Cake!

I can't even remember what I was looking for when I found a recipe for chocolate cream cheese muffins. But they go a little something like this.

They're absolutely deadly. We normally eat 2 or even 3 of a newly-baked, just-cooled batch each, but we only managed 3 of these between us. And they are incredibly moist and sticky - stuck to the greased silicone cups and even to the plate I put them on after they'd cooled. I think paper cups may be in order next time! They did get noticeably less squidgy after being out for even half an hour though. I put them back in the cups and into the bread bin - not quite airtight, but somewhat.

I'm using himself's camera at the moment, as I didn't have enough room to bring mine back from the UK (priority was given to the scanner and books, and I don't like taking it in hold luggage). I'll pick it up between Xmas and New Year when we're back - must try taking some more photos although it is easier with his camera than my slightly larger one.

Tomorrow night I'm off to a Japanese expat group Xmas dinner, which involves a very nice restaurant in the city, about 40 people, and an entire tuna being cut up for our entertainment and indeed culinary pleasure. Himself, being vegetarian, has passed on the event. It's going to be insane, and probably well worth 80 CHF plus drinks. And a chance to meet people!

Of pumpkins and muffins

Well, it's my second week back in Zurich. The temperature is varying between cool and freezing, but no sign of snow down here yet.

I failed to meet my two objectives in Reading: finishing my annotated translation for my MA and organising movers. I have a second extension for the MA (let's just leave it at the reason for the second extension being "awaiting reply from supervisor") until the end of the year, and I'll try again for movers next year. I'm going to send the annotated translation to the printers before we go to Spain for Xmas, so I really don't have all that much time to finish it off. I still want to get a lot of reading done.

I've managed to pick up a few bits of work in the last 2 weeks from a new agency, which is great. Their rate isn't great, and charging me for bank charges is something that nearly made me walk away from them, but I can get through the work quickly (all game-related) and they have sent me quite a bit. Nice to be busy. Although it does interfere with the studying.

Other than that, I've been procrastinating. Which has expressed itself as cooking, oddly enough. I've discovered the wonderful sites Just Hungry and Just Bento, with a wealth of wonderful recipes. The one that immediately caught my eye was Earl Grey tea muffins, which I went out and bought a silcone-cup baking tray to make them with. They came out a bit heavy, probably from over-mixing, but I'm also a bit suspicious of the buttermilk - it's more like cream. But the first batch were lovely if rather misshapen, so I made a rooibos tea batch. And then a vanilla and spice tea batch. And I have enough for at least one more batch. Needless to say, this is not a good idea when you're home on your own.

Tonight I went back to an old favourite as I'd found a promising looking pumpkin in the local Migros - sweet soy pumpkin. It came out beautifully, as did the koya tofu (freeze-dried and allegedly from Mt. Koya's Buddhist monasteries) I'd bought ages ago in Zurich's Japanese food shop. Feeling a bit peckish, I drained the fluid I'd used to cook the pumpkin in (dashi, mirin, soy and sugar) and used it for cooking some brown rice. It was... amazing.

Other than that, still getting my behind kicked by FFIV. I'm near the final boss, but in another dungeon that just keeps killing my party. We had a wibble moment last weekend when we put in an order with a local electronics shop - a PS3 with additional controller and remote, Little Big Planet... and a 55" LCD TV. Last one was for himself. It should be delivered tomorrow!

So, really need to buckle down to study... again. For what really needs to be the last time. But I am as always easily distracted. Found an Earl Grey tea and white chocolate chip muffin recipe, for a start...

Old and new

Well, I've been back in Reading for a week now, and have managed to get a certain amount of things done. I have not one but two new pairs of glasses, one with reaction lenses so they'll also do as sunglasses. They're two different colours (metallic blue and red) of Ray-Ban titanium frames... for children. Or "adults with smaller faces". Ahem. I spent a lot on them, and it still feels wasteful to have more than one pair of glasses, but they're the first frames I've seen in years that I've liked.

I also got a surprise - I'm able to wear contacts again! I ended up at a smaller chain of opticians, mainly due to finding nothing I liked in the main chains, and so had a new optician who I got chatting to and told I hadn't been able to wear contacts for 6 years. She fitted me with a pair and gave me 5 days of free samples, and I had them in for 12 hours yesterday! Very happy with that.

I've also caught up on sending out information to various people as promised, and have lined up some people to catch up with. And done an awful lot of cleaning in the flat - I feel like I've been replaced by an alternate reality version of me!

What I haven't done much of yet is study - I had some freelance work in during the week, and a guest for the weekend, so I'll try to get down to it seriously next week. I'm actually still very tired.

