Over the red line

We're still on 10-hour days. But somehow, we've done it. I was in late tonight trying to figure out if we'd missed anything when things went strange with the bug logging system, and had to move my own leaving drinks to tomorrow, but I think - I think - we've got everything. Unbelievable.

Some people had still gone to the pub, so we met up there and went to karaoke. I'm enjoying it more every time although I really have problems singing. I can now switch between my 'high' and 'low' voice within one song, even one sentence if all goes well, but it still sounds terrible. But lots of fun. Sang some Abba and REM, the obligatory Duran Duran (how is it I still remember the lyrics after all this time?) and completely messed up Gorillaz, which is turning into a weekly event.

And we may go again tomorrow, after the rearranged leaving drinks. Why not? I'm too tired to study anyway... although I do need to sort the packing out. I may need to arrange a second piece of hold luggage.

I am now officially dangerously tired, after messing up and accidentally sending one translation to the school mailing list in response to the wrong original email, thereby convincing myself I'd sent both and not sending one until someone realised a few days later. Dammit.

The only other news is that after Z sent me a link, I've been listening to a load of Gackt songs. I like.

Living for the weekend

It's Saturday. I'm having breakfast before going into work. I think that sums up the week nicely. If it wasn't a flagrant contravention of German labour law, they'd have us in tomorrow as well. Three of us from the UK team will be in to process, enter and fix a truly unreasonable number of bugs.

In other news, Iwase was fantastic as usual and it was a wonderful night out. I would come back here just so I could go there again, and I regret not going there more. Frankfurt has tube mice. And I saw a steam train last Saturday.

Working 10 hours a day - particularly when you know the next day holds more of the same - is pretty tiring and study hasn't had much of a look-in. Today will also be spent at work, working, if we're to have any chance of getting what needs to be done done by when it's needed. I had a brief fantasy of being there in body and studying at my desk but it is not to be.

So, feeling very underprepared for my exams... the plan was that I would spend 6 months translating and ace them, but instead I've spent 7 months reading and proofreading US English and occasionally modifying it. I'm sure it's a skill, it's just not the one I wanted.

Anyway... once more into the office and then I really need to pack. Everything.

Well, hello there

Sorry it's gone all quiet - I managed to respond to a busy week by feeling I had to do something when I got home and ended up staying up far too late and spending the week in a vicious cycle of tiredness. Still trying to recover, but feeling much better.

So... less than 2 weeks to go in Frankfurt. Less than 2 weeks to exams. Work will reach giddy new heights of busyness as of tomorrow, and I'm coming around to the fact that there is far more stuff in the flat than I have room in my case for.

I've drawn up a list of things I'm not going to take and will pass it around the UK team at work in case anyone wants anything. Anything else can stay for the next resident. Will have to a trial pack at the weekend. And organise some kind of going-away gathering for work.

Another development was finally getting a place on the Japan-UK Live! school exchange translation team, which is pretty quiet at the moment but could change, and also my first piece of work from a new client. They asked me for the first page as a trial and then asked me to do the rest, which I was delighted with - only to find an email in my inbox after getting home tonight to say I'd left a line out. Not fatal I suppose, but not what I wanted as a first impression.

It's birthday season, so we were out tonight with another birthday person from the UK team. I ended up getting the presents and was delighted that they were well received - amusing tshirts can be hard to get right. We have another birthday coming up in two weeks as well, and my farewell do, and I'm going back to the wonderful Iwase with Z for one last time on Wednesday.

Must pack some study in there somewhere.

The bar we ended up going to tonight is the same one we went to for G's birthday, and we always seem to have the most insane conversations there. Our new mottos for the place are "What happens in Klosterhof stays in Klosterhof" and "You shouldn't have had the first one". Definitely making our own fun.

Here's to not being killed by this week. One down, four crazy days to go...

Softly, softly...

I do have official permission to use my PC at work for doing non-work stuff, but still feels very strange...

I've put up some photos of my new place - I'll only be there for another 3 weeks. Strange thought.

Work is busy and likely to get busier. So, just to really interfere, I've taken on a part-time translation assignment working for Japan-UK Live, a UK/Japan message board site between twinned schools, and started playing Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Between that and attempting to study, I think I'll have to give up sleep...

