We’re going to Cologne in twenty minutes. This is not particularly a great event since I go to Cologne every workday, but still. We’re going shoppin‘ and I’m with my man. Now that’s something.
We thought about going to Wuppertal, but it’s more expensive and we don’t really know our way around in Wuppertal, so I suggested going there when I’m on vacation. As far as I remember Wuppertal is a beautiful interesting town and I would like to not feel any time pressure when I’m there.
The strange thing is that Wuppertal is only 20 minutes away by train and we never go there, although it’s worth it. It’s like when I lived in Bonn and I lived about 15 minutes away (by foot)from the museums and I never went there, except when there were museum visits scheduled for one of my art history classes and that one time when my parents and my aunt and uncle came to visit me and we went to the ‚Haus der Geschichte‘ (house of history). It was really really interesting and yet I could never get myself to visit any of the museums just by myself. I think the closer you live to something, the more you promise yourself to go there and the less the chance to ever do it.

By the way, we’re going to Darmstadt next weekend to see Anke and her boyfriend. I first was a little bit grumpy when Pi told me he got the tickets because right now I need weekends with no plans more than anything, but then I remembered that my vacation starts on December 13th, so I really don’t care about a weekend full of plans now, because I have full three weeks with no plans after that. I’m looking forward to it now.

Okay, we have to leave now. We are invited for two birthdays tonight and I would rather stay at home after all. Don’t know that we are going to do. I kind of promised my Dad we would at least show up today be it just for an hour in the late afternoon. I’m hoping to see Judith then, but I don’t know if she’s coming and when, so I might not see her there after all.
That other birthday party I told you about I would love to go to, but not today. Please. I don’t know if we’re going although I think we should and it might be a lot of fun. We’ll see.

Current mood: Happy, but not too happy to have to go out in the cold and misty. Yeah, misty.
Listening to: San Francisco by Vanessa Carlton (Again. I told you, I really like that song.)

Our poor freezer got defrosted again. I haven’t had the chance to look inside it yet, but I certainly have to think of something that includes chicken for dinner.

I woke up this night and checked the alarm clock. Strangely enough, because I usually don’t check my alarm clock when I wake up during the night. I don’t want to see that I have only 30 minutes before the alarm goes off. I like to go back to sleep in ignorance. But this night I actually did check the time and noticed that we obviously had no electricity. Pi woke up as well and I told him that we were without that great invention called electricity. So we got up and looked out the kitchen window only to realize that this was pretty pointless. There were no lights on anywhere, but it was 3 am, so I guess that was just normal. Also, the streetlamps didn’t work, but I can’t even tell whether this is normal or not. I know there are streets where streetlamps are turned off during the night, because there’s not much traffic there. I’ve never paid attention to whether this is the case with our street. Very strange and also a little bit frightening were the sirens I heard. I couldn’t make out whether they were police or ambulance sirens or some car alarm or whatever. Together with the blackout it seemed really strange and unreal.
Then I tried to turn on the lights in the stairway of our house and that didn’t work, so at least I know that we were not the only ones with no electricity. I don’t know what happened. The next time I checked, my alarm clock was on again, so somewhen between 3 am and 6 am the blackout was over. Luckily Pi has radio alarm clock that works with batteries, so I was able to set the alarm on his clock and get up this morning. It was kind of strange though. You don’t realize how dependent you are on electricity and how much you take it for granted until there’s a blackout. No lights, no alarm clocks, no TV, no computer, no fridge, no stove. That’s almost scary.

So, our freezer most likely got defrosted this night, although it was really not necessary.

Still, I wonder why I woke up this very night and looked at my clock. These are two things I hardly ever do and why should I? This night it was really helpful, cause if I hadn’t waken up, I would have overslept today and would be angry at the world for having to stay at work even longer (and on a Friday!).

Current mood: Happy! I will go home in about one hour and then I don’t have to go back here for two days.
Listening to: San Francisco by Vanessa Carlton (I still don’t know what to think of her. Part of me thinks she’s a quite talented, yet hopelessly overrated, girl, part of me is fascinated with her music, cause somehow her songs always get me. San Francisco is wonderfully crafted song. That’s for sure.)

