6/5/2011 8:17 PM Austria

Some things I neglected to mention:
The flight to paris was a ten hour flight. Between flights, in paris,
there was some sort of superman convention because we saw several
people dressed up in tights and underwear as superman, and besides
that there were other people all dressed up in neon spandex all over
the place. we landed in vienna, found our luggage, and met our dad.
Yay! then we got in the car and drove. the driving and roads here are
very different, but also the same. I slept some on the drive as well,
but not tons. The scenery is beautiful. it is very green here with
lots of trees. its also fairly humid, but i love it. we stopped at
mcdonalds for dinner and then went to our family friends' house. We
talked with them for maybe half an hour before the parents went to
dad's apartment and we stayed at theri house for the night. We pretty
much all slept through the night, but younger than me one was awake
for a little bit around 2:30. Then we woke up and got ready and went
to church. we were almost an hour late, so the first block of meetings
was over. i went to Young single adult sunday school. Partway through,
a man started translating for me, but next week I hope I'll be able to
manage better. Besides, most of the YSA seemed to speak english. Then
we went to Sacrament meeting--it was mostly lost on me because i
understand very little german, if any. After church, we went back to
our friends' house for a barbecue. the food was delicious. the food
here is different, but amazing! Interesting fact about the pretzels we
had, they're called lye pretzels cuz they're dipped in lye before they
cook. I was also showed a really cool plant called stevia which is the
new big sugar substitute. it's quite sweet. Our friends ended up
lending me a chemistry book which i'm excited to read. After some more
visiting time, we loaded up all our things and headed for our
apartment in krumpendorf. It s the same place we stayed ten years ago,
so i recognized our landlady and the apartment. it has been remodeled
some, but it's similar. We all got settled in and just spent a
relaxing evening together. For an evening snack we had palazzo cookies
which are covered in delicious chocolate and some delicious bread with
wild cranberry jam. we also tried some toast with duo, which is a
chocolate hazelnut spread with vanilla cream. ti was all super
delicious. there are also cherries growing in the yard here that we
are welcome to. some other funny things that happened, i think i
mentioned before that after the plane ride, my feet were really stiff.
well, that first evening i finally looked at them and they were super
fat. i'm pretty sure i lost my ankles. i took pictures, but its hard
to see. the swelling has gone down some, but at some point when my
feet are back to normal, i'll take more pictures and post them
together for before and after comparison. they swelled up some during
church again, but should be back to normal soon. also, random fact,
the toilet paper here isn't square, its rectangular. also they have a
different system of flushing is different. they have two buttons, a
big one for a big mess and a little one for a little mess. its pretty
brilliant if you ask me. As far as air conditioning goes, its pretty
much non-existent here, so there's lots of leaving the windows open.
their windows ar eamazing! they open horizontally and vertically
depending on which way you turn the handle. oh, this place is just so
beautiful! Its amazing!

--

Rosie Liddle
"Laughing gives you abs, rock hard abs."

6/4/2011 12:35 PM Paris, France

I guess my judgement really was impaired by not sleeping because for
some reason I decided it would be a good idea to not sleep on the
airplane. I slept for the first hour and the last twenty minutes of
the first flight, giving me a grand total of approximately five hours
of sleep in the last 48 hours. I thought, for some strange and
unfathomable reason, that this would help with jet lag. we shall see.
so, i've pretty much pulled two all nighters, even though one was a
significantly shorter night. (It's just after noon here, but at home
it's just after 4 in the morning.) Now, we're taking off for a two
hour flight from Paris to vienna. its probably best for me to stay
awake in the middle of the day. I'm not feeling 100% anymore. Its just
a minor headache and slight dizziness, but both of those could also be
from flying. I guess my stomach is also slightly upset, but with
airplane food and a strange eating schedule, that should surprise
nobody. all things considered, I feel fantastic! (now say fantastic in
french.) The only thing i really dislike about flying is the way the
change in pressure hurts my ears, especially on the way back down. I'm
sleepy. I'll write more later. *sleep...almost an hour passes* Yep, i
couldn't stay awake, but the good news is, it still feels like mid
day. I believe this sleep deprivation will make it easy to sleep
tonight. The other good news is my head and stomach feel better than
earlier. The bad news is, i woke up, and 30 seconds later the flight
attendant asks me a question. i didn't understand, so i asked, "what?"
then he started to repeat the question, but interrupted himself and
asked if i spoke french. Duh! I didn't understand the first time
because it was in a different language, which didn't even occur to me
30 seconds after i woke up. I felst slightly foolish. That's just how
dumb i am right after i wake up though. changing the subject, I've
discovered something: flying is fairly boring and makes me
unproductive. Granted, i did finish crocheting a washcloth and watched
two movies, but really sat and did nothing but ake my feet stiff. I'm
excited to get to tomorrow. Well, I can't think of anything else to
say so I won't. The adventure continues...

