august: cleveland county

2016 is finally coming to an end. I know that I'm not sad to see it go, even though I had some amazing experiences this year. Austria has a good month, but Germany ended the year on a terror-filled note that brought further (in my opinion, unmerited) criticism to the country's asylum system. Alexander Van der Bellen won the second presidential election in...

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Every time something awful and violent happens in Germany, I am surprised. At this point, I've become pretty desensitized to violent acts that happen here in the US; gun violence hardly makes the news anymore. But I always felt safe when I was in Germany. Even if I was lost. Even the time my train got in after the last tram and I...

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I’ve read a lot of books this year, much like every year since I finished my BA. So here are a few of my favorites, in the order that I read them. I've also added why I love the book and tried to avoid just saying "It's a fantastic book!" as the answer to that point. The File by Timothy Garton Ash Somehow...

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Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. It's not common to observe Advent as a season here in Oklahoma, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Advent is a major part of Christmas in Germany. Every brand makes its own Advent calendar with 24 little doors. The best ones have fancy German chocolate behind each one. Since it isn't...

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I remember first hearing about the “East Coast Liberal Media Elite” when I was 17 and Sarah Palin was running for Vice President. This was part of her wider point that “real America” was not represented by the media and people in the central and southern parts of the country were not being given a fair shake. I’ve been thinking more about this...

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Hello everyone! I have pulled myself out of the campaign fog long enough to put together some links from German internet this month. They're mostly about food - this post is klein, aber fein! The Day of the Kiosk happened earlier this month. Which goods are "typical German?" Dynamo Dresden beat RB Leipzig! I'm not a huge fan of RB Leipzig, even though...

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My thesis has finally been approved to the Oklahoma online database! You can read it here: https://shareok.org/handle/11244/44225. It's about the left wing parties and how they can overcome ten years of power by the center-right CDU. I'm most fond of the parts about Thuringia. ...

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Hi everyone! I haven't had much time to keep up with German politics/culture this month since I started a new job in Pennsylvania. Truth be told, I don't really see myself being able to keep up with Germany for the next few months with the amount of work I'll be doing. So instead, have a few impressions about my life in Pennsylvania. Wawa...

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From time to time I'll pick a German video for my Month in German series. Today, I'm going to share some of my favorite German-language YouTube channels. Watching YouTube has been my saving grace since I haven't been to Germany since 2014 - it really helps me keep up my skills, remember how people who aren't news anchors talk, and hear different regional...

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"The Europeans have shown us that peace and unity can be brought to a region with a history of violence, and in the process they have created perhaps the most decent societies in human history, combining democracy and human rights with a level of individual economic security that America comes nowhere close to matching. " I've had this quote on my desktop for...

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It has been a month for international politics. It started with ridiculous fans at Euro 2016 and ended with the Brexit referendum. However, I'm still going to soldier on with my list of links that I bookmarked throughout this month. The Bundestag voted to recognize the Armenian genocide earlier this month, which certainly didn't help German-Turkish relations, but was celebrated by Armenians in Germany...

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This has been a banner week for several legislatures in the Western world. First came the sit-in at the US House of Representatives. Unrelated was the UK Prime Minister's Question Time following the Brexit referendum, which was closely followed by Jean-Claude Juncker telling Nigel Farage to leave the European Parliament. Parliamentary and Congressional activities often seem dull, but this week it's been high...

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If you can find Alexanderplatz, you can find a drugstore because that area has two. Pinterest always tries to recommend posts to me about packing tips for a trip to Europe. However, most of these posts seem to be under the impression that Europe is a third world continent without drugstores. Germany, for example, has two successful drugstore chains called DM and Rossmann....

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The end of this month's "Month in German" post has taken a sharp turn away from German towards "things I found interesting online this month." Apologies. After the first round of elections in Austria, Austrian vlogger Anna Laura Kummer mentioned her disappointment with the results at the beginning of this video. I found this interesting because lifestyle vloggers often try to avoid political...

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Last weekend, I used the power of the internet to watch the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time. It was amazing. If you're not familiar with the concept, Eurovision is an annual song contest in which each country in Europe (and a few from other places) sends a singer or band to perform a song in front of an audience and a...

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This month, the biggest issues in German politics were the German-Turkish relationship and press freedom in Germany. The German comedy program extra3 made a satirical video about Turkish President Erdogan. This led to the German ambassador to Turkey being called in for a lecture, and prompted German comedian Jan Boehmermann to recite a poem about the leader that was quite nasty. The biggest...

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Another month is gone, so it's time for my monthly German link round-up. The rumors are true, guys. In Germany, some drug addiction, even for crystal meth, is treated as an illness instead of a reason for a prison sentence. This story is about crystal meth users in Thuringia - the issue was just starting to pop up when I lived there in...

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I love a good listicle. As such, I thought I'd put together my top twitter accounts for German news and politics in English and German. The accounts are in no particular order; they're mostly ones that either I follow or that I check from time to time. I don't follow as many English accounts because German ones are usually more up-to-date for German...

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Another month is almost over, which means it's time for my monthly German wrap-up! I loved this German language article from Bento about two German college students who took a cross-country trip in the US using Amtrak. Prize quote: "Our American friends were skpetical: "why don't you just fly?"" This tweet from the Left Party in Germany made me laugh - the national...

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Get out the vote campaigns are usually an indicator of how close it is to a major election. There are so many good reasons to become an informed citizen and go and vote for your representatives. However, if you can't be convinced for reasons of self-interest, please think of the others. In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 13.1 million non-citizens...

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The Financial Diet is one of my favorite websites. It focuses on helping people in their twenties make responsible financial choices, and I love to contribute to it. Here's a new article I wrote if you're interested. The Financial Diet is one of my favorite websites. It focuses on helping people in their twenties make responsible financial choices, and I love to contribute to...

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This morning, two trains run by the Meridian company had a head-on collision on the route from Holzkirchen to Rosenheim, near the town of Bad Aibling. Here's the BBC's story as well as the German-language story from the Holzkirchner Merkur If you don't know, I did my study abroad in Holzkirchen. It was perhaps the greatest experience of my life. It helped me...

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The Democratic primary race, which features two well-qualified candidates, has at times become a race centered on language and the words which Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders use to describe themselves and their campaigns. This is coupled with wider rhetoric about how we view America and what kind of country and society we live in, along with the society and country we want...

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It's time for my monthly German wrap-up! The German side of the internet jumped right out of the holiday lull into new discussions about feminism, refugees, and sexism. Most of my links today have something to do with the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne. Here's a bit of background from The Atlantic. These horrible attacks have, as I said, sparked a huge...

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