Thanksgiving and Black Friday Madness

Day 105 in Kansas and I am thankful.

I'm not going to give you a long boring list of all the things I'm thankful for though, don't worry. (Also I'm not sure if these blog posts have a limit)

But, I will say this: 

There are times, we 1st world people get to experience, where there is so much good food, that you never want to stop, but eventually you just have to. Thanksgiving was such a moment for me. 

I spent it with a friend from my English class (Samantha), and me, her and her family went to another family's house. We had an amazing dinner, we watched a movie, and there were delicious desserts. (Yes, that's plural) 

I had a really good time, everyone was super nice and welcoming, and I am really glad my first thanksgiving ever was like this. 

And because some people have asked, I even took a few pictures of the meal and the table:  

 

So, the picture of my plate might not look that good, but it was delicious! And the two other pictures are a hasbrown-thingy with loads of cheese, and behind it the stuffing (that's the middle picture of the three small ones) and right next to it is a green-bean-onion-thingy. Those were my three favorite parts of the meal, but boy, all of it was delicious! 

Anyways, around 9pm I came home, but there was lots more to do! 

Because after thanksgiving, there is a thing called "Black Friday" 

Now, "What is this?", non-American people might ask. 

Well, Black Friday is a thing that actually starts on Thanksgiving-Thursday around 5 pm and ends the next day, Friday, around 1 pm. 

During this time, all kinds of stores have all kinds of crazy discounts, and all kinds of people do all kinds of shopping. I also heard that a lot of people go crazy on that day and get rude or whatever, but I didn't encounter anything like it. I'm not sure if I'm just lucky, or people were exaggerating... I guess I will have to come back next year to find out... (jk I wish)

Anyways, to get the full on american experience, I participated in this event too: 

And because we wanted to get the best of it, my hostsister, a couple of her friends, and me, went shopping on black friday, on thursday. 

Now, while I was still stuffing myself with turkey, they already started, so I came to the party a bit late, but I still got awesome stuff. (I bought a pair of boots, some socks, and two sweaters. hooray) We went to several different stores, spent a lot of time (especially in queues/lines) and today I am absolutely exhausted. 

I joined the shopping-party around 9.30 pm, and around 1.20 am I went to bed. The next day, Friday, I got up around 6.15 am and we continued the shopping until around 1.00 pm. 

And of course, I have some pictures! YAYYY

Okay, you can't really see it on the first picture, but the queue there was insane. It went in a huge circle around half of the shop. That car is full of the stuff we bought, and that was just round one on Thursday night. The second picture shows the crazy sales – right there were 75% off. (That was a really good deal though and not really found again... But still) 

I hope you enjoyed this, I'll keep you posted!  

Hugs, Anna

Monday, November 24th 2014

What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Do you have any traditions? Go in to detail about your plans for the 5 day weekend.

Originally, I was supposed to go to Texas with my Hostfamily, to Houston and Dallas, to be exact, but this plan changed, when my hostsister didn't want to go, because it was a too long car ride, for too little time staying in Houston and Dallas. 

So now, my hostparents are still going to Texas, while my hostsister and I are staying home. 

That also means, that I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with a friend from my ELA class, Sam. I'm absolutely pumped about that! It will be my first thanksgiving! That also means, that I don't have any traditions of course, and to be honest I don't really know if Sam and the family have any traditions. I'm just extremely excited for my first american Thanksgiving! 

The Thing is, we actually have a thing similar to thanksgiving in Austria, that is called "Ernte-Dank-Fest". Literally translated, that would mean harvest-thank-fest. So, as you probably figured by now, this is all about celebrating a good harvest. So it is quite different from thanksgiving, but a little bit similar too. Also, I have never in my life celebrated "Ernte-Dank-Fest". I live in a city and this event is only celebrated on the country side. 

Tuesday, November 18th 2014

Define 'User Experience'. What does it mean and how does it relate to web design?

User experience is what someone feels, sees, experiences, when in touch with some kind of product. 

Regarding Web Design, that would be what someone feels, sees, experiences (etc.) when accessing a website. 

So if someone accesses my All about Me Website, for example. What they would think about it, would be their User Experience. 

I think that is especially important, because after all that coding, I personally sometimes fail to see the Website as a whole, but start seeing only the <div> elements, the headings, the <p>s, and so on. 

I tend to forget about what the Use sees, how he experiences the Web page.

I personally have had a lot of good and bad User Experiences.
I had a really good User Experience with the app "vsco cam". It was working perfectly from the moment I downloaded it, it is easy to navigate and I just love the Design!
image via

Monday, November 17th 2014

Consider the quote below. What exactly do you think it means and how does it relate to Web Design?

Totally accurate, I totally agree. It's awesome if a Design is nice to look at, but if there's nothing behind it, it's not good Design. 

First of all, what is a nice-looking Design good for, if it doesn't work? 

Also, from just looking at a nice Website, you will probably loose interest pretty quick. 

This doesn't only apply to Web Design and Websites, but also to all other Design. A pretty poster is nice, but if it doesn't transmit the message or catch the pedestrians eye, what good is it? 

Same with packaging design. Pretty is nice, but if it doesn't do it's job, what is it really good for? 

Giving in to peer pressure

So, on my 90th day in the US I decided to give in to the requests and the peer pressure:

I am starting a blog. (It sounds so fancy. It is not.)
It is kind of hard to start a blog about something that has been going on for 90 days, but I'll try my best.

