It feels as if I have not written any thoughts down for this blog forever, and probably this is true. First I did not want to write because things were not going all that well. All our plans were overturned by Ben not getting the job in Germany we were so hoping for. Then we had trouble with our noisy neighbor again and in total we were quite frustrated. So I decided not to write about it. I think I put enough frustration in this blog as it is and it is time for a change.
So we decided to make this change and are currently searching for a better flat (or at least a better area). I also decided to apply for another job. It is an internal application within the company I am working for already so with a bit of luck that might even happen. All in all if we are successful all will be better. So keep your fingers crossed that we will be moving in August and then I will finally have time to concentrate on my studies again, which now are pretty much put on hold, except for the conference preparations I am occupied with at the moment. I will attend one conference in July and one in October and so far this is all I have planned for the rest of this year. And then I will finish the thesis before the end of next year. Ambitious?! I know, but I need to get it done, or I never will!
July 16, 2009
This has been a really good week for me! For the first time in quite a long time I was really happy with the progress I made in one week. Seems that the excitement about starting a new chapter has led to really good motivation and resulted in an excellent work flow. I just hope that it is going to stay that way as I rather prefer being content with what I’ve done to thinking that I could have done more. I also had an interview at my department for a GTA position, which I really thought did not go all that well. But here we go, next term I will have the chance to teach. And this gets me even more excited. So if you should meet on campus, be careful, I might just about be ready to burst with all the excitement.
June 7, 2009
For almost two weeks I have been having a cold now, which is quite unfortunate when you think of all the lovely sunshine. My colleagues at work keep asking me, ‘why are you wearing a scarf, it’s way too warm for that!’ Well, I know but my throat obviously doesn’t and it does not want to get better, either. But I can breathe a wee bit better now again, and do not wake up every 5 minutes because I think I might suffocate. I also am busily working away, both at work and on my theses, so I do not have all that much time to regret all that sunshine or my red nose in here. I am still excited about this new chapter and think it is going to be fabulous. There you have it, a tiny tad of self-confidence from me. Anyway, I wish you all a very nice summer with more lovely sunshine!
May 31, 2009
This week has been really good. A lot of sun to enjoy, not too much work so that I could concentrate on the studying part of life and a new chapter ahead about which I am really excited. I have not even finished reading the novel about which it will be, yet, and already there are so many possibilities presenting themselves that I cannot wait to dig my claws in 
Apart from that I have a sore throat and what one of my friends would call a head cold but I guess that is all the more reason to stay in and read. Yesterday Ben and I went to see ‘Night at the Museum 2′ which was a good lough. The movie is really fast paced and there is hardly time to get bored plus it is hilariously funny. At least if you like this sort of humour. Ben and I really enjoyed it and in parts I was laughing tears.
And that’s it for this week. Have fun and enjoy the lovely weather!
May 24, 2009
This very nice Rolling Stones inspired Title is of course totally irrelevand as today I am only going to share good news. Just as the equally Stones inspired motto of my life ‘you can’t always get what you want’ but then again ‘don’t you worry try a little harder’ my life never seems to be easy and yet it never is so bad that I would like to change it radically. I hope I did not manage to totally confudse you now. And in case you wonder what it good about the above, well nothining really, just wanted to share the philosophy of some very wrinkly old men, whom I admire greatly. But here follow the good bits:
I finally managed to finish that d*** chapter, complete with footnotes, bibliography and ready to be handed in for my annual review which will take place on June17. I don’t know why so early, considering the fact that my second year only begins October4. But, of course all the bureaucrats want to fiddle with the documents as well and this gives them a good chance to have done so by the end of August, so that I can re-register in September. But the important thing is, ’tis done! I am so glad that I can finally move on to something else. Not that I will not come back to this chapter. It is after all only a draft, but a change of scenes from the 15th to the 19th century will do me good. I really enjoyed reading all about the history of the time, but in the end I was also quite confused because some bits of the histories were quite repetitive, whereas others weren’t and I could never remember which said what and why. So on to new adventures now!
Also, it is not long till summer now, meaning; I will soon be attending 2 weddings and 2 conferences (sounds like this could be the title of another odd movie ) I will go home and see my family after more than a year. I will miss Ben and Maya loads and loads of course but a bit of excitement will do me good.
And that’s it. Lot’s of pleasant prospects. Life’s good after all.
May 17, 2009
Finally I have the end of this chapter in sight. I am sure that I will finish it next week at the latest- a first draft that is. Of course I will have to put in a continuous effort in improving and completing it, as well as the others. But with the end so close, I finally feel a bit freer and actually look forward t the next chapter, which my supervisor says will be a lot easier than this one. He said the same thing about this chapter as compared to the previous one, so I am not so sure if I am going to believe him. But I am sure that a change of topic will do me good.
