Argentine penguins

Hi boys! I put up a new header for this bloggy-poo. It's a penguin in Argentina. If that was a recording, it would be me saying "Argentina" in a fake Spanish accent. You're missing out.

It has been forever and a day since I have even looked at blogs. As I was running this morning (in an attempt to shed some of the TEN POUNDS I've gained since leaving for school in August), I was thinking that I've met my match in grad school. Or maybe it's grad school + having a serious boyfriend, both for the first time at the same time. I guess time will tell. Time being next semester since it's my second semester, I know which professors not to take if I want a social life . . . or any life. Also, Herr Boyfriend is back in Germany.

Here is a picture of the larger town outside of the small town he's originally from:
Is that not RIDICULOUSLY beautiful? I mean, I'm sure it doesn't look like that all the time, but really, is that even necessary?

So, Herr Boyfriend is still that, my boyfriend. We're doing long distance with the help of webcams via skype, international (read: expensive) text messages, emails, real-live love letters, interactive internet games (I kick ass at Chinese Checkers, but lose miserably at bowling), and trans-Atlantic visits every few months. I'm just waiting on his boss's ok for buying a plane ticket to spend my spring break in Germany. He's going to come in July.

The eventual idea is that after we both finish school, me about 2 months after him, I will move over the big blue ocean and live with him. It's a big decision and there are a TON of "ifs" along with way. But we're both very much devoted to one another and want this to last.

The funny part comes in with my mother. In order to prepare her for this potential cohabitation or, as she would say, living in sin, I mentioned that I would go live with Herr Boyfriend unmarried to being with. She seemed ok with this at first but a few days later, she brings it up in convo again and says that she thinks we should lay out a specific time period for me living with him (unmarried) over there. And then she mentions that stupid, oft-repeated "statistic" of more cohabiting couples getting divorced than those who never lived together.

This notion has always seemed a bit hokey to me. But now that I actually think about it, it just seems like an awfully misinformed statistic put forth by the people who make money off of marriages, church people.

First of all, all people are not equal in terms of social standing and background. The people who are more likely to only live together after marriage also probably hold more traditional values than cohabitants. If they are more traditional-minded, wouldn't they start off being less likely to divorce?

Secondly, getting married is F-ing expensive if you don't just go to the court house. And we should all thank society for informing us that just going to the courthouse is insufficient. I would think that some people live together because they just don't have enough money to get married.

I don't know, maybe I'm all wrong and getting married is the bee's knees while living together is the bee's elbows. Luckily, there are both people who live with a significant other and people who are married who contribute to this bloggy, so I would love to hear from you guys.

In my situation, I'm almost certain that I wouldn't be able to afford my own housing in Germany, nor would I be able to navigate all the bureaucratic BS (I could barely do it in France, and I speak their language more or less). And if I opt to stay in the US and find a job here, it just makes it that much more difficult to uproot later down the road if/when we do get married.

So yeah, that's that. School starts in another 2 weeks or so. I'm not looking forward to going back to a real winter, but not living with my parents will be nice. Even if the alternative is a dorm.