Thanks to soccer, no weekend is ever boring anymore! It gives life an odd sense of urgency and electricity all the time. I know I can't keep up this level of emotional investment forever (especially not when I have to focus on my PhD...) but for now, it's tons of fun, especially as my personal life isn't exactly thrilling.

First came the usual whirlwind of Saturday Bundesliga matches - 6 games ALL AT ONCE. This Saturday, there were TWENTY-SIX GOALS in said six matches - I love this league! The match I was invested in, Mainz-Gladbach, was a thriller with the teams taking turns scoring goals and Mainz emerging victorious in the last minutes with a scoreline of 3-2. Mainz's Sami Allagui was a revelation, scoring two miraculous goals as a sub, and Lewis Holtby continued to be the perfect human being. (I'm legit in love with him, it's a little scary, haha.) André got a beautiful goal as well. It was a REALLY REALLY exciting game and probably my favorite of the Bundesliga season so far! I was so happy to see my Mainz bbs return to winning ways after a full month of Bundesliga misery, and their celebrations were as youthful and full of joy as ever. The most adorable bit was when Lewis ran over to the barrier and HIS MOM HAULED HIM UP FOR A CONGRATULATORY KISS. sdlkfsjldfkjs I think my heart exploded a little with joy. :')

Sadly, in contrast, Bayern produced a disappointing draw with Bayer Leverkusen. I only caught the first 20 minutes, during which Bayern's only goal was scored and my Basti was a total hero ♥, but I hear in the second half it went rather downhill, and the final score was 1-1. Really not helping your title defense, honeys. Le sigh. (I have entered a state of emotional self-preservation, wherein losses or draws are no longer crushing, but instead causes for shrugs and sighs, while wins are the pleasant surprises. I'm more functional that way.) Most notable things about this match: Basti shaved off all his hair and looks like a different person, he wore a jersey with the sponsor logo printed upside down for half the match, AND he groped Thomas Müller in the crotch TWICE during a goal celebration. AHAHAHA OKAY BASTI. Never a dull moment with my boy. ♥

But the BEST part of my soccer weekend was seeing a match in person!! My Michigan boys, as you might recall, got into the NCAA tournament by WINNING the Big Ten title, so they hosted a second round game and of course I went to it! My daddy and my roomie came too and we had such a great time. It was overcast but not too cold, perfect soccer-viewing weather. We were playing University of Central Florida, so of course they didn't even own long sleeved jerseys and were all in gloves, awww. It was a super duper thrilling and anxiety-attack inducing match, the WHOLE TIME! UCF is ridiculously good at defense, while Michigan is very strong on offense, so it was a never ending clash of these two powers. The numbers tell the story - Michigan had 31 shots and 13 shots on goal, while UCF only had something like 5 shots in the whole game. Nevertheless, UCF scored first, very early on, and it took until halfway through the second half for Michigan to equalize, on the most gorgeous assist and finish at the top of the box that I had a perfect view for. The stadium EXPLODED, it was such an amazing feeling! Then we finished regulation with a 1-1 tie and had to go into sudden death overtime, and after only four minutes Michigan WON!!!!! I screamed and jumped and it was just generally the most fantastic feeling in the whole world! I think I understand why people are sports fans now. :D It was so wonderful to be in a stadium filled to bursting, watching a team I adore do what it's best at. Now Michigan moves on to the NCAA third round to face 7th seeded South Carolina, a daunting matchup to say the least! I really really hope they win and move onto the Elite Eight! *crosses fingers*

( Peeektures! Lewis and Basti and Michigan celebratory crowdsurfing! )

In non-soccer news (gasp!), DANGER DAYS CAME OUT TODAY!!!!! *does a happy dance* The iTunes LP is AWESOME, rich and creative and enormous. I love this band so much. :') But the best part is that I finally gave the album to my dad (who loves Three Cheers but really doesn't like Black Parade) since he's coming to see them with me in December, and he emailed me specifically to say HE LOVES IT! IT'S KICKING HIS ASS!! I am so happy and proud, oh my goodness. Now I'm looking forward to the show even MORE, because I know my dad will love the experience too. :DD And I also have tickets to see them in Cleveland in April with angel726! AHHHH I AM SO EXCITED AND I LOVE THIS BAND SO MUCH. I've literally listened to nothing except this album for the past five days, lmao. Ugh so many hearts! ♥_____♥ My favorite song has become Save Yourself, it's just so gorgeous. But I love the WHOLE ALBUM. *happy sigh*

That's all for now! Toodles!