Himself will be arriving later on, but there's only so much time I can spend at work before it gets strange. I think I will head out to the airport and have a few expensive coffees there and play Zelda... I really do get hopelessly addicted to these things, but (thankfully?) I'm not very good at the puzzle-solving and so tend to give up. But then come back later.

Denied!

The new flat is quite nice - but has no internet access. So, it will be quiet for a while. The other minor frustration was taking two days to figure out how to convert the sofa into a bed (not two days of continuous effort, I'd like to point out...)

Like most of the months of this year, September has kind of snuck up on me. I'll be in Japan next month!

... and it's now the same month as my exams. Really must concentrate.

Wonders of chemistry

Just got out of a bath with the Lush Mmm Melting Marshmallow Moment. Smells divine, my skin feels great - the promise of pink bathwater was scuppered by my water being slightly brown, so the end result was a kind of rosy dishwater.

This medical tar that I got at the Apotheke this morning is amazing. I only put a bandaid on to keep my hand dry in the bath, the scrape is almost healed. I was so impressed I even looked up the active ingredients. Povidone-Iodine is wonderful stuff. And all the other applications of Povidone... must rival the uses of water.

^______^

Well, I can honestly say this was one of the most fun birthdays I've had in a while!

A fairly standard day at work - apart from my managing to email people in the US and Australia to invite them out by not paying attention to the autocomplete on our email system - and we also got our keys, addresses and a checklist of what our apartments did and did not have. I should have internet by the weekend and curtains in two weeks. I'm on the far side of the estate that most of the UK team is already in, and it's a short walk to get a tram, then either go through the a station where I can connect to the U-bahn lines I need or else change earlier, get the S-bahn for one stop and then the U-bahn a little further along the line. Although the latter option has more changes, it can be faster as the trams get stuck in traffic so the underground S and U-bahns win out.

A few people had dropped out so I invited a German translator on my team who I've become quite friendly with - she didn't show, which I thought was odd... but I managed to get my mobile phone number wrong (yet again) so she wasn't able to contact me. We had dinner at a ramen restaurant no-one had been to and it was fantastic. Glad to have put a new place on the list. The staff figured out - probably when I was handed an enormous Lush bag containing the overwhelming Think Pink hat box - that I was the birthday girl, and when the bill came around my meal was free!

Then someone broached the idea of karaoke and we headed out just past the new flats to Star Room, where we had a fantastic time until they had to kick us out at midnight. Highlight for me was singing Hungry like the Wolf with my esteemed Welsh colleague, and listening to others singing tunes from Rocky Horror Picture show and I'm a Barbie Girl. I still have Duran Duran on the brain, and also Two-Mix's Just Wild Beat Communication after we speculated on anime songs old enough to be in the catalogue.

The tram was still running so those of us who didn't live in the area headed back to the main train station where we split up. I walked back and had a Life conversation with one of the recently returned translators, which was slightly spoiled when I managed in my tiredness to not step up enough onto a curb and fall. Skinned part of my right hand and whacked my knee. Got home while he very kindly carried my bag and hat box of Lush products. I estimate a bruise the size of Luxembourg.

After getting to bed at 1:30am, I decided to set my alarm for 8:00 and get in a little later than usual. I used the Ring of Roses shower stuff and it's very nice, although it doesn't feel as immediately moisturising as what I was using. Headed into work, swang past the Apotheke to get some arnica for the bruise and antiseptic cream for my hand (got the tar-like stuff I've only seen in hospital) and struggled to stay awake. Then there was another slice of the proverbial Chinese 'interesting life' - I had given my mobile number and a list of times when I could move, basically mornings or evenings after Tuesday, not during work hours as I have things to do. So, of course, I was given 40 minutes notice to move at 2:00pm.

Much swearing later, and with both project managers out, I asked the testers to tell my colleague where I'd gone and rushed back to the flat to stuff and close the one box I had, followed by throwing the contents of my wardrobes and all my books into a suitcase. Of course, this was the day the stairs get washed, so I had wet floors and circular staircase to contend with, as well as putting a cardboard box down on a wet surface!