It’s 7:36 am and I’m already at work. This morning at 6 am Pi complained that my alarm clock goes off every ten minutes and he couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get up. So far I’m alone in this part of he office. The office here is divided into three parts, one is for the trainees (at least those who aren’t at school or have courses or work for some other team), one is for the team that is responsible for our training and several other things concerning education and knowledge in this company and the other one is a security team or something like that. I don’t really know and all trainees decided that we don’t like them, so that’s what I do.
Andreas isn’t here yet. I was kind of expecting that, since I know he’s meeting Melli for sushi tonight and so he’s coming a little bit later today.

I still feel good about running yesterday. I can get easily excited about things, but I also know that after a while I tend to let them slide. Anyway I looked up the possibilities of taking part in runs next spring or summer in this region. Fortunately there are a lot of runs in Cologne, so I can at least have a goal like ‚I want to take part in that-and-that run‘ and get my motivation from there. I doubt that it’ll work, I know me too well for that, but it’s worth a shot so I’ll try. Pi noticed I had been running when he came back, for my sport shoes were in the hall. He wants to run, too, so I tried to find out where we could go. There seem to be a lot of opportunities for longer runs close to where we live. That’s the nice thing about a living in a small town, there’s always a little nature close by. I told him I wouldn’t mind doing it alone from time to time. I like to just keep my own pace and don’t feel the need to talk. If I keep it up I might think about an mp3-player, though.
Anyway, as I said I looked up the runs taking place here on the internet and there were pictures of a 10km-run last year, so I checked out the result list and found my aunt. I was very proud, she made place 11 (women) and place 3 (women her age). I even found pictures of the race, so here’s my aunt, seeming very happy after the race.

She’s the one with the blue shirt. Or, you could say, the small one. By the way, she ran the 10km in 43 minutes. Now, I have no idea, what that means, but I believe that it’s a good result.

I realized I can’t post comments from work. Obviously comments are regarded as ‚Chat‘ by the Smartfilter installed here and so it won’t let me through. So, I either have to wait until I’m home or I have to put everything in a post.

PS: A former trainee left this company yesterday. He was employed here after finishing his training for about 9 months and now he found a new job. Also, as far as I know, his contract here ran out at the end of this year, so he wouldn’t have been around here any longer anyway. So, he was this keyplayer in one project, since he was basically the only one who knew how to do it, which is also most likely the only reason why he could work he for so long. Now, of course, the project isn’t even close to be complete and they got this student to finish it. It will also be his work for his diploma. Poor guy. Bet he didn’t know what he got himself into. The really stupid thing is that the guy who worked on the project before isn’t around anymore to show him the details of the project, so it works like this.
Thilo (who left) told Martin (a trainee) what there is to know about the project and now Martin will tell the new guy what he remembers Thilo told him. I wanted to expand this procedure and have Thilo tell Martin, then Martin tell Stefan, Stefan tell me, I tell Andreas and so on until someone would tell the new guy. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Anika just emailed me asking if I wanted to have a breakfast break. So, hopefully, she will be here soon and I won’t be alone for a while.

Current mood: A lot better. I’m still angry at the world and feel an urgent need to just hit our chancellor. Don’t ask. I have my reasons.
Listening to: Dirty Little Secret by Sarah McLachlan (I just recently started to really listen to her new album and it’s really quite good.)

I ran for about 30 minutes. It was pretty nice and I could enjoy the fresh air and the dark and almost empty streets. Pi isn’t home yet. I stopped by the indoor pool to see if I would be there when he was just leaving coincidentally, but it didn’t happen, so I continued to run.
Here’s my round as far as I remember it:

Jamie’s first run

I guess that I run about four kilometers or so, but that’s really just a guess.

Current mood: Better than before. Maybe I will really keep up running. I hope I will.
Listening to: Nothing again.

I get home and I am a mess. Right now it’s all too much (don’t ask for details, just know that our life isn’t full of joy at the moment) and I don’t know how much more I can take and not break down. I would love to just stay in bed and cry but I don’t think that’s a smart thing to do. Pi isn’t around, he went swimming, so I decided to go outside and run. I probable won’t last very long, I haven’t run in a long time and even back then I wasn’t in great shape. But I have to get out of here now. Being alone inside will just make me more depressed than I already am. So I’m off.

Current mood: I said it. I will be better soon, but right now, I am not fine.
Listening to: Nothing.

