Fenix

Hi! I have your items, please open your gates :3

No problem! That is so cute that you still have that old Santa! <3 I love nostalgic things like that! ^-^ I would love to see pics of your decorations too! <3

Oh! I hope that has been going well for you! Have you heard back from them yet? I also hope your meeting with the tutor's co-worker goes well. It sounds like you are making pretty good progress with everything! ^-^

I am available now!

hi, your order is ready! let me know when your availability is ^^

Haha! OMG that is hilarious! XD Thanks for sending me that!

I am doing well thank you! I promise I didn't forget about you, but I wanted to wait to write back until I could show you my Christmas decorations! <3 I don't decorate at home, but I go all out at my work! I decorate my own office and move on to the rest of the branch. Here are the pics for you! <3

Glad your mom bought you the headphones, and thanks! I like my avatar too! ^///^ Yay Christmas! I'm glad to hear you are beginning to make progress on your project! I definitely want to hear all about it whenever you want to tell me! ^-^

Haha! Glad you enjoyed them! We had Thanksgiving dinner again on Saturday at a different house, but we had basically the same food. <3

Oh I'm sorry you lost your headphones! I hope you have new ones by now! Haha! That sounds like something I would do! Like forget it! I will go home and order them! ^-^

I love them too! These ones were 'made for tv' movies so they weren't super high quality, but they were cute and fun. I enjoyed my time with family very much thank you! I will be back to see them in less than a month for Christmas! ^-^ Have you decorated for Christmas yet, or bought any presents? I will decorate on Thursday since that will be the first day of December! ^-^

Hello my friend! Sorry for the delay! I don't bring my computer with me when I visit family, so I had to wait until I had access to one!

I did not go shopping this year for Black Friday. Instead we did some yard work and watched Christmas movies! ^-^ I am down here with my family for the whole weekend. I won't go home until Sunday afternoon/evening since I have to work on Monday. Aww! I'm sure it would be hard to be away from them when you are here, but you will just have to go home and visit! ^-^

BTW... Here are some pics of what we had for Thanksgiving! CLICK ME! We have a LOT of people who come (like 12-15) and we also have a lot of leftovers! XD Enjoy the food pics! ^-^

Nah not the whole week. Thanksgiving day is the only one that is an official holiday. My work closes for Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving though, so I get a nice long weekend! ^-^ I usually end up going out on Black Friday and wandering around. I never buy anything for myself, but I have occasionally bought stuff for other people for Christmas that day. Some stores have sales that big, but most have sales somewhere in the 25-50% range. Anything more than that usually goes so fast you would have to camp to get it, so I don't bother! XD Some stores open at 6PM on Thanksgiving, and people go and stand in line for hours to get those deals. I don't care that much! XD

Goodness you MUST have a liberal teacher! XD

The people who get confused are just silly! Pumpkin is a vegetable! You can use it the same way you would any other squash! ^0^ It is delicious no matter what you do to it!

Looking forward to it! ^-^ Hopefully I won't drool on my keyboard! XD

Yum yum! Mulled wine and pretzel? That is a delicious snack! Was it real wine!? We would never have been able to do that in a class in the US! ;^; Not sure what the cookie thing would be, but I'm sure it was delicious too! Oh wow your mom's version of tortilla sounds very yummy! I'm glad you also like savory things with pumpkin! Too many people I have met get confused when I tell them I made pumpkin soup or roasted pumpkin. They think it is only used for desserts and baking! ;^;

Hmm I will have to see if I have a recipe. I haven't made one in a while, so I don't remember the recipe I used. The last time I did I made little pumpkin handpies that looked like empanadas! They were delicious! Haha sorry to make you hungry! I will be sure to eat some in your honor at Thanksgiving! ^-^

Oh! That sounds so fun! Craft time is best time! ^.~ What German food did you guys eat? We never got to have crafts or Spanish food in my Spanish classes! ;^; Sad day! I have had Tortilla Espanola before though and it is soooo good! ^0^

Well you would definitely be welcome! ^-^ Philadelphia is a little ways away, but not terrible by any means. I drove there this spring with my German friend. Fair warning though... My family is pretty loud and boisterous! XD OMG I LOVE pumpkin pie! It is my favorite pie. Ironically I am one of the only people that goes to Thanksgiving that really likes it, but they make sure they get one for me! ^///^ I don't understand how anyone could dislike pumpkin pie, but more for me! Banana pudding is a very common dessert in the south. It is basically vanilla pudding with small vanilla cookies (nilla wafers if you have heard of them), mashed banana, and banana slices. It is made in advance and everything gets really well incorporated. ^-^

Oh! Well that would be very difficult for me since I don't like math! XD A lecture on Saturday!? That's no fun! ;^; I only had to do that once where it was required. Otherwise there were review sessions, but nothing required.

