I’ll be honest, I’m not the most enthusiastic shopper. I don’t like going to the mall. Once I find a shirt I like, I will purchase one in each color and two in black to extend the time in between shopping trips.

But if there’s one thing I always fall for, it’s customized products. An iPod with my quote on the side? I’ll take it. A track suit with “Alex” printed on the derriere? Yep. A cubic zirconia mouth grill that says “Brazil”? Hello! Make it two.

This is why I had a small heart attack when the German company Dein Design gave the Shoeboxed team spiffy laptop skins with the Shoeboxed logo (you can see mine in the picture). The skins don’t just rock, they also protect your computer from scratches so it will always look like new.

How Dein Design actually gets the skins for laptops, iPods, or IKEA tables to apply without any bubbles is completely beyond me (something to do with the honeycomb design- yeah, no idea). How the skins can be removed without damaging my computer so I can replace them with other skins is also a mystery.

All I know is that it’s cool, individual, and available online. Which means I can buy it without setting foot in a mall and store my receipt safely at shoeboxed.com. I’ll take two, please!

Coming from a land of drive-thrus and 24-hour delivery Chinese food, it was never necessary for me to learn the art of cooking. With an ever growing amount of work to do here at Shoeboxed, we often try to eat in the apartment, leaving many of us naïve college students to the kitchen. When confronted with the stovetop and oven, many of us have excelled at making pasta, potatoes, and rice – all starches.

The lack of variety led Candace and I to experiment. We bought Spargel, the blonde cousin of American asparagus. We figured that olive oil and parmesan cheese could make even this strange, white, translucent vegetable taste good. After arriving home we realized we lacked a pot large enough to fit our ten asparagii (I am fully aware that the plural of asparagus is asparagines, but that’s just ridiculous. I refuse). We would have to bake our asparagii on a cookie sheet.

Putting the asparagii with parmesan and olive oil in a 400 degree oven seemed like it would get the job done. Little did we know that asparagus actually explodes. To add to our embarrassment, some of our German companions came over just as we pulled the burnt remains out of the oven.

David and Silva made it crystal clear that Spargel is a very delicate and revered food in Germany, after which they criticized every step of our Spargel preparation. I would like to use the blog to defend my cooking skills and my honor. People out there should know that, even if I failed to peel and boil the Spargel, baked Spargel is just as good!

It’s no secret that in about a week, the lease on our apartment will be up. That is why I have been searching Berlin for the right place to hang our hat. However, our cost restrictions in addition to the fact that we would prefer not to live in a crime ridden area has significantly limited our options. This consequently means that I have to continue to scout Berlin for an apartment, ANY APARTMENT, and continue to ice my feet and knee in the evening.

The kicker: having to move all of our stuff to another apartment could not come at a more inconvenient time. The shoeboxed team just bought new technical equipment. I personally don’t know what it all is — I try to focus on marketing. But I feel bad that in a couple days we will have to dismantle it completely. Poor Tee.

But I have to stay focused on the house hunt. Tim has taken a break from the search which has provided me the opportunity to spend some time with Alex. Today was a very productive day. We visited five apartments. The realtor, Herr Meyer, was very helpful and patient. At the beginning of the appointment, Alex and I were very professional, but that image started to fall apart towards the end — especially when Herr Meyer was waving goodbye to us and I gave him a high five…

Quote of the day: “Alex, I just high-fived Herr Meyer!?!”

Some people subscribe to the theory that human beings need exercise and regular time spent outdoors to lead a healthy, happy life. Here at shoeboxed, we are working hard to prove that theory wrong.

Personally, I have not gone more than 100 feet away from our apartment building since Thursday. It’s now Sunday. I’m not the only one who has forgotten what fresh air is, either—Tee has been programming nonstop for 48 hours, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t left the apartment once during that time. Actually, I don’t think he could leave if he wanted to because his legs have forgotten how to walk more than five feet at a time. Dan, who chooses to work in the lounge rather than in a chair, is developing bedsores.

It’s just so tough to remember trivial little things like “eating,” “sleeping,” or “moving around occasionally to keep circulation going in your extremities” when you’re working this hard on something you care about. As far as I’m concerned, though, typing is a legitimate form of exercise. Who needs legs, anyway?

Don’t get me wrong, though; it’s great here. Seriously. All this time spent working on the site has helped us come together as a team and stay on the same page for everything. We have made amazing progress in the past few days, much of which would not have happened if we were not living together. I think it really speaks to our teamwork abilities and dedication to shoeboxed that we have all been able to live and work in a single apartment without killing each other. Of course, there are still two more roommates who haven’t gotten here yet…

The shoeboxed team is ravenous. We go through an obscene amount of food. And because our refrigerator is smaller than my dorm room mini fridge, we are constantly making trips to the store to buy food to sustain our worker bees.

