I will stop complaining… just not today

It’s the end of another long, exhausting day, in which I have, once again, failed to get round to doing most of the things I wanted to. Mostly beacuse I missed my train home by roughly a minute (why is it never delayed when I want it to be?) and ended up spending a delightful hour wandering around the train station drinking a Chai Latte made with green tea that mostlyn tasted like powder and made me feel slightly sick. At least today I managed to have food on the table by 9:30pm (my food at least, Jan is not home yet so his is still the frying pan keeping warm… and hopefully not burning). Not much of an achievement I know, but we have to celebrate the small victories.
Work is fairly stressful at the moment. Lots of jobs… both large ones that take up lots of time and small ones that the customers want back as soon as possible, preferably yesterday but they’ll settle for later the same day until someone finally manages to invent a working time machine.
Also, today I received an e-mail from my university informing me that they tried to take the latest tuition fees payment from my bank account in England, but it failed and would I please make arrangements to pay immediately if not sooner. Unfortunately I’ve done rather a lot of spending this month and my wages are already rather depleted so I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage that one. Borrow more money from the boyfriend perhaps. Considering how much I owe him already another couple of hundred isn’t going to make much of a difference…

I promised you all a post about something good, didn’t I?
Tomorrow, perhaps. Today I feel the need to complain.

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Will this day ever end?

It’s currently ten o’clock at night. I’ve been up since 6 am, it’s been a long, stressful day at work, in which I didn’t even have time for a proper lunch break and all I want to do is go to bed and sleep… possibly until the end of the week. Unfortunately this is not possible. Tea is still in the oven refusing to do what it’s meant to do (stop being liquid mainly). On top of that, the kitchen is full of unwashed dishes from last night’s tea, which I am going to fail to wash once again, and I still haven’t taken out the food waste, despite the fact that I’ve been meaning to for about three days. My Grandma has just informed me that one of the stereotypes that Germans have about the British is that we’re messy… and she knows for a fact Jan thinks that about me. Thanks Grandma – at least now I know what you two talk about behind my back! And the worst of it is I can’t even deny it. After all, we all know I’m the world’s worst housewife (I’ve mentioned it often enough!). The best defense I could come up with was “he can talk”. Very original! I also managed to get on the wrong tram this morning, my train was delayed this evening and Jan is not home yet. This certainly hasn’t been what I would call one of the better days in my life. Here’s hoping tomorrow will be better… once I’ve had some sleep!

If I could turn back time…

Today was utterly, utterly pants. It’s not even like anything specific went wrong. Just every single thing I started to do seemed to take much longer than it should have (including a job that was actually fairly easy, but ended up taking half an hour longer than the planned time. Not good this close to the end of my probation period). Every single time I got started on something I had to stop and do something else… answer the phone, reply to an e-mail, install a random piece of software. Grr. If only I had a time machine so I could rewind to 7 o’clock this morning and start over…

Please can it be the weekend now?

Today has been a looong day, or at least it seemed that way. Actually, I only worked for half an hour longer than I should have, but I’ve wanted it today to be over pretty much since I got up so time just seemed to go on forever.

We went to the cinema last night to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassius (the film Heath Ledger was making when he died). It was a little bizarre – which I guess is to be expected seeing as Terry Gilliam wrote and directed it – but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The showing we saw didn’t start til 9pm though, so it was late to bed and early to rise for me. After having a terrible night’s sleep the night before I was already ready for my bed before we even went to the cinema so you can imagine how I felt when it was time to get up this morning! I would have loved to have closed my eyes for a bit on the train to work but instead of my ICE they sent an IC (smaller and slower!), meaning not everybody was able to get a seat. Of course I was not one of the lucky few. Then I arrived at work to find that one of our customers had sent a complaint about part of a huge job that my colleague and I are working on, so I’ve spent most of today trying to sort that out in between finishing my other translation and squeezing in a rush job that had to be translated, proofread and sent out within the space of 6 hours. You can see why I want this week to be over (although the weekend is not looking much better from where I’m standing – Jan’s away and I really, really need to get something done for my dissertation. It’s hardly an opportunity to rest and recover…)

