Nyah, I swear I'm still alive.
Ugh, I'm sorry. It's been ages since I came here for the last time (according to my postings it's been almost four months, what the fuck). That's mostly due to my job, I guess but also due to the fact that where nothing tell-worthy ever happened before I took the job, now tons of things have happened and I just never found the time and peace to just sit down and put it on here (and yes, some things I'd rather not post about openly because they're either sensitive or too recognizable because while there are many, many people with jobs in academia, there's literally only one project like mine here in Germany, and I'm the only full-time employee in it at my boss's chair). I honestly haven't forgotten about this place, though, I just suck at posting regularly. Like I said, I'm sorry.
So let me give you a short summary, at least. I've been in my job for a little over six months now, and I still love it. I have issues with certain parts of it but the core tasks still make me love going to the office (or the library, whenever I'm in Berlin instead of Munich) and coming up with stuff. I also still love how writing fanfiction has actually prepared me for parts of the job (the making up scenarios for the participants to solve part. Folks, this is literally like writing fanfiction! The process is basically almost the same and I'm loving the shit out of it!) and how lots of it is the kind of intellectual challenge I missed in my last jobs. I really am finally where I wanted to work: doing content work instead of organizational stuff, and yes, I'm loving it. Not every minute of it but enough of it to take it up with the not so great parts.
I'm still traveling a lot, both privately and on business. I thought I'd tire of it eventually, given the fact that I do most of my traveling via train and it can be a little... tedious and nerve-wrecking, especially for the longer distances, but I guess I really am a person who just likes to be on the move, even if I keep making pissed Instagram stories about my travels. I'm away about five to ten days a months on average, and while the destinations aren't exactly glamorous most of the time (it's mostly either military installations or youth hostels or similar accomodations in the middle of nowhere), I still like going there (because believe it or not most of them are surrounded by wonderful landscape and they're usually far away enough from the bigger cities that you can see so many stars. Man, I really, really missed seeing more than the tiny fraction of stars you can see in big cities) and the work is usually (intellectually speaking) hard and long, but the intellectual challenges are what makes it fun. this
I also, finally, in the end, caved and decided to pursue a PhD, after all. I have an advisor (my boss, big surprise there...) and a topic (my boss shot down my first suggestion and came up with a slightly different idea, for which I'm still grateful) and I did some prelimenary work in September when I was on leave (at a literal horse farm in The Middle of Nowhere, Brandenburg, and it was glorious. They had horses and I finally got back into horseback riding and there was fucking tank in one of the garages) and am currently trying to figure out how to integrate my PhD work into my job (I'm actually allowed to use office hours for working on my PhD, which is about the jackpot for junior academics). It's going to be a lot of work in archives for the historical part (contemporary history, beginning in the mid to late 1950s) and interviewing people for the current part (and I might also do some interviewing for the historical part, depending on whether I find enough people who are willing to sit down with me and talk about it), so right up my alley. I foresee a lot of academic frustration in the next three to five years but I already know that this is perfectly normal when you do a PhD, so I guess I'll just have to live with that.
The downsides are that I'm still not reading as half as much as I used to and as I want, even with all the traveling and - which is kinda worse - haven't written a word since March. I still maintain the theory that this is mostly due to the fact that a lot of my creative energy goes into the job (major downside of parts of my job being basically a version of creative writing) and I still haven't found a way to deal with that. I'm still trying to figure out how to go about it but I guess, in the end, it's just a question of sit down and write, which is basically what it always comes down to when battling writer's block.
I also really do like Munich but I like Berlin more. It's my home, and, as curious as that might sound (considering that it's a one million inhabitants city), Munich is too small for me. It only has one city center (Berlin has like at least three or so, which is due to several historic factors, such as Berlin originally being a conglomeration of lots of pre-existing villages and small towns, and of course the separation by the Wall) and I get weirdly restless when I walk the same annoying places (for some reason, Munich's city center is seriously annoying me. I haven't quite found out why that is but I'm guessing it has something to do with most of it being a pedestrian area that is bordered by houses left and right, doesn't have a lot of trees and is full of tourists you just can't get away from) too often. I'm currently living only like 15 minutes by foot away from the campus on the outskirts of Munich and honestly, I like this part way more than the city center. Kind of a shame that I have to get a new place by November 30 (the current setup was supposed to be only temporary from the beginning but I kind of didn't consider that I might actually like this place *rolls eyes).