I mentioned in my last post that I have been given an "official" blogging position - thank you for your very sweet enthusiasm for me! I'm really very excited about it. So excited, in fact, that I banged out an epic debut post! I have a lot of ~thoughts and feelings~ about the match tomorrow, Germany vs Sweden, for which Germany has called up a lot of new, young faces, a couple of whom are MY BBS Lewis Holtby and André Schürrle! It's actually a really important moment for many of these young players, who will have their first chance to prove themselves as valuable assets for the senior squad.

I know to most of you this post will be entirely nonsense, but I'd appreciate a click out of the goodness of your hearts - my bosses count our hits! And for the few of you that are interested, I hope you'll find the post enjoyable and informative. :)

So without further ado, my blogging debut! Can the Kids Play? In Sweden, They Will...

Who's just gotten his first call up to the German national football team? That's right, THIS KID.



My one and only bb, Lewis Holtby. I will definitely tear up when he takes to the field. :') Also announced are several other rising starlets, ages 18-22. TEAM OF BBs. I am beyond excited. It's only a friendly against Sweden, but the team is going to be so delightful and fresh faced! I can't wait to see who else Jogi calls up!

Relatedly, I've started co-modding a Tumblr dedicated to my little blond one, so if you're intrigued by him feel free to check it out! He likes to be shirtless. :D Fuck YEAH Lewis Holtby!

Also, today is the birthday of the one and only Philipp Lahm. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY TINY FIPS! You and your defending and your eyebrows and your championing of AIDS awareness and anti-homophobia. ILU, tiny beautiful bb.


THIS GUY IS KAPITÄN OF THE GERMAN NATIONALMANNSCHAFT. You just keep on sparkling on, little one. ♥ ♥ ♥

I've been meaning to make a post/picspam about my newest darling, Lewis Holtby! However, my picture folder keeps exploding and he keeps doing cute things EVERY WEEK so it's just an overwhelming prospect. In the meantime, I'm just gonna leave this photo here that made my brains dribble out of my ears today. WARNING: Very close to NSFW due to EXTENSIVE AMOUNTS OF SKIN.

( Are you ready? )

You're welcome. :D

BAYERN WON YESTERDAAAAAY! On a literally last gasp (91st minute!) goal by Daniel van Buyten, of all people, but my boys fought and fought and deserved to come away with the win. Thank god, because we REALLY needed those damn points. It still wasn't very good for my heart - Lahm is playing atrociously, and I NEVER thought I would say that (and okay, he's playing fine, but for his normal standards? ATROCIOUS). And most horrible of all, Ribéry was supported off the field crying and yelling in agony - he'll be out for at least 4 weeks, possibly longer. :((( We... uh, kind of need him, especially without Robben. So THAT sucks. But we came away with the points and I'm clinging to that.

So in celebration, I bring picspam!

The ever lovely munkykiss messaged me on Twitter and was all, godammit, FINE, show me Germans! And I was all :D! :D! OKAY I WILL SHOW YOU MANY MANY ADORABLE WONDROUS GERMANS AND YOU WILL LOOOOVE THEM! :D! :D! I think I frightened her a little. But I promised to deliver, and even though this is much later than I planned, I COME BEARING GERMANS! In GIF form, specifically. Please see this huge post for a picspam of WC2010 - so much epic. <333 But for now, I was specifically asked for gifs, so here they are! Warning: THIS HAS A LOT OF GIFS. Do not enter unless you have GOOD internet and your computer won't die. Consider yourselves warned!

( Ich liebe die Deutschen! )

And there you have it! A highly biased selection of my darling, beautiful Germans being cute and badass and hugging each other a lot. :D I hope you enjoyed!

Things!

