable. I’ll put pictures up as soon as my dad downloads them on the computer. And the wedding of my cousin was totally wonderful. Her dress was really pretty and the party afterwards was really nice too. The food was awesome as well. But it was a lot of organizing, stressful but fun. And again pictures will follow as well.

This morning when we got to Duesseldorf (the airport we normally fly out off) we meet my cousin (the other one that didn’t get married) who was dropping of her boyfriend that was flying to Greece. When we tried to check in the lady at the desk told us that we weren’t listed. We checked with another guy at a different counter and he told us that whenever the lady in Houston cancel the Amsterdam – Hamburg flight (which we didn’t need since we wanted to drive to Brussels from Amsterdam) our returning tickets (Duesseldort-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Houston) were canceled as well. And I tell ya what’s a great feeling…standing at the airport and getting told your flight tickets have been canceled. The problem was solved rather quickly though because there were still five tickets available on the Amsterdam-Houston flight and instead of flying to Amsterdam we drove. The taxi only took two hours and we made it well on time for our next flight. You gotta love Europe for being so small sometimes and you gotta love the Dutch, they are a cool and beautiful people. The rest of the trip was pretty much routine. So all in all it was pretty cool and adventurous trip that ended with me getting a cold, losing my tan and gaining 5 pounds.
(5 pounds in 2 weeks, I still can’t get over that *shaking head* I gotta get back to the gym)

Highlight of the day

So the highlight (literally) for today is that I discovered my first grey or more like white hair. I am 20 for Buddha's sake!! Anyways, I'm blaming this unusual discovery on a pigment dysfunction of some sort. I can't be getting grey hair yet, that's impossible. Ok, gotta finish packing. I'll talk to everyone when I get back in two weeks. :)

Go Greece

Yesterday as I predicted the Greek National Soccer Team coached by Otto Rehagel (awesome German coach) won the European Championship by beating Portugal 1:0. SWEEEET
We also sat on our roof and watched the fireworks at Dunbar Park. It was quite fun and I'm sure crazy looking with the entire family sitting on the roof. Later on we went to the beach and blew up a couple of our own fireworks. Including a homemade bomb that Brian made. It was pretty sweet and almost professional looking. Everybody from Lake Jackson was pretty much at the beach since it is outside the city limits and we got to see tons of cool fireworks including burning dunes. Later on at around 3 or so we went to IHOP. I love IHOP at 3 o'clock in the morning. :)

Today is my mom's birthday. We already had a very nice relaxing breakfast and later on I'm gonna make Danish Cheesecake for her. My mom is so cute. I love her.

Tomorrow I gotta get up at 3:30 am to fly to Europe. We are flying over Detroit and have a 5 hour layover there. (I hate Northwest Airlines) and then we will fly on to Amsterdam. And for the first time in about 5 years I will actually get to see more of Amsterdam than just the airport. I have been to the airport at least 20 times but never to Amsterdam itself. Anyhow, we will get our rental car there and then visit one of our Dutch friends on our way to Bruessels. We will stay a day or so in Bruessel and get our Visa renewed (with the exploded guinea pig picture) and check out the city for a bit. Then it's back to Hamburg. We will stay there for a bit, celebrating my sisters Bday and going shopping etc. Then we will drive down to Cologne and Visit my family, go to my cousins wedding and Celina's Baptism. We will fly back on the 20th. This sounds like one cool roadtrip with lots of parties. I can't wait.

Nutcase

My brother is running around the house drinking hot chocolate and singing:" Have a holly, jolly Christmas, It's the best time of the year." in the middle of the freaking summer. And my Dad called me an exploded guinea pig when we were taking passport pictures. I tell ya my family is a nutcase.

LOTR

Yesterday my parents and I went to Houston to listen to the Houston Symphony Orchestra play the Lord of the Rings Soundtrack. It was unbelievably beautiful. I love the Orchestra and Lord of the Rings.

"A free heart is a heart delivered from the gusts and the storms of the affections and passions; the assailing touch of grief, wrath, hatred, fear, inequality of love, trouble of joy, pain of sorrow fall away from the equal heart, and leave it a thing large ,calm, luminous, divine." ~Sri Aurobindo

Germany

We can finally fly to Germany. My dad called this morning and said that they are gonna sent the travel letter to Germany so that we can reenter the country when we come back on the 20th of July. When my mom told me I replied:"Wohooo, I'm excited" and my sister replied:"Wohooo, Underwear" ...Just to make that clear. My sister and I love the store H&M, they have the best underwear in the world and the store only exits in Germany...I think there are a couple in New England too. But who wants to go to Boston if they can go to Germany. ;)

Since the weather today is absolutely nice and sunny I'm going to the beach with my mom and sister. Later :P

Just a couple of random things for my daily update

Greece beat the Czech Republic in the semifinal and is now going to play Portugal in the finals. Wohoo, Go Greece. I predict that they will win cause Greek food is awesome.

I took my history final today, which means I'm done with history except that I still have to take an entire semester. I hate history.

We haven't gotten our travel letter that says we can leave the country yet. We better get it by Monday otherwise we can't go to Germany.

It finally stopped raining down here. About time after 18 days of rain. So tomorrow I'm going the beach. :)

In proportion as our inward life fails,
we go more constantly and desperately
to the post office. You may depend on it,
that poor fellow who walks away with the
greatest number of letters, proud of his
extensive correspondence, has not heard
from himself this long while.
~HENRY DAVID THOREAU