So here’s how it was.

There had been rumors my company planned to move to another city. It wouldn’t have been far, but definitely too far for me, plus the extra money I would’ve had to spend on my train ticket seemed unreasonably high to me. Given that and a general feeling of non-fulfilling here at my job I figured it was time for me to look for a new job.

I got all my papers for the applications in order before we went of to France and coming back started – slowly, but surely – to get (or rather: drag) myself back into the job hunting game. I once again was reminded of the fact that properly applying for a job is neither fun nor easy not anything remotely pleasing. It’s tedious, it’s a lot of work and you always wonder whether despite proof-reading the damn thing a million times there still might be a stupid misspelled word in there somewhere, potentially costing you the job of your dreams.

Fortunately I didn’t have to send out too many applications. I don’t even dare to tell you how many because the number is ridiculous (say square root of four, if you’re that curious). I sent out the application on Monday and when I checked my mail on Tuesday there it was: an invitation for a job interview. From then on everything went quite smoothly. It was like everything fit. They even agreed to pay me what I asked for, leaving me wondering if I just should have took the risk and asked for a tiny bit more. One week after I signed the new contract I told my boss I was going to quit and another week later I gave my „seven weeks notice“. If everything goes as planned I will be here for another five weeks (that’s 25 days in the office, not much, huh?) and then take the rest of my vacation at the end of the year.

I will start at the new company next January. The job itself is more or less what I do now, only hopefully better organized and without all the distractions I have to deal with right now. Also, I will have to brush up a few programming languages I haven’t worked with for quite some time.

Incidentally, my old company just merged with another company, so everything’s a bit of a mess right now. The moving plans have been postponed a bit and (this is where it might get complicated) the new office building my old company will move to will be pretty close (as in: one train station away) to where my new company is. It’s strange how coincidences work sometimes.

I’m a lot more relaxed now, still also really excited (however these two feelings go together). Now I just hope that the new job will be what I hope it is and make me happy.

So today I quit. Feels weird.

If you are sick, don’t go to work. Just don’t. I’m not saying this because I’m lazy and don’t want to go to work, but because I have tried this twice and both times the sickness came back and worse.

That’s why after a mild case of not-so-wellness including off-and-on stomach ache and the like two weeks ago, I spent all day yesterday asleep with all things even remotely loud, light or edible banned from my life. I also drank some tea.

Telling your boss you’ll quit isn’t nearly as much fun as you might think it is. Especially not if said boss is a really nice guy who isn’t responsible at all for all the little (and not-so-little) things that made you quit.

More details to follow.

There’s going to be some changes. Not here on this site, but here in my life.

Right now it’s too early to write about it yet, mostly because not everything is sure and I’m the person who usually counts her chickens thrice AFTER they hatched, before she dares writing about how incredibly cute they are.

But it’s all good. This much I feel pretty safe to say.

This weekend I had my first karaoke experience. And it was fun.

We were at a birthday party and it turned out that they always bring out the karaoke equipment sooner or later. You should also know that I was not the slightest bit drunk, because I was the designated driver. Don’t pity for this, by the way, I don’t mind not drinking every now and then and can enjoy myself on coke and orange juice as well.

Strangely enough I can be quite timid when it comes to karaoke in front of so many people. I guess it’s because I somehow take it very seriously and want to do it right. This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it, but I try very hard to find the right song for my voice and I now know that „Don’t Go Breaking my Heart“ is NOT it.

It was well after midnight when I really started to fully enjoy it. By then most of the party guests had left and we were about ten or so and I landed my first hit with „Karaoke Queen“ by Catatonia, which nobody else knew (philistines!), which was probably a good thing, because I got the melody of the bridge all wrong. However it only got better afterward, plus it turned out that I’m pretty good at choosing the songs as well. Maybe it’s because – unlike other people – I actually know the titles of songs and so was able to pick classics like „The Shoop Shoop Song“ and „Daydream Believer“.

Things I learned as well:

– Apparently not everybody spends his teenage years learning every damn song they like by heart. It pays off, though. At least when it’s karaoke night and you actually don’t need to look at the screen to sing „Ironic“.
– „Time Warp“ is a great song, but not for karaoke. Damnit.
– A refrain gets boring somewhen between the third and fourth repeat.
– I really do love karaoke.

Just so you know: I did not buy two cook books when checking out the cook book shop I mentioned in my last post. I totally did not. It just looked like I did, what with me going in the shop with two books less than I came out with. I also did not spend 10 Euro in that chocolate shop that I accidentally passed by when walking to the station. No, I did not. Someone must have stolen my 10 Euro and put a little bag with chocolate in my hand while I wasn’t watching. I swear it must have been like that.

You may also want to ask why the ugly word „diet“ is actually being mentioned in my blog. Yes, I know it’s an ugly word and I try to stay away from both the word and the actual meaning of it. Because diet and chocolate shops usually don’t mix very well and if forced to choose I’ll take the chocolate shop without even needing time to think about it. Basically I do believe that diets are bullshit. You can read this book or this book (or both) and know what I’m talking about.

But. I’m actually on a diet. Not a self-inflicted one, but a doctor-inflicted one. I came down with a mild case of gastri-entritis-something, meaning I wake up in the middle of the night with unpleasant stomach pains and you wouldn’t necessarily want to be the person to use the bathroom right after me. But it’s a mild one, so you don’t have to worry. It just means that I should only eat white bread and mashed potatoes. I figured chicken broth might be okay, too, but that’s only me guessing.

So now I’m going to head straight for bed with the delicious smell of spinach and garlic pizza (my husband ate it, not me!) still lingering in the apartment.

And I totally did not eat a piece of dark cardamom chocolate tonight. I totally didn’t. Really. I swear.

I’m stupid. No, really. And I don’t have nearly enough confidence in my beloved Cologne.

So I read about this book shop in London, the one that specialises in cook books and has an actual kitchen, where they try out the recipes from the books they sell. Awesome. This shop alone seems like a good reason to plan a trip to London. At least in my food-obsessed world it does.

Now I learned that there’s a book shop for cook books only in Cologne. Like 15 minutes by train from where I live. It was right there all the time and I didn’t notice. Okay, it’s a bit hidden, which makes my ignorance excusable, but why didn’t I even bother to find out whether there was a shop like this in Cologne. I mean, Cologne of all German cities is the one that I actually would trust enough to have such a shop. I know of at least two gay book shops and one selling crime and mystery novels only, so why shouldn’t we have a cook book shop.

My next trip to Cologne is a sure thing and it’s going to happen soon. It will be a lot cheaper than going to London, although they don’t have a testing kitchen, so that London trip is still on.

Gaaaaaa! Can’t look or… must… order… cute… dress.

As long as myspace is as confusing and as ugly as it is, I will keep on avoiding it. I just thought I’d let you know that it is unlikely I’ll ever see your myspace page. So you can stop updating now and move to a better service, which is cleaner, prettier and probably not taken over by teenagers.

At least now you can’t say that I didn’t tell you in time.