I was rooting around in the attic, looking for a few things and finding more that can go in the bin, and mildly depressing myself by seeing all these things that I meant to do or make or study at some point. Well, I can't go back and undo anything, so I just have to start from now.

My guest had asked me to check some English for him over email ages ago, which I happily did, and he offered to pay me for it. I had totally forgotten about it, but he hadn't and handed me some cash last night. I treated myself to a kiddies' craft kit, "Winter Birds" from Buttonbag. Quite cute, if a little rudimentary.

Other than that, all the travel is booked for going to Spain for Christmas. Now I have to book a trip to Dublin and one to Japan for next spring. I really, really want to go now but there's just too much going on right now, so if anything slips by even a week or two I'll need to be in the UK or at least not on holiday in the other side of the world.

More empty than full

So many years' work
Onto so few DVDs
Is this all it was?

Sunny days

First of all, thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes, cards or presents! I had a marvelously lazy day yesterday, watching anime, playing Final Fantasy IV (nearly finished...) and starting Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire that my brother and his other half sent me - and that UPS finally managed to deliver after I gave them the wrong house number.

Tuesday was full of action though - I got my hair cut at the supermarket in what seems to be a Supercuts kind of place, no appointments and relatively cheap (41 CHF). It was so, so nice to have my hair properly short again and not looking like an electrocuted bird's nest. Then I went on to the supermarket and bought some chicken to make into skewers as I'd decided to push the boat out and actually attempt to prepare something for the barbecue I'd been invited to. Swiss chicken was about 9 CHF for 250g, where the chicken "from selected European countries" (reading the back revealed this was Hungary) was 6 CHF. Even Swiss turkey was more expensive than the European chicken.

I had decided to mix and match a Jamie Oliver recipe where you cut courgettes into strips and blanch them, then wrap them around the chicken pieces for the skewers with a marinade that I preferred from another website. I loaded up with soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger and dried chilli flakes which made an amazing marinade. Everything went together well, even if the process of cutting the courgettes was terribly uneven and meant I ended up breaking them into pieces and wedging them between the chicken pieces half the time.

When I was about to leave the house... I heard thunder. I grabbed my coat and headed out anyway, although the barbecue was due to be held in the local forest. Sure enough, by the time I got to the station there was thunder, lightning and rain. My new friend Mr Y picked me up and we headed off to his house, since there was no hope of being outside in this weather. A lot of other people had cancelled due to pressure of work (or possibly the weather) and for a while it looked like I would be the only guest. But a newly arrived Japanese - Canadian couple arrived with their son and we had a great time playing with the Y's three cats and talking (in a mix of English, Japanese and Swiss German) about life in Zurich, Swiss festivals, Japanese food shops and all manner of things.

We had pasta and bean salads, sausages, my skewers, steaks and then coffee and an amazing plum cake. Mrs Y works at the local supermarket and was full of advice on food and life in general and they're already helped me track down all kinds of things for which I am very grateful.

And all because he was making origami at the cultural festival on the day we happened to be passing through with himself's parents! It's enough to make you believe in 縁 (a Japanese concept of a tie or connection that brings people together).

So, today I've been making more progress on FFIV, writing thank-you letters and emails, and also need to do some exercise and probably get out of the house. I may go and find the Japanese food shop. And then - study, study, study! I got my first round of feedback yesterday, which I haven't opened yet. My supervisor said it was good but needed work, which is frankly better than I was hoping for. I just need to keep on keeping on.

Best laid plans

Well, it's a Thursday afternoon and I'm in the company flat reading the entire Help section for some computer aided translation software I bought a while ago. You guessed it - I'm sick.

I started feeling not so well on Monday afternoon but thought nothing of it. Tuesday brought severe aches and what felt like a temperature. I broke out the remaining Lemsip from my last trip to the UK and soldiered on. After a broken night's sleep I went to deregister at the Burgeramt and picked up some Grippostad C (nearest thing to Lemsip in Germany that I've found) and went in to see what I could get done.

After mentioning that I wasn't feeling so hot, I was summarily sent home by the producer and one of the administrators. And told to find out if it was swine flu, and not to come back until the doctor said I was safe to. So, I spent Wednesday lunchtime failing to see a doctor and wandering aimlessly around the town centre until I headed home and dozed until heading out for my leaving drinks. Not many people showed, but I assume they thought I'd be too sick to go out.

