Am I the only one who immediately calls her parents if there’s a question on ‚Who Wants To Be A Millionaire‘ that either mom or dad could (or most likely WILL) answer?

Because that’s what I do. Always.

And might I just add that I therefore know for sure that both my mother and my father would make excellent telephone jokers would I ever need them. It’s kind of comforting, too, in a strange geeky way.

Why we have three different packs of dental floss in the bathroom is a complete mystery to me.

Especially since I didn’t buy a single one of them.

1. Detachment – Attachment
2. Regard – Ending a letter, with one more ’s‘ to go.
3. Community – Society and the difference (hey, I did have courses in Sociology at my university).
4. Strike three – It’s either some strange term unknown to me or the middle of the afternoon.
5. Congregation – Lots of people.
6. Generous – Me, sometimes. My mom, always.
7. Pretention – False.
8. Pregnant – Not.
9. Drinking – Milk. Really.
10. Brilliance – Glimmering.

Again, you can take part and have a lot of fun… just click here.

My fourth wisdom tooth is coming out. I’ll soon have all the wisdom I can probably have in my mouth.

It also means that I currently can hoard food in the weirdest places and that’s probably more you wanted to know about that matter. Believe me, it is.

I haven’t had any of the other three wisdom tooth pulled out, mostly because of my strange fear of dentists. The blessing of having such good teeth as I do and therefore never have to go to the dentist somehow made me incredibly afraid of the day I will finally have to. The horror stories my mom tells about her dental-experiences don’t exactly help. (Neither does the story of my birth.)

I just figured that if I wait long enough they won’t have a reason to pull my wisdom teeth out and then I can just live them and all the wisdom they provide.
Boy, am I gonna be wise…

There was a reason why I wrote this post.

The reason is an incident I’m currently not sure how I will deal with, but that again reassured me that I must be one of the world’s luckiest people.

As you may or may not know I recently finished my training. Also, as you may or may not know we won’t be able to work at the company where we worked as trainees, but they let us stay for three month at full pay to give us some time to find a new job. Also, as you may or may not know, the boyfriend has been unemployed for about two years now, although he is constantly applying for jobs all over the country and has a great resume and references. Also, as you may or may not know the official number of unemployed people in Germany just went over the 5 million mark.

Also, as you may or may not know, I might just be in the position where I have to worry about which job I would like to take.

I sent out one application.

One.

That was about two weeks ago. The reason why I didn’t write about it before and still feel awkward about it now is that I’m kind of paranoid about talking about those things before I am sure about what’s going to happen. I honestly believe that if I tell you that I think I’m going to get that job, they will call me tomorrow and tell me they chose someone else. But I’m working on overcoming that paranoia, so I’m telling you now, although nothing is for sure right now.

So, here’s the story, as detailed as I’m able to at five minutes before midnight.

(So, who else of you loves Paolo Conte? Because I really do. That has nothing to do with the rest of the story, but I love Paolo Conte. Deeply.)

I applied for the job as a software engineer/designer at a company in the healthcare/pharma business. The ad said that they were looking for someone to start in February and I applied in about two weeks ago.
One week after I had sent the application I got the call. They wanted to invite me to a job interview, scheduled to take place a week later. I honestly couldn’t believe it. I mean, my profile fit, but still.

The job interview went well. It was a little bit chaotic and I could see already that taking that job would include working a lot, but I liked the tasks and the fact that they had a lot of international contacts. Also, I’m not a very big fan of the company I currently work at.

Because of my paranoia I didn’t even tell Andreas I had a job interview until the minute I came out the door and called him. I even was a little pissed because the boyfriend had told my mom I had a job interview. I don’t know what it is, but somehow I don’t want the cheering up and crossing fingers. I will spill it all out after, but I don’t like to talk about it before.

The next week we tried to get more information about whether there is chance we can stay at our company longer than the three month. There’s this one guy both Andreas and I worked for during our training and he would like us to work for a big project, but he needs one of the managers to give his approval. At the most we could stay for another two years, but nothing is settled yet.
We met with the guy on Wednesday and basically what he told us was how much he wanted to have us work for the project and that he will do everything to get us to stay as long as possible. He also told us that up to now he hasn’t heard anything from the manager on this subject. Maybe I’m just picky, but I consider a contract a really fine thing.

The same afternoon my boss told me he wanted to talk to me and it turns out that there’s another team where I could work with the option that I could stay longer. Again, nothing is definite and he has to talk to one of the managers first.