I was all ready and standing by the door and just gone quarter past. But there was no-one else there... called the guy with the van. On the phone. Texted my colleague. Mr. Van and my neighbour were nowhere to be found. They finally showed at quarter to three, and were surprised to see me - as they'd been waiting for me in the lobby at 2:00. Well, if anyone had mentioned a lobby I would have been there too. Anyway.

The very silver lining in all this was that as I was standing by the door watching my neighbour's things being loaded in the people-carrier, a courier van pulled up and a man got out and came to our door. And rang my bell. He had a signed-for delivery for me, at a time when I would normally be chained to my desk. My birthday card from my parents! It was pass-the-parcel with the courier's rubber envelope, followed by An Post's and finally the real envelope. Thanks Mom and Dad!

We picked up a third person's things, headed out to his flat and then ours - my neighbour is not far from me in the new area. I will take some shots over the weekend, but it looks quite nice. The gardens were being maintained when we were there, and I'm on the third floor. I just dumped my stuff and turned around, so haven't had a good look around, but it's all white and newly painted and far larger than what I have at the moment. My bed is a sofabed which isn't so great, but I can live with it for a month! I will go back tomorrow and poke around.

I got back to work and went up through the supermarket to grab a sandwich for lunch. And realised I didn't have my swipe card. I had definitely had it when I left, as I swiped out. Somewhere between leaving the office, taking the U-bahn, packing at my place, getting out at the other guy's old flat, then at his new flat, then my neighbour's new flat and then mine... it had gone. I had to be very, very nice to HR and one of the senior translators to not get sent home to find it. In another minor miracle, I found it outside my front door at the old place when I got back. Phew.

So... going to have a quick bath with one of my pressies, and then finishing throwing the last few things into bags and hopefully will be able to take it all to the new place tomorrow. Via another birthday celebration!

Er, no...

I checked my mailbox with a little anticipation today, as several people have been kind enough to threaten to send me birthday cards.

What there was waiting for me is what I suspect is a German tax number. I was hoping to quietly leave the country, but there it is, listing my passport details and everything. Needless to say, it's all in German so I have no idea what it says, but I can guess at Finanzamt.

In other news, I don't have the new address I was meant to get on Friday, or the keys I was meant to have today, or any info whatsoever about what's going on. We were meant to be able to move this evening if we wanted to. All looks like it's going to go a bit pear-shaped.

Need to get more sleep - I have been sleeping, but not very soundly judging by how awake I feel (not very). Have spent most of the day refraining from being cranky at people for reasons that are not quite good enough.

Night of the unexpected

Today started off rainy and cool, but I decided to walk to work nonetheless as it's the only exercise I get. It started to rain in earnest as I got there, and I was just thinking myself lucky when I slid on the grating in front of the sliding doors - thankfully they didn't close until I got up again. Nobody going in in front of me (including one of my colleagues) noticed, but I had to stop and assess the condition of my left knee for a few minutes. Ow.

P, our resident lover of facts and knower of all internal quirks, issued a new arbitrary decision about how to treat certain kinds of text, complete with a Newspeak reference, so I spent far too long (not very long, but I had other things to do) reading up on 1984. Toyed with the idea of trying to teach myself Newspeak (I think it would be wonderful if the entire UK English team walked around speaking it) but forced myself to go back to work.

My fun and delightful foray into translation has now stopped and gone to be validated, so it's back to logging bugs for now. At least I escaped at 5:30 as I had far better things to do - namely meeting my brother, who finally came over on a business trip!

I met him at the Frankfurter Hof hotel - which looks amazing - near Goetheplatz. After gawking at his room, we headed out to walk down to Hauptwache, then to the main square and the bridge, back again and down Zeil and ending up at Iwase, which has got to be my favourite restaurant in Frankfurt, even though this is only the second time I've been there. Must go more often. We had a delicious meal - mixed sushi, deep-fried aubergine, and a tempura set for him and sashimi set for me. Chatted a bit with the waitress. I was very happy that I had got a reservation - I called 20 minutes after they opened for lunch and got seats at the counter - and ecstatic that they remembered me and one of the guys behind the counter called me Arline-chan!

After much talking about work and Japan and friends and so on, we headed out again and walked up to Eschenheimer Tor and back down towards the Deutsche Bank towers, which are not floodlit and so a bit difficult to find in Frankfurt's night skyline. It was when we got there that things got odd.