So, I think that covers most of what's been going on in the last four months, and yes, I'm going to do a new book post soon and I also might do some f-locked in-depth postings about my job but yeah, that all kinda depends on my workload (which is currently increasing) and the travel situation in the next couple months (which isn't really fixed right now. I know that I'm definitely going to be back on the road but I don't know exactly how much at this point). I'm not going to abandon this place but I still might not be around that much.
So let me give you a short summary, at least. I've been in my job for a little over six months now, and I still love it. I have issues with certain parts of it but the core tasks still make me love going to the office (or the library, whenever I'm in Berlin instead of Munich) and coming up with stuff. I also still love how writing fanfiction has actually prepared me for parts of the job (the making up scenarios for the participants to solve part. Folks, this is literally like writing fanfiction! The process is basically almost the same and I'm loving the shit out of it!) and how lots of it is the kind of intellectual challenge I missed in my last jobs. I really am finally where I wanted to work: doing content work instead of organizational stuff, and yes, I'm loving it. Not every minute of it but enough of it to take it up with the not so great parts.
I'm still traveling a lot, both privately and on business. I thought I'd tire of it eventually, given the fact that I do most of my traveling via train and it can be a little... tedious and nerve-wrecking, especially for the longer distances, but I guess I really am a person who just likes to be on the move, even if I keep making pissed Instagram stories about my travels. I'm away about five to ten days a months on average, and while the destinations aren't exactly glamorous most of the time (it's mostly either military installations or youth hostels or similar accomodations in the middle of nowhere), I still like going there (because believe it or not most of them are surrounded by wonderful landscape and they're usually far away enough from the bigger cities that you can see so many stars. Man, I really, really missed seeing more than the tiny fraction of stars you can see in big cities) and the work is usually (intellectually speaking) hard and long, but the intellectual challenges are what makes it fun. this
I also, finally, in the end, caved and decided to pursue a PhD, after all. I have an advisor (my boss, big surprise there...) and a topic (my boss shot down my first suggestion and came up with a slightly different idea, for which I'm still grateful) and I did some prelimenary work in September when I was on leave (at a literal horse farm in The Middle of Nowhere, Brandenburg, and it was glorious. They had horses and I finally got back into horseback riding and there was fucking tank in one of the garages) and am currently trying to figure out how to integrate my PhD work into my job (I'm actually allowed to use office hours for working on my PhD, which is about the jackpot for junior academics). It's going to be a lot of work in archives for the historical part (contemporary history, beginning in the mid to late 1950s) and interviewing people for the current part (and I might also do some interviewing for the historical part, depending on whether I find enough people who are willing to sit down with me and talk about it), so right up my alley. I foresee a lot of academic frustration in the next three to five years but I already know that this is perfectly normal when you do a PhD, so I guess I'll just have to live with that.
The downsides are that I'm still not reading as half as much as I used to and as I want, even with all the traveling and - which is kinda worse - haven't written a word since March. I still maintain the theory that this is mostly due to the fact that a lot of my creative energy goes into the job (major downside of parts of my job being basically a version of creative writing) and I still haven't found a way to deal with that. I'm still trying to figure out how to go about it but I guess, in the end, it's just a question of sit down and write, which is basically what it always comes down to when battling writer's block.
I also really do like Munich but I like Berlin more. It's my home, and, as curious as that might sound (considering that it's a one million inhabitants city), Munich is too small for me. It only has one city center (Berlin has like at least three or so, which is due to several historic factors, such as Berlin originally being a conglomeration of lots of pre-existing villages and small towns, and of course the separation by the Wall) and I get weirdly restless when I walk the same annoying places (for some reason, Munich's city center is seriously annoying me. I haven't quite found out why that is but I'm guessing it has something to do with most of it being a pedestrian area that is bordered by houses left and right, doesn't have a lot of trees and is full of tourists you just can't get away from) too often. I'm currently living only like 15 minutes by foot away from the campus on the outskirts of Munich and honestly, I like this part way more than the city center. Kind of a shame that I have to get a new place by November 30 (the current setup was supposed to be only temporary from the beginning but I kind of didn't consider that I might actually like this place *rolls eyes).
So, I think that covers most of what's been going on in the last four months, and yes, I'm going to do a new book post soon and I also might do some f-locked in-depth postings about my job but yeah, that all kinda depends on my workload (which is currently increasing) and the travel situation in the next couple months (which isn't really fixed right now. I know that I'm definitely going to be back on the road but I don't know exactly how much at this point). I'm not going to abandon this place but I still might not be around that much.