Now, today I get the call from the other company and from what I can tell they already decided that I will be the one for them. At least that’s the feeling I got. He told me how much I would earn and that he would like to meet with me again next week with one of the HR guys present to discuss the details. He didn’t say anything about a second job interview or something, so I can only guess that they have already decided.

Now, what the hell am I going to do?

I kind of hoped that the other company wouldn’t call me before next week so that maybe things at my company would be clearer and I would know what I can expect there.
Now everything’s mixed up and I am confused.

Here are the pros and cons (and then I will go to bed).

My company (that means the one I currently work at):
On the pro-side they pay more (at least slightly), I know pretty much what I can expect and how things are organized, I know a few people and Andreas works there and I’m pretty sure that the work wouldn’t be too exhausting. Also, I know that the company isn’t likely to go bankrupt in the near future.
The not-so-good things are that I would be doing a lot of host-programming, mostly COBOL and aside from being not too exhausting it can also be quite tedious. I also don’t like my company too much, so I wouldn’t exactly mind a change of scenery. And I would only get a fixed-term contract.

Apart from that I don’t even know whether I’m going to get a fixed-term contract that extends the three months they promised us. They just told me the chances are good, I haven’t seen a friggin‘ contract yet.

The other company:
On the pro-side the work would be more interesting. I would be able to go a little bit back to internet design and these things. As far as I can tell I would also learn a lot and be able to use my foreign language skills (they told me that part of their decision was based on the fact that I speak French and they need someone who does). And as I said before I wouldn’t mind a change.
On the con-side I know near to nothing about this company. It’s also a small company and I’m not really a small company gal. I’m not good with the whole ‚we-are-one-big-team-and-we-all-like-each-other‘ attitude, and I’m not sure whether this kind of attitude or one of its variants is carefully maintained. They pay a little less, but that’s not really what I worry about. It’s still enough. What I’m worried about the most is the fact that during the so-called ‚Probezeit‘ they can fire me anytime they want and I don’t know enough about the company and the probability that it’s going bankrupt anytime soon.

You can sum it up that way: My company gives me a lot of safety (if I get a fixed-term contract that extends the three months), but I’m not thrilled about the work I would have to do. The other company offers an interesting workfield, but I don’t really know what I’ll be getting into. So it’s fun against safety. A little bit heart agains head. And I like both.

I don’t know yet what to do. I will have to wait until next week anyway. I need a contract to sign and I may just decide that whoever gives me a contract first will win.

This blog has really become a part of my life. I can tell, because every so often something happens and I find myself thinking: ‚I can’t wait to get to write about that.‘

That also resembles the way my blog changed over the months since I started it in October. At the beginning it was mostly an online diary. I would write an entry a day (not even every day) about what I had done that or the other day. I wrote long posts that included everything that came into my mind.

Now I think my blog resembles more a notebook or something like that. It’s not that much a diary then it is a collection of thoughts, experiences and events. Most days I write several entries about different things, things that do not have a direct connection.

Finally I also find that I have certain threads in my blog. The marriage-thread or the tenant-thread are two examples and there are a few more.

All in all the way I think about my blog changed over the past few months. I guess it was bound to change from the beginning. When I started I had no idea how it would be. I didn’t know how long I would stick with it and I certainly had no idea if anybody would ever read my blog. I also knew very few blogs myself. That all has changed rapidly during the last few months and hence, my blog has changed. I think it’s a wild mixture of influences from other blogs, the feedback I get, all the cool and/or useful features I could find and also myself, of course.

I am now a person who thinks in blog from time to time. And I love when this happens: ‚Ah, now there’s something I can write about.‘

I called the registry office in Geldern today and they told me we have to send a short letter demanding a copy of the so-called ‚Familienbuch‘ of the boyfriend’s parents.

According to the nice lady we spoke to in Leverkusen that’s all we need. The boyfriend already wrote the letter and we’re going to send it today.

Yeah, the other thing. I lured him with money. I tried to find out how much money I’m going to take home once I have a real job and it turns out that I’d get about 300 to 400 Euro more every month if I was married.

I agree that it’s a pretty unromantic way to think about it, but then again, guys… 300 Euro. Every month. Considering the fact that we’re talking about getting married for nearly a year now, it’s a pretty good reason to do it soon. It’s not like we’re flush with money or have ever been.