There seems to be no way in. There is a hoarding all the way around the building, with something that looks like a works entrance at the front. Brother will have to call and find out how to get in tomorrow.

As we went back to walk around the side of the building (by the Ivory Club 'Contemporary Colonial Cuisine' restaurant, with massive tusks in front of the door), we saw flashing police lights and bikes rode in to block the junction, followed by a police car. Followed by a few rollerbladers. Followed by lots of rollerbladers. Brother estimated about 250. After all that was over, we crossed the road to walk back to the hotel.

And then - rabbits. We were crossing the old city wall, which has grass and trees planted in it, and brother noticed something moving. There were about ten rabbits, just grazing away in the grass, really not that bothered by the people walking past, getting as close as they could or even taking photos.

And Frankfurt normally seems so boring.

Just slightly wrong

Thursday was odd - alarm clock had somehow gone an hour late during the night, leaving me thinking I was getting up early only to have to run to work. I was going to Dublin that evening, as Friday was a bank holiday*, and took the U-bahn - eventually, when the ticket machine stopped spitting my coins back at me. Then I realised I had left the power cable for my laptop at home and had to go back for it at lunchtime... if I'd known, I would have bought a day pass, but it was cheaper to buy a ticket to and from the flat and then out to the airport.

[*It wasn't a holiday in Hesse, where I work, but was in neighbouring Bavaria, where our head office is, so we got it anyway. Huzzah.]

Had a wonderful three days with Mom and Dad, generally sleeping, eating lovely food, going for walks and doing computer stuff. And annoying the cat, who is getting a little slower but you wouldn't want to start underestimating her just yet.

Flight back was delayed by over an hour and a half, but the pilot made good time and I got back just over an hour after I was due. Completely forgot to get milk, but managed to almost finish my current book (A Brief History of Misogyny by Jack Holland) and actually did finish the stack of post-it stickies with coloured ends that I had accumulated in Xerox. Went out and bought some more this morning and finished the book. Result.

Last week was a bit of an unmitigated failure. I was supposed to go back to studying, but ended up finding a source of fun eBooks and staying up far, far too late reading utter nonsense. Oh, don't get me wrong, it was (obviously) highly enjoyable. Just completely the wrong thing at the wrong time.

So, tonight a bit more successful in that I was actually reading something to do with the course, although I need to spend less time on the Social Science Readings and more on preparing for the exams, a mere six weeks away. Drilling on letter and report writing and kanji work, plus the second presentation (which I keep forgetting I have to do) are what I need to be doing.

This week won't be all study - my brother has wangled a business trip to Frankfurt, so I'll be going out with him tomorrow, and we're all off to see Batman on Thursday. Should be good.

And the weekends are also steadily being ticked off - this weekend free, next weekend move flat. Weekend after that himself is here, and the following weekend I'm in the Peak District at a hen and stag do, as I'll unfortunately be in Japan for the wedding. Weekend after that free, and the following weekend I wrap up my contract and leave Frankfurt - heading straight to Sheffield for exams.

Friday after that... Japan! Have been spending lots of happy hours online checking out locations and hotels and consulting with family. Can't wait - but lots to be done before then...

Sometimes a cat is just a cat

Apart from the absurdity of dressing a cat up to look like... a cat, this article has some comedy writing and a hilarious bit of machine translation. No, I don't know how 'potato' fits in. Found it while searching for hotels in Obuse (near Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture) - Google decided I must have meant 'Abuse' instead.

Finally got around to making some hotel bookings for Japan! So happy to start making it all happen. We now have a hotel in Kanazawa, and one chosen for Tokyo. Starting to pencil in the other days as well. If I'm really lucky, I'll get to go to Hakone twice...

Poetry in motion

A bored colleague sent me this:

Fontpark 2.0

Amazing animations of kanji and kana being turned into pictures! Watch out for the martini...

Not that I've had much time to surf around finding interesting websites... I'm just finishing up now after having swiped out already to ensure I don't go over the mandatory 10-hour cap that German law enforces. And next week looks just as busy.

Weekend! Time to plan for Japan in October!

What comes after Pete Tong?

Two and a half days later, I finally finish the massive update that solves the unreliable data problem.