I saw the doctor this morning, and they confirmed I had ticked the boxes to get tested for swine flu (have been exposed to it in last 7 days - it's in the office, aches, fever), tested me for it, signed me off sick and presented me with a bill of 20.10 EUR for the visit - much less than I'd thought - and 170 EUR for the swine flu test. Couldn't believe it. My agency is trying to find out if it should be covered under E111/EHIC but I suspect not - flu medicine might be, but this is just to satisfy the office's reporting requirement to the Gesundheitamt, I think.

So, I was out in the morning, back by around 10:30, rested up, faffed around on the internet, did some very sweet translations for the school exchanges, got tired of the internet, started reading the Help system so I know what I can do with this rather expensive software, suddenly was starving and drained so shuffled across the road and bought supplies to make several days worth of pasta and meatballs and got back just in time to avoid being rained on heavily.

It's frustrating to be out sick for the last 3 days of my contract, especially when I had everything on track to finish up the validation. But, as I've said of others, having no slack is poor planning. I've been working extended hours for almost 6 months now, eating badly, getting almost no exercise and sleeping on a sofabed. I pretty much asked for this.

I'll take it easy today - I felt absolutely fine apart from a sore throat in the morning but the aches are back now and I've started coughing, so I've probably become infectious and should not be in the office anyway. Still not sure about karaoke tomorrow, might not be a good idea. No point in a) infecting everyone b) going when I can't actually sing anyway.

Although I'm not much of a believer in anything, I do subscribe to a karmic-style "it will come back to bite you in the end" theory. Time to try to do things a little differently.

What do you call this?

Even I'm tired of the "I'm not dead" routine. Let's skip it. There's only so long you can carry on not doing something before you have to admit you've failed to do it.

There are many things I've been failing to do, like exercise, eating healthily and keeping in touch with people. Most importantly, I've been failing to get on with doing the annotated translation, the last stage of my MA. Apart from the fact that the Distance Learning Centre at Sheffield has just announced it's started a staged closure (supporting everyone currently enrolled but not taking any more students) I really don't want to let it drag on any longer, even if I am allowed a second extension. I finally exported it from the translation tool today and started editing the English and adding annotations, although some of the translation is so rough that it's almost certainly not correct and I still have a good bit of 19th century Japanese to translate into modern Japanese so that I can translate it into English. Unfortunately, I'm still trying to figure the first step out.

I managed one small victory today, doing the first run for the "4 weeks to 1 mile" running podcast I bought - although it is the third time I've done it, with the previous two not being followed by any more running that week. I'm achieving a lot at work, but it doesn't feel like it. Nothing feels rewarding or fun. Not completing files, not things going to plan, not my paycheque, nothing. Doing what I should be doing is as unrewarding as doing things I shouldn't.

Today, I manged to give myself a second dose of conditioner instead of shower gel, almost switched the coffee machine on without putting any water in and managed to annoy my downstairs neighbours by deciding to sweep off my balcony while waiting for coffee to brew - of course, they were out on their balcony enjoying the nice weather and I swept a load of petals and leaves down on them. Left me feeling rather stupid.

I've had two good nights sleep, but I don't feel like it. Maybe I am hitting the limit of working 10 hour days 5 days a week. Work has been pretty stressful, with editing taking a lot longer than it ideally should. Plus lots of other messing around, none of which directly involves me, but leaves me thinking there but for my circumstances go I.

I do want to go and devote weeks and week to the annotated translation, and spend more time exercising and keeping in touch and somehow getting things done without feeling tired and stressed all the time. I'm really worried that I won't be able to get enough work freelance (I have enough saved up to do me the rest of the year, though), and anxious about getting my residency permit in Switzerland. Not being in the EU any more is going to be strange.

The other thing I've been doing is depressing myself by reading the blogs of some very talented and knowlegeable translators, wishing I was where they are, and once again considering biting off more than I can chew by looking at the OU degree in English and French.

They did have a link to this, which looks good:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-englishnext.htm

For the moment, it goes in the vast pile of things I really should do but haven't got around to doing.

A system that works

First of all, a system that doesn't - trying to finish packing at 2:30am for a 5:00 am departure. I did some packing on Tuesday night, but ended up finishing on Wednesday night with the last few things in the case. We went out to have a meal at Klosterhof and then on to Star Room for karaoke. They close at 12:00 on a Wednesday, so I would have plenty of time to go home, pack, get up at 5:00 am, leave the flat at 6:00 am and be at the station for the S-bahn at 6:30 am and on the train to Zurich from Haupbahnhof at 6:50 am.