THOSE MY CHEMICAL ROMANTICS ARE AT IT AGAIN!!!! I'm really kind of overwhelmed by how much I LOVE this, and how it's completely new and wacky and different and yet still so THOROUGHLY them. This band has changed so, so much since they made Black Parade, and I love that they've landed on this sound that stays true to their roots while blazing ahead into ridiculous, wonderful POST-APOCALYPTIC COMIC BOOK LAND. Did you see their hair?!???? The clothes??? The ray guns and the GRANT MORRISON and the dude in the roller skates and the helmets and the Mikey Way cheekbones?? EVERYTHING IS AMAZING. And the song bit is getting stuck in my head! I NEED THIS ALBUM LIKE OXYGEN. DO IN FACT NEEDS. Come to meeeeeeee musical geniuses of my heaaaaart! Ugh ♥

In OTHER news (I know nothing could possibly be that important!) this week has sort of... vanished without me noticing? I'm at a weird point in my research, one I don't particularly love, but I'm also no longer in crisis mode, so that's nice. (*ruthlessly squashes remaining qualms*) I've been trying to write a paper for my boss - a "research plan" for the next 12 months - and having a reeeeally hard time with it. Hopefully I'll be able to make serious progress tomorrow.

One VERY exciting thing that happened this week is that I FINALLY GOT A SMART PHONE!!! I know I am so behind the curve, but I had this adorable little LG flip phone with Verizon that was solid and functional and reliable and pretty much did everything I needed a PHONE to do. However, when the iPhone 4 came out, I was like ".....oooh. Do want." And started thinking about what my life would be like with a smart phone. Since then there have been more and more occasions where I've been like DAMMIT WHY DO I NOT HAVE A SMART PHONE (the worst of which was getting stupidly lost in Chicago on my way to Stargate Creation Con with musictoyourlips, sigh sigh), and so I finally decided to get one. But I did NOT get the iPhone 4, for various reasons, the biggest being not wanting to switch to AT&T. Instead I got... the DROID INCREDIBLE. And, you know, it is pretty incredible! I'm still learning how to use it, but I'm discovering new features every day, and overcoming frustrations, and pretttty much I love it. I also got this fucking sweet case for it, all red and black and sexay. His name is Bastian, of course! :D



So YAY for finally joining the 21st century, lolol. If anyone has the Incredible or Android in general and has any tips/warnings/apps I should download, please do speak up!

Still completely obsessed with fußball, nothing's changed there! Bayern has been frustrating but I still love them to pieces. The scoreless draw with Werder last week was beyond annoying - we should have played so much better than that. Lucky to come away with a draw, honestly. Then the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE started!!! I have a fantasy team in a league run by friends, and I was so excited to get the ball rolling. I took a couple serious knocks to my fantasy team - found out Drogba is suspended so had to transfer him, and then Berbatov wasn't even on the BENCH for ManUtd (a massive mistake, as they ended up 0-0 against the RANGERS, thanks a lot FERGUSON) but my defense did beautifully (thank you Bayern and Real bbs!) and all in all it was such a fun time to follow all the games on my beyootiful new phone! :D Bayern looked so much better against Roma, at least in the second half, and finally, on an exquisite, jaw dropping goal by our very own Thomas Müller, we broke through and ended with a deserved 2-0 victory. Yay Bayern! \o/ TOMORROW we play against KÖLN, aka Lukas Podolski's team. I hope it won't be super frustrating with Köln just sitting back on their heels. I hope instead it will be exciting and goal-filled and Lukas and Basti will make out hug at some point. Hey, a girl can dream! :D

Tonight was the dedication of a brand new soccer stadium here at UMich, so my roomie and I went to the inaugural men's soccer game! (There was a women's game earlier, but we couldn't make it. We're disappointed because it was a 5-0 trouncing by our girls! Go Michigan!) The game was 0-0 but the experience was so worth it. It was weird being among undergrads and community members and kids and all kinds of different ages, not just grad students! Some undergrads seriously make me want to punch them in the face, but over all it was a really cool experience. Reasonably good energy from the crowd, team is pretty decent, and it was awesome to see soccer up close and personal after watching it on my laptop for these past months. We'll definitely be going back to more games - especially since it's free for students! Go Wolverines!

This weekend I plan to 1) watch soccer, 2) write my paper, and 3) go to the Renaissance Faire with my cousins! Yay!

How are you, my darlings? Have you recovered consciousness after the shock of new MCR amazingness???

