Finally found something to cheer me up…

I should avoid checking my bank account at the moment. A few days ago I got the last credit card bill with all the expenses of my Scotland vacation. And today I spent another 150 EUR on a whim. But I just had to, because otherwise this day and this week would have ended in such a grumpy mood again. I needed something to cheer me up!

At work I’m in charge of organizing / coordinating some smaller events which will take place in August. One of my colleagues – lets call him A – suggested I ask person B from another organization to develop part of the concept. B willingly and enthusiastically agreed to do it and I mailed him the details of the task he offered to take care of. I didn’t hear anything from him for a few days and when I called him last week, he told me, that he passed on the task to person C from yet another NGO and that C would get back to me this week. Ok…
After a few mails and messages left on mailboxes I finally managed to talk to C this afternoon, just to find out that B didn’t really brief him what the task was and that he will be away on vacation for the complete next week. Which in the end means that I have to take care of all the stuff on my own after all. I could have already worked on that during the last two weeks, but of course I counted on B + C to keep the promise to take care of this stuff.
What really really pissed me off though was that when I informed colleague A about the whole back and forth, he just told me, that this was person B’s typical behaviour: promising to do something but not following through but pass the job on to somebody else. Hello ?!?! You suggested to ask B for help. You could have also told me that nothing would come from it. Actually you could have just not suggested B as help in the first place and I would have taken care of the stuff on my own. So f*cking unbelievable!

My life sucks!

I want to go back to Scotland. There was sunshine and no stupid work and no health scares for my mom and I had such a great time. Back home here though… *sigh* My mom had to be hospitalized again yesterday, which of course ruined the relaxed mood I still was in from the vacation. Bro3 called me in the morning to let me know that he’d take her to the GP who sent her to the hospital. Her heart is acting up again and even though the GP didn’t think it’d be a real emergency she wanted to make sure.
And it’s not an emergency, but still has to be checked out. My mom’s bloodwork show that something’s not quite right, but the heart ultrasound and the cardiac catheterization didn’t show any serious problems within her heart. We feared that the her arteries and the bypass might already be blocked again, but that’s obviously not the case. Thank God. She doesn’t feel so bad at the moment either, but she had a really bad time yesterday morning, though this definitely has to be checked out.
The hospital she was treated before couldn’t admit her for some reason so she is in another one now. Which is probably just as good, but I don’t get there as easily with public transport. Which sucks regarding visiting and all. This all sucks anyway!

The work situation isn’t much better. I was working on several projects before I left and asked my coworkers to continue working on those and left rather details memos and reports and all. And I get back and it feels like I haven’t left, because none of the projects have really been worked on. I was hoping these were finished by the time I get back, but… no! I don’t know, maybe that was a wrong expectation. Anyway I was rather frustrated, because now i have to get back into it all. I couldn’t really concentrate much on work yesterday (with my mom in the hospital and not knowing how bad the situation really was), and even today I wasn’t really motivated. Which also frustrated me as well. Sometimes I really need someone to kick my ass and tell me to get to work! Don’t let me start writing about various other things (Greens, Grad School) which I have to work on…. I was so so happy in Scotland without all these thoughts :-)

But at least during all these I finally managed to type my short travel diary (locations, sights etc) into a proper word doc, so I’m able to remember where I was at what time :-) and to sort my photos and put together a collection to show around to friends and family. It’s still a large collection and I’ll most definitely will reduce it even worther for my ipernity account and will only show even fewer photos here. So don’t worry. And I will start with a few London and Glasgow pic in a new post, before I will take a relaxing bath and escape to the time of Jamie and Claire for a little while…

Ramblings – Part 2

This is the post for all the frustrating and annoying things of this week so far. I don’t want to spent too much time writing about it, because it probably would be better to not dwell on it, let it go and just move on. The thing is, that I always have a hard time to just let it got and writing about it, even if it’s just a short omnious post, might help. I’m working on not letting all this stuff get to me (and I hope reading “The Four Agreements” might help with that. When I some day will find the time to read it *g*). But I’m not there yet and until there will be a post like this every once in a while.

