Friday letters

Friday has been a long time coming this week. Between my colleague being ill – making overtime necessary to complete her work as well as my own – and the snow, which Deutsche Bahn cannot cope with at all, the days have been incredibly long. I’m definitely hoping to find some time to relax this weekend! But first I’m going out tonight to eat Italian food and enjoy some live music. And before that, it’s Friday letters time…

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Dear weather. Actually, no. I don’t even have the words to express what I want to say to you – at least not politely. I’ve managed not to swear on my blog up to now, and I won’t give you the satisfaction of being the first thing I swear at!

Dear exercise DVD. I know I promised to get back to you this week, but that was before overtime and delayed trains conspired against me. I will try to be better next week (notice how I’m not promising anything…)

Dear St. Patrick’s Day. I’ts kind of annoying that you’re on a Sunday, but I shall be celebrating you anyway. Irish pub, here I come! (Dressed in green, of course).

Dear boyfriend. After losing you to Turkey for over a week (during which you ended up ill1), I thought you might get to stay home for a while, but within two days of being back at work, you were sent to Munich for a project meeting! Am I the only one that finds this unfair? Can’t wait to have you back tonight.

Dear birthday. You are now a few days less than 5 months away and I still haven’t arranged anything whatsoever for you. I’m seriously considering returning to my original plan – stay in bed and pretend you’re not happening. Unless someone decides to take pity on me and do the organising on my behalf…

Must go now. I promised to pick my friend up at the tram stop in 5 minutes (good job it’s basically outside my house!). Happy Friday everyone.

And the countdown begins

Today my countdown to day 1001 starts. I’m think I’m more excited about that than I am about the fact that it’s my birthday! I’ve already made a practice birthday card in preparation for number 43 (I shall post a picture of it at some point, along with my failed attempts at making origami stars, then we can all have a good laugh). My photography challenge is underway – you might even get to see some of the results once I figure out where to put them – and Jan bought me season 3 of ER for my birthday (I already have seasons 1 and 2) so we can get started on that one pretty soon as well.

Jan and I are going for an Indian meal tonight. We’ve been to the restarant before, so unfortunately nothing for the list, but at least this way I know the food is going to be good. I love curry! And I haven’t had one in months. My mouth is already watering at the thought of it – mmmm! Then, after our meal, we’re going to the bar in my old student residence, so that should be fun. The only thing this birthday is missing is cake!

This year will be different!

It’s my birthday tomorrow.
While last year I was depressed because I was going to be a whole quarter of a century old and still hadn’t done anything useful with my life, this year I’m bemoaning the fact that I’m officially going to be closer to 30 than I am to 20 and (yes, you’ve guessed it) I still haven’t done anything useful with my life.

It didn’t used to be like this. When I was younger I would look forward to my birthday for weeks beforehand… planning everything down to the last detail, making long lists of everything I wanted, fantasising about cakes galore. These days, while I still enjoy my actual birthday (because how could I not enjoy a day that’s all about me?!) in the days leading up to it I find myself looking back over the year since my last birthday and all the things I haven’t done. It’s never the things I have done, because I never seem to do anything. The video that’s currently playing in my head shows me getting up, going to work, coming home, making dinner, going to bed, getting up…. and so on, in an endlessly repeating loop, at least until I get to March, where there’s a moment of excitement while I move house. Then the old cycle starts again, except now I come home to my very own flat at the end of the day.

But this year is going to be different. Tomorrow is not just my 26th birthday. It’s all the first day of my 101 things in 1001 days mission. This time next year, instead of moaning about all the things I haven‘t done, I will be able to look at all the crossed out items on my list and celebrate everything that I have done since my last birthday.

But that’s all in the future. Right now I have to eat lots of chocolate and enjoy the fact that, right now, I am still 5 years away from my 30th birthday instead of only 4…

Anticlimax

Yesterday I was sent home early because it was my birthday. Today I was sent home early because the boss wanted to go home early. I think he was bored. It was an incredibly quiet day at the office. Between 8:30am and when I left the phone rang twice! At least I had a translation to keep me occupied.

I haven’t really got anything to write about at the moment. The day after a birthday is always a bit of an anticlimax really. You have a whole day of everyone paying attention to you and being nice then you’re supposed to just forget about it and go back to normal. I get to be the centre of attention again on Saturday though so I can’t really complain 😉

I’m currently busy trying to plan my birthday picnic, but it’s proving to be rather difficult. I asked people to let me know by today whether they could make it. So far I have 4 people who are definitely coming, one who probably is and two people have told me they definitely can’t make it. The four people who are coming are two couples, so that means I’ve technically only had 5 responses. And I sent a lot more than 5 emails. So one of two things is probably going to happen. 1) I’ll make food for the people I know are coming. Ten more people will turn up. I won’t have enough food for everyone. 2) I’ll make enough food for all the people that might be coming. Five people will show up. I’ll be living on left over picnic food for the next two weeks. I think I’ll go with scenario number two – at least that way I’ll have stuff to take along for my lunch next week 😉

Last blog post before I turn 25!

On this day a quarter of a century ago I was born. I bet my poor mum is feeling very old right now! Even I’m feeling old, and I’m not the mother of a 25 year old (almost 25 year old anyway… I was born at 8:02pm so officially I’m still 24 til then).

Today started off badly but has gradually got better.
It started when Jan and I overslept this morning. At 6:10 am the alarm beeped and I turned over, murmering something about 5 more minutes. Jan picked up the loudly squawking clock and hit the snooze button. Or at least I assumed he did. Some time later I woke up thinking “it must have been 5 minutes by now, what’s going on?” It had indeed been more than 5 minutes… a lot more in fact. It was 5 past 7! So no leisurely birthday breakfast for me. I just had time to have a quick shower, get dressed, brush my teeth and make a sandwich to eat on the way to work. Somehow I managed to arrive at Europaplatz with enough time to buy some cake before my tram came. In Germany when it’s your birthday you provide the cake for your colleagues. Usually I would bake one, but we went to the cinema last night so I didn’t have time. So I bought cake then crossed the road to wait for my tram. The S1, which comes 1 minute before mine, came and went. No sign of the S11. The 6 came and went. Still no S11. So I waited and waited and, 10 minutes later, got on the next S1 (the first S1 ends 3 stops before mine). The S11 never did show up. So great start to the day – first I oversleep then my tram doesn’t show up!

Things started to get better after that though. The boss wasn’t bothered about me being 10 minutes late. He said “stuff like that can happen when you’re relying on trams” then later told me that technically I can turn up anywhere between 8:30 and 9am, they just prefer it to be earlier so they can close early. I then showed him my cake and said I had bought a little something because it’s my birthday. I expected him to know already. Turns out he didn’t, despite the fact that I gave him something to photocopy the other day with my date of birth on it. I could have just not mentioned anything and kept the cake! Although I’m actually pleased I did let him know… it meant I got sent home at 4:30pm so I could enjoy my birthday afternoon. Yay for nice bosses!

And now I’m off to enjoy my last hour and a bit as a 24 year old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!