Moar pictures of fussballers! :D? My awesome friends are running a small Champions League fantasy league, and we all decided to do picspams of our teams. So I'm crossposting here!

You'll notice that I'm low on the Spain contingent - that's because several of the people in my league are Spain fangirls, and each player can only be owned by one person. So I just stayed away from that fray for the most part. :P But I managed to nab some ~Germans~ (really just Müncheners), including THE BEST GERMAN! My team is pretty crazily international though, coming from all kinds of national teams and clubs. Fun times! I think it's got a good chance of getting me reasonable points. I'm really excited for the whole thing to get started! :D

On to the picspam! I present, for your entertainment, my very own...

FC Callisto

( Fussballers ahoy! )

Helloooooo Livejournal! Remember me? Long time no see! I think this might be the longest I've gone without posting to LJ um..... ever. Two whole weeks! :( I'm very sorry, but I have been terribly busy and hardly able to even keep up with my job, much less blogging! But I've got a little time to breathe now for the first time in ages, so I'm going to do a long overdue concert report post!

As a side note, I really do miss being regularly involved in LJ. I'm still on several communities (particularly football related right now) but it's just not the same as interacting with my lovely flist. I haven't even caught up on my flist reading in ages, so if something big happened to you, or even if just life happened and you want to talk about it, please do drop me a note! I'd love to hear about it. ♥

( Something Corporate and Paramore! )

And my video! I love the audio on my camera, gosh. :)


Other things that happened in August that I need to post about: California and Chicago! Where I met DAVID HEWLETT AND JOE FLANIGAN! :)))) But I'm just going to post this before it languishes in a tab for another 2 days. I seriously suck. My research is going badly right now, and football is the only thing keeping me happy, so... I've been distracted. Alas. Til next time! ♥

As posted by crediniaeth, a meme!

- Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal.
- Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
- Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on.

( You get three guesses as to what my wallpaper is of. First two don't count. )

I really have been able to think of nothing but football (soccer...) recently. I honestly thought that after the World Cup I would sigh sadly and go back to my normal, football-less life, BUT NO. Bastian Schweinsteiger put his beautiful, strong hands around my heart and refused to let go. Honestly, I'm not complaining! *____*

Yesterday, Bayern München had its first game of the season with anything resembling its A-team! And it was the SUPERCUP! I watched it using a variety of crappy, pixellated feeds with German, Spanish, fuzzy English or no commentaries, AND IT WAS SO FUN! I figured I should document my first experience with a Bayern match, so come on behind the cut if you care at ALL! ( Bayern lifts its first hardware of the season! )

So in conclusion, YAY BAYERN!!!!!! It was certainly an excellent way to begin my time as a Bayern fan! \o/ I'm already very fond of the entire team, and I can tell this is going to be so much fun. I'm really really excited about the Bayern-Real Madrid (!!!) game next Friday - hoping for my boys to get some revenge against the Spain dudes. (Yes - I'm still bitter. Especially since it was BOTH the Euro and the WC, grr.) It would do my heart so much good to see Bastian triumph over Sergio Ramos and co. (Sorry, Spain girls. We know where my loyalties lie!)

So an awesome side benefit of this whole new footie obsession is that I've reconnected with an old, dear friend of mine, novafairy! She was one of my FIRST LJ friends, way back in 2005 in the Queer as Folk fandom! It's not that we've ever fully gotten out of touch, but we've both been very busy girls and didn't really have a fandom in common. But she's German and a huge Bayern fan, so this is a really great thing that we now share! I love you Steffi! <333 We're already discussing plans for me to go over and visit, tentatively for September 2011 during which there will be Bundesliga, international, and all other kinds of fun games! She lives near Munich so we could even go watch Bayern train, and I could possibly tell Bastian how much his American fan loves him. *g* Of course it would also just be marvelous to finally meet her, but we could have SO much fun with the football. Whee!

Oh man I can't believe I just wasted an hour making this post. I spent all of today in my lab, doing one experiment but also trying to put together my presentation of my research for tomorrow morning. I was woefully unsuccessful in the latter goal, and still have quite a bit to do, including going back into lab to do the last step of my experiment. Yes, it's 11 PM. *facepalm* Sometimes my procrastination astounds me.