Not my day…

I stayed at the boyfrend’s place last night. Then this morning we had a fight. Unsurprisingly it was entirely my fault – nearly all of our fights are my fault. We only partially managed to sort it out before he went to catch a train. He’s gone to his parents, because it’s his Grandma’s birthday soon and because there is some stuff going on with his family that made him feel he should be around. I’m not going to say more than that, I don’t talk about my boyfriend’s private business on here. The only point in mentioning it at all is to explain why he’s gone away, not just for the weekend as originally planned but for a week. So we had a fight and now I’m not going to see him for 7 whole days. What will happen to us when he returns remains to be seen…

Anyway, after he left I walked home in the rain. I arrived in my flat to find that the remains of a cake somebody made for my birthday had gone mouldy. There was no mould on the cake yesterday, today it had a layer of green fur on the top. Wonderful. I’ve taken it down to the rubbish bin outside but I can still smell it all over my flat. And I’ve just discovered that I can’t order a monthly train ticket online because the German rail website will only let me pay by credit card. I do not have a credit card!! It is also possible to pay by direct debit, but only if you register first, which I duly tried to do. After entering all my details I was presented with a letter containing my bank details and asking someone, somewhere to please activate payment by direct debit for my German rail account. Now I’m supposed to print out this letter (xcept I don’t have a printer!), send it halfway across Germany and wait for them to give me permission to pay by direct debit before I can order the monthly ticket, which will then have to be sent to me by post, and whcih I need by 1st September. Even if I had a printer I somehow don’t think this would work. Looks like it’s a trip to the train station for me then. Oh, and I also have to go to the doctors to make myself an appointment because my boyfriend forgot to call and make me one yesterday and I have given up on the idea of trying to phone Germans because I always have to give them my surname and they can never understand it, ever. Even if I spell it out they don’t understand me.  Apparantly I pronounce the first letter wrong. This all may have something to do with the fact that I am not German and neither is my name. At least if I go there I can hand the woman something with my name on and tell her to work it out for herself. (This is part of the reason the boyfriend and I argued this morning. He says it’s “about time I started phoning people  for myself and if I can’t pronounce [that letter] then maybe it’s time I learned”. He doesn’t understand that I hate, loathe and detest speaking to people I don’t know on the phone. It makes me feel sick with nerves even when the person at the other end is English, in German it’s much, much worse. So it’s off to the doctors I go.
Oh well, at least it’s stopped raining now…

Mid-week moan

Today I:

– had the world’s quickest shower, because that’s the only kind you have time for when you stay in bed for an extra twenty minutes moaning softly to yourself every time the alarm goes off.

– realised as I was leaving the house that my purse wasn’t in my handbag and I had absolutely no idea where it was. This was followed by a couple of minutes of panic, until I found it in a carrier bag buried under the plates I bought yesterday.

– missed my tram because the stupid traffic lights refused to turn green and let me cross the road to the stop. I then walked to the next stop – not becasue I thought I could catch up with the tram (although I got there in time to see it pulling away – if I’d just gone straight to the other stop I would have caught it!) but to catch another tram to the train station, where I was able to change onto my own tram. Amazingly I still managed to get a seat.

– received an email at work regarding a text that I translated and my colleague proofread. Apparantly neither of us did a particularly good job – the text is still full of typos! Luckily the customer hasn’t actually complained (yet!), just asked me to explain what the words should be, but if she finds many more typos I may be in big trouble…

– Got home from work to find the strawberries in my fridge had gone mouldy and the Biomüll (food type rubbish) bin smelled so bad it literally made me want to puke (the world’s worst housewife strikes again…). Also, there was liquid floating around in the bottom of the bin. Never good in Biomüll. Then, once I’d emptied I realised I don’t have anything suitable for cleaning disgusting smelling bins, so it’s currently sitting in the sink full of hot water and washing up liquid. Cos that’s gonna do a tonne of good.

I think it’s about time this day came to an end now, don’t you?

On a desert island in December

Well, I’m still ill, although my voice had come back slightly this morning. I still can’t stop coughing though. *sigh*
But this post isn’t meant to be another moany pity-me one. Instead I’m finally going to get round to doing that meme I’ve been going on about for days.

So, I was tagged by Katyboo and the meme is based on Desert island Discs.
For those that don’t know Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio programme in which guests have to imagine they are castaways on a desert island and choose 8 pieces of music to take with them. Then they can choose one book, anything but the Bible or Shakespeare, both of which are already on the island (strange island this). And finally, they can choose one luxury item, nothing to help them escape from the island though.

