Kick Boxing

A few semesters ago I signed up for a Self Defense course here at UW-Milwaukee. We learned punches, kicks, blocks and how to properly fall when shoved down. It was awesome. A semester went by and I missed it, so last semester I decided to go to the gym here at UWM and found a kick boxing class. I went there with an open mind (hoping that it would be similar to the self defense class) and it was a blast. At the beginning of the semester we learned basic punches and how to always keep our elbows in to protect our sides and to protect our head when we duck out of a punch. We slowly incorporated kicks into the work out such as round house kicks, side kicks and snap kicks (yes at times I felt like Chuck Norris). Soon the semester came to an end (one of the classes I was solo so the instructor, Arthur, gave me a private lesson that really kicked my ass). 

Today was the first day of kick boxing this semester and we had roughly 22 people in the class with a max of 20. Only three of us came back from last semester meaning 19 people were new. Usually we have about 8 or 10 people and Arthur makes us really sweat. Today, with 22, it was no different. The sweat was running down my forehead before long and muscles started to ache in that glorious pain that can only come from a good work out. Hopefully next class people decide not to come so Arthur can work us out even more, incorporating more kicks and more complex moves like we did back in December. 

Basically, I love kick boxing as a work out. Go out and find a work out that you love and can't wait for your next class. For me, I have 1 day 19 hours and 27 minutes until my next kick boxing class. 

German Script

In one of my German classes this semester we are going to learn to read and write old German script. Our professor (my Opa's lodge brother) showed us a letter that was written in this script and you were lucky if you could identify one letter much less a word. Each individual letter of the script looks different than our 'now' script. Here is the alphabet in lower and upper case so you can see what I mean: 

The 'c' doesn't look anything like the now c but like a 'i' without the dot (otherwise known as title). One of the projects for this class is to find an old letter written in the script, preferably from our family as that would be more fun and interesting. Well, my Oma when she was in school had a little book that was considered her 'year book'. It is nothing like our year book in that there are no pictures or even the list of the children's names; however, all of her friends and teachers memorized a little poem or something to write in the book. I now have this book. Here are a few pages from the book:

My Oma, having grown up writing and reading this script still makes some of her letters the same, mainly the 'm' and 'n'. Hopefully by the end of the semester I will be able to read this and the rest of the book or poems from her school friends like I would a normal book, like you are reading this, without pauses to identify letters. 

First Day, Last Semester

Today I start my first day of class for my last semester as an undergraduate here at UW-Milwaukee. I'm currently planning on taking 5 classes (2 Criminal Justice, 2 German, and a Sign Language class with the possibility of dropping the Sign Language class). My 2 CJ classes should be fun. One is about research methods where we probably talk about statistics and reports and math type stuff. My second one is about comparative criminal justice where we spend one month on USA's law, the constitution and why our law is the way it is (how we will fit that into just one month of school beats me), then we will look at other countries like Germany, and Japan and Islamic law and see how they differ from USA's law. As for my German classes, one is movies after the war (this one being online) and the other about scripture and reading (which is taught by my Oma's and Opa's lodge friend) so both of those will be fun but will be a lot of work. The Sign Language class is just an introduction to sign language and we will have to interview a deaf person and by the end I will hopefully know more words in sign language than just swears and random animals. 
Today might be the first day of my last semester but graduation and the day I walk seem like a far thought. I'll take it one day at a time and will manage (with some days being much more stressful than others). All in all, it should be fun, but for now, I'm off to my first class. Good luck to all of those in the same boat as me and to those with semesters left before graduation, the light at the tunnel does keep growing.

