1st December

Waking up this morning, I realised that it was time to open the first door of my little christmas calendar. As every year, I am happy about it but at the same time worried:
there are exams coming up, a lot of things are to be done before christmas, time is running out, there's lack of presents, too many christmas celebrations...
for this reason I wanted to start some sort of calendar on my blog; for me and for you to remind ourselves to think about what we are preparing to celebrate, to reconsider some habits and attitudes, so there won't be too much of this feeling: 'christmas?!?! already?!?! but i'm not there yet...'
take care

CRACK!

... and I really got a scare from that unexpected and loud noise.. but actually it was just a pine cone I had put on the heating exploding and spitting kernels all over the place :)

unexpected answer

some time ago I was wondering about what actually characterizes men (or women respectively). thanks to my special oracle (aka skype status messages) I found a surprising hint:

Real men write PostScript!

Just that it makes me wonder about real women....

munich loves you

the crux with being innovative

it seems a sad fact that in order to be innovative and form something nice and cool, you have to really know the basics... so no way around the old stuff :(

about life

"When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to
ask, "Compared to what?"" -- Sydney Harris

land unter

Wenn einem das Wasser bis zum Hals steht, sollte man den Kopf nicht hängen lassen."

[Karl Valentin]

about the importance of saying goodbye

Ever since I first moved away from home I have felt the urge to properly say goodbye to people and not part in anger or resentment. The reason for this was quite plain: some people dear to me were of bad health and risk was that I might not see them again. Starting from this reasoning, I realised that I could not at all take for granted to meet anyone a 'next time'. So saying goodbye and clearing things up became important to me and looking back it seems a good choice.

Why I am writing this now? I arrived in town today after some months of absence and was struck by a headline telling a 16 year old boy had died having a crash with his motorbike. I felt sad about it, but the real pain came when I met one of my friends who told me that she had spoken and laughed with him just yesterday morning, and now couldn't come to terms with the fact that he was found dead the same day.

so really, there is no guarantee..

remote control

[as this posts caused some misunderstandings: i was not especially getting at informal agreements concerning when to meet for leisure activities, but rather the case when people's work attitudes are making it really difficult to get a serious thing done. of course also in private life this sort of behaviour can be quite annoying but it does not usually have such big consequences.]


there is not much which is more annoying and tedious than trying to organise certain people from the distance.. especially if they are of the sorts

a) "i don't know, maybe, i will tell you later" and then they will tell you bloody nothing, you have to run after them, and in the end they will complain about a suboptimal appointment

or

b) "yes, sure, we will do that, i will organise that" and then nothing is organised, noone knows what is going on, and in the end people will not even bother to tell they're not showing up.

don't get me wrong, it's not that i love planning so much or that i'm so pedantic as to wanting to predict every single bit of the future. i also really value spontaneity and everything. but all this avoidance of commitment is not just being relaxed and cool, it is actually wasting other people's time, nerves, and even money.
i wonder what ways of behaviour are open to me in order to react accordingly. talking to these people seems so fruitless, so in my anger i sometimes think that maybe i also should just stand them up?

shortcuts

i wonder when i will ever learn that shortcuts in maths(and everythink like it) are no good...