Important Information

I think everybody should know about this!

http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/article/126/116213.htm

The art of puzzling

I have again discovered the wonderful art of puzzling. I think it's an art, because you have to be creative, you have to see, be attentive, create the right environment and be in the right emotional and mental condition to do it well, and you are applying a skill. I think it's very therapeutic. Doing a puzzle teaches me a lot about life. A puzzle only works when you are patient and are searching. The rewards are great when you are finding the pieces because you are making something more and more complete. The greatest reward, however, is to see the picture when what you have worked on--is complete. ...On Christmas day I worked on a puzzle while listening to BBC's Mr. Scrooge. Good old times!

Die Kunst des Puzzelns lehrt mich viel ueber das Leben... Mehr uebersetzen waehre compliziert, glaube ich?!.... :-)

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

Froehliche Weihnachten an alle!!!

Lilac Fairy from Sleeping Beauty

This is my humble self. Dies bin, bescheidener Weise, ich selbst.

Christmas Cookies

I made five different kind of German Christmas cookies today (for presents).

Ich habe heute fuenf verschiedene Deutsche Weihnachtskekse gebacken (als Geschenke). Vanille Kipferl, Florentiner, Butterkekse (Vanille und Schoko), Kokusbusserl, und Apfelkekse.

Discover the universe!

Everyone--look at today's and last day's Nasa posting. Click on the Nasa link under my "Favourite websites" on your right. Click "Discover the universe" once you are under Nasa to see yesterday's posting. AMAZING!

Dec 18, 2006

Yipppeee! Today I got my one-year U.S. work permit!

Heute habe ich meine 1-Jahres U.S. Arbeitserlaubnis bekommen!

Sunday Post

Here is a talk a friend sent me that I have really enjoyed and that has helped me a lot lately! It is about receiving or not receiving answers to prayers--it is the best talk I have heard on this topic! The talk is by S. Michael Wilcox (second to last). Try if the link below works. If it does not you will have to copy and paste the link into a browser window.

http://www.byub.org/edweek/archive.asp?selectedYear=2005

So sah mein Auto aus gestern und heute frueh. Meine liebe fuer den Schnee ist groesser als die Muehsalen den Schnee von meinem Auto zu entfernen. Ich musste einen Besen benuetzen.

This is how my car looked like yesterday morning and this morning. My love for snow is greater than the trouble to get it off my car. I had to use a broom.

Dezember 16-17, 2006

Ich habe einigen Deutschen Freunden und Verwanten versprochen auch mal auf Deutsch zu schreiben. Es sollte ein Ansporn sein fuer diese Freunde auch mal Deutsche Kommentare zu hinterlassen! :-) ...Provo bekam eine echte Winterlandschaft in nur zwei Tagen. Wenn der Winter immer solch einen Schnee bieten wuerde waere ich ja fuer den Winter zu begeistern. Ansonsten ist es immer nur kalt und grau. Hoffentlich bleibt der Schnee liegen.


Provo became a real winter wonderland in two days. This is how I could stand Winters-- if there always was so much snow. Usually it is only cold and gray. This time it seems like we are going to have white Christmas finally.

Historic day--or night?

Yesterday, I was applying some more changes to my thesis so that I could send it out to everyone and to schedule a defense. It had to be sent out that night. I started at 5 p.m. after my mentor had given me some more instructions. I saved it throughout on my flash drive. In the middle of it I thought it would be safe to save it on the internal BYU drive as well, just to be safe. I saved two or three times and at 8:45 p.m., after having done the last major change, the computer crashed while I saved my work and I lost all the work of the last three hours. My thesis by now is 321 pages long (including the bibliography) and the work I would have to reconstruct concerned editing and adding selected parts throughout all those pages. The interesting part is that I did not cry, nor was I mad. But somehow I felt strength from somewhere, which had accompanied me throughout the day. Then there was this angelic computer lab attendant. He said I should get some dinner, come back in half an hour, and he would let me stay in the lab to rewrite everything (the lab closed in 15 minutes). That usually is not allowed. He said he could just work on a couple of things he wanted to get to for a long time until I was done. When I came back there were two other girls working on computers who had a project due the next morning. I am not good with overnighters and was not sure I was going to make it, but I did. It was helpful to have company. I sent my thesis off at 1:55 a.m. and left the lab at 2 a.m. I went to bed at 3 a.m. after talking to my roomate whose mother was just hospitalized for cancer.

