moving on

Today, I fell over laughing in yoga class, s e v e r a l  t i m e s. 

Two reasons:

First, we had to roll on the floor, laughing. Well, we were supposed to roll on the floor. ... But what else can you do than to start laughing, rolling on the floor?

Second, nobody hit any note during meditation. Nobody. Hit. None. Ten people. No note... No. Several. Too many. None like the other. We tried singing the mantra for ten minutes I guess.

My, my...







XD

Finally, we had our Fachschaft's Pub Quiz tonight and although it began rather chaotic (it turned out we didn't book the right room, didn't tell the janitor about the tables we needed and so on and so forth), it turned out to be a lovely evening. I sold drinks, joked with our hosts inbetween the questions, and generally had a good time talking with people. We also had live music which I enjoyed so much that I bought a CD right away (and probably blushed talking to the guys, oh well...). It's good to be me.

Another Star Trek entry is coming in the near future, but I have to get this out now:


OMG. ♥


This has to be one of the funniest, most characterizing, and intriguing episodes I've come across so far! The theme, the plot, Kirk's and Spock's interaction, the solution, everything! And oh, the possibilities of the movie AU... Just brilliant.


Next Episode: Klingons!

Let's start with

SUNDAY
On Sunday, my presentation group met in the library and acted as I already described here. Nobody wanted to take the biggest part of the presentation which was designing the DIN A0 poster, me included. Liek everybody else, I acted all clueless and pathetic and was pretty good at it I think. However, I volunteered to layout the handout before the question of who would do the poster even arose. Harr, harr. Funny thing about that: N. chided me about it later on! (N. has also experienced this sort of group dynamics in presentation groups and shares my views. That means, luckily, I had one sensible group member out of five with me.) N. told me that, when I volunteered to do the handout, she thought I'd break our "agreement" of not taking all the responsibilities and not doing all the work for once. Reading this now, it doesn't sound very funny, but it was then. Wait... Just imagine five people sitting around a table, deciding who gets to do what. Silence. Then, me saying, "I'll do the handout." Silence again, but N. sitting right beside me has a huge thought bubble over her head which screems at me, "NOOOO!! DON'T DO IT!!!! DON'T SACRIFICE YOURSELF!! IT'S NOT WORTH IT!!!" and so on and so forth. Hahaha. :D

MONDAY
Well. I hinted about it here. Let's say it wasn't too bad, but the wrong words were said at the wrong time. Because of the group presentation, I was slightly on the edge already (no matter how well N. and I had solved everything so far) and work had frustrated me for two weeks again. So, when my boss spoke to another collegue instead of me to update him on the status of our project, I got angry. Well, at first, I was confused; maybe it was a mistake? No, it wasn't as it turned out. Our boss hasn't yet realized who had had her protective hand over our project since last autumn. Who had arranged the tasks for everybody so that working hours and post-graduation job hunting / writing the final thesis hours hadn't interfered too much. Who had seen and noted down 90% of all the open questions concerning our project. It was me. I collected everything. Now, I'm more calm about this, but... "you're the genius, you figure it out" still stands. Let's see how my collegue, now with a diploma, does with all this organizing, because if she gets all the appreciation, I don't see why I should continue to do it. In future, I'll ask her what to do - as a wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, it's kind of her job now, you know. I'm just a Hiwi, thank you.

TUESDAY
Three things:
1) I collected the much appreciated book packages for the Pub Quiz.
2) My other group work went exceptionally fine.
3) Yoga was awesome.
In addition, nobody from my presentation group had yet either volunteered to do the poster nor written any word about it, me included. I was proud.

WEDNESDAY
I picked up my LUSH paket at the post office smilling sooo broadly that the lady behind the counter commented on it. "See," she told a collegue, "how little it takes to make people happy sometimes." All I could say to that was, "If you only knew what's in this paket...". OMG. I've been in seventh heaven since then, espeacially my hair and my cuticle. Around midday, an email from one of my group memebers inplied that she was doing the poster and asked who could them print it out the next day. I kept quiet and kept to bringing the handout into a neat order. At 9.30pm, the phone rang.
"Could you print you the poster tomorrow morning?"
"Oh dear, I'm sorry, but I can't..."
"Really? Our schedule is so tight already..."
"I know and I'm sorry..."
"Okay then. I'll ask N."
Right. You know, N. has a little daughther. Call her at 10pm. I reminded my caller of that, she said, "Oh, right..." and we parted. I went to bed feeling a bit nervous about the poster, but also very excited about the presentation in general. I wasn't going to take the responsibility of the poster onto myself, no matter what, and I'm still proud of that.

THURSDAY
We rocked. Okay, some minor things weren't perfect, but who complains about a 1,7 for a group presentation? I don't. I think I handled the whole situation pretty well. Firstly, I was the last one talking everytime (three groups presented simultaneously in three different rooms thrice) and everyone of my other group members talked way too long. So, when I started speaking, people were already knocking at the door and talking outside every time. And secondly, I didn't use any script or cards, but only my memory and that worked fairly well, too. Once, I forgot what I wanted to say and another time I forgot a vocabulary, but I had the impression that nobody cared much about it. We got a good grade and I had another experience of giving up some control in my life. Pretty satisfying, don't you think? Afterwards, I had my seminar on cultural pessimism and it was awesome!