Take the other day for instance. Taylor asked me to go to the store with him, and since I wasn’t doing anything particularly pressing, I agreed to go. Little did I know that it would turn into a grocery adventure. Bread, apple sauce, spices, ground beef, cheese—you name it was flying into the cart. People were staring. Our little cart was overflowing with food that would probably be gone in a few days, but it was amazing to actually see the amount of food we actually needed in one pile.

Since all of our items would not fit on the conveyor belt, we had to get yet another cart. But here’s the kicker: Taylor and I physically couldn’t carry all the stuff to the apartment. Taylor looked at me and stated so matter-of-factly, “We’ll just have to bring the cart closer to the apartment.” He was serious.

And since crossing on the cross walk would have been too logical and easy, we decided that it would be better to cross in the middle of the road. There didn’t seem to be a clear break of cars to allow us to pass, so we just went for it. Bottles clanked and fell, but we successfully made it to Cory and Tim who stared in amazement at our spoils.

Altogether really embarrassing—but I finally have peanut butter and cheddar cheese. I won’t eat them together of course, but I have been looking for them everywhere. Guys: I will guard this like a troll so I won’t have to show my face in the grocery store for a while…

I was sitting on the balcony today watching the beautiful sunset above when I saw two pigeons grooming themselves on the roof top. And I thought—how amazing. Even an animal that is, in my mind, one of the dirtiest creatures alive (vermin of the skies as I like to put it), takes the time to clean itself.

This sentiment was immediately contrasted with the shoeboxed team. Maybe it’s because we are so dedicated to the project that we disregard the normal hygienic process, but we are a dirty bunch. And it is not altogether our fault. I still haven’t unpacked. Our make-shift lounge has seen better days. We only have one bathroom for seven people. And our kitchen…oh god. Microwaves and dishwashers are not a common household item here, so that means that whenever we want to eat, we have to prepare a meal from scratch or at least put something in the oven. And even though we have a fridge to keep leftovers, there is no way to heat them up later. But who am I kidding…there are no leftovers—EVER.

In case you haven’t noticed, I live in a house of all guys except for Alex who has been here longer than I have and has already given up on trying to keep things clean. But this is totally new territory for me. My brother back home is very quiet, clean, and eats very small portions. But our guys here are food fiends. There never seems to be enough sustenance in the apartment, and god forbid anyone wash a dish…

I hate feeling like I’m constantly nagging them, but never in my life have I felt SO much like my mother. Put the seat down. Clear and wash your own plate. Wipe the bath when you’re finished. Trash goes in trash bags. I’m sure my mom is just about dying right now at the thought of me being the keeper of cleanliness and domesticity. My respect for her is now off the charts.

This week’s featured team member: Tim. Tim is a very well-kept looking guy…until you look at his feet and those things under them that he calls shoes. They are a problem. They are filthy. They are falling apart. As you see in his picture, he might as well not even wear shoes, because his once tan colored flip-flops are now blackened beasts that look as though a pack of wolves gnawed on them. I am gagging just imagining them. Several people have offered him a new pair, including me, hoping that he might finally side with sanity… But Tim is content with walking around in his shameful shoes that sustain the perpetual layer of soot on his soles which by now are darker than me, which is saying a lot.

Basically everybody in the house needs to go to messy-people rehab.

Cory has done an incredible job of documenting our progress on shoeboxed/our wacky adventures in Berlin, but I decided that I wanted to try my hand at this newfangled “blogging” whatsit and give Cory a break. Rather than going through the generic introduction process here, allow me to give you a stronger insight into my personality. Someone once told me that you can learn a lot about a person from their shoes. Well, here are mine:

Now, I’m not exactly sure what type of inferences you’re going to draw about me from these shoes. However, I do know that my mother, who has been trying to convince me to get new shoes since I was in high school, will be mortified to see that I posted a picture of these guys on the Internet. Sorry, Mom, but they deserve some recognition.

These flip-flops have stuck with me through thick and thin. Although they may be a little more on the thin (read: practically nonexistent) side now, they are still just about the only shoes I wear. Between flyering, grocery shopping, and trying to find reliable Internet, I have probably racked up about 50 miles worth of walking on these babies just within the past week.

Every single member of the shoeboxed team has given me grief about my shoes at some point. Ironically, these same people have also complained of blisters and sore feet, which are problems I never experience. I always ask them if they want to borrow my shoes, but for some reason they just cringe. To them I say: Walk a mile in my shoes. I dare you.

Since arriving in Berlin, it’s been Doeners, all day everyday. Okay, I’ve only been here for a day, but I’ve eaten at the Turkish Doener stand both meals. I make sure to get lettuce and tomato on mine so that’s it’s a well-rounded, healthy meal. Meanwhile, the wireless internet connection at the apartment is terrible. And we’re trying to start an internet website. There’s a problem there. It looks like several members of the team will have to go to one of the parks or train stations in the area with wi-fi this afternoon to get some research done. It’s unbelievably frustrating, but we’re working through it. We’re hoping to have a good connection by later today– and then we’ll be cruising. Last night we were forced to search for internet by dangling an antenna out the window of our 19th story apartment.

Oh, the things we do for shoeboxed…