Oscar Wilde Quotes in German

This one is for Alistra, who asked me to read these in German for her.

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.

Ein mann kann mit einer Frau froh sein, solange als er sie nicht liebt.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Es gibt zwei sorten Leute die wirklich faszinierend sind: leute die wirklich alles wissen, und leute die wirklich nichts wissen.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.

Das Ziel des Lebens ist die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung. Zu unserer eigenen Natur zu ergreifen – dafür sind wir da.

South Korea Preparations

So there are a number of things I’m still working on in order to go to South Korea.

I have to get 3 copies of transcripts from both Alfred University and the University of Minnesota, as well as a duplicate diploma (which won’t be sent out til July), and 7 passport photos. I also have to call the Onondaga County Sherriff back in New York and ask them to run a criminal record check on me, and then get that notarized and get an apostille stamp on that. Then I’ll have to mail all these things to the Korea Poly School headquarters in South Korea so they can get it to the immigration bureau. This is the easy part.

After this I have to mail my passport to the South Korean embassy in New York City, and set up an interview with them in order to get my visa. I’m gonna have to go some time in August after I return home. Its not really that bad, as I can take the train from Syracuse to NYC and spend some time with my brother instead of having to drive there and get a hotel. I’m so glad he lives there, because I would really hate to drive anywhere in New York City.

I’ve already made one small mistake: I sent all my transcripts to the recruiter instead of having them sent to myself as I should have done. The recruiter was very good about this, she said she’d send me the instructions for what to do once I have all of these things together and will let me know when the transcripts arrive so I can come pick them up.

I think the most difficult part will be the timing of the interview, and so I hope to be able to schedule it for mid-August or so as I won’t be leaving Minneapolis until July 31st, though I guess I could if I have to. I could even go to the one in Chicago if I have to do it before August, but I won’t have a place to stay. After that’s done, I’ll be all set to go to South Korea.

I just hope Mr. Kim Jong-Il doesn’t continue to fuck things up. I should email him and tell him how much I need that job because the economy sucks, and that’s why he should NOT declare war on South Korea.

Healthcare Wow

I talked to my dad about using his health insurance before I graduated, and again this week just get more info. Turns out I am covered under his insurance for 6 months after graduation.

The first thing I did was use it to pay my overdue bill of $746 for physical therapy, and I now have a $0 balance on that account (thank god). I’m also getting dental and vision taken care of while I still can. Its a bit more tricky though since I have to pay for these things out of pocket.

Yesterday I had the dental exam and cleaning, for a total of $140, then saw the eye doc for a total of $105. After I get reimbursed for that through his insurance I will buy the glasses and then set up the dentist appt, which will be costlier. I need 5 fillings for a total of $840, which I can transfer out of my savings and use for that day and still have enough left over for the rest of my needs.

The rest of the glasses will cost about $408. It’s a bit expensive, but I’m doing all this now because even though I’ll have good healthcare in South Korea I don’t think I’ll have enough free time to take care of it all.

Hopefully I’ll have money in my account to make all this happen…

New Camera

My old fujifilm finepix camera died late last year, and since I finally came into some money for graduation I decided it was time to buy a new one. I had liked the canon powershot my ex has and decided to buy one, and I found an awesome deal on the Powershot SD1100 IS at Office Depot for $121.

I bought it and brought it back, played around with it and after letting it charge took more pictures and then connected it to my computer, where it did…absolutely nothing. I googled and found that lots of canon cameras are not being seen or mounted by ubuntu. Well that was a bit too annoying for me, so I went back to the store with my laptop and asked them to get out the nikon coolpix so I could try and connect that one to my laptop. It worked the very first time! I exchanged the canon (which also had a crack in the viewfinder, which I could’ve lived with) and got the nikon instead for $19 more. Kind of annoyed at this but over I like the Nikon and am happy with my purchase. Its also a bit smaller than the canon and fits nicely in my pocket. Only drawback: purple was the only color they had.

