one more miracle

Firstly, thank you everso to the lovely xsnarkasaurus for the adorable dragon on my profile! ♥

I had a most wunderbar weekend on a ski trip with my friends! It was preceded by a nutso week. I shall talk about them! (With a couple visual aids!)

( My nutso and (sometimes) wunderbar life. )

This weekend was ALSO a fantastic weekend for my beloved football teams. Sadly I wasn't able to watch it live, but since I was off having so much fun that's okay. :) I got back from snowshoeing Saturday to find that Mainz had won 4-0!!! The noise I made when I saw that would have terrified dogs, haha. My beautiful Ádám scored for the first time since coming back from injury, AND it was against the same team he tore his ACL against more than a year ago! I'm so happy for him. Zidan scored his fourth goal in four games for us, bless his heart. My favorite teeny one, Nicolai, also nicked a goal, and EMCM finished poor Kaiserslautern off. It was our big derby too! Beyond pleased to see all my boys so happy. ♥♥

Also happy were my other boys in red and white, who won THEIR derby 5-2! That's right, Arsenal TROUNCED Sp*rs, and it was glorious. They went down 2-0, then came back to score 5 unanswered goals, including a truly glorious Robin van Perfect strike and FINALLY a Rosicky goal after which he looked so happy I got all teary. AND a Sagna header! AND a Walcott brace! Ahhhh! Take THAT, Gareth fucking Bale, with your stupid face and your stupid dives. The relief of the Arsenal boys was palpable, and the Emirates was just hopping (I managed to catch part of the second half on a skippy stream at the lodge). YAY!


Ádám and Mo are my darling derbysieger! <333

Lalala that's it for tonight!

So one of my New Year's resolutions is to try to reconnect with LJ. I'll probably fail miserably, but I genuinely miss both the community and the amazing record of my life LJ was for such a long time, so I'd really like to get back into the swing of it. Twitter is a serious hindrance, and I have a whole other social life there, but I'm going to try my hardest. If you DO have Twitter though, please do follow me - I'm exsequar there too and always reachable. :) It's not at all about soccer/football anymore, I made a separate account, so if you're worried about that, please don't be! I'd love to talk to you. ♥

Starting small, I'm just going to make a Life post about my week and stuff! So on Tuesday I completed a reasonably large hurdle of my PhD program - the second year seminar. It's kind of a warm up for our candidacy exams but felt pretty huge on its own. Basically I had to make a 20 minute presentation on my research, presenting to people outside of my lab for the first time. This meant that I had to very clearly introduce the material for people unfamiliar with my field, present and justify my hypothesis, and present what data I have that supports that hypothesis before, as well as providing a coherent plan for my research moving forwards. I also felt I had to be very very comfortable with the literature because I could get ANY questions afterward. What this basically meant was that I spent 4 days with my family for Christmas, then immediately began spending 10-12 hours in lab every day, reading papers and putting together my presentation, as well as getting that last crucial piece of data. I bought a lot of frozen food and essentially lived in my lab. But it paid off, because my presentation went great! My actual slides ended up really pretty - including a model I built from scratch using Adobe Illustrator because all the old ones my lab uses are so ugly - and my labmates and boss helped me construct a clear, coherent narrative so it felt fluent and comfortable. Then I got a really great set of questions and was able to easily answer them all, with bonus references to the literature because I had spent all that time reading! I got lots of positive feedback afterward, and my dad even got to see it and was very proud. I'm so relieved to have it done, but I'm also really proud of how well it went. It was the first time I felt maybe I could really do this thing - that is, be a grownup. Not necessarily a scientist, but a grownup. It's a step in the right direction. ;)

I then spent the rest of this week turning that presentation into a poster to give at a conference this weekend in Chicago! It's a very busy week, yes it is. It's the same conference that I went to last year and I really enjoyed it then, so I'm happy to be going again, I look forward to it. I also get to meet up with some darling fangirls tomorrow night so I'm excited. :D After all of this whirlwind, then it's just back to the normal grindstone of lab research. Doing all of this work on making my project clear to others has made it clearer to ME too though, so I hope that I'll feel a bit more confident in my research as I move forwards.

Also super exciting is THE BUNDESLIGA STARTS BACK UP TOMORROW!!!!! *giddy wriggling* That's the German football league for the majority of you out there who are totally lost. :P It's been on hiatus since before Christmas and I have been DYING of boredom. I mean, it was good timing because I wouldn't have been half as focused on my work if it hadn't been on break, but now it's coming BACK and I couldn't be more excited. :DDD I get my beautiful baby Lewis and my badass Basti and hopefully both Mainz and Bayern kicking ass and taking names. I can't help it, I love Mainz, sorry to my Bayern girls out there. At this point I just want both of them to do really well. It's kind of inevitable that Bayern will end up in at least second, so I don't feel bad for rooting for Mainz to do the best they very can. At this point I would like to register a prediction for the end of the season, and we'll see how far off I am: Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke 05, Mainz. That would put Mainz in the Europa League next year, which would be a fantastic achievement for my little baby club. ♥ (And little Lewis has been hinting that he'd like to stay in Mainz for another year... oh please please pleeeease let it happen, football gods!)

In hilarious fandom-sports related news (yes that was a totally valid segue), Johnny Weir is coming to my Borders for a book signing. Lol. Lololol. I'm tempted to go just for the lolz but I should really be at work at that time, so I probably won't. Oh Johnny. Maybe I'll feel the force of his sparkling from my lab.

Speaking of sparkling, OMG THIS T-SHIRT. Dear My Chemical Cupcakes, ILU. (Danger Days is still, like, the best album ever. Well, after Three Cheers. But OMG SO GOOD.)

Last night I saw I Love You Phillip Morris!! I've been wanting to see this ever since I heard it was being made like three years ago. EWAN MCGREGOR!!!!! Ugh, he was so precious and wonderful, all blonde and earnest and Texan and sweet and I WANTED TO PUT HIM IN MY POCKET. I mean, Jim Carrey was great too, and it was a really good film, funny and weird and poignant and tragic. I enjoyed it a whole lot. But mostly EWAN!!! I now want to watch every single film he's done again. Yes even The Pillow Book. Ewannnnnnn. I miss him. *draws pink sparkly hearts*

I should probably pack for Chicago.... so I'll leave you with that. It felt really good to write an LJ post again, I'm not gonna lie, so hopefully I'll start being able to keep it up. Tell me what's up with you, darlings!

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. ♥ ♥ ♥

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!