Except someone managed to convince them to stay open until 1:30 am. By that time there were no trams and we missed a night bus, so ended up walking home - which takes longer if you're trying to shepherd a group of rather drunk people. Got back in at 2:30 am and did more packing and for some reason finally got around to patching up the rip on the inside leg of my favourite pair of jeans. Set the alarm for 5:00 am and got into bed around 3:30 am. Woke up at 5:00 am, stretched and thought that I could really do with a few more hours sleep, looked over again... and it was 5:30. Threw stuff into my bag in a total panic, and managed to forget everything in the kitchen (chocolates, parmesan, vitamins, medicine) and somehow, my music player. By the time I realised it, I was halfway to the station on foot as there were no early morning buses on a bank holiday. So, kept on going. Lugging a suitcase over Frankfurt's tiled pavements is not fun.

I got there just in time to see the previous train leave - so I'd made good time - and when I got up on to the platform I decided I needed a drink. (It was feeling thirsty and thinking about my effervescent vitamin C that I hadn't taken that made me realise I'd left all the stuff in the kitchen behind.) There were three prime sample of Frankfurt youth at the vending machine, one of whom asked me in excellent English if I'd mind throwing my suitcase at it as it was refusing to vend.

In the end I decided to walk through the station and down to the tram, where there was an earlier service to Hauptbahnhof that gave me enough time to grab a coffee and some pastries on the way to the platform. The journey was nice - we didn't go through the Rhine Valley, but still some nice scenery. My plan to read Splendid Monarchy for my MA was a total fail, and I spent most of the time staring out the window or snoozing. The train was never anywhere near full.

When we were nearly at Zurich, I texted David and asked him to come and meet me, as I was too tired to try a repeat session of "lug case and bags via public transport". He came out and we went back to the flat, then he went to get some shopping while I snoozed. We then headed out in the evening to a barbeque at some friends of himself's, all Google employees. They had a very interesting little barbeque, Son of Hibachi.

This morning we headed into Zurich Hauptbahnhof to get a Halbtax card for me and if possible a commuter pass for himself. We piled out of the flat in 10 minutes after waking to get there before our 24-hour passes from the previous day ran out, and himself forgot his passport photo. I had no problem getting the Halbtax card, which entitles you to half price tickets on everything except commuter passes - it is available to everyone, even tourists. Himself thought he couldn't get his pass with no photo, but the lovely man at the counter told me that when I got a commuter pass, they could issue it to me without a new photo as my photo would be on file... so himself, who already has a Halbtax, was able to get his commuter pass. We were given temporary cards until ours arrived in the post, and the wallets they go in have the Zurich transport map on the outside! A system that truly works.

We then spent the rest of the day in Ikea, restraining ourselves from getting anything but what we needed - some crates to move and some lights. I also got a cute set of hanging files. And the obligatory plate of meatballs. Will purchase lots when I go there again next week. We're going to get a sofabed to sleep on until we can get our stuff over from the UK. The plan is to get a Transit and take over most of the furniture, then get the flat redecorated and rented out.

So, I'll be here until June 2 at the earliest, or maybe a few weeks more depending on how delayed my project is in Frankfurt. They'll let me know and I can head back up, and I have another 8 weeks on my contract for this year. We'll see when I'm where!

Rollercoaster

Well, I can't keep titling the posts "I'm not dead".

Had a blissful Easter weekend in Zurich, arriving late on Thursday night to meet up with himself at the apartment he's subletting while a colleague is seconded to the US. On Friday we walked down to the lake and around the old town, through some beautiful gardens and down the west side of the lake. Saturday was spent in Horgen, where himself is flat-hunting, and we saw one possible place - the ground floor of a 3 storey house, gorgeous but out of our price range. I swear the current tenants were a German/Swiss version of a certain couple we know in north Wales.

Sunday was spent at the zoo, with an additional adventure on the way there as we had a ticket check on the tram and after we'd happily handed over out tickets were told they were the wrong ones. The inspector warned us there is a 80 CHF fine, then took us off at the next stop to buy the correct tickets instead of charging us. The ticket machine didn't take notes. We didn't have change. He didn't have change. His colleague didn't have change. He told us to keep going on our wrong tickets, break notes at the zoo and get the right ones back.

The zoo is quite large, but did suffer from a bit of that "animals in a cage" feeling. The elephant keepers had batons, which I haven't seen before. Mind you, one of the elephants took it off the keeper while he was hosing them down and he just put his hand out and they gave it back. There's also a huge tropical dome, which is amazing but very uncomfortable with the high humidity. We had coffee and cake and wandered home.

Monday wasn't quite as hot as the other near-sunburn days, so we went out on the lake. It was billed as a cruise, but was more like a modified ferry journey. This suited us, as we wanted to look at potential neighbourhoods from the water. Some were added to the list as a result of being able to see how built-up or not they were.