Americans in Germany…

This girl from my previous uni is in Germany, and having a really hard time over there. This is her facebook status: —-hates Germany. The people here have the most disgusting attitudes, the hotel is a rip off-the staff sucks, we’ve been misinformed, and I am thinking about suing this hotel. I’m trying to end my trip ASAP.

And now her note on just how much she hates Germany:

-They go on about service people being at the Sbahn…wrong-it was only one person and he walked away from us while we were trying to get our train tickets. Needless to say we didn’t buy a ticket back-we just hoped on the train on our way back-this whole day pissed me off.

-We went in a grocery store and before these bitches tell us that we need to purchase a bag to put our stuff in-she had the illest attitude when I was taking up the 2 bags-I was about to cut that bitch.

-Our currency card wouldn’t work for the longest. So when I got back to the hotel I called the card people (well it didn’t work in our room so we had to go to the receptionist). So, I found out that the hotel put a hold on our card for ?€ and they took out ?€ yesterday (from checking in early). Which leave us with ?€. Like wtf? The receptionist from yesterday was working my nerves and she didn’t explain anything to us about some charge for minibar. That was against the law because she didn’t explain anything to us and they were trying to say we didn’t pay for our hotel…like bitch we “paid in advance.”

-We only conversed with our cabby from the airport and some random guy that overheard us talking on the train. Thank God for him because we would’ve gotten lost.

-Our hotel is not in the city-it’s past the city-which mean we have to take a shuttle. Then the asshole tell us we had to go on the other side to catch the shuttle on our way back. Like wtf? We looked like retards nearly busting our ass going up and down the steps because a shuttle came and left-so we ha to go back over by going under.

-Yo-they enjoy watching visitors struggle over here..unless it’s a racist thing coz the service dude stayed and helped the white people in front of us and left after we got there and was asking about paying with our currency card. Like fuck the people here…it’s disgusting to me. We even try to speak some German.

-Every drink over here have FIZZY drinks. Like why the fuck is my water fizzy…all the types, plus why the fuck was my apple juice fizzy. They don’t sell regular juice or water outside or whatever (we finally got iced tea from the grocery shop).

-And we tried ordering food and a 2L orange Fanta and we said we don’t want any water just the Fanta (we said this like 10 times). And what the fuck did we get-2 nasty ass fizzy waters that cost 2 € each.

-No body better not tell me that I’m being petty because we are definitely not acting like tourists. Why the fuck can’t they have a chinese place that delivers???

-Then the hotel said they had a DVD player and cable and shit. Where the fuck is that shit??? Plus no breakfast (that shit cost 17€ per person) and then you have to pay to use the internet-grrrrrrr.

-This shitty ass place…which fucking hotel don’t provide a wash cloth??? Disgusting

-Then outside is not a good view coz they are doing construction.

-If you know me, the you would know that I have a 7th sense or something because I ca smell people out and the same damn receptionist that was acting up yesterday was the one that fucked us oer-so we couldn’t buy food today and such and nearly starved.

-PLUS I’m mad at that dumb bitch that work at the Delta airline currency in JFK. I asked her has she been to Germany because she’s telling us get a card and shit. We get here and all they want is cash. The cabs are not hot like NYC where you can swipe your card to pay, the ticket machines are lacking.

-Even the random old man from Illinois that live in Germany was like this country sucks. I didn’t even bother to ask why he still live here. People be hyping up Germany when kids can’t afford school and shit. It’s not all good…fuck free health care…I’m loving America even more now. I might kiss the ground when I return next week. I mean shit…no place is perfect-but this place is definitely on my shitlist.

-Ever wonder why shit is the way they are in NYC? It’s because they are more diverse in every way than any country in the world. I will take free education any ay over health care. I doubt they get any good health care over here anyway.

I can go even deep on this Germany shit. But I am done. This is a waste of my times, money, energy, and Job hunting schedule. Fuck this place…I wish I was home, I wish I was home, I wish I was home *clicks red pumps 3 x’s*

She definitely sounds like an American to me…

Just graduated, and too much free time

I just graduated on Sunday, as I’m sure most of you know by now, and it leaves me with a very large chunk of time in which to do..whatever I want.