--

Rosie Liddle
"Laughing gives you abs, rock hard abs."

6/3/2011 2:30 pm, USA

Maybe I'll start this story with yesterday. Yesterday I graduated from
high school. My question is simply, why does the school board make
people who are ready to move on to the next stage in their lives sit
through an obnoxiously boring and rather long ceremony and pretend
that they're happy to be there and it's the greatest day of their
lives? The truth is that we all just want to get on with it and party.
Something you may or may not know about me is that I am usually asleep
by 9:30 and I usually wake up around 4:30. I'm not much of a night
person, not much at all. But, at the senior all night party I was not
even tired. And then we went to asymptote's house for an hour before
sending the boys home at about 4:30 (when I usually wake up). Still,
not even tired, so we decided to watch a movie. Five o clock in the
morning, and I fall asleep for the first time. Well, that was at the
beginning of the movie. We woke up at the end of the movie and decided
to try to watch it again since we were all asleep the first time, but
to no avail. At about 7:20 I woke up, conscious that I needed to go
home and pack, so the bestest friend cousin ever and I went home. Then
I packed, cleaned, and didn't sleep at all. Well, it gets to be about
one ithe afternoon, and it's time to go. I still feel fine even though
I've been awake for twenty seven of the last thirty hours. After being
in the car for about twenty minutes, I start to doze, and I doze the
rest of the way to the airport, but still feel fine and awake as soon
as we get out of the car. I am surprised that I'm not either acting
completely insane or completely dead. Usually I am one of those when I
miss a couple hours of sleep, let alone the whole night. Now I'm just
sitting in an airport. Thus, the adventure begins.

Crazy and Crocheting

I suddenly realized today that sometimes I sing silently to myself. My mouth moves, but nothing comes out. It's cuz I'm not singing out loud, but I am singing in my mind. Most of the time the lyrics don't make sense, and they usually come from the dark abyss that claims to be my brain. Let me give you an example: "CD players always choose to hate me, but i can't really blame them cuz my stapler is crazy. You wouldn't want a water bottle full of green jello, no, cuz jello that is green is certainly not yellow." ...You get the idea. The great part is though, even though I'm not poetic, the tunes are usually all right. Not sure if I should have posted that to the internet.
. . .
Moving on, I learned how to crochet on tuesday night. I made a sunflower shaped wash cloth. I also started another one. I find myself letting my mind wander sometimes, and I'll just be picturing the path of the yarn through the stitch I'm using. If I had actually crocheted as many stitches as I've visualized, I would have a plethera of wash cloths. I really like it, despite that others sometimes make fun of me for being an old lady.

Inspirational thought: You can overcome the physical with the mental if you are really determined to.

