I got an award

Maybe this makes up for never being handed one in the non-virtual world?

Thanks to Rachael, who tagged me to this award-thingy on her blog Isatou (http://isatoubee.blogspot.com/). I felt quite honoured. Her blog is lovely, mine is awfully empty!
(The rules for this award:
- List 10 random things about yourself
-Tag 10 other bloggers with the award (write them a comment so they know they've got it!)
-Link the person that gave you the award)

10 random facts about myself

1. I can't for the life of me stand red socks. I would rather were uggs or crocks, and that counts for something!
2. I've been working on a construction plot for a months now. We are building six houses, it's great fun
3. I do 2. in order to take up a study of architecture in October. I am very excited!
4. I am German yet seldom read a book written in German. Reading in English is my main practise in refining my English skills.
5. I've been a vegetarian since I was 12 years old. I haven't eaten a single piece of a dead animal since. I HATE talking about it though and wonder why people always expect me to justify this "habit".
6. There are a million reasons why I want to live in the UK, one of them being that our clothing-stores suck compared to the British ones!
7. As of late I'm pondering the idea of naming a future potential son Calum Fox Leopold, despite it being very VERY animalistic (Dove Fox Lion) - [peaceful, smart, strong!]
8. I just moved back home after almost a year of living away for uni. I have mixed feelings about it
9. My absolute favourite movie ever is Pocahontas.
10. I prefer people who are evil, blunt and honest over honey-greasing, always-friendly sunshines. Funnily enough people always assume I rather classify as latter :/

My tagging-worth recommendations. Those are all awesome ladies!
Hayley's http://hayleywillis.blogspot.com/
Rebecca's http://rebeccasmindlessmadness.blogspot.com/
Carly's http://dontyouknowitsgoingtolast.blogspot.com/
Jackie's http://aswelivesowelearn.blogspot.com/
Cristina's http://forbiareads.blogspot.com/
Sofia's http://chimericalsofie.blogspot.com/
Meg's http://foreverythingareason.blogspot.com/
Laura's http://a-passing-afternoon.blogspot.com/
Jessica's http://jessicasjotter.blogspot.com/
Kati's http://omgthisisentertaining.blogspot.com/

Procrastinating procrastination

I'm a genius! Some people blog as a way to procrastinate more important things to do (work? household?), but I seem to manage to neglegt blogging itself because it's too much work.

So actually I was going to post a link to the name-blog I aspire to set up (Of course I will keep up with this one as well, like usual. HAHA), but I have no idea what to name it. I want a fancy, spunky, catchy name - A blog's moniker seems to require the same characteristics like a person's name for me ;-)

If you have any ideas let me know.

I can't wait...

... for these to arrive!

I've ordered them from H&M, and they actually should have made their way here yet! Hurry up, dear lovely pair of must-have shoes =)

Yesterday on the train

If I had to choose only one subject to rant about for the rest of my life my pick would easily be the "Deutsche Bahn" our German, no longer state train-company.

When I drove from Mannheim to Karlsruhe on Tuesday with Karla (needless to say, on detour, because they only run their proper connections every 50/70 minutes), we burst out in laughter as another train with "Reisen mit der Bahn schont ihren Geldbeutel" - "traveling by train gives your purse a break" drove past us. Nothing about this mess has ever given me a break, my purse is surely the first to agree with me there. It is a save fact, that this company realises profit with no end, yet all measures they can think of is making the tickets even more expensive. Oh no, I should take that back, they introduced this *aweome* bonus-system, that gives me whole 10 €uro back once I've spend 1000€!!

I seriously believe in public transport, I believe it's the best invention ever - You don't have to drive your own car, you don't have to give a shit about parking, you can read whilst you travel without becoming sick. You are seated with actual space (as opposed to fully packed cars on their way to a vacation-resort), you can play cards with your co-travels, with them being either your friends or new people you get to know, if you plan on travel a far distance, it surely gets you there waaay faster than your car, the routes in general are far more beautiful than the car ones. And first of all these things - it saves our planet. It would work a wonder if only it was run differently.
This is why it's so ironic that driving by car is still less expensive, the fact that all fronts speak pro-train and still we have countless of cars running across the country on the Autobahnen shows how ridiculous gainless it is from the financial side. If I ever become influential I will make a point in changing this situation, someone else in such a position should do that NOW and stand up for planet earth!