I'm glad the German exam went well! Stupid mistakes happen, so I certainly wouldn't beat yourself up over it. ^-^

Haha! Yeah I think there are some people who do that, but for the most part people are reasonable and just eat nothing else THAT DAY to save room! XD You definitely need to do one in the states when you are here! Make a good American friend and I'm sure they will invite you! I would invite you to mine if you are anywhere nearby, but if you are in California I don't think you will want to fly just for that! ^.~ Oh! I also forgot to mention that there will be pumpkin pie and banana pudding! Yummy yummy! I will definitely let you know what I make/eat that day! Don't worry! ^-^

Since I don't eat meat anymore I am limited in what I have. Generally I really look forward to the mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, carrots, and rolls! I might try to make something this year so I have something to eat other than carbs though! XD So delicious, but so fattening!

Glad you aren't nervous about your midterms! I'm sure you will do well! What is the hardest one? German?

Oh ok. That makes more sense. I hope you get into the program at the nearby university since it sounds like you want that more! ^-^ I hate waiting for stuff like that, but good luck!

Well that is nice that you have a small break and will get to go see your family! I like little vacations like that. ^-^ A Christmas market sounds very fun! I hope you get some fun things there, and, if not I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Bahaha! Thank you! Yeah Thanksgiving is mostly about eating until you go into a food coma! XD I'm not sure how everyone else does it, but my family never has a 'lunch' that day. Thanksgiving dinner is usually done around 1-2PM and everyone eats a bunch, but there isn't another meal that day (so only 2 meals total). After that people just tend to snack a bit as they get hungry! It works pretty well, but overeating is almost unavoidable! XD

Aww! I'm sorry you haven't been able to get in touch with him! ;^; Hopefully you will find other good sources though! I can imagine it being a long process, but I'm sure you can do it!

Ugh midterms! Do you feel prepared for them? They are definitely more important than the thesis right now. What are you applying for? Are you going into a new program at your current school, or a different one before you try to come here? Applying for university programs is super involved here, so I imagine it is also pretty crazy for you! You will get your information I'm sure! It will be a slow process, but you will get there!

Do you guys have any holidays between Halloween and Christmas? I will be going to visit family next week for Thanksgiving to eat lots of yummy food! It isn't my favorite holiday, but I like the time with family so it works! ^-^

True no country is perfect that's for sure! ^-^ I hope things are going well for you though and it isn't all doom and gloom because of our election! Done anything with your thesis recently? ^-^

Yeah there has been a bit, but it has calmed down a lot now. Hopefully we won't see any more until there is something specific to get upset about. I hope he realizes that he needs to work to bring us together and stop trying to divide us!

Haha no problem! It really is complicated and silly I think the problem is that we always forget how awful it is until election time, and them if we tried to change it someone would claim we were trying to rig the election one way or another! We need to remember and get rid of it in between elections! In 2000 when Bush got elected the same thing happened. He won the electoral college, but Al Gore won the popular vote.

We do have to register, but you basically just check a box when you get your drivers license. Then you just check the box to update when you change your address on your license. It isn't a big deal. You can even show up on election day at a voting site and register that day if you forgot. You will still get to vote.

Yeah I don't get it. I have had people ask me 'Well you wouldn't want them coming here if they were going to live in your house!' To which I respond, 'Well I mean I only have a 1 bedroom apartment so they really wouldn't fit well, but I would gladly take them if needed or have them as neighbors! ^-^' That usually makes them mad, but I mean it! They are just people! They are families with young children, elderly people, and sick people. They can totally be my neighbors! It would be fine!

I am most definitely not a patriot (meaning the blind loyalty/my country is perfect/'Murica type person), but I do like my country. I just understand that we have flaws and I won't ignore that because it makes other uncomfortable! I actually paid attention in history class and we are not saints.

Yeah it is true. In his defense (please read all of this in a very sarcastic tone) he doesn't want to kick out the Musilms! He just wants to keep any more from coming in, put their mosques under surveillance, have a registry of them made, and require them to carry around a special ID. It's not at all like the Nazis! I mean, they made them put signs on their store windows too and they had to wear a patch! Everything else is the same, but it's totally different! :<

And yeah the idea of war refugees seems to escape most Americans. Again we are very sheltered. It is why 9-11 was so shocking to us. We hadn't had a foreign attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor in WWII. We were so safe for so long we forgot that others aren't and need to escape!

Oh gosh... Yeah our system is odd. So Congress is two parts (Senate where each state gets 2 people, and House of Representatives where each state gets a different amount depending on the population), but neither of these have anything to do with electing the President. We have a weird thing called the Electoral College. Each state has at least 3, but it varies based on the number of reps they have in the House of Representatives. Basically they tally up what the state has voted overall, and the Electoral College reps put all of their votes for a state to the candidate that wont that state. Yes even if it is 1% different. I understand why we have this system since it would have made it easier to count before instant communication, but it is now outdated and horrible... Hillary won the 'popular vote' which is the physical number of individual votes, but Trump won because of the Electoral College. I really want them to get rid of the system! It should just be 'most votes wins!' Period!