Got back into work on Tuesday glowing (mentally and physically). I knew there would be some kind of comedown, but was not expecting to be called into a room with a number of other people to be told that our end client was terminating our agency. The rest of the week was spent in a blind panic and deep uncertainty about whether we could - let alone would - continue beyond the end of April when the termination took effect. Many hours were lost meeting new potential agencies and discussing our situation, during which some unsettling facts were discovered.

The weekend was spent checking on tax and residency laws, reading sample contracts and constantly on phone and messenger to each other. This week was more of the same, although I started skipping the agency meetings and tried to concentrate on getting some work done. Old rumours ran riot, new ones abounded and as the week dragged on with no information from the end client, people started to make plans.

In a wonderful demonstration of their unique modus operandi, an email with a request to speak to all of us individually went around at 5:50pm on Friday, when most people had gone home. I was in work until 8:00pm waiting to talk to HR and did get some questions answered, but not all of them and now, with four days to go, I still have no contract to sign. But it looks like there can be one, although all this was worked out by my good self, instead of the end client who caused the problem.

After talking to himself about the expenses involved in moving to Zurich, I've decided to stay on if possible. A few things will need to be worked out, but hopefully it will be possible. The other option would be just not taking the return flight after the May bank holiday weekend (which is on Friday 1 May here). Looking forward to going back for a few days for a break, even if it is to close up the flat for decoration.

Other good news: himself has had an offer on a flat - in one of the new areas we started looking in after Easter, excellent to get to work, smaller than he really wants, but about the same size as our current one and renting is incredibly expensive - and I got written confirmation from the Finanzamt that they don't want any money from me.

Reality check: I am applying for an extension for my MA. I'm just nowhere near far enough with my translation to be ready in 6 weeks, even with 2 weeks off. I keep putting off sending in the form, which I think shows how much I hate doing it. But this is one thing I can't afford to get wrong, especially after the poor mark on my last essay.

So, one more (short) week of uncertainty, and then hopefully back to business as usual.

Spring has sprung

Yesterday was a lovely day, sunny and fine, until I decided to go to the shops and we had a rather impressive sun shower. But I am now stocked up on all the essentials - and some chocolate biscuits.

Been having a lot of fun reading reviews of the new season of anime in Japan, ranging from "For those of you who have already figured out that this is a big load of garbage and isn't worth wasting your life on, here's a picture of a bunny. Please enjoy it and move along," to a reviewer actually going out and finding an animated icon of a little Pac-Man type thing shooting itself in the head to put in place of the number for "x out of 5" in his review. Only Japan could bring you an animated series based on a lavishly illustrated "erotic" choose-your-own-adventure game.

Other than that, actually made some progress on my Annotated Translation yesterday. I'll try to edit what I did (got very choppy towards the end as I lost concentration) and if all goes well I might be able to do another section today. The will is there but the brain power isn't always with it. Staying up until way past bedtime playing with fish on Endless Ocean did not help. At all.

I keep trying to convince myself I can translate, but this ain't simple game dialogue. It's painful even when I ignore the Meiji era quotes which I can barely decipher. I really need to improve my reading...

Work life

Got back in full daylight! The internal employee in charge of locking away consoles went home early and so did I. I was the subject of some justified mockery for acquiring a console through purchasing via our team leader and I've managed to hook it up to the mobile broadband and it is happily updating itself.

In other work-related news, our boss' boss - the one who draws on bananas - left his notebook on the formerly mentioned internal colleague's desk. We promptly got hold of a newspaper-cutting style font and wrote a ransom note demanding chocolate, and added a picture of a kitten for good measure. It took him about two seconds to figure out who had done it. He gave us some chocolate eggs, even though he really didn't owe us anything after rumbling us.

There are some pale candy-pink cherry trees on a nearby road, one I only walk up when I've got the bus. One is in magnificent full bloom and two more not far behind. It will always, always make me think of being on Kyoto's Path of Philosophy with my parents. It's 10 years since I met my homestay family this year - must do something special.

Twilight hours

I got back to the flat in almost-daylight yesterday. Woo.

There's a bit of a fin de siecle mood at work. The automated metal blinds are malfunctioning and opening and closing relatively randonmly so we're in darkness for most of the day. At least it's better than not being able to work because of glare. We've been banned from our own breakout room and most-used kitchen because of guests for most of the week and today will have to go out onto the roof garden and cross to the other side of the building to come and go into our side as the breakout room is the only other access from the lifts/stairwell. I went out and bought hand soap for the ladies and gents in our side as the in-sink pump had run out and the cleaners replaced the soap with watered-down washing up liquid. Nice.