I am still working on those videos I want to share. They have to be compressed so I can upload them. Meanwhile I found another picture or two I liked. I hope no one is getting tired of all the pictures of me yet. Dancing was a big part of my life. Like breathing air.

Can anyone relate to me when there is a project you wanted to do for a long time...you start out by putting it somewhere where it is kind of in your way, so that you keep being reminded that it needed attention....after a while you put the project away again because you keep not having the time to deal with it and it you finally want the look of a cleaned-up place again...til one day you try it again and you put it out so its in your way, etc...? I can proudly report that I finally got to one of my enormous projects and have almost completed it. For the past three days, while waiting for my mentors to get back to me with my thesis, I have been compiling all the dance performances I have done in the past 10 years (a whole shelf of VHS tapes) onto two DVDs. Brigham Young University has wonderful new computer labs where you can easily learn how to use the machines that make digitalizing of VHS tapes possible. I also cut and edited a bit. Now the whole archive is up-to-date. Something fun I have also learned is how to make photos of off a film recording. I am posting a sample here. Perhaps I can post some filming footage later.

Sunday Post

For those of you who are Bible or scripture readers, I found an amazing thing the other day. When you go to the Bible dictionary (I read the King James version) and start reading the scriptures listed under "patience" you will find that almost every scripture listed there links patience to HOPE! It was such a dominating theme that I thought this was not mere coincidence or wishful thinking. Hope is a sure promise for those who are patient! Of course our hope needs to be about things that are true. And to find out what is true sometimes takes patience....and so forth :-)

I am working on putting some interesting pictures of my surroundings and even video clips onto my blog so that you all have something interesting to look at. Will be coming soon.

Two stunning news

I completely finished my thesis today. It's being reviewed and I hope to be able to set a defense date middle of next week.

Today I came to my car in the morning and found my waterbottle, which I had forgotten to take with me the night before--entirely frozen!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog.

I now have been fascinated with blogging for some time and have finally decided to create my own so that my family and friends across the globe can visit with me more often. Life gets too hectic nowadays and this is a great opportunity to take a moment here and then and to share in it with others.

Now to the name of my blog. Wiesenkind is a German word for--let's see I found that when I explain a German word in English it often needs a whole paragraph to explain what it means...

Wiesenkind literally translated means meadow-child, but in English that does not sound like what I want to express at all. The name came to me because of a favourite memory. One day I was having a very hectic day at school, was tired, and had no motivation whatsoever to go to the next class. I walked across the BYU campus and suddenly looked up into the sky. It was beautiful in a bright, saturated blue with a few careless clouds floating by. I immediately felt grateful for this beauty that surrounded me and I realized life was much bigger than just the few classes, days, weeks, ...trials of this earthly existence. When I looked down again there stood right in front of me my best friend Miriam. We both sat down for a minute and enjoyed the scene together. In that moment I remembered and missed the great wide meadows I grew up with in Germany and Austria that were covered with flowers and high grasses and in which you could walk and run forever and breathe in the fresh, brisk air, under a similarly beautiful blue sky. A meadow such as that to me means freedom, joy, and the grace of creation, of which I am a part. It means playing, learning, watching, dwelling, and connecting. A Wiesen"kind" thus means the free spirited, carefree yet caring, and in its own way wise begining and true nature of us all. I want to remember this more often and am therefore naming this blog site accordingly.

I hope you will enjoy blogging with me.

Manja