For all my Austrian Friends, Relatives, or everyone else:
This is so different you guys. I personally didn't think it would be that different. It is the United States after all. We all have seen so many movies, TV Shows, etc., we all know it.
Well, we're all wrong. (Whaaaat? Such surprise)
Anyways, things are really different, and to be quite honest, the most common thing that I just can't get used to is how people here handle swearing.
I never realized it, but swearing is quite a common thing in Austria.
Here it is not. I mean don't get me wrong, young people do it all the time. But not in front of adults, and especially not in front of teachers. I am not quite used to this, and you might think after 90 days I got used to it, but you are wrong.

Asides from that, there are some other differences I notice the most in school.
Like this:
In Austria, if you want to go pee, you ask if you can go to the toilet. Not so much here. When I first asked if I could go to the toilet, I got weird looks and I thought it was because of my accent or something. Only a couple more weird looks later did I realize, you don't ask if you may go to the toilet here. You say "restroom" or "bathroom".
My US. History teacher even called me "a crazy european" when I asked if I could go to the toilet. (It was just a joke, don't freak out or anything people)

Well, about school:
The subjects I enrolled in are:
WebDesign, French 2.0, Pre-Calculus, Sociology, US. History, English Language Arts Grade 12 and Anatomy & Physiology.
I'm pretty happy with my choice! And while most of these are pretty self-explanatory, I will tell you what we are currently doing in Sociology:
Before, we talked about Society, and problems we see in our society (the american society of course), we talked about sexism and other problems associated with gender and now we're talking about the american class system and poverty in the US.
I love this class, we talk and discuss a lot and it is absolutely amazing.
I learn a lot here in Kansas City at Blue Valley High, and hoping none of my Austrian teachers will read this, I might even say, maybe, just maybe, I'm even learning a bit more than in Austria...

Apart from that, I live in an indian family with my Hostsister Menita, my hostmother Surya and my hostfather Srini.
We also have a dog called Max and two parrots called Pumpkin and Paco. Pumpkin can talk too! He can say "Hello", "Bye bye" and "How are you"
It's pretty impressive, I think.

I honestly don't feel like explaining what I've been doing the last 90 days because a lot has been going on, but I can tell you something that happens like at least once a week:
The indian dinner-party-things.
We are invited over to other houses regularly. There's usually at least 20 people (usually more I think) and most of the time I don't really know what's going on because they all talk all kind of indian languages, but there is amazing food and I love it.
The food I get here is pretty much the best ever. I get awesome indian food every day and I swear you should all be jealous it is sooo delicious!

And now a few pictures:
The first one is Pumpkin, the Parrot that can speak. Pretty cute, huh? (WRONG! no, jk. but he is actually super annoying whenever Paco and him just randomly start screaming like they are about to die. Lukas and Alex can confirm. It is hella annoying!)
Picture two is of the house I live in, Picture three is the view if you exit the main door, and the last picture is of my hostsister Menita and me before Homecoming. (Eine Art Schulball...)

Okay, that's it. The next post is going to come... soon. I guess. Hope you all enjoyed it! Hugs, Anna

Wednesday, November 12th 2014

Reflect on your learning this semester so far in this class. Think about the first day you walked in to this room until right now. What have you learned about Web Design? What have you learned beyond Web Design? Explain yourself.

I learned a lot about Web Design in specific, especially if you look at my coding skills. It's easy to see too, if one would look at the three Websites we built. The difference is pretty big in my eyes. 

Most of the stuff about Design, like the color schemes, I already learned in my old school, but it was still good to revise it like that. 

Beyond Web Design this class probably taught me a lot about time management. Time management is a huge factor in my school in Austria too, but it is not as strict. If I turn in an assignment late in Austria, it is not that big of a deal. Here, I had to be on time, and that made my time management skills a lot better. 

I also kind of learned, how to write a decently long blog post, if I didn't even have anything to say really. And I learned how fascinating coding is. 

I remember in Austria, when I had a subject about Web Design there, and during my first hour, the teacher asked everyone to honestly share how interested they were in Web Design. I told him I was not really interested at all, but this changed here. 

Friday, November 7th 2014

Define the following terms on your blog. Do not copy and paste definitions. Site where you got your definition.

FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a protocol for exchanging information between computers over a network. 

Web Server

It is a computer or computer program that makes a client or user be able to see a website from a different computer. 

Web Hosting

Providing services, hardware and software, for websites. e.g. storage, maintenance of site files, etc. 

Web Hosting Companies: Arvixe, Dreamhost, Weebly, Hostgator, InMotion, ...

Monday, November 1st 2014

Tell me about your weekend. Give me details and photos!

This Weekend was Halloween! My first american Halloween! Can you believe it? 

I actually dressed up and I actually went Trick or Treating. But even though I had a mask, a printed out mask, not too many people recognized what I was supposed to be. 

A little kid dressed up as Obama thought I would be George W Bush. Wrong. 

I was Arnold Schwarzenegger. A few 'older' people recognized me though, and one woman at Chipotle even confronted me about it! ("Are you ARNOLD??")

Anyways, I got some candy and I had a very good 3$ burrito and it was a nice evening. 

The rest of the weekend was not too eventful. I was at another indian party and I spent almost my whole Sunday working and skyping.