In our house things are weird at the moment. Our downstairs neighbour’s flat has been broken into last week. Which of course does not make us feel any safer here even though we decided to move in summer (when the lease is up). We try to comfort ourselves and make fun of the situation in bringing to our minds that all our electric appliances have German plugs and are quite old into the bargain and thus any potential burglars will not be too happy with what they might find in our flat. We just try to take things as they come at the moment, but more and more things seem to happen, that make it clear for us that we will not stay here beyond the PhD which would have been possible in the original plan. Now we keep ourselves going by telling us that it will not be longer than the end of next year before we finally can return home.
With this I am of course not trying to dissuade anybody from moving here. The University is excellent and the programmes of study and support are great. Only the circumstances do not seem to turn out right in our particular situation. We miss our friends, sociable outings, for which we do not seem to find the time or the money (yes even students are not excluded from the Credit Crunch), and our families, the garden at home, the countryside…We are just not made to live in the city and this was probably a very important lesson we learned here and something that helped us to decide where we want to live in the far away future. So even if the overall experience for us does not seem to be paradisiacal, we learned many things that will be important to us in future times.
April 15, 2009
What do they say? It can always get worse. And so it did. Last week we had another window thrown in (the third in the cause of a year). The last time that happened was quite q while ago, so we thought we might as well renew our lease, as we really do like the flat. A week later the window was thrown in. So here’s some advise for anyone moving somewhere completely new: 1. when people tell you this is a bad area, trust them, even though you think it does not look bad at all….looks can deceive. 2. Never ever sign a lease that says that if you want to get out of it early you will have to continue paying the rent until another tenant is found.
So as you can imagine the last week was rather upsetting for me, Ben and Maya. Even more so, as it took almost two weeks till the window was replaced. And the agency had a couple of excuses for that as well ranging from bad weather (hello? this is Scotland!) to the measurements I have given them were incorrect. But finally it is done and I do not care to think about it anymore. Consequently Ben and I had a lot of discussion of future plans etc. I called my work Union to get legal advice and made many more calls and sent various email, but all to no avail. we will have to stick it out until the lease is up.
All this means that PhD wise I had a totally unproductive week and have been trying to catch up ever since. I am slowly getting towards the end of another chapter, but there is a strong emphasis on slowly. So wish me luck and bear in mind my advice. And I hope you all will have a good week next week!
March 14, 2009
Ben decided that we might clean out our closet today. Well, really he suggested next Sunday but as I am working the next three Sundays we thought we might as well do it today. And it is amazing what kind of things you keep just because you think you might use them again, such as old modems, cables you do not even know what they belong to etc. Well, our closet is cleaned out now, the rubbish bins are full but we feel a lot better and lighter. Maybe the Feng Shui people are not all that wrong when they claim that the soul profits when your house is declattered.
Uni-wise I have spent a lot of time in the library lately, which is quite new to me, as I prefer taking books home and studying on my desk. But I was attending a couple of very interesting computer courses- which, by the way, I really loved. I never thought that I might ever become even slightly interested in the workings of a PC, but there you go, now I want to learn as much as I can about them.
I also used my time in the library to read an 1830 edition of a book (obviously the only edition there is) in Special collections and I must say I love it up there on level 12. Apart from being quite cold every time I leave, the room is fabulous and the view over the city is something else. Not that it is overlooking a particularly beautiful bit of Glasgow, but you are so high up and able to see houses from the top that you would regard as really high when passing them on the street. One day was really sunny and I enjoyed being able to at least look out the window and see the sun while studying. A definite improvement from my workplace, where I never see the sun. The good thing about that is that I do, of course, never see the rain as well, except for when the people who enter the shop are completely soaked
So I am planning to get my next chapter (or the draft) finished this month and then go ahead full speed so that I might still finish this d**n thesis in the time I had originally planned for it (3 years that is). So wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed that my spirits remain in their current high!
Oh and I thought I might give you a treat and show you a picture of Maya. She has grown so much now, she is almost a ‘real’ cat:
February 1, 2009
Last week. I told Ben that I thought it was going to be an early spring. I had good proof for it, too. Maya is starting to change her coat- lots of tiny cat hair everywhere- and the bulbs I planted in November, start to grow. Well, the next day it was snowing. So what I am supposed to make of that? I am not so sure about an early spring anymore (maybe it was only wishful thinking in the first place). On the other hand I am immensely enjoying the sunny weather today.