Only for it to break all the things depending on it because neither the project manager nor myself understood how it worked under the bonnet. It's all gone to IT to get yesterday's files restored, leaving people to recreate a day of work. Damn. I wish we had a better system for this. There are some things you just shouldn't use Excel for.

Oh, and the data is still unreliable. I found updates I should have found previously but didn't.

But even more seriously, I got home and was distracted by someone outside repeating and spelling out Z's name and flat number. It was our other co-workers in the building talking to the police - his flat was broken into during the day, new laptop taken.

And it seemed like such a nice area too.

I then realised while tidying up (too distracted to do the study I really should have started on this week, with getting up early and pulling 10-hour days) that I didn't know where my camera was. Desperate, I checked in places that weren't immediately visible and found it - I must have hidden it before going to Sheffield and completely forgotten.

I guess I'll put it back where I found it and take my laptop to work for a few days.

All gone a bit Pete Tong

We came to the conclusion around 5:00 yesterday at work that all the data I have gathered over the past month or so is unreliable. This is going to take a while to put right, and I don't really have a while. At least it was a little cooler today.

In other news, I have become embarrassingly addicted to 'Cinnamoroll's Saucer Snap' on the Sanrio website arcade.

Our resident bodybuilding Hong Kong-Australian HR man took us out for what must be one of the best Chinese meals I have ever had, in Jade near the Hauptbahnhof. We had soup with dumplings, baked fish, cuttlefish and mangetout, black pepper beef, sweet and sour pork and ma po tofu followed by watermelon and a sweet bean soup. For all six of us, with drinks, it was 88 Euro. Most highly recommended.

And I finally got to see the 'dodgy' area around the main station. Mostly well-lit and very business like 'Shop und Kino' places, so I doubt I was in the truly dangerous part, but it was all very neon. Tempted to go back and take pictures, but maybe not by myself...

For your amusement

It's a slow day. These sent to me by my esteemed colleague:

Mark Twain's The Awful German Language

The Onion's Courageous E-mail To Boss In Drafts Folder Since December - which would be funnier if it were less true.

Yes, but no

It is definitely cooler in the mornings, so I think I will carry on with this unholy early rising business. Although the afternoons are just as bad, at least I can go home sooner... There was a massive thunderstorm last night - lightning and thunder rolling on for ages - but it didn't help bring the temperature down very much. This morning is cool, but humid.

I went into the main shopping street yesterday afternoon to get a few things. Cash and a bank statement, some more mugicha (which I have become quite addicted to at the moment) and a bag. My beloved black waist pack - which I use as a shoulder bag - which was just the right size for a Lonely Planet and a small camera, had developed a rip which has now progressed into a hole large enough to put three fingers through. I reluctantly took all the charms and other bits off it and went to find something to use until the custom replacement I'm working on with a lady selling bags at the craft fair I was at a few weeks ago is ready.

So, something to last for two months until I'm back in the UK. Not a backpack, as they're too hot. And since I've started making my own lunch again, something big enough for the lunchbox would be nice. I ended up in a sports shop, where I finally got some camping cutlery - I've been looking for some for months so I don't have to keep getting plastic stuff from the supermarket all the time. Of course, I have to remember to bring it with me... I also saw a nice Sigg bottle - well, I saw the cute child bottle covers first, then looked at the adult bottles and found a 1L one that looked perfect for bringing mugicha into work. Why no cute covers for adults? Discrimination... mutters

Then I found the swanky 'sports' section - more of an exercise in branding and trendsetting. But I fell hard for two things, a Hawai'ian flower print belt (why the print is universally used on menswear I have no idea) and a messenger bag, just the right size, with a beautiful red and white on black crashing wave and chrysanthemum design, obviously Japanese inspired. Adjustable shoulder strap with a padded shoulder section in the same print, black on white chrysanthemum print lining, padded laptop pocket and lots of internal pockets and compartments, which I love. The belt was on sale, but still 20 EUR. The bag... was 70 EUR. I don't think I've ever spent that much on a bag. I'm going to try to sneak in a few hours of overtime...

Success!