I still don’t know if I will get a completly new assignment for the paper I flunked or if I can just continue working on that one. I asked the staff at the department over the phone before I didn’t hand in the paper. The first student assistant said, I would not get a new assignment. The mail I got a few days later regarding the procedure of repeating it, sounded a bit different. So I called again today. Another student assistant wasn’t sure about if I get a new assignment or could continue the old one. He asked the program’s coordinator and he wasn’t sure either, but wanted to find out and let me know on Monday. Seriously? I can’t be the first one to fail/flunk an assignment. They should know how to deal with that. This still leaves me baffled. I don’t want to let this thing slide again and really continue working on it. But I won’t continue to work on the old stuff, if these questions won’t be the ones I have to answer. But it’s taking them quite a few days to send mails to be available on the phone and to get back to me, so I’ve been in the loop for almost two weeks now. Which sucks.

The other frustrating thing is too complicated to explain in detail. I’d have to write a lot about the electorial system for town council and all kinds of legal and electorial stuff, which is to complicated to explain in English. At least when I’m running on only a few hours of sleep. The thing is, that my fellow Greens are frustrating me at the moment. In my small town the Green party only has got a few members and even less are more or less actively participating. But even these right now are hesitating or refusing to step up. And there are so many things on my mind I could say to them, but can’t, because these are rather cynical thoughts and uttering them won’t help. Not the cause and not me. So I have to find a way to put the essence of my thoughts in a non-cynical way and hope that I will be able to convince some of them. But it’s so frustrating.

And game 7 last night was frustrating, but I already covered that :-)

All The Things I Have To Deal With…

Let’s see what’s keeping me busy at the moment.

Work. Two jobs and in both there is a lot going on right. There is a lot to organize and deadlines to keep and just a lot of things to get done.

Local Politics / Green Party: Besides the usual town council work, the municipal budget debate started last week in all committees and the town council. Which means a lot more preperation and discussion among us Greens. We will be spending the whole weekend away, discussing the budget and working on additional proposals and stuff.
We’re also in the midst of preparing the election campaign, because there is supposed to be local election in early June. We are way behind with our preparation, and haven’t even finished putting together our electional programme. That’s one of the reasons I keep my fingers crossed for the State Constitutional Court tomorrow to rule in favour of postponing the election date till September. Well, there are a lot of other reasons why local elections in June were a stupid idea. Reasons based on my comprehension of democracy and all, but I have to admit, our lack of prepration definitely calls for voting later in the year :-)
We are also planning a special “Carbondioxide Lent” campaign with a few smaller events. It sounded like a great idea at first and I still think it is. We just haven’t really managed to organize that many events yet, not to mention we haven’t prepared any press and PR stuff yet.
I think the major problem with all this is, that our local Green Party consists of just a few people and even of those there are just 4-5 who are actively actually doing anything. Sometime I feel like I am the only person who is doing anything. Well or at least I think I’m the only person who is aware of how many things are not done, although they should be.

Subconscious Refusal ?

Once again I have the distinct feeling that my life sucks. I can’t really say why. Well, I can, but it probably doesn’t make sense, because it seems like it would be easy to do something about it. My inability to do just that, ist what sucks the most, I guess. I feel overstrained by so many things I have to do. All of them rather ordinary, nothing super special, nothing too complicated or too difficult. I guess it’s just the sum of all the crap. I’m beyond annoyed by my colleague. I’m too tired now to explain what’s the problem. Believe me I actually tried, but it’s complicated to explain. The thing is, that he obviously doesn’t get why his behaviour annoys me. On the other hand: I’m too nice to actually call him out on his crap. I like him. Basically. It’s just… ARGH! But I’m annoyed about it, and then I’m mad at myself, that I don’t tell him, that it’s annoying. Maybe it will help that we have a meeting with our bosses this week. Not about that stuff, but it probably will come up anyway.
I’ve got a bunch of different assignments in job#2. None of them is a big deal, it’s just the sum of them together. I feel like I’m constantly forgetting something. And I am. Which could be avoided if I just work more diligently on all of that. And there are a couple of things to do in the local politics part of my life. Quite many actually. Various council meetings, electorial campaigns that have to be organized and even more meetings.. Once again I feel like I’m losing track of the things I have to do and who I have to meet up with. I probably just have to get my everyday life better organized. I’m usually good at organizing, and I don’t know why I’m not capable to just do that in my life at the moment. Recently I haven’t spent any time working on the grad school assignments, which are due in April / May.