So yesterday I got on the train to drive back home, and what did this stupid thing do? It just stood at the station for a whole 20 minutes before it even departed. Of course this ruined my chances of catching the next train, which I had to switch to in Heidelberg, it arrived a whole 15 minutes after the next had left. I went complaining and got to travel in a better alternative train, which I had to wait *only* 10 minutes for.

Because there's always a bright side to everything, I got to know a fellow Deutsche Bahn -complainer. She had sat opposite to me in the belated train, we've had eye contact smirking about our weird seat-neighbours (they both talked English with a German-accent when talking to each other. Haha, we still haven't figured out why) and started small-talk, before we discovered we're of the same age and both have taken up our studies in fall. She's from where I study now and we have plans to go out for drinks when we're both in Karlsruhe at the same time.
She studies in Frankfurt, I'm a wee bit jealous, Frankfurt is so beautiful, I went there with Svenja last Saturday, we have had such a beautiful day walking along the Main, just talk and enjoying the first rays of sun.

Name likings - the male version

Because I forever neglect the boys, even though I'm pretty content with my top-choices at the moment, here follows the boy-version of my favourite names at the moment. They aren't in any particular order. I probably should have done alphabetic, but I can't be bothered, ha!

Fox - English, "fox" Generally a transfered use of the surname - Simple, spunky and out-of-the-box
Calum - Scottish form of Latin Columba "dove" - Pure perfection
Simon - English form of Hebrew/biblical Simeon "hearkening" - My brother's middle-name, common yet refreshing
Stuart - French version of occupational surname, "stewart", introduced by Scotish Mary Stuart - In deed cool, I am in love with the nickname Stu
Friedrich - Germanic "peace and power" - Very, very old-fashioned, so much that is starts being fresh again!
Rufus - Latin "red(-haired)", derived from a pet-name, in use since the 17th century - So British to me =)
Levi - Hebrew/biblical "associated", third son of Leah and Jacob - Soft and gentle
Eliot - French via Hebrew "Yahweh is God" petform of Elias, first used as surname - Simple and to the point

Name likings

If it had to name a girl right now, I would pick from following list:

Ríona - Irish "queenly" - I can't think of a more pretty name
Ella - Germanic "other, foreign" - On my list since technically forever. I fear it will be quite common here in a bit
June - English "june" - Spring
Rachel - Hebrew "ewe" - I'll possibly never stop to appreciate her feminine harshness
Holly - English "holly" - Simply lovely ♥
Ffion - Welsh for Gaelic Fiona "white, fair" - Awesomly simplistic!
Esther - Persian via Hebrew "myrtle" or Persian "star" - So wonderfully strong. Back on my list!
Anaïs - Catalan for English via Hebrew Anne "He has favoured me" - Partly to honour my sister, whose middle-name is a variant of Anne as well
Felizitas - Latin "happiness, luck, good fortune" - My own middle-name
Ione - possibly Greek 19th century coinage - If music was expressed in only one name, it would be Ione!
Maeva/Maeve - Irish "intoxicatin, she who makes drunk" - Don't you just love the meaning? ;-)

I'm still alive

Keeping up with my blog isn't one of my strenghts, that's for sure!

I'm on semester-break, facing a 5-week-long stay at home. No working, no learning, just being lazy and enjoying it.
Uni is not quite working out as I planned it (Haha, I guess that's what I get for too high expectations). I failed the math-exam and I'm pretty sure the mechanics one went just as badly. That's life!
I've come to realize that I've become a whiny person. Really shocking considering the fact that I loathe whinyness and constant complainers - If you're not happy with your situation, then change it! So I guess I need to do that - suck it up, work harder next semester and if the results don't improve then look into optional studies.

A 17-year old ran amok on Wednesday in Germany. It's sad that it has comes so far again, makes you wonder how much suffer he had to went through to see this reaction as his best option... Killing a bunch of random, innocent kids as his last deed, the association that will always be made with this late boy now...

I am grateful for my sheltered family-life. My awesome friends I can always turn to, who understand me and who are interested in how I feel and care for me without expecting something in return. I wouldn't trade my friends or my family for anything! =)

My best male friend should return to Germany after 8 months in Australia soon. I miss him, and we haven't coped too well with staying in contact, he's all over the place (well, Australia ;-)) I can't wait to catch up with him!

And I'm going to London in April!

Life isn't too bad after all!