Books vs. Movies

You ever find yourself reading a book that you've already seen the movie of and thinking to yourself 'This would have been so much better if they added this instead of cutting it out. Now I understand the character/scene better.' Well that is normally what happens to me. 
One night, hanging out with friends, we decided to watch Stephen King's IT. Before I got to finish the movie, it was time for me to go home (i.e. parents were at the door as I was too young to drive) and never finished the movie. I read IT and with the first page I was hocked. It was so descriptive and gruesome that I couldn't put the book down and just kept reading (remember this isn't a short story, it is over 1,000 pages). While I was reading IT, I remembered back to the movie night with friends and Tim Curry giving us his creep smile as the clown who liked to float, everything floats. After reading the book (which managed to spoke me) I watched the whole movie and thought it was crap. The acting was good and the cast just the same, but the story line was nothing compared to the book. The book spooked me for a week or so and I was expecting the movie to have me just as 'scared' for at least a week. By the end of the movie, I was disappointed. I love Stephen King books because of his 'what if' attitude regarding the supernatural. 
Currently I am reading Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden. I have seen the movie and thought it was brilliant with the writer going crazy, coming up with this mysterious person and doing terrible things while he thought he was asleep (including killing his own cat, burning down his ex-wife's house and eventually murdering his wife) and in the end we find out that it was the writer all along (kind of like Fight Club, but instead of fighting, they are writing). I have just come to the part where we (the audience as well as the main character (Mort)) find the cat with a screwdriver nailing it to the garbage lid. My only hope for this book is that it is as brilliantly written as it was portrayed in the movie. 
As a final thought, I do normally try to read the books before seeing the movies as I find my imagination is a lot more twisted and dark than what is normally portrayed on film.

Bread

Today I made Focaccia Bread. I started making bread last year when my Oma (German for Grandma) found a recipe in a magazine with kids holding up the finished loaves. It looked simple enough and she thought that if kids could do it, she couldn't the two of us. So I went over there one Saturday morning and we got busy. By the time we were done, more flour was surely on the two of us and on the floor than in the bread itself it seemed. Our hands and the counter top was sticky from the kneading and it took at least ten minutes to get ourselves clean. While the bread was in the oven, after washing up, we played solitare (I had to let her win a few times just like she always let me win when I was younger), and worked on her puzzle and then the oven timer went off. We rushed over to the oven with mits in hand and opened it up to find two perfectly golden brown loaves of bread. We took them out and couldn't wait to try them so we ripped off the end of one and put a little butter on it which melted in seconds. The two loaves didn't even last two days as it tasted so good. I still enjoy making bread with my Oma when we both have the time (and ingredients) and have tried various other recipes, but none which tasted as good as our first recipe of plain traditional bread. 
Like I said, today I made Focaccia Bread. It is a simple bread with different seasonings on the crust and cheese, onions and tomatoes sprinkled on top. Since I didn't find a recipe that I was too fond of, I had to mix different recipes together to get my desired result. It looks and smells delicious. If it wasn't for my Oma finding that one recipe in that magazine, I probably never would have tried to make bread (which my Opa's father did for a living, sadly never writing any of his recipes down). I plan to continue making bread, trying different recipes and experimenting on my own, all thanks to my Oma. Love you Oma!

The New Yardbirds

Today is one for the record books. Today, back in 1969 Led Zeppelin released their debut album. Many of you probably don't even know who The New Yardbirds where or why I am talking about them with Led Zeppelin. If you don't, that's fine, you will gain a little Rock 'N' Roll knowledge right now and if you do, you still might learn something fun. They Yardbirds, with member Jimmy Page, was on tour when they broke up in '68. Page felt committed to the tour so he called on Robert Plant, who wasn't Page's first choice for vocals, John Paul Jones for bass and John Bonham on drums which Page continued to play the guitar. Page remained the band from The Yardbirds to The New Yardbirds. Once the tour ended, they signed with Atlantic Records   who said their music would go over like a lead zeppelin (remember, this is the same time as The Beatles were hitting it big and a year before they would split, and The Rolling Stones). Page and the gang liked the name and recorded their debut album in less than 30 hours!
Led Zeppelin's biggest selling album (Led Zeppelin IV) never reached #1 in the U.S. but that never stopped Led Zeppelin doing what they did best, which was looking for new way to make music. Most notably was Jimmy Page who wanted mastered the double neck guitar, play mind blowing solos and using a violin bow instead of strumming with a traditional pick.
If it wasn't for Jimmy Page wanting to keep the tour contract, we would never have such great albums from Led Zeppelin that inspired new musicians to come up with their own form of rock. Thank you Jimmy Page.

