august: cleveland county

It's time yet again for my monthly German wrap-up! The German side of the Internet has been quite busy over the past month; here are some links that caught my eye. UEFA held the draw for the Euro 2016 soccer tournament groups. Germany is going to be playing Ukraine, Poland, and Northern Ireland in June - only six more months of waiting left!...

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With two of my colleagues, I created a research portal that explores the Vatican City and how it operates in the international system. You can view it here: http://vaticanportal.wordpress.com/. This news about Pope Francis being honored with the Charlemagne Prize for promoting European unity came out too late for it to make our portal, but is still an interesting read. ...

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During the Fall 2015 semester, I had the opportunity to take a course in spoken Chinese from the Confucius Institute at the University of Oklahoma (OUCI). This course, called Great Wall Chinese, was not for credit and open to the public. It met twice weekly for just over an hour, and we learned quite a bit in a short amount of time. Since...

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably already heard that Angela Merkel was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year. The profile reminds me of another written just a little over a year ago in the New Yorker: The Astonishing Rise of Angela Merkel. Naturally, such a favorable write-up has garnered some criticism. Deutsche Welle believes that Merkel is an interesting person, but...

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After a seemingly unending period of construction, part of the new InterCity Express train line that will eventually connect Berlin to Munich via Erfurt is finally finished! Now you can travel from Erfurt to Leipzig in less than an hour, and by the end of 2017, the travel time from Berlin to Munich is only going to be four hours, which is two...

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I've decided to start doing a monthly German post to show some stories and videos that I read or watched - a bit of news, a bit of things related to my research, a lot of time wasters. Xaiver Naidoo (who you might know from being one of the three musicians that every German teacher recommends to beginners) was in the press when German broadcaster...

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I don't know about you, but I grew up in a part of the world where we had fire drills and tornado drills twice a year at school. To experience an earthquake, you had to go to the simulator at the Omniplex (now Science Museum OK). In the last few years, however, Oklahoma has become a hot spot for earthquakes - if you...

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The German television station Das Erste's news program, tagesschau, has started a version of their 100 second news broadcast online with subtitles in Arabic and English for migrant and refugee viewers. Both are silent with subtitles, but it is a welcome gesture nonetheless. The broadcast will be updated twice a day on weekdays and once a day on weekends and holidays. The original...

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Today, many leading officials from many states have come to the conclusion that it is too difficult to sort Syrians seeking asylum from terrorists in disguise. These people think that the United States is putting itself at risk by accepting refugees from Syria. Perhaps they are right; you can never say never about these sort of things. However, these people, who include my governor and...

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This morning, I went to a vigil/protest about the recent terror attacks in Paris as well as ongoing terrorism in the Middle East, especially Lebanon.  One of my colleagues in my program was a co-organizer for this event. It was originally focused around Paris, but students from other parts of the world wanted to expand the scope of the protest. It was a...

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When a terrorist attack happens in a first world country, the response is usually the same. News outlets spend their entire program looping grainy footage of the event, questionable reports are spread via social media, and many people take to social media to express their outrage and heartbreak. I find the events that took place yesterday in Paris to be horrible and tragic,...

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Today after a grueling google search for "blogger layouts," I discovered a template that I actually like, which increases the probability that I'll start blogging again. Since I'm entering the final months of my academic career and am looking to find a job in the next six months, I'm going to try to start blogging a bit more with an emphasis on my...

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If you live in Germany, one of your favorite pastimes has to be complaining about the national train service, Deutsche Bahn. The trains are often a bit dirty (especially the regional trains) and they are often a few minutes late, which isn't aided by the company policy to call trains that leave less than six minutes after their stated departure times as punctual....

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Hello, reader. It's almost May, which I am really excited about. Hence the blog title: Anticipating May! I love May, despite its often unbearable heat (or, in 2013's case, snow), for many reasons. The two biggest are that school is over in May and my birthday is at the end of the month! I have not yet outgrown being happy about my birthday...especially...

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Halli Hallo, dear readers. It's been quite a long time, but I have decided to share some lovely spring photos with you. Since my life currently consists of reading for class and writing in the library, I assume that a detailed explanation of how I spend my time is neither interesting or important. I've been buying blood oranges recently - they're beautiful and...

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Fair reader, there are so many things I could write a blog post about. I went to a wedding two weekends ago and was reunited with 4 of my lovely Fulbright friends. I went to class, which usually lends itself to the absurd. I sat in my room and read several books for fun. The weather has changed from pleasant to cold to...

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My first week of school went pretty much as expected. I got 3 syllabi and proceeded to worry about the amount of work I'm looking at. Not to worry, all! I've got it all planned out in my handy dandy planner! Someone gave my milk a mustache.... I bought a pineapple! It's really tasty, although I hate the way the eyes looked when...

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I've resolved to try 12 new recipes this year, just to make sure that I don't eat breadsticks all year long. Yesterday, I made a sort of chicken dish. It's probably already a recipe somewhere, but I just made it up last night! A Sort of Chicken Dish Ingredients: Chicken Breast Italian Dressing Mushrooms Chicken Broth Shredded Cheese Salt Pepper Onion Powder Garlic...

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