Miscellaneous, 2008/08/09
When I changed blog hosts and languages I was also determined to only publish substantial stuff on my blog, because writing in English takes even more time than writing the post itself takes anyway. I'm failing miserably with this I'm afraid. I want to tell and write about stuff, but it's all just bits and pieces from my life and I'm wondering if anyone really is reading this all. But on the other hand, this all always was more about me telling things and not about someone reading about it :-)
I still wish I would come up with some more coherent and complete topics to write about every once in a while. I almost already published a post like this on Thursday, but was too tired, too lazy, too unmotivated to do so. Until now even more bits and pieces have piled up...
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I had a work meeting yesterday afternoon / evening, so I couldn't watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Bejing, but I taped the nightly rerun and watched it this morning. I really enjoyed it, it was a great show, with quite a few really impressive moments. I won't get much stuff done during the next two weeks I'm afraid, because my TV or the online news ticker will be on all the time. It's one of the few sport events that I really like to watch. Mostly anything of it really. And I always really enjoy seeing the giddy and happy athletes marching into the stadium because for them this really must be a monumental moment.
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The work meeting went really well and I'm really glad we're back to the everyday business after the summer break. It feels strange and bad to not be able to work because there is just not much work to do. It made me feel rather useless sometimes and that's not the best feeling for someone with low self-esteem, even if not of it was my fault anyway. It just was a slow un-eventful month. It's nice to have all the co-workers / bosses back on board after the break, because we usually get along very well and easy-going. And even when there is a lot of controversial stuff to discuss, meetings with this group are still fun most of the time. "Welcome to the first meeting after the summer break.." - "Oh, it was summer break?"
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Olympics might not be the only thing keeping me from getting stuff done. Reading is taking up my time as well, because I finally started with the Bartimaeus Trilogy (in German translation) again, which took up so much space on my pending reads shelf. (I just learned the term “pending reads” recently, by the way. I like it). I read the first part early last year, but wanted to wait with part two until the final part is available as well, because I tend to forget too much stuff from the first part. I bought the final part earlier this year, but never got around to start reading it all. And I actually do not remember much of the details from the first part, so that's why I'm reading it again right now and I'm enjoying it immensly. The commentary from the Djnni himself is so much fun.
For a short moment I was tempted to put this first part back down and start reading the "Twilight" series instead. I haven’t heard anything of the “Twilight” series until a few days ago, when there were a couple of Twilight-related posts in a livejournal on my friends list. I thought it was something like Anne Rice’s vampire-thing, which I didn’t like too much and just skimmed these posts. I found it intrigueing that another book-series could cause such a hype though. Then I saw the movie trailer - totally by chance - and was intrigued even more and on a whim ordered the first two books (in English) via Amazon.
On Thursday I had to search for a book present for one of our co-workers and at the Mayersche bookstore there was a big “Breaking Dawn” stack just inside the foyer and some more stacks with the first three books on the upstairs floors. Twilight everywhere. Not as much hype as Harry Potter, but for something I didn’t even know existed until last week it definitely got a lot of attention. I was really tempted to start reading it now. But it would really mess up my pending reads schedule. (Told you, I like that term *g*)
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On Wednesday my mom and I spent the afternoon visiting some relatives, which was really nice. There was a time, when I found these visits pretty boring, especially when there weren’t any of my brothers or other cousins around to play with. But I always understood my mom’s desire to catch up with her relatives, siblings, cousins (from her father’s side) and her only still living aunt (from her mother’s side). I don’t know how old that aunt - my great-aunt - is, but my mom is already 74, so the aunt must be… well somewhat older *g*. My mom originally is from southern Germany (about 500 km away from where we live) and because of that distance doesn’t see her siblings as much as she would if she hadn’t fallen in love with that guy from the Ruhr metroplitian area :-)
When we were kids our family spent the spring and fall holidays down south with my grandparents. After my dad died (almost 20 years ago) and we kids grew up, our family (or parts of it) only went there for weddings and that kind of family festivities. Bro3 and my mom used to spend a week there in the summer though (sometimes accompanied by me or Bro2) and they did so this year as well.
During their stay said great-aunt was visiting her daughter near Cologne (which is only about 80 km from our town) and she is staying there till this weekend, so we took the chance to visit her and my mom’s cousin there instead, Although we don’t live that far apart, my mom and her cousin rarely visit with each other but only talk on the phone every once in a while. But we spend a wonderful relaxing afternoon in their garden, had lunch and coffee and icecream and caught up with everything that went on in our families. And after all the crap my mom (and our whole family) went through last year I understand her desire to take every chance to meet with the remaining relatives even more. As harsh as it may sound, at a certain age you never know when or if you will ever see them again, so you better take every chance you get. And we indeed had a lovely afternoon.
My mom and her aunt and cousin talked a lot about different cousins and relatives, who I only know by name (if at all) and that made me look for a freeware to compile a family tree. Which is what I did on Thursday night with the few information I know and I will continue to do that this afternoon with my mom's help. This family is huge! She has got six siblings, my grandfather had three or four and my grandmother had about five to six. I think... I don't know that stuff and that's why I need my mom. I even had a hard time remember the names of some of my cousins kids, but I only see any of my cousins every other year or less. But it's fun to dig into your family's past, so that's what I'm going to do this afternoon before I head to Cologne to see the Killers live in concert. *squeeee*
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There is still a term paper to write! *sigh* I really should start working on parts of it now instead of writing about my usual day-to-day life. Part of my day-to-day life is me still having problems with my back. It was better for a while and it felt even better when I got out of bed this morning without much trouble for the first time in days. But right now I'm not sure if it really is better. Standing and jumping for hours at concert tonight won't really help either...