Good Bye Christmas

Today I finally took down the last of the Christmas decorations. I took down the train. The toy train we have is from the 70s if not earlier. It belonged to my dad and grandpa and some day I will own it. We always set it up last going around the Christmas tree, by the stereo and then by the couch making a nice loop. After we take down the Christmas tree (my dad chops the branches off in the house) and haul it outside for the cat to play on, I always like making a fun swerving design in the rest of the open space in the living room. Past years my dad and sister would always help. This year dad was too busy it seemed and I had to convince my sister that it would be fun, even though she barely did anything. I played with the train for what seemed like hours while listening to the radio (rock mind you, not Christmas music anymore). I was getting good at adjusting the speed (otherwise it would tip over ~ as it did several times). I even passed notes to my sister who was sitting my the other switch playing on her phone more than with me. What once was a fun family tradition that I longed for once the nip of winter was in the air turned out that I was the only one who enjoyed it. My dad today was making deliveries, mom is at work and sister is gone, so I had the train all to my self. This morning after waking up and brushing my teeth I played with the train. It swerved on the tracks. I had the marble in front of the train going around a few times too (which is very tricky at the curves). It was a blast. But now the train is all packed up in the boxes where it will be stored in the garage until next Christmas where I will once again enjoy playing with the train even if no one else wants to. I always felt closer to my grandpa (who died before I was born) when I played with the train and will remain to play with it for years to come. 

Scared

Back in November I wrote a novel. The even is called NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month where participants compete against themselves and the clock to write a 50,000 word novel. I finished my 50,000 words with a day to spare, and the ending to still be finalized. I have been doing NaNoWriMo for the last three years. I started because my sister heard about it from some friend and I thought, '50,000 words, that's nothing!' Well that year I managed to finish it with literally moments to spare. In the twenty-third hour of the night, I had finished and was so excited. That novel though was a piece of crap. I wasn't prepared. I had a story inside of my head but misjudged the length with the original story. The original part was a mere 10,000 words. I had to think quick as the second hand changed minutes and hours soon went by. I ended up doing an epilogue to that story to fill up the remaining 40,000 words where my characters jumped 10 years into the future. Once that last word was typed, the words entered onto the official website which counts the words, I never looked back at it. 
The next novel I wrote I was better prepared. I had more ideas flowing in my head. I described my characters better and made them have their own flaws. I made them human. Thing was, it was still crap. I didn't know what I was talking about. I related on others to help me too often. It is a fine thing to have others help you, don't get me wrong, but there's something different about hearing about the experience or event verses actually going through it. When you actually experience the event, you remember certain things. The way the light was shinning. The smells. The background noises. How you felt. Why you felt that way. These things are typically lost in day to day communication where the go to response is always 'I guess you had to be there.' With writing, if you write well, you should never have to say that. The words on the page should draw such an emotional response that it is like you were actually there. The characters and readers should see how the light shines. Taste the smells. Hear the background noises. Feel like they are currently experience it. Understand why they feel the emotions that they do. As my characters lacked most of these things, it was still a piece of crap and once again, I have never looked back at a single word I wrote, yet still remember the basic plot.
The third novel I wrote was different. I dove right in. I started with action. I describe somethings with such great detail that the picture in my head was exactly like the one drawn with words. My characters have feelings. They cried. They laughed. They loved. My characters have jobs. They stress about certain things and they each have their own quirk that makes them who they are. Several of my characters died. Some as heroes. Some by accident. They experience things that they never tried before. They helped others with their problems while setting their problems on the back burner. They traveled. They weren't always happy but they lived, they really lived. Because I liked the way I was writing this novel so much while writing (not wanting to stop just because I was on such a roll) I decided to edit it. After the first two chapters of editing, I decided to let me sister read it and edit for grammar mistakes as I was sure I missed my fair share. This was the part I was scared of. I was finally letting someone else into my brain. Into how I think. If you have ever written three books, the first two being complete duds and a waste of time and finally feeling so passionate about the third that you are actually proud of it (wanting to hang it up on the fridge with a gold star) then you understand what I was going through. If not, let me explain. This was the moment when I would find out if someone else liked my work. Liked my work so much that they could not put it down. This was also the moment when I would find out if I should stick to my day job and not write another novel again. I was terrified of this moment. This moment would defy me for the rest of my living days. I clicked the send button on my email and she received it seconds later. It was there. In her hands now to judge. To judge my work. To judge my mind. To ultimately judge me.
At the end of each chapter, she said she was caught. She wanted to find out what would happen next. Why the characters were the way they were. She was reading the fourth chapter (of eight total) yesterday and tweeted a great complement. She said "Man, my sister's writing is so good that one part made the Life and Death theme from LOST play in my head while reading." As we were both LOST lovers when it was on, it was one of the nicest things she has ever said. 
I am still scared to let others read my work as I know that every book isn't for everybody and that I certainly have a fair share of books that I tried reading which brought me to not look at it again. I am proud of myself. Not for writing my third novel and actually liking it myself, but for growing and letting another person read what I imagined and go on the same dream that I had. Hopefully this next November my novel will be one that I love just as much as this one. Hopefully I will not be scared to show it to others. Only time will tell. 