I learned today that you should not read the last 80 pages of ‚The Time Traveler’s Wife‘ on the train. I spent about one hour trying to hold back my tears as best as I could, still I couldn’t prevent my eyes getting watery. I didn’t cry though. At least not while I was on the train.
I spent the whole evening yesterday reading and starting on page 300 and something I finally gave in and started to cry. This is especially unusual since I hardly ever cry over books. I cry easily over a TV show or a movie, very easily, but it takes a lot to make me cry over a book. Well, this one did it. And I’m still an emotional wreck. I finished the book this morning and I find myself thinking about it and then I want to be home and be in a bed and cry into my pillow. Sniff.
Although this first paragraph contains mild spoilers I hope I didn’t actually ruin the joy of reading this book for anyone. Because you should. Definitely. And you too.

I read that Hollywood already got the film rights, which is okay for me. I don’t mind movies based on books as I know other people do. But then I read (and I hope it’s just a rumour) that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston want to be Henry and Clare. Oh no, please, noooo! I don’t even not like Mr. Pitt and Mrs. Aniston, but they are so not Henry and Clare. I couldn’t even tell you who I think that (in case there is a movie) should play their roles, but I can tell you who shouldn’t and those two are on that list.

Now I have to find something new to read, since I got so hooked on this book that it didn’t take me more than four days to finish it. I still have Vanity Fair, but that doesn’t compare and I find it very exhausting. I usually have no problems reading books in English, but Vanity Fair uses that strange old language and I think I don’t even get half of the allusions and idioms and I get all mixed up with the names, so I can’t usually read more that 10 pages in a row. And this book is really long.

Current mood: Oh, please, don’t ask. This world just is unfair.
Listening to: Nothing.

I shouldn’t post from work. This is the second time a long post got erased accidentally. I wanted to tell you about my frustrating search for jobs on the internet, our evening at Helene’s place and a lot more and now I lost all motivation.
Also, I’m still searching for jobs in another browser and get distracted from writing all the time. So I’m not going into all that now. Have to find my motivation first. Here kitty, kitty. Here kitty, kitty.

Anyway, I am back at work and listening to Moneybrother’s Stormy Weather on repeat (that’s a song, not the name of a complete album). It’s nearly dark out there and I need to stay until at least 5 pm. I don’t like this day. Is it Friday yet?

So, the short version of the weekend comes right here:

Friday: Went to Helene’s place to have dinner with Andreas S. (not the one I work with, unfortunately I know six Andreases, but you are only likely to meet three or four on this blog) and Helene and had a really good time. In retrospect I think that Pi and I talked a lot this evening, nearly too much. Hopefully they didn’t mind and still want to see us. I got to know Helene a little better and she is a really nice, sweet person.

—
I just realize that I’m all alone in this part of the office now. Everybody else has left and went home. If I wasn’t so keen on leaving also, I would be really happy right now. I like being alone in the office.
—

Friday (Part 2): Andreas made Moussaka for dinner and we had ice sandwiches for dessert. At 2 am (Yes, that’s right!) he drove us home, since there weren’t any busses going back that late.

Saturday: Stayed home, except for the grocery shopping. I made asian noodles with chicken, omelette, carrots, onions and spring onions, ginger, little corn cobs and sweet pepper and we watched TV and did stuff. I really don’t remember exactly. Also, my parents came by to get a CD and took us into town with my mother’s brand new car. She got a Renault Kangoo again, but I like the colour better and it has a lot of cool things the old one didn’t have. I started to read ‚The Time-Traveler’s Wife‘ and I am more than happy with that book. I’ll tell you more soon.

Sunday: Wanted to stay home but couldn’t. Well, we were only out for about two hours, but my original plan was to not leave at all and that got spoiled. Lambert called because he had some computer problem. One of his daughters had tried to install Sims 2 on their computer and didn’t quite succeed. I guess what I learned was that you should never ever upgrade DirectX9 from DirectX3. When was DirectX3 standard anyway? Was I born yet? So their graphics card collapsed and Pi had to try to make it work again and of course succeeded. The good thing was that they had bought cake and we had a little afternoon cake and coffee time, which was actually nice. Nevertheless we had to stop watching Alias for it. But we actually finished the first season on Sunday and I could finally unpack season 2 which had NO spoiler on the box. Thank you, Andreas. Nicely done, keeping me from opening a package for more than a week. I also finished another level of Spellforce and now I have to fight against the undead Korshar and his undead commanders, I took a long bath and I continued reading TTTW.

That was my weekend (Friday inclusive). The weather right now keeps me tired all the time. It’s always grey and cold. It makes me want to spend my days under a warm, cozy blanket.