But let’s not talk about the weather. There is one thing I am very sure about: I’ve got to speed up writing and researching for my thesis. I am so sure for three reasons:
1. I can feel that I am working too slowly.
2. My supervisors told me so.
3. Ben wants to be back home by the end of 2010, and I do not intend to leave things unfinished.
So I am in a bit of a dilemma: I know myself that I have to work more and faster. But how to you do that if you constantly feel that you are running out of time? I think my time management skills have really improved during this last year. And yet there are still only 24 hours in my day. I am always tired and either work-working or thesis-working. Then Ben (and Maya) want(s) a bit of attention too, once in a while. Hardly any time for myself as it is. So if you have any good advise, please send it my way, I appreciate it.
Nothing much has happened in the last two weeks. I have been accepted to present papers at two more conferences, which I am now trying to organize: transport, accommodation, time off work, writing the papers… It is really hard – if you have to work and only get 21 days paid holidays- to get all this worked out, because in the end there are not too many days left to take a real holiday, which you really really need by then. In addition to conferencing, this year my favourite cousin is getting married back in Germany and Ben’s brother and girlfriend are having a baby in summer, so there will be a lot of travelling back and forth. I have no idea how this is all going to work out. But, of course, it will because it has to.
On this note, I wish you all a very merry and productive early spring, even if it should arrive a little later 
January 25, 2009
With the first half of January almost over (can you believe it) I finally wish everybody a very happy new year! Again I have to apologise for a very long silence. But this is the first year in which I ever thought of some good intentions for the next year and -surprise surprise- blogging on a more regular basis is one of them. Well, I guess by March we’ll see how it goes.
So, what happened in the meantime? I have realized that sometimes reading too much is not good for you. And I do not mean that in a counteracademic way. Of course reading is very important, especially for a degree in literature, but if you read too much and take notes and notes and notes and finally you just lose it. Now guess who lost it???
Right, so I read a lot, took a lot of notes and when I finally sat down to write the chapter, I just sat and stared and sat and stared but of course the srceen did’t tell me what to write. And it was not that I was blocked either. My mind was no blank. Instead it was full of so many ideas that I just didn’t know where to start. Luckily then I had to write a conference paper which greatly distracted me from the actual work on the chapter. The conference took place in early January. Another huge international conference at which all the ‘grown up’s’ as I like to call them and their wide knowledge of basically everything greatly impressed and at the same time really scared me. But my paper was received well (probably due to only one person in the audience knowing only one of the three texts I was talking about). And I am convinced that my talking skills are improving and that I am stuttering less while presenting the paper. And if I say that about myself it must be true.
A funny thing that happened there was somebody asking me for the way or something and my reply started with ‘Aye,…’ Imagine how they stared at me. Amazingly I never thought I would adapt to the Scottish lingo so quickly, understanding it yes, but actively using it…well, there you go. After the presentation I was even told, that my English now even sounds a bit Scottish. Do you think congratulations are in order??? I just keep wondering how people who come to Scotland to learn English get on in the world…any thoughts?
So, the conference went well and now I will have to have another go at the chapter. So wish me luck. I need it as another of my good intentions is to have 3 more chapters ready until the next annual review. I don’t know How I got that idea, but as I intend to be done by the end of 2010, I probably should get going.
Before the conferenc two important days were celebrated. The birth of Christ which I mainly spent in bed…no not because I am exceptionally lazy these days…but because I was struck down with a sever case of the flu. So severe indeed, that on the 24th the manager at work sent me away from the tills so as not to have too much customer contact (she wanted to protect the customers from my running nose, not me from the customers…) and my assistant manager repeatedly asked me if I wanted to go home. Funnily enough, I still felt quite good then. But as soon as I got home and had three days off my body decided that now was a good time to knock me out. So I spent Christmas drinking tea (I even had to make a pass on the mulled wine my mum had sent me) and contemplating the lights of our beautiful Christmas tree from the sofa where I lay wrapped in a blanket… But safe your compassion, after only 3 weeks I finally got rid of my running nose and now everything is back on track. After all that fortune cookie I ate said ’soon you’ll be sitting on top of the world.’ which I thought sounded really good at least until Ben said, ‘but it’s really cold on Mount Everest’. Which of course is worth some consideration.
And then we celebrated the arrival of the new year. And what a year it is going to be with Obama Barack becoming the first Afro-American president of the United States, the Credit Crunch being actively fought by several nations, Russia being a madhouse and the Israelis and Palestinians fighting on and on and on….and this only to name but a few…
Let’s hope that despite all this it is going to be a good year for all of us. Productive, successful, peaceful and harmonious and that some leaders of the world finally decide just that for their own countries.
So again, I wish every single one of you a very happy new year!!!!
January 13, 2009