Thursday brought feedback on the translation assignment for Social Studies - I got a fantastic mark for it, and I really enjoyed doing it although I spent most of the annotations picking holes in the author's thinking. I managed to mistranslate one word and get a passive the wrong way around in the last section, which threw the whole thing off, but apparently everyone had got the same word wrong. Most of the Social Studies sessions were a concerted attempt by the tutor to get us back on track and keep us on time as we kept talking around and off the topics. But very stimulating nonetheless.

The dissertation and annotated translation sessions were very interesting and helpful in terms of what you need to do. Unfortunately, I still have no idea which I want to do, or what I want to do at all. Either one, now that I've had them explained in detail, is a lot of work. But I can't submit a proposal until I've handed in my last essay, which will be in November as I'm going to ask for an extension.

Feedback on the presentations was good, although the debacle with the laptop put me well over time - the tutor assured me that it was just over five minutes since I got the slides up (we have five to eight minutes in the exam). I also passed the Japanese prose section, although I would have liked to do better. I really need to practice the letter and report sections and keep on reading in Japanese to get my marks up.

Most of the students managed to meet up on Thursday night for dinner, which was a lot of fun even if we were all ready to drop. The first-year students from my course were finished, as was the lone Japanese Language and Society student, although some were staying on to use the library. The librarian had unfortunately gone on holiday, as I wanted to ask her for some things...

Friday was mostly Social Studies, followed by feedback on the Japanese to English translation mock exam and final feedback. I was ready to drop. Coffee and chocolate every two hours, and even that wasn't doing me much good. I passed the Japanese to English mock with a strong mark - really happy with that. We finished up early and headed over to the pub for a quick drink with a few of the tutors and course staff.

I headed back to the library and was there until it closed at 7:00pm. Although there were several of us around, everyone disappeared off - that happened last year too, leaving me feeling quite alone at the end. I picked up a fried rice takeaway and headed back to the halls. Watched Appleseed Ex Machina - gets quite overblown at times, but extremely watchable and well, pre-cyborg Briareos is just fnar.

Between spending most of Wednesday night importing the Sheffield and SOAS library searches into a program called EndNote Web (referencing tool) and then half of Friday in the library building up lists of interesting books, I decided to take it easy on Saturday. First I got a day ticket on the tram and headed in to have a look around and most importantly get my hair cut. Then it was back to the halls to clear out and hand back my keys. I settled in to the outdoors area of the pub up the road with a trashy novel, determined to enjoy the sunny day.

I enjoyed it a little too much as I later found out - the back of my neck burned! I had some lunch and coffees, then moved on to wander around town and picked up some CDs. I had earlier wandered around Waterstones, and bought two brain-off novels (Dead Witch Walking and Magic Bites - both highly entertaining but prefer the latter) and also two 'worthier' volumes, A History of Misogyny and The Descent of Woman. I almost finished one book on the train, as we were delayed by signal problems. Himself had checked for anywhere open late, so we had a lovely Chinese meal before heading home.

On Sunday I was up to pack, then we went into town to meet up with friends for lunch before I headed off again. There was another delay with air traffic control in Frankfurt after a thunderstorm, but we weren't too late. I dawdled in the bookshop in the main station - which has English books - but ended up not getting anything. I really miss the library...

Monday was back to work and turns out we have a desk move. More searching of the content management system for updates, my brain was pretty much shut down by 3:00pm with the heat, and when I went to find my new desk it had no PC on it... so instead of trying to come in early to beat the heat, as I had planned, I now had to come in late so they could put a computer on the desk. Spent half of today waiting for the content management system to do a full checkout. Brain dead by 3:00 again. The German team said in a meeting that the paperwork for the air conditioning had only just been signed so it would be in in November. I can never tell when Germans are joking, but I have a horrible feeling they weren't.

So, I am going to try going in early tomorrow. I'm also making my own salad at the moment, as I'm sick of everything in the supermarket. And my beloved black bag, which I got in Loft in Nagoya back in 2002 or 2003, has finally developed a massive hole, graduated from the tear which I noticed before the craft fair. sigh

Although I decided I would have a week off, I did end up thinking about a topic for the presentation at the exam weekend - I think I'll do it on biofuels, the pros and cons and next stages. Should work in the same pattern as the last one. I'll do up a new study schedule at the weekend. And in the meantime, I bought the eBook of the sequel to Magic Bites, Magic Burns. More brain-off time.