Challenge Accepted.

About a month ago, I challenged my mom to several things that we would do this year. I gave her a list of a marathon, the Dirty Girl Mud Race and the Tough Mudder. A marathon for those of you who don't know is 26.2 miles that one can either complete by running, jogging, walking, or crawling (most likely during the end of the stretch). The Dirty Girl Mud Race is about a three miles race for women that benefit the Breast Cancer society. Along the race there are different obstacles to challenge the physical and mental ability of the participant. Such obstacles include Wall Climbing (of roughly 6 to ten feet high), mud pits, tire sprints and more mud. Finally the Tough Mudder is like the Dirty Girl but intensified. This is an 11 mile obstacle course with 20 obstacles instead of the 11 obstacles at Dirty Girl. These obstacles currently seem harder than those of Dirty Girl and include crawling under barbed wire (in the mud), jumping off a 15 foot high plank into water that most likely will be iced for our enjoyment to swim in, running though an aisle of fire that reaches 4 feet high, a mile dedicated to running in knee high mud, monkey bars where some are greased and others are loose (and a drop in cold water if you let go) and finally ending in what they call electroshock therapy where one runs through a field of live wires (some containing up to 10,000 volts).
So I let my mom pick which two we would do this year in 2012. She picked all three. So this year, I will need to first build up my mileage and train for our marathon (to be in June ~ yikes, only 6 months away!), then I will get a taste of mud on August 18 and then two weeks later, I will be drenched in mud and shocked with the Tough Mudder on September 8. It seemed all fun and games when I challenged my mom and I'm sure we will have a blast doing this (the first two just the two of us as a team and the Tough Mudder open for friends to join in...or laugh from the side lines). 
Today I leave you with the Tough Mudder pledge: 
As a Tough Mudder I pledge that: I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge; I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time; I do not whine - kids whine; I help my fellow mudders complete the course; I overcome all fears.