OH ONE MORE THING! Last night, I went out drinking with friends for the first time in a MONTH - much needed, let me tell you. This included a neat whiskey from a local distillery, nnngh it was so good, but also made me very drunk very fast. :P Anyway, while we were out and having a blast, I saw a guy in a - wait for it - BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER NATIONAL TEAM AWAY 2010 JERSEY. Oh my GOD. If you asked me what my favorite jersey in the entire world is, THAT WOULD BE EXACTLY IT. What are the odds?? Especially since they're not selling the away jerseys in America yet! He had to order it from Europe or a replica from Asia (like I did!). Now THAT'S dedication. I totally would have stalked him down and told him how awesome he was, but when I found him he was on a date with a girl and I didn't want to interrupt. It was still super awesome though. As was the rest of the night, including when we went to a German bar and drank a boot and sat at a table decorated with a panel on the wall that said München! Hee!

OKAY I'm going to go be productive now! I am such a failboat. I really did want to document this though. While I love Twitter and the immediacy of it, I hate that it is not recorded in any permanent way, so while I have to force myself to make LJ posts, I really want to do it to have an ongoing record of my life still. I am sorry that I've been so MIA - I'm unbelievably behind on my flist. :( Tell me if something astounding happened in your lives? ♥

This was my weekend:

Friday - drove from Michigan to Connecticut with my sister. 13 hours. Lots of music and silly car games and trying not to fall asleep.

Saturday - Got my car emissions tested as required by Connecticut (where it is registered). Passed! Hung out with my daddy and sister. Hung out with my mom, step-dad, and brother. Fought with my brother, who is a selfish douchebag. I would rant about him but it's not really productive. Watched RockNRolla, Guy Ritchie's ridiculous film starring Gerard Butler but actually starring Tom Hardy in my heart. Unf. Also the guy who played Archie was amazing. But seriously, ridiculous film.

Sunday - DROVE BACK TO MICHIGAN. Yes. That was indeed 1500 miles (and $140 in gas and tolls) in three days. Holy moly. Drive went smoothly except for when I stopped for lunch I noticed one tire was very flat, so I checked it and found that it had only 10 pounds of pressure when it should have 30. o.O Um, scary! So I filled it and called my daddy, and he said that sometimes that happens - I had driven over a curb really hard accidentally yesterday, so sometimes that can just knock the tire loose and cause temporary pressure loss. I checked it again a few miles later, and then again later, and it was fine, so I guess that's all it was, phew! That was scary though. There were also a lot of assholes on the road, and my middle finger and horn got quite the workout. Oy. They should require a test to drive these things! ....oh wait. :P

So there goes another weekend down the drain. This summer has been SO hectic and all over the place. I seriously haven't felt like I've been in Ann Arbor for more than a week at a time, and my research is really suffering. I honestly feel terrible and wish it wasn't this way, but everything I've done has been unavoidable for one reason or another. And I'm not even done yet - I'm going to California in three weeks, Chicago the week after, then Chicago again in October. I'm also going to three concerts in the next two weeks. Why am I so childish and irresponsible? I feel like I totally don't have the dedication or focus I need to be a successful PhD student. It's not that I don't want to do my work - I really do. But I also haven't learned to say no to fun things that I can do now that I have the financial means, and a boss who is really way too lenient with me.

/self-loathing. Aaaanyway.

I have a music rec! The fabulous novembersmith gave me a rec in my last post that has really sunk its teeth into me, and I wanted to pass it on. It's this band called Spinnerette, which is the solo project of Brody Dalle, who used to be in punk band The Distillers. Her sound is grungey and fast and raunchy and SO AWESOME. It was great driving music. Check it out!



OH AND TODAY WAS BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER'S BIRTHDAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BB!!!! I love him more than words can express omg. *__*


The wee ones love him toooo!! Get down with yo bad self Bastiano! <3333

Also also, today the Germany U-20 women's football team WON THEIR WORLD CUP!! Super fantastico! :D On home soil, no less! They sealed it with a 2-0 victory over Nigeria. Wooo! The German youth programs are so, so awesome. :D (Now it's time for that to translate into THE World Cup victory... right? Right?)

And now I'm going to collapse into bed in order to face a new week. Gah.

How are you, LJ? ♥