Public Transport in the Wintertime…

There has to be something positive to say about today… it might come to me, when I think long enough… Well, I had my first training session at Kieser Training and I think I like it. I still feel some of my muscles although I only worked on five machines. Next week there will be two more sessions with a trainer and the mandatory appointment with the ortho doc and after that I will get my personal training schedule. It’s a good thing that I start to work out and try to get into shape. Work is still very easy going, so that’s not to bad either. But the rest of today. Sucked. Very much so.

Since the winter finally arrived in our area on Monday – obviously all of a sudden and suprisingly for public transport companies – public transport kind of broke down. During the last two days the train I have to get on in my hometown was at least 15 – 20 minutes late. This train leave here twice the hour (in a very stupid 20/40 minutes interval, but that’s a different story). Both trains were not on time at all. Which of course meant that I missed the second train I have to change to in another town. This train has a similar bi-hourly schedule and strangely enough was always more or less on time. These trains are operated by a different rail company the majority of the trains in our metro area. But they all use the same tracks so I don’t know how that can happen. Anyway… 

I am SOOOO stupid! I Lost My Canada Scarf!

I never missed the unlimited internet access at work more than today. I had to get this off my chest and put it down on paper (well in bits and bytes) but knew I couldn’t post it until I got home now. So I just wrote it down anyway and mailed it home and am posting it now, before I grab a bite to eat and catch up on all comments, blogs and stuff I missed during the day.

I am so so so soooooooooooooo stupid. If it were anatomically possible to kick my own ass I would do it. Multiple times.

It was windy and chilly when I left home this morning  and I knew I had to wait on the train platform for a while, so I wore my scarf. My wonderful, awesome Team Canada scarf. I took it off on the train and put it on the seat next to me, because the heating was on and I felt so warm. When I got off  the train at the final stop in Essen I obviously forgot to take the scarf with me. ARGH! I only realized it when I left the bakery in the station and at once I went back to the platform. The train stays at the platform for a couple of minutes before it returns back to its starting point.

I asked the train driver if a scarf had been found, but as far as he know, there wasn’t. And then I hurried through the train especially the section I had sat in and asked the new passengers, but none had seen the scarf. I still have the tiny hope that it might just have fallen down and thus wasn’t noticed by them or me at that moment. No scarf was handed in at the main station’s lost and found either. I already called the rail company to report the loss and I hope, that the scarf still might be found (and returned) by someone. Someone who might realize that it’s not an ordinary scarf, but a scarf which means something to its owner.

I soooo could kick my ass right now!. If anyone want to come over and do it, feel free to do so. With my tendancy to forget/lose stuff, I think it’s good that I don’t have any pets or even kids. I’d already be in jail convicted for negligence. And the worst part is that I can’t really blame anyone except myself. ARGH!

Access Denied…

I’ve spent most of my work life so far in offices with internet access. Always accessable internet access. Until now neither a boss nor IT administrator told me, that access to any site is not permitted. Well, except for some “dangerous” sites, which I never wanted to access in the first place. But I never had a problem strolling around the internet, visiting here and there and especially the places I usually hang out. It’s not that I spent my work day doodling on the internet. I work on my assignments and doing all the stuff I have to. But there are coffee breaks and moments when you wait for the printing job to finish and so on :-)

So imagine my shock (yes, I have to admit it shocked me) when after my week away I came back to work this morning and had to find out that some (quite a few!) of my bookmarks are blocked, because they are of the “chat/social network” type. Allright I can exist without being able to check if there’s an update on my favourite fanfic. But of course this security filter also blocked…. yes, livejournal, twitter and I don’t know what else. I didn’t even try, because I felt caught doing something illegal…

I know, I shouldn’t complain because a lot of employees don’t have any sort of (private) internet access at work at all. But… Damn, I got so used to it. And I’m really really going to miss it. Of course I can twitter via my cell phone but that’s just not the same and rather complicated if you only want to send out a short tweet.