Current mood: Wintery (the good wintery feeling, when I still like the cold and the dark, the bad wintery feeling will start in about one month when I’m sick of winter and start to long for spring).
Listening to: Stormy Weather by Moneybrother.

Can someone please tell that guy on the other side of the partition that just because his phone has a hands-free option it doesn’t mean that he has to use it for every damn call he makes?!? I really don’t need to listen to all his phone-conversations. I don’t.
It’s just plain nerve-racking, that’s what it is. And stupid. And, you know, a little bit childish. It’s just showing off and it makes me think that this guy has nothing important to do after all.

Current mood: Still want to go home.
Listening to: Safe and Sound by Sheryl Crow (I’m having my Winamp-playlist shuffled now)

Today I couldn’t get up as early as yesterday. I kept hitting the snooze button until it was 7:30 am, then finally decided I needed to get up somewhen and it might as well be now. It’s not even like I was especially tired and needed the sleep. It was nearly the opposite. Every time the alarm went off I was awake. It was more that the bed was so warm and cozy, so I kept snuggling under the blanket with Pi and enjoying the warmth.
I am so happy that it’s close to weekend now. After all the stress I want to really be able to relax. It’s not that I really had to work that much for my tests, but I am always amazed how stress gets you even though you don’t feel that stressed. It was even worse when I had to work on my project for the finals. I didn’t even have to hurry, I was under no great pressure at all, still once I was done I was so tired for three whole days I couldn’t believe it. Bottom line is, I need the weekend.

Pi is going to Krefeld today for an interview at some company. I don’t really know what they want from him and I think he doesn’t know a lot of details either. Hopefully it will turn out to be good. Then tonight we are invited for dinner. I still don’t know if I should leave here early and go home and try to relax a little bit or if I should just stay at work longer and go straight to Helene’s place from work. I haven’t made up my mind yet. On the one hand I would love to get some rest, on the other hand it would be a good thing to do overhours again. For now I’m still here.

I have no idea what I could do here. I’m also not motivated enough to look for something to do or ask someone to give me something to do. I’m a really lazy trainee right now. Not happy about it. I hope my attitude will change for the better starting next week. I can’t possibly be at work for two more weeks without anything to do. I am planning to do the presentation (which is another necessary part of me finisching my training) on my project, but apart from that… well, we’ll see.

I had a day off on Wednesday. Since the weather was nice enough for the season (meaning: no rain), Pi and I decided to take a walk. We didn’t have any specific idea where to go, so we just took off and walked by the indoor pool (because Pi wanted to check the prices) and then up Kölner StraÃ?e. We then kept walking and decided to try to go all the way to Wiesdorf. I didn’t even know how far that would be, but I figured considering the nice fresh air that we would have no problems making it. It was a really nice long walk and I am happy we did it. It sometimes takes some convincing of Pi to drag me outside but I usually give in because I know he’s right. I can be very lazy, especially when I have a day off. Of course we made it to Wiesdorf. I checked it later on the internet and now I know that we must have walked about 5 kilometers. Not exactly an impressive distance, but still a long walk.
We then walked around the pedestrian precinct, going into shops every now and then and mostly had a nice time, then took the bus back, got a little something to eat in Opladen and went home. An afternoon nicely spent.

By the way I asked Pi if we should start to try running again. We tried to back in Bonn, but my motivation ran out pretty soon. Now I think I may want to try again. Only I would first need to get some running clothes. Shoes I have somewhere, appropriate clothes not so much. I always want to try to do something good for my body and health but I never actually do it. I’ve never been into sports and I might never be. But I’m willing to give it a shot.
There’s this girl here at work who I worked with from time to time. Her name is Kerstin and she’s about a year older than me (I guess). She always talks about how she spends her time running or swimming after work and I admire her for that. Then she told me that back in school she wasn’t into sports at all. She just started after her graduation when she already was a trainee here and now she’s doing 20-kilometer-runs and everything. Anyway, hearing this made me think that maybe there is still hope for me, if I can just get over my laziness and just start it.

I just talked to Pi. He called me on my cell and I called him back from the phone at work (naturally). He’s already on his way to Krefeld, apparently his interview got scheduled some time earlier. This most probably means that we are both indeed going home before we go to Helene’s. I might even stay here longer and try to catch the train Pi is on on his way back, so we can get back home together.