Music, Lax, Food, and Learning

Ok, I'll admit it. I had very high hopes at the beginning of the year, but then I got busy and failed. So, I will now relate some things that I find ultra important. Number one, yesterday evening, I was involved in a concert called a Celebration of Cellos. A young girl had a dream to have a stage filled with cellos, and now, with grown kids herself, she's fulfilled her dream. I was concertmaster for part of the all cello orchestra, and I was the featured soloist for The Pink Panther. It was exciting, and I couldn't stop smiling. Number two, what have I said about lacrosse? I'm not sure. I am on the lacrosse team. It's my first year playing, but so far, I have started every game we've played. I play low defense. We won our first two games, but the last game that we played was not so good for us. Our whole team was having an off day. We'll work harder and do better in our next game. Also, our coach really likes to have secret meetings, not sure why, but she really enjoys them. Number three, I've been trying new recipies a lot lately. Yes, strange, but when I'm cooking for myself, I want to know what's fast and easy. And Yum. A couple weeks ago I made meat. I made crock pot Costa Vida style pork. It was delicious and easy, but after I cooked it, I realized something: I'm not a fan of pork. Today, I tried making homeade tortillas. They turned our really good, but I want to figure out how to make them full size rather than itty bitty so that I can actually use them for burritos. I practically survive off of those. I'll be doing some research, and some practice (look out family). What else? School's becoming really trying. Homework that is busywork is just awful! It's not that I'm sick of school, because whenever I'm there, I love it! I love learning new things. It's that I'm sick of homework. I'm sick of taking practice AP multiple choice tests, writing practice AP essays, going to boring concerts, and filling out forms about books I've read. I'm really good at doing the homework I enjoy. Physics homework always gets done on time, and the actual reading of the books always happens fast. But the boring stuff, simply put, is a lot harder for me to do. Is this senioritis? I believe so. If I'm gonna do homework, it's going to be something I enjoy. I feel like I'm getting long winded, so I guess I'll just end abruptly now.

just for your information

previosly, i referred to one of my friends as somwon. her name has officially changed to asymptote. just so you know. also, i realized that i never finished the preference story. THE MAN and i re-asked her date with a bucket of ice cubes mixed with candy and a random flute. the poster said something along the lines of "thanks for breaking the ice! (don't worry, this time it comes pre-broken.) It would be *sweet* if you went to preference with me! P.S. I spy a flute... (it has magical powers)" originally, the last parenthetical was going to say it has nothing to do with anything, but there wasn't room for that, so it turned into magical powers. i don't do this story justice. the end. :)

The big post of everything

Recent happenings of late have been exciting, but i haven't written all week because i have been secretly planning a surprise party for The Bestest Friend Cousin Ever and i just couldn't handle it. Lying makes me freak out. I'm pretty good at it when it comes down to the moment because i'm pretty good at acting, but it really makes me freak out forever afterwards. So lying to her was hard, but i did it. the day of the party i cleaned my house, and at 5 i ran out of things to clean, and that was when the worst anxiety and freak outage began. it was bad-really bad. at six i brought THE MAN to my house to make sure everyone would know what they were doing when i brought TBFCE back. I was literally pacing in circles and losing my mind. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was also afraid that TBFCE knew what i was planning. I picked her up to take her "out to dinner" and we drove for about 8 minutes toward the place i was going to take her when i realized that i "forgot" my wallet. yep. and she totally believed it. (i guess that tells you what kind of person i am...) we turned around and headed back to my house, and just before we got there, i called my house with speed dial that i set up and just let it ring for a minute before hanging up, and all that happened secretly. after we got in and everybody yelled "Surprise!" the first words out of her mouth were "what-how did you-but that's not-but-what?" and we sang. the party was a success, with plenty of food and fun.

This week we were supposed to start Lacrosse practice, but something about the negative degree weather with lots of wind chill made my coach say that we needed to be inside, so instead we just conditioned. lame. I don't know what everyone was whining about...the cold wouldn't be that bad if we all just bundled up. whatever. basically, the only sensation i can feel in my legs is pain. when there is no pain they feel dead.

Basically i'm a hobo living out of the back of a car, minus the hobo part. i have food, water, clothing, blanket, lacrosse gear, shelter if i wanted, and LOVE in there-everything i need to survive.

Today I decided to make chocolate no-bake cookies. this happened:

yes, that is 88 cookies. the end.