Trivia Day

Today is Trivia Day. What better way to celebrate this by telling you all random trivia facts about myself, but I must warn you, one of the facts that I will tell you, will in fact be a lie, try to guess which one.
1. I was born in March 23, 1990, my mother on March 24 and my Oma (grandma) on March 27.
2. I am a lifetime Girl Scout and proud to be part of that great organization and everything it stands for. 
3. I hated reading until the 9th grade when our English class had to do a book report on any book in the library. I wanted some horror book so picked up Stephen King's Eye of the Dragon (not his scariest book by far, but still good) and haven't been able to put him down since.
4. I have written three books myself, the first two pretty much sucking (haven't let anyone read them and I dare not to go back to them) and the third one I am currently editing and already let someone read my first chapter who wouldn't tell me if it was good or not yet but will tell me after reading the second and third chapters.
5. I grew up learning English and my Oma and Opa (grandpa) taught me some German which is one of my minors in college.
6. I study Criminal Justice, German and Psychology at UW-Milwaukee and I am an officer of the Criminal Justice Student Association club on campus.
7. I collect shot glasses from places that I have been, mostly consisting of places in Germany as I came to the idea of collecting shot glasses my second time their. 
8. I have been doing archery for nearly 10 years and enjoy teaching it at Girl Scout Camp which I still volunteer for every summer. 
9. I rarely dream, but when I do, I remember the dream vividly and sometimes they are in German (which I find really cool).
10. Several days ago on the first of January, my mother and I did the Polar Bear Plunge where you go into Lake Michigan in a swim suit for the hell of it. The temperature was roughly 32 degrees out and I went up to my shoulders while my mother decided to go all the way under.
11. Last summer my mother and I completed a half marathon afterwards I challenged her to a full marathon in 2012, the Dirty Girl Mud Run and the Tough Mudder. 
12. My favorite color is blue and I despise pink (mainly for the sole reason that pink is my sister's favorite color). 
13. 13 is my favorite number and I love when 13 falls on a Friday, they are lucky days for me.
14. I'm deathly scared to let someone read my book that I am currently editing and letting one friend read the first chapter was one of the scariest things I have ever done.
15. I already have a bucket list, even though I am 21 and have already been able to cross several things off. 
16. I love the smell of wood, stain, varnish, fires, freshly cut grass, fresh bread and apple pie.
17. I love math and know pi to the 20th decimal.
18. I would rather spend a night in and reading or playing games or watching movies than going out to a bar or club.
19. I never knew my Grandpa as he died from brain cancer in 1980 and I was born in 1990.
20. I have been to several concerts, yet only had to pay for one, winning the tickets to the other concerts including Aerosmith, Poison, Def Leppard and the Steve Miller Band.

Day One

Hi. This is really quite strange and slightly difficult for me, as I have never done this before. I am at a loss of words which rarely comes to me as I like to write and my brain is always on a train of thought shooting from one thing to another. Like just now I am thinking about trains because I typed train of thought. I'm thinking how cool it would be to be in the engine of a train and come to the crossing of a street and being able to blow the whistle. About how much the train weights and how my dad and I would sometimes tape a quarter or penny or nickle (dimes were always too small) to the track and wait for a train to come by and squish it flat, becoming a little good luck piece that I would carry in my pocket when I had an exam. I've lost most of them, I still have one penny that is flattened and still carry that along with a guitar pick in my pocket. No, I do not play the guitar, yet it is on my bucket list, but I do have a guitar that is signed by Les Paul (unfortunately not a Les Paul guitar) that he signed after playing a private concert for myself and roughly 15 other students for writing the 'best essay about him and his life.' Do you see what I mean, I like to ramble on. Sometimes I'm at a loss of words and will literally write whatever comes to mind, other times I might tell you about my day or something that has been bothering me for a while, whether it be something that happened to me, or a question on my mind. I hope for all you Led Zeppelin lovers out there, you will understand my page title or whatever it is really called. 
So, today I took down the Christmas decorations. My family celebrates Christmas and we exchange presents but we don't go to church. Then I went shopping with my sister (Christina, 23) and bought the book The Woman In Black by Susan Hill and a calendar of the Greek Isles. Other than that my day was pretty ordinary. Had cereal for breakfast, took a shower (singing loudly and bad), took down the decorations, had lunch, went shopping, goofed around on the internet (it is winter break from college (UW-Milwaukee)) and decided that it was about time to start this thing up. Tonight, after dinner, I plan to edit some more of my novel and watch some TV probably while I do the dishes to 'surprise' my mom and dad and then read some more of The Langoliers by Stephen King in the book Four Past Midnight.