Everyone is still busy, but discontent and looking around. The money is good, and the experience, and the people, but it's still almost not worth it. There are rumours about the agencies which disturb me greatly. I've already popped them in the 'incompetent' box, but it's looking much worse than that. The flats haven't been cleaned in weeks, and most people are now cleaning them themselves. Handing the cleaning contracts over to the people who allegedly clean the office hasn't made any difference so far.

Need to do my accounts this weekend, as it's nearly tax time. With the constant overtime, I am earning nicely, but will be paying for it. Oh, and as freelancers we have been officially liberated from the tyranny of the German 10-hour maximum working day and no working on Sundays. We can now work as long as we like whenever we like, with authorisiation of course. 10 hours still sounds like a good limit to me.

And, oh yes, my Annotated Translation. I do need to actually pass this MA at some point. That is the plan for tomorrow.

Not quite

What I shouldn't be doing but am: eating biscuits. I'd forgotten how much I like Oreos. At least I walked to and from the station today.

What I should be doing but am not: my Annotated Translation.

Instead, I'm trying out my decaf coffee and doing kumihimo (6-strand hira utsui for anyone who's interested) while watching TV. Go me.

Narrow escape

So tired last night I forgot to set my alarm - thankfully woke up half an hour late which is salveageable. Must run...

Still not dead, just rather tired

I've always liked Parkinson's Law, oft quoted by Dad: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." I've decided to come up with one of my own: the goodness of a day is inversely proportional to the amount of sugar consumed for stress-related reasons.

There's nothing quite like arriving home 30 mins before bedtime. I got into work a little late after not getting out of the flat on time then going to the bank to find out what had happened to the "proper" card (EC Card) I was supposed to have received weeks ago - they had no idea and just re-ordered one for me. Then came a fun but very long lunch break spent watching G get the bank cashier to help her pay a bill and C finding out that he had been cut off a second time for not paying the same mobile phone bill.

What I was doing at work took far longer than I'd hoped, and I ended up leaving after realising I could barely type straight any more, and one message in particular engendering hysterical laughter. Then it was into the supermarket for yoghurt and muesli for breakfast, more Lavazza coffee, decaf Lavazza coffee for when I really shouldn't be having any, and, after I wandered around with C trying to find ingredients for brownies and ended up in the Imported Foods aisle, a box of Oreos and Swiss Miss hot chocolate mix. It wasn't a good day in terms of sugar.

An unfavourable sequence of trains kept me waiting for 20 minutes at my least favourite place, Hauptwache station. There are only two buses an hour at this time of night, so I walked home - at least I got the exercise in and managed to avoid the rain. Snow is forecast for tomorrow, so back to the winter coat.

In theory I'm where I want to be - translating at a major international company and taking on even more responsibility by editing. But once you open this particular box and step inside, nothing seems worth it. Yes, I'm sure it all looks very shiny from the outside, but it makes me think very, very fondly of places I walked away from because I considered them not good enough.

I have 10 more weeks here (including this one) before I go on a 2 week last push to get the Annotated Translation for my MA done, which is the last component. I started it last weekend, but didn't get too far. And obviously will not be doing any tonight. In between now and then, I have Easter in Zurich with himself and the May bank holiday weekend (that's Friday here on the continent) back in the UK for the final clearout of the flat.

And somewhere in between, some sleep. Time for the German sleepy tea...

Important!

I searched for "German phrases" thinking I would get to the bank one of these days and wanting to know how to say "Does anyone here speak English?"

I found this page - because you never know when you'll need to know the word for "anti-tank gun" or how to say "Don't try any tricks!"

I'm not dead - and rabbits!

I was going to do an update the other day, but going into Blogger from my usual bookmark was giving me a page in German where the only options I could make out were "Change Password" and "Create Account".

First, the really important news - rabbits! I was walking back after having gone to the supermarket down the road (where I completely failed to find bin bags despite it being quite obvious what they look like worldwide) and walking up between the blocks of flats on the next road over - the blocks have their small/thin/side end to the road and there are raised grassy areas between them with areas to hang laundry, etc. And right at the end of one, I saw a tiny shadow with long ears! And as it shot away towards the road I saw another, larger, one on the raised grassy area. Happiness.

I didn't see any last night, as I was out until silly o'clock doing karaoke. It's amazing how many rock songs are perfectly suited to it - someone always does Hotel California, and Immigrant Song and Paranoid (both the Garbage one and the Black Sabbath one) are wonderful as well.