More miscellaneous reasons for me to be cranky today: a trial magazine subscribtion I didn’t even ask for, lousy weather, public transport problems and still suffering from side- and after-effects of the steroids. I couldn’t really get much work done at the office this morning, because my head felt like it was going to explode any minute. It didin’t hurt, it literally felt like it would explode. Some fresh air help though and now I’m finally home after a town council committee meeting and getting some groceries to finally stock my fridge. I’m skipping the green party meeting tonight and will try to relax at home with a simple dinner (nothing fancy but at least warm food prepared by myself) and in a few moments I’m watching the legal drama “Die Anwälte”. Thanks to DVR with time-shift :-)

And here are some random music and literature recommendation: Brandi Carlile (Grey’s 5.05 made me put her music on again and I still and again love it) and Zadie Smith. I finally started reading “White Teeth” this morning during my commute and just like I was with her novel “On Beauty” I’m once again totally blown away. Such a wonderful writer…

No lazy sunday…

10:18 pm: Damn, I forgot how much revising a paper takes after all. But now I’m really done for today. I will read the paper very thoroughly once more tomorrow and then hand in the final version tomorrow night. Not the best work I’ve done, but the best I could do at the moment. That’s the same thing I thought about the enviromental law paper and I totally rocked that one. 95/100 points. But I won’t get that much for this one I’m afraid.

07:54 pm: Decided to being done with the term paper. Writing it, that is. Now I will only proof-read it for typos and grammar and punctuation and such. I know I could have  done better, if I had spend more time working on it. If I had started working on it earlier with more determination. It seems to be the same story every time *sigh* Am I complaining much? I guess so. I should just shut up and do something about it. What do they say? The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem :-) But I’m shutting up now and will start revising my paper. Just one last thing: Wasn’t daylight saving time suppose to give you more hours of daylight? It doesn’t seem like it at the moment and I dread the time when we switch back to the normal time in a couple of weeks and it will get dark even earlier in the day.

06:15 pm: Procrastination galore. I won’t even tell you how useless I spent the last 45 minutes *sigh* I’ll try to check it off as needed break. From what…? Yeah, right. Now I’m in the middle of doing the last bit of research for my paper during the process of revising and tweaking. The Sharks lost 1:5 by the way. I have no idea what to say to that…

I almost turned on the heating this morning!

Why does it have to go from sunny 25 °C to rainy and cloudy 15 °C overnight? To be exact it already happened the night before, but either way it sucks. I almost wanted to crawl back into bed this morning. I guess that’s why I spent more than an hour in front of my computer still in my pj :-) This and the drama that once again occurs in one of my favourites thread on the Grey’s fanfic board I’m following. Why can’t people just be nice and respectful even if they disagree? I’m afraid manners really degenerate on the internet and people act and say things like they would never dare to in real life if they have to say it to your face. Thankfully I’m not caught in this drama, I’m just an annoyed and saddened spectator and I hope it won’t follow to the new place where these writers will take their fics now. I just want to read their stories in peace. Please….

Anyway I also stumbled across another great Grey’s fansite and spend some times watching the outtakes and clips from the Grey’s S4 DVD. The – hilarious as usual – outtakes can be found here at Grey’s Gabble. The site also includes another great clip from the DVD about McDreamy and McSteamy. And it’s so much fun to watch, so I’ll just give it to you as well. Enjoy.

“If I was Patrick or Eric, I might enjoy looking at myself too…”

And in this Grey’s mood I’m in I will continue working on the livejournal mood theme instead of my term paper (yes, wrong priorities, I know) but I will hopefully have the whole mood theme thing out of my head when I’m done with it. And then I can concentrate on the term paper again. I still got all of tonight and all of tomorrow for the paper, so no need to worry, right? Thank god I don’t crack under pressure when it comes to university stuff :-)