But again, that’s surely not the reason I want to marry the boyfriend. The real reason is purely emotional and as romantic as it can be. But then again, if you knew what my bank account looked like for like the last five years, you’d understand why the idea of getting more money just for doing what I want to do anyway doesn’t sound too bad to me.

(I get the feeling that the titles of my entries are getting too long.)

Now here are the six days of the year when I realize I’m living in the wrong part of the country.

I hate Karneval.

Karneval is also known as Fasching, but don’t try to call it Fasching here. At least not if you like all your body parts intact. Also, and I wish I would be kidding, don’t EVER shout ‚Helau‘ in Cologne or ‚Alaaf‘ in Düsseldorf, at least not if you cherish your life.

I admit that up to the age of about 17 I enjoyed Karneval in a careless sort of way. It was okay. I would attend the school’s Karneval party on Weiberfastnacht and then maybe go see the parade with Natascha and bitch about old women snatching away the candy from little children. Or us.

The last time I remember I was dressed up as a Dutch girl, which was pretty much the most stupid costume I ever had, because I have brown hair and the wig that actually won’t fall off my head has yet to be invented, but it was fun anyway.

The most intellectual costume I had was a few years before when Natascha and I decided that I would go as an ‚N‘ and she would go as a ‚D‘. In short, we cut out big letters from cardboard and hung them from our necks. There is a whole pop-culture reference behind it, and a pun intended, but you’d have to speak German and know ‚Schmidteinander‘ to get them, so I won’t go into any details.

In the years that have passed I was able to grow some sweet and rewarding hatred against Karneval and I find that I’m not the only one. Every year my first impulse is to hide under a table and not come out until it’s Ash Wednesday and everything is over. Friday to Sunday aren’t so bad, but today, Monday and Tuesday are the worst days.

Now, Karneval is not necessarily a bad thing, although in my opinion it is. I just don’t like it. I don’t like to get drunk and be funny just because the rules say so. I don’t want to get dressed up and listen to terrible music just because I am supposed to.

So, basically what I plan to do:
Hide under the table and not come out until it’s safe again.

At least Monday is a holiday here.

PS: If you like to know anything else about Germany’s strange customs, just ask. If you ask nice enough I might even buy a newspaper and post the pictures.

Yesterday I came home and found a package lying on the steps of the stairs.

You will have to know that for whatever reason we have the tiniest mailboxes in the whole wide world. Everything that’s even slightly bigger than a normal letter doesn’t fit in, so it either sticks out for every stranger to steal it or the postman has to get inside and put it somewhere on the stairs.

The package came from Caitlin and inside were three mix CDs she made and sent me. I got the ‚Bad Boyfriend‘-mix and the ‚Caitlin’s Trip To Germany‘-mix and another mix made especially for me.
Again, it’s all ME, ME, ME!

They are so great. I can see now that we share a very similar taste for music since on every CD there are several tracks that I know and love.

Thanks again, Caitlin, I’m more than thrilled.

And, of course, there will be a mix in the make very soon. Or maybe two.

The Dogs of Babel… Check.

The Eyre Affair… Working on it.

Wicked… On order.

Thanks to Brandon I ordered Wicked today. It was his favorite book of 2004, and since it was on my list I felt I had no choice but to go to amazon and secretly put it in my cart, then hurry to the check-out and be gone before anybody could see me and say: ‚Hey, isn’t there still a big fat minus preceding the numbers on your bank account?‘

By the way, I made Andreas buy a copy of The Eyre Affair, too. I let him read the description of the back cover and then read a few quotes (‚Yes, yes, and Midsummer Night’s Dream with chainsaws.‘) to him and before he knew what he was doing he left the bookstore with a copy in his hands. He told me that I stink, but I can live with that. Spreading literary fun all over the place.

Also, I checked out Powell’s 2005 Puddly Awards. Again, it’s Brandon who sent me there. I don’t know if I even have a chance to win since I am not a citizen of the US, but I sent in my vote anyway.
I voted for ‚The Time-Traveler’s Wife‘, because in many ways it was the book that got me most. I can’t remember crying over a book like I did with this one.

I also took a look at the books who won the 2004 Puddly Award and I was amazed to see that of the top ten books I have read seven. Seven!
Then again, of the top 50 books I have read only 12, so I wondered: Do I have a great taste in books or am I just plain mainstream and read only what everybody else reads?

I would like to say great taste, but I’m not so sure.