These last days I’m back at the piano some more. I have some ideas for songs in my head and constantly repeat them and change them and try to get the right lyrics together. Songwriting for me is mostly a trial and error thing. I just start something and with time it either gets together or it does not. This might be the right time to draw your attention to the soundfile I added to my profile for this blog. That’s really actually me singing and that was really actually me and Pi composing. I have some other mp3-files on my other website. You can go to http://www.jamieaffolk.com and listen to them.

I got another mail today with an invitation to a birthday party next weekend. Unfortunately it’s on the same day my father wants to celebrate his birthday. I’m kind of torn, but not really. I guess we’ll go to that other party, especially since we hardly see Joerg (who invited us) and I see my father a lot. Apart from that, I think it’s really nice that he invited us. We are not really that close and have only met at other people’s parties so far, so I was really surprised that he thought of us and asked us to come. We can still go and see my father a day later or so. I hope he isn’t too disappointed when I tell him. He was really disappointed when I didn’t invite my parents to my birthday party two months ago and I had a hard time convincing myself that it was perfectly normal and okay not to invite your parents to your 24th birthday.

I think that’s enough for now. I will now try to amuse myself with something else. Or, if I’m very lucky, I will find something useful to do.

PS: For lunch I had canelloni filled with ricotta cheese and I guess what was spinach and again a little salad. At the moment I’m going all vegetarian at work.

Current mood: Can’t wait to get home.
Listening to: Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus (I can’t help it. I really like that song.)

As you might have heard I was bored at work today. Amazingly there’s a site called http://www.bored.com offering a lot of links that promise at least a little distraction and sometimes fun.
I also tried www.lifesucks.com, www.borednow.com and several other names to see if somebody was smart enough to get those domains, but I wasn’t lucky. Maybe I should get those domains. Then again I already own three domains and hardly ever update them.
So you don’t need to try those two links, cause they don’t exist. The first one does. If you find any links with similar names, please tell me. I wasn’t really creative today and didn’t try but a few names before I got frustrated.
Another site I found was http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/. It’s like a interactive fridge-door with magnetic letters to shuffle around. You can try to actually make some words but the most likely case will be that you never get to finish just a four-letter-word, since up to 75 other people try the same. At least at first I thought that you should try to get together some words. Then I realized that maybe the real goal or more likely the real fun of the ‚game‘ was to just destroy somebody’s word just when he tried to finish it. That’s mean, I’m aware, but also a lot more fun. Also, you could try to sort letters by color and or just make large heaps of letters. It’s very confusing and really destructive and when you’re caffeinated and/or drunk and/or bored like hell it’s hilarious. Apart from that, it’s really very stupid. (Yeah, like I care.)
Then I found http://www.getannoyed.com, which is basically a site with tips how to annoy other people. Not that I need any tips for that, but on the other side, you never know.
So much about that.

The second part of the title refers mostly to my new discovery. Go, go and buy Moneybrother’s ‚Blood Money‘. It’s so great. I first heard of him on Sarah Kuttner’s show and then tried it out. This album is just amazing. I find it hard to describe music, so I try to do this as easy and quickly as possible.
The really short version: Go get it. If you don’t like it, please don’t sue me.
The slightly longer version: It reminds me a little bit of the New Radicals and I love that album as well. Only Moneybrother is more fun and cares a little less about actually being able to sing. He still manages to pull it off.

Other things to add:
1. I realize I made some mistakes (mostly typos, only there was this one sentence that really made no sense). I promise to edit my posts really soon and make them as errorless as possible.
2. Something else. I forgot.
3. I am back to playing Spellforce. Yesterday night I fought battles again undead armies with my 70-man army of elves and dwarves. Now I have to fight even more undead armies. But I am very confident that I will win.
4. I plan to install Sims 2 on Pi’s computer really soon and then build families inspired on some TV show.
The options are…
a) Smallville characters (which would most likely be a lot of fun)
b) the contestants of one of the seasons of The Apprentice (note: I don’t need to control them all at one time and they don’t necessarily need to live all together in one house)
c) the cast of Joan of Arcadia
d) the cast of Charmed
e) the cast of Lost
My favorite one is b. Only I would have to decide which season I prefer. And it would be a lot work to design all the characters and build them houses. But I’m really open to suggestions and new ideas.

Tomorrow evening we are invited for dinner at some friends, or actually a friend and his new girlfriend who I only met once at my birthday party. She seemed really nice, but I have to admit I didn’t really got to talk to her a lot that evening. I guess I’ll know more about her soon.

Current mood: A little bit tired, obviously talkative and really fine.
Listening to: Stormy Weather by Moneybrother (told you).