So, here goes. First my eight pieces of music.
This is quite difficult actually. I have favourite pieces of music for every mood, and what I feel like listening to sometimes changes within hours never mind days, but I shall do my best.

1. Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler – This is my all time favourite song, although it also makes me a little sad. You see, it was also one of my step mam’s favourite songs. I like to listen to it on days when I find myself wishing she was still around (she died when I was 12 those who are wondering). So clearly it would have to come to the desert island with me for her sake. Also it’s on the soundtrack to the film Beaches, which makes it pretty appropriate for a desert island don’t ya think?

2. Bad Day by Daniel Powter – For those days when I’m feeling all hormonal and miserable. Who doesn’t like screaming “cos you’ve had a bad day” at the top of their lungs on days like that?

3. Carnival of Rust by Poets of the Fall – It took me aaages to decide on this one. I knew I had to have something b y Poets, them being my new favourite band and everything, but it was so unbelievable difficult to decide which one. I’ve gone for this one because it’s kind of loud and rocky, perfect for jumping around a desert island too, and plus my boyfriend can play it on guitar so it would be something to remind me of him.

4. World by Five for Fighting – It was a toss up between this one and Devil in the Wishing Well. This one won out, but only just. I would put it on full blast, close my eyes and imagine myself a new world, just like the song says. The perfect way to forget about being stuck on a desert island.

5. Miserable by Lit – Another one for horrible days when everything seems to be going wrong. I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I was 18 and I’d just had a fight with my boyfriend of the time. A guitarist friend of mine offered to play a song for me, so I told him to “play something miserable”, which he did. This was that miserable song. I’ve loved it ever since.

6. Ha Ha You’re Dead by Green Day – Not Green day’s best song and not even my favourite, but perfect for a desert island. Another great one for turning up to full volume and screaming out while jumping around like a loony.

7. Tribute by Tenacious D – This song is hilarious! It never fails to cheer me up. Also, it reminds me of my group of friends from uni. The DJ would play it for us every week and at some point it became our anthem. It’s nice to have something to remind of those times now we’re all spread across the world.

8. Keep on Loving You by REO Speedwagon – My first ever favourite song! Obviously I had no idea what it was about back then. I would just sing along to the chorus and imagine how it would be to have someone telling me he was going to love me forever. There are other REO Speedwagon songs that I like, but for my desert island it would obviously have to be this one that came along for the sake of my six year old self.

Phew. That was hard! I just hope I’ve got all the links right. Now for the book…
Well, obviously it would have to be something long otherwise I’d be finished with it way too soon and end up having to read and re-read the bible until rescue came. The obvious one would probably be War and Peace. I’m a quick reader and every time I finish yet another book my boyfriend threatens to buy me that one for Christmas! I think that one would be too obvious a choice though so I’ve decided to go with Gone With the Wind. I’ve heard so much about it but never actually got round to reading it (or watching the film) and I feel like I should. A desert island would be the perfect opportunity. And it 960 pages for this edition it should take me a few weeks to get through it…

And finally, my luxury item.
Now I know people are probably going to laugh at this but I think I would want my cuddly Eeyore.
This Eeyore was a birthday present from my mum this year. (Yes I got a stuffed toy for my 25th birthday. And your point would be?). He’s some kind of bedtime Eeyore, which means he’s dressed in a blue dressing gown and night cap thing and, depending on which way you look at him, either looks unbelievably exhausted or as if he’s just woken up. One day, not long after Eeyore arrived in Germany, Jan decided he felt sorry for him sitting on the table looking like he hadn’t slept in days, so before we left for work he tucked Eeyore up under my quilt. By the time I arrived home I’d forgotten he was there. I’d had a bad day and all I wanted was to get into my room and relax. Upon opening the door I saw Eeyore snuggled up waiting for me and my heart just melted. He looked so cute lying there, and of course knowing my boyfriend had put him there made it even cuter. So if I was going to be trapped on a desert island I would definitely have to tajk Eeyore with me so I could leave him tucked up in my bed waiting to greet me when I returned from a hard day of gathering cocunts and stuff. I’m sure he’d be a great comfort when I got sunstroke as well, which I most definitely would. If I can get sunstroke in Karlsruhe I’ve got no chance on a desert island!

OK, that’s it. Now I think I’m supposed to tag people. Unfortunately just about everyone I would have tagged has already done it though, so I pick sleepyjane and anyone else who wants to have a go…