Its a very strange feeling to not have to do anything. I’ve been drunk 3 of 5 nights this week, something I would never even have thought to do during the semester. I get invitations to go out with friends, and I accept. This is because it feels like the last time I may ever get to spend with these people more than it is to get drunk, I could care less about that.

I also have quite a large summer reading list, and I’m working on that one book at a time. This is only my first week since graduating, and I haven’t accomplished too much but I feel like I’ve done a lot. Today I set up my bank accounts to receive money from XE Trade, I requested my U of MN transcripts, and I filled out the form for Alfred University transcripts as well and will fax them tomorrow. Next week I have to get a few more passport photos and then I’ll all but one item down for the required documents for South Korea.

I’m also hoping to find a job this summer, though I recognize that with 2 months that may not be possible. I’m going to try my best. Emailed my resume to a temp agency already, and will be going to some local stores this weekend. While I can say it would be a boon to make some extra money this summer, its not something I absolutely need. I have only 2 more months of rent to pay and have that no problem, plus enough to buy food while I’m here and drive myself back to NY.

I’ve also been fighting the urge to do homework or write a paper, as it just does not feel natural to have nothing to do. In fact I keep wondering why I’m not doing anything. I have to give myself a list of things to do during the day just to stay busy and active. Lately it seems to mean visiting places in Minneapolis I’ve never seen despite living here for 3 years.

All of this will be solved once I leave for South Korea though, but until then, I’ll have a lot of free time.

Advanced Cat yodeling

Advanced Cat Yodeling

Using LinkedIn as a networking tool

So I just thought I’d write this up for others to use, as I have had great success in expanding my LinkedIn network lately.

I began by following professionals on twitter like Heather Huhman who are happy to join your network. So that part is pretty easy once you find the right folks. Some will even offer to give you job advice, look over your resume, etc. In order to find these people you might check out sites like WeFollow where you can search for relevant topics and find people you want to follow.

Next you need to find some groups of interest to you. For example, I belong to Deutschland Konnektion and various other German networking groups, as well as University of MN alumni group. Many times group members will post on the “wall” of the group welcoming you to connect with them as well, a great way to populate your network with people in the fields you are interested in.

People on these groups send out jobs that they may have available. This recently happened to me, and while I have yet to hear back from the email I sent I feel better knowing I am actively using LinkedIn rather than just having my profile 100% complete and occasionally updating it as I change jobs.

Dr. Date’s 10 best pick-up lines

1) They call me milk, ’cause I do your body good.

2) Want to see something swell?

3) You know what I like about you? My arms.

4) If I bought you a sexy negligee, would there be anything in it for me?

5) What say we use my hardware with your software?

6) What’s your preferred position on casual sex?

7) That is a lovely dress. What can I do to talk you out of it?

8) I’m hoping some of your sexy will rub off on me.

9) Fat Penguin. (Wait for look of confusion to fully develop on the other person’s face) I just thought I would say something to break the ice.

10) I’m bigger and better than the Titanic…and only 200 women went down on the Titanic.

Taken from MN Daily’s Dr. Date: http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/20/dr-date

Auf Wiedersein, or German dialects in the US

I was at the German coffee hour tonight when this happened…

So first, I need to provide a brief explanation to make this joke make sense.

So in German, when you say goodbye you say “auf wiedersehen” which means “on seeing again.” That is standard German. “Sein” means “being” as in to be alive when used as a noun, and “to be” when used as a verb.

Somewhere between Germany and Iowa however, this got mixed up. I stopped for gas in a town called Brody on my way through Iowa to my grandma’s house for Easter. There was a sign as I exited the gas station which said “Auf Wiedersein.” Now, seeing the similarities between wiedersehen and wiedersein, it is easy to understand how this change happened. The Germans here most likely used it as “on next being here.”

When I mentioned this to the native speaker, he cracked up. He made a gesture of putting a gun to his head and shooting himself and said “auf Wiedersein.” In this instance it meant more like “See you in the next life.”

I just find this absolutely hilarious and I’m probably a huge German geek for thinking so…but I just can’t stop laughing at it.