FRIDAY
Work, work, and work at work, and later on talking, thinking, and giggling on the phone with farbenweberin. ♥



There are many other things about which I'd like to write soon, but time is a problem. I've just finished another book by George Steiner (Warum denken traurig macht) which is literally mind-blowing in its psychological and philosophical way of thinking. Moreover, I'd like to tell you about Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, too, because I guess not many of you know him and I think you definitely should. Finally, because I continue watching The Original Star Trek Series, I might have to introduce a new tag here soonish and it will read "science fiction is not about the future". Maybe next weekend...

See you around!

Hellooooooo?!

Did I just finish a yoga set in which 90% of the exercises demanded the Breath of Fire?!

Usually, I don't even last a minute!

It's sad, but I think the next round of "You're the genius, you figure it out" started today. For the last two months, I've been working my fucking ass off and that's what I get?

Fine.

STRIKE!!


You know what I'm no good at? Enduring pressure. But guess what I did today? I endured pressure. My presentation group thought I would volunteer to design our poster if they acted all clueless as how to do it? You know what I did? I acted clueless, too. They thought I wouldn't join them in looking at our notes while we waited for somebody to speak up? They were wrong.

As for now, nobody's doing the poster. We agreed to contact each other via email tomorrow evening and then "decide" who's going to do it. Well, I tell you how that "deciding" usually works and how it will proably work tomorrow as well. Somebody will write an email telling everybody that she tried to do a poster, but failed. Repeat four times. Then we'll all whine that we don't have time and ask whether or not somebody else would be kind and do it in our stead. Repeat as often as you like. Maybe somewhere in between somebody will throw in an impatient, maybe even angry remark that, in the end, somebody has to do it. And I'll wait for it, the end, when somebody will take pity on all the others and volunteer to do it.

And for once, this somebody won't be me.











Bitches.

"Nights are a dangerous time for online orders," I thought an hour ago and did it anyway. I was tired, weary from this week, knew it, too, and when I opened my LUSH newsletter, I told myself, "no, no, no, no, noooooo..." Yeah. But how could I resist? It has been ages since I got my hands on my first can of bananas and vanilla pudding and that's why I ordered it. Among other things. God... I desperately need this, some good stuff for body and soul, all my senses really. Bought some awesome tea as well today. Tomorrow, I will do some cooking, care for my feet, and be generally sweet to myself. (And do the laundry. And study. And study some more.) Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Today was so great that I have just no words for it! Nothing spectacular happened, but so many small things. Work was tedious as always these days, but after lunch everything changed for the better. Point One - The Music. While eating, I complained about my recent and serious lack of good music to T. and spent a whole hour with him afterwards copying interesting stuff from his hard drive to a 2 gigabyte pen drive. I don't know for sure yet if our tastes match, but he just knows a lot of music, independent stuff, too. So there should be some overlap. Bonus: I should have spend said hour in the library studying. Hah! Point Two - The Coffee. Afterwards, I met L. and had coffee with her in my favourite café. Mmmhh, coconut macchiato AND a good friend to talk to. That is definitely one of the best things in my life right now. Point Three - The Mailbox Message. While with L., I got a very touching one, that is all. Point Four - The Postcard. After saying my goodbyes to L., I found a lovely postcard in my mailbox, the real one outside in the cold this time. And I squealed. Could my day get any better? Hardly. But wait! Because here comes Point Five - The Movie. After dinner, N. ask me on Facebook whether I'd like to join her going to the movies tonight. I talked her out of the chick flick and we went to see Soul Kitchen instead. And this is, without a doubt, and I say this on January 6, this is the funniest movie I'll see all year.

What a day! ♥



[1am again. Damnit!]

Happy New Year everybody!

I celebrated New Year's Eve AND S.'s birthday with most of my friends here and a couple of other nice people which was great and lots of fun. Even if it wasn't, you know, somewhere around the third or fourth Pina Colada, everything starts being fun. No hangover yesterday whatsover (water, people, at least a bottle of it before going to bed), apart from a little uneasiness in my stomach, but nothing extraordinary for the first day of the new year. And totally worth it.

I have to admit though that I spent pretty much the whole day yesterday being miserable. I tried not to, but damn, I felt lonely and isolated like I haven't in a long time. I sat through it, tried to distract me, and also thought about calling somebody, to talk and not feel so lonely anymore. But yesterday, that wouldn't have done any good. I was lonely, veeeeery lonely, and when I'm like that, I get bitter. And then, I don't feel like my friends here, who have all been in longterm relationships, get what I mean when I say, "I feel lonely." And I don't want their pity - I just don't to feel like this anymore. Which, luckily, I don't today. Well, not so much, that is. I feel better. Such days pass and let's hope yesterday will be one of the few I will see myself through in the new year.

So, this was a bit of a rough start, but if 2009 was any indication for what is to come next, 2010 will be amazing.