Tonight, came back from work late as usual, and walked back from the station but seemed to lose half the muscles in my legs about 4/5 of the way back and had to clump along noisily and gracelessly for the last bit. Certainly scared off any rabbits around.

Not much else to report really - working away, trying not to eat just because I'm lacking energy, enjoying the work and hanging around with colleagues. Very much looking forward to being back in Reading next weekend for Valentine's day - so much so that I had convinced myself during the week that it was this weekend, and was worried about my flight being cancelled due to snow. sigh

In other news, I think I've found a text for my annotated translation, a chapter from 近代天皇制への道程 (The Road to the Modern Emperor System)by 田中彰 (Akira Tanaka). He is an established historian so a safe choice, and I've always been interested in the role of the emperor - be it real or imagined - in the Meiji Restoration and subsequent events. So, should be interesting both to translate and to research around. More work to be done...

Happy days

I take it back - the shower may look ancient, but with the excellent water pressure in the building it does the job very nicely. This makes me very happy.

So, a week with mostly ten-hour days and still feeling like there isn't enough time. Several colleagues are in work today, and they're still recruiting like crazy. Really, really enjoying it.

Stumbled home last night and watched an entire season of anime - I think I may have worried the neighbours by laughing out loud for several hours, but they got me back this morning by playing Euro-pop at high volume.

Well mixed

Good: got a lot of work done, got a power adapter, the flat has a bath (although there's still no heat in the bathroom and I don't know if I'll be staying here), figured out the bus route, recovered my grammar guide from the office book stack, ate none of the chocolate I brought back as a team present. Treated myself to some sushi in the department store food section I ended up doing my food shop in - two each mackerel, tuna and egg. Yum.

Bad: the phone charger sold to me by the T-Mobile shop is the wrong one for my phone, my brand new top has a hole in it, the shower in the bathroom looks like the one my grandmother used to have, the water tastes absolutely vile. Had lunch at the Chinese takeaway in the supermarket, which I was trying to avoid, but I was starving and wanted something warm. I deliberately didn't go to Lush before I left as I know there's one here, but it's much more expensive and is out of stock of things... which I've never seen in Reading... and doesn't get them in again for two weeks.

But on balance, getting better. Oh, and it's stopped raining. Not sure which category the amount of coffee I drank today goes into.

Et tu?

I bought a small electric toothbrush on Sunday to bring over - I really noticed the difference when I didn't have one here last time, and they plug into shaver sockets which are universal. Except this flat doesn't have one at all.

And I forgot the phone charger for my German mobile, which is now almost dead.

Oh well - at least I feel like I had a decent night's sleep. The duvet was incredibly thin, especially with the heating still building up, but I found a second one in the cupboard so that worked nicely. The bed is very strange, but didn't stop me sleeping. Apart from the bedroom door, none of the internal doors actually close - they're all hung wrong and scrape on the floor and don't line up with the frames.

So, a bit of shopping at lunchtime, methinks - adaptor plug, toothbrush, phone charger...

Auspicious?

Well, that could have gone more smoothly - but no permanent harm involved.

I got about 2 hours of sleep last night between packing until late, being unable to sleep and getting up just a smidgen before 5:00am in order to get a taxi at 5:10 for the coach at 5:30 to check in at 6:30 and fly at 7:10, land at 9:45 German time and be in the office about 11:00am. That all worked out, although I was feeling fairly miserable by the time we landed. Grabbing a Meal Deal in the Boots in Terminal 2 Duty Free was an excellent idea - much as I would have loved to go to Nero, the queue did not allow it.

The adult businessmen on the flight were worse than children - twice the amount of hand luggage they should have, throwing it in under unoccupied seats, stowing luggage in the emergency exit and being told off by the stewardesses, same guy stowing his coat in the emergency exit and being told off by the bursar and when the bursar tried to go back to the front of the plane he caught someone using their iPhone.

The normal passport control desks at Frankfurt were closed for some reason, so everyone from my flight ended up milling around the terminal for a while before we could get out - at least the cases were out when we finally got to them. I took out some cash, and without thinking asked for 500 Euro, forgetting I have a withdrawal limit of £200 on my card. That was refused, but thankfully a quickly done second request for 200 Euro was successful...

No problems getting back to the office and had a nice coffee with friends before being thrown in at the deep end. I'm not doing the project I thought I would be because something more important had come up... but still translation and looking forward to it. The rush involved meant that it was 8:15 by the time I left. Himself also contacted me to let me know the bank had called about a refused transaction on my card. Must sort that out soon.

I had been told I was going back to my old flat - which was great as a) I know where it is and b) I left a lot of stuff there, like coffee filters and tupperware. However, the office had lost my keys. So I ended up with keys to another flat. I hoped? assumed? that someone would help me get over to the flat, but by the time I'd finished what I was doing they had mostly staggered home after hitting the 10-hour German time limit. So, a not entirely fun evening of dragging luggage around an unfamiliar area - my case really doesn't like the bricks they use for German pavements.

That said, I did find it first time (a miracle for me, I know) - all the credit goes to Google Maps for showing me what the area looked like, I'm much better with that than any kind of directions.

The flat is very nice, quite large and even has a bath! Don't know if I'll be staying or not. But the heating isn't on so that will take a little while to kick in. To top it all off, I have brought the wrong adaptor plug (US/NZ instead of Europe) so have no plug-in power for the laptop. I shall leave it here for tonight...

Ouch

An icy week with not much good in the way of news either.

Although the contract is almost sorted, still working on other things which - depending on how they work out - will make things even more complicated.

Got the results back for my last essay. Let's just say they contain the word 'disappointing'. I really went for it on this essay, but it's just not good enough. It didn't feel like an MA essay, just a good BA one, and the tutor isn't going to let that pass. It's one of the things I like about her. Not that it does me much good now. All the more reason to go for the annotated translation, if I tried for the thesis I'd probably just hurt myself.

Not a ray of sunshine recently... was incredibly cranky by the end of last week but had a great time in London on Saturday with friends and brother and spent yesterday in my pajamas doing not much. Must get out and buy milk.

Resolution

First, some comedy. Sent to me by otouto's other half, the truth about Wii Fit. I absolutely agree. I have sworn more at Wii Fit than anything else, even Zelda bosses. Its cheerfulness is part of what makes it so insulting. You have to be bloody-minded for it.

Next, just how sweet Okami is - feeding rabbits. After you've fed a group of animals, they permanently emit hearts whenever you're near, even when they're asleep. かわいい！


Just done 12 minutes of 'jogging' on Wii Fit, as a pathetic attempt to make up for being sat on my rear end all day. I was bouncing That Contract back and forth between the agency and a HR-savvy friend, and on chat to someone else in the same situation trying to find anyone who can advise us on German tax liability - while trying to get through an explosion of activity on the twinned school talkboards. Net result was barely moving until about 4:00pm. I'm going to try to go for another round before dinner.

Learned a new word yesterday - venepuncturist. The nice people at NHS Blood Service who put the needle in. One of them kindly came over to check on me when the smart scales complained that it the flow had gone a bit slow... and adjusted the needle. Now, I can only really do blood donation if I don't look and don't think about it too much, but I instinctively looked down and the sight - and sensation - will be with me for a while. The guy doing the questionnaires had a ball with the list of countries I've been in for over 6 months in my entire life. Must remember to book an appointment next time though - it took nearly 2 hours without one.

I'm sure I had more witty things to say, but they've slipped my mind. Shall try to get out more and have more to comment on!

Check one

One New Year's resolution at least partially kept - went and donated blood today. Feel the usual happy but slightly light and stupefied. Working my way slowly through the To-Do List left over from 2008. Some are easy (send thank-you letters and emails) and some are a bit more involved (sort out pension).

I still don't know if I'm going to Germany or not. There was a great deal of progress on the contract today, but still some sore points and now deep thinking - in the absence of much concrete information - about what German tax liability is like. I still have some time, but it would be nice to know as so much else hinges upon it.

Need to get back to my MA work soon, specifically deciding on a thesis or a translation - I'm interested in nationalism and propaganda and the way in which the people were influenced by them between WWI and WWII, but it's a very big topic. Or an annotated translation, but my reading is still not strong enough and just understanding enough of a text to know if it's suitable or not takes an obscene amount of time.

Himself picked up Okami for the Wii on sale on New Year's Eve, and it's wonderful. I've mainly been watching him play it, but I could definitely play it myself. If only for the unutterably sweet cut-scenes when you feed the animals. And there's the pseudo-Japaneseness of it all which I enjoy.

New Year's was great - Wales was freezing, literally - the pond in our friends' back garden was solid and himself was able to walk around the edge of a reservoir on one of the two walks we went on. It was too cold to be out for long, but really enjoyable. Our friends' neighbours' dog had puppies, so we spent a while cooing over nine adorable baby labradors as well.

Oh, and it snowed! Today, while I was walking around. Hope it's also dumping it down in the mountains in Europe, as himself is going snowboarding from this weekend.