Done and dusted

Today was predictably tough. It didn't help that I started it off taking far too long to reformat and print things in the Information Commons (aka library) and ended up running into the three-hour Japanese to English translation exam five minutes late having had no coffee in between. Three hours can seem like a very short time. I was just about all right until I put all my papers back together and saw the instruction in bold block capitals on the front page about writing on alternate lines... dammit. The tutor was thankfully not bothered.

The English to Japanese paper was harder than it looked - it was short, but long sentences with lots of clauses are hard to rearrange into decent-sounding Japanese, if I even really know what that sounds like. The presentation, apart from the hiccup of the office telling me that most definitely I was not to use my computer because one would be set up and ready to use with a USB stick - and then there being no computer set up. Fancy that. The tutor was completely unsurprised as she lent me her laptop.

We ran late on the presentations - both me and the guy before me kept answering questions for ages until we both took about half an hour each. It was good though. I panicked a bit but nothing substantial and hopefully it will be out of my system by the time the real thing comes around in September. We'll get feedback on that tomorrow and on the Japanese to English on Friday.

After running late on that I had a brief consultation with the Social Science Readings tutor, mainly to ask if it was okay to ask for an extension, as I'm going to be studying for the final exams until I leave Germany, and will be in Japan right up until the essay is due. I may need time in SOAS to get the essay to where it should be, but that will only happen in November.

Not only did June disappear, July is almost gone too, and the rest of the year seems to be pretty much accounted for...

We met up after the lectures and mocks were all over - the girls went to Meadowhall shopping center while the boys went for beer. We shopped until 9:00pm (I got some new shoes, as after destroying the laces on my current ones, I found that the upper has separated from the sole) and then went back to do beer. A few of us bowed out early due to exhaustion or to prepare for the seminars tomorrow. I'm too tired for that now, but will get to it tomorrow morning.

Our father who art in PANIC

I seem to have neglected to mention that the Arts Tower in Sheffield has a paternoster. I had seen it last year, but assumed the doors had been taken off for maintenance.

The woman who walked in in front of me on Monday got straight on it, but I baulked and watched it for a while before trying it. It's very like having an old funfair ride in the building. Other students have been happy to wait for the one other working lift to avoid the paternoster, but I use it every chance I get. It's still vaguely terrifying.

Especially yesterday, when we were on our way to a lecture theatre below ground. Now, I had planned to find out what happened when the paternoster reached the bottom of the building by putting a piece of paper on the floor of a car and watching to see if it came up again... for all I know the cars flip over. But I was so busy talking to one of the other students (who would go on it) that neither of us thought of it until we passed a dimly lit sign on the side of the lower ground floor, stating that the lift would now be going up.

Cue panic.

We were simply shunted to the right, and indeed started to go up. It's very disconcerting when you have concrete all around. But I suppose it had to be safe, or Health and Safety would have ripped it out of the building long ago.

Needless to say, I will continue to use it as often as possible while I'm here. But now, off to try to do some printing, which I was dreaming about last night. The halls have the hardest beds I can remember sleeping in. I have got a cheap rate on a hotel for the exams in September, now just need flights and train...

Fear is the enemy

Monday is over, and it's been really good. We had positive things to say at the feedback session - the modules this year have been really good - and our criticisms were well received. Whether they'll lead to anything is yet to be seen, as they're pretty much the same as last year - rampant disorganisation.

The two tutor-led sessions, on structure of Japanese and English texts and writing letters in Japanese, were excellent - everyone learned something, and the teachers enjoyed them as well. Including the misunderstanding-tutor, who I'm getting on famously with. Phew. It's graduation week, so more on-campus cafes and so on are open this year.

Add to that a nice dinner with lots of fun conversation in both languages (my Japanese is really rusty...) and it's been fantastic. Tomorrow looks good too, with three more language workshops and a library session. Wednesday still looking like the apocalypse. Thursday and Friday are feedback on the mock exams and lots of lectures for the last module, all of which will be useful and informative.

The slight hiccup was on arrival at the halls, when the guy working nights who let me in (by the time he left the room, I knew not only his name but also his course, who he's worked for for the last few years, his country and its political situation...) forgot to give me any of my internet access details and ignored the fact my card didn't work in the outside door. So, when I discovered later that although I had bedding and towels I had no toilet paper, I couldn't go to get any at the 24-hr Tesco around the corner as I would lock myself out. But all sorted out by a slightly irate man at the main office this morning. Turns out it happened to all five of us staying here.

Need to work on my presentation, then review report writing before the session tomorrow. Although I am rather sleepy, and without a source of coffee at the moment. We'll see how long I last.

Omen

I have the schedule for next week.

Wednesday will be the Day from Hell. Three mock exams in a row followed by the presentation.

And the tutor I had a meaningless misunderstanding-turned-email-war with will be there.

And she'll be handling the presentations.

It's time for chocolate...

High and low

The flight over to London was lovely. Got stopped and taken aside by airport security twice to have the Wii Fit board wiped down for explosives, and generally got more interest than if I had a puppy with me. Frankfurt airport staff have perfect English and are generally a very good-humoured lot.

We came over the east coast of England while light was falling and got a beautiful view of fat rivers winding their way into the sea, with a gorgeous sunset overhead. I kept looking from one to the other, amazed at both. Then we went over London with all the lights on, turning over Canary Wharf and getting a great view of Tower Bridge, the river, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

The craft fair went well, not as busy as last year, but sold quite a bit - including some larger pieces than last year, and some that I've had for ages - made some new friends, got some presents for people and also have started planning a new bag with a lady who makes them who was there. We're going to try to use some of the fabric I brought back from Japan, which I still haven't learned enough sewing to do anything with.

Was so tired on Friday night I thought I was going to come down with something. Couldn't stay awake, throat hurt, head hurt, sniffling. But I was okay in the end, and stumbled back to the flat in Frankfurt slightly delayed by an air traffic control problem just before midnight - still early enough to get a decent train and U-bahn connection home.

Then downstairs neighbour decided to play the keyboards. At 1:10am.

I decided that undignified as it was my only option was to shout out the window gently requesting that he stop. I am going to have to a) speak to him (although if he thinks playing the keyboards at 1:10am was a good idea in the first place you wonder if it's going to do any good) and/or b) get someone at work to speak to him and/or c) ask to be moved.

I could do without this with a week to go to the residential. My hard drive is also making an odd noise and says it could do with a software repair that I need the disc that it came with (currently in Reading) for. Next weekend, when I'm there...

Anyway. Apart from the noisy ending a wonderful time, and most indebted to himself's parents for all their help. It's a gorgeous village.

Deferred pleasure

I have to admit that I haven't been reading the feedback for my MA work as soon as it comes in.

I was somewhat alarmed to find how long I haven't been reading it for though - since the beginning of the year. Not something to look on with pride.

But although I have obviously been dreading it - particularly since getting into an ultimately senseless debacle over comments with one of the tutors - it's actually all quite good. The patents tutor invites me to take up translating patents as a profession. The tutor I had the altercation with gave me an excellent mark on round 2, although my basic grammar is still not what it should be. And the Japanese to English translation tutor gave me a very high mark for my last assignment and a cheerful 'keep up the good work'.

Not much going on. I have been alternating between studying for the residential on the week of the 21st and procrastinating about it. Flying to Heathrow on Thursday night to get ready for the craft fair on the weekend - as I haven't been in the country to organise anything I'll just have to hope for some unprepared version of beginner's luck. At least all the display materials from last year are still in a crate in the attic, so I'll just have to get some change from the bank and polish up any tarnished silver and get everything to the right place.

(If you're anywhere near Kings Langley and Abbots Langley - just outside Watford - go to the Festival of the Arts! All this week! Especially to see Kindertransport! And the craft fair is in the hall of the beautiful St. Lawrence church in Abbots Langley.)

And this time - I have to buy the chickens from the quilting group and give them to Mom instead of keeping them for myself as I did 2 years ago.

Ahem. This has all turned into a bit of a confessional...

Better

Today started out just as hot as yesterday, but the rain started after lunch and carried on all day - I'm now sitting beside a large open window, and I'm a bit cold but it's so nice after yesterday that I'm loving it.

Making progress with my translation assignment for the residential week, and hope to switch on to something else soon. The weekend will be reserved for the thing I'm most worried about, the presentation. I need to get a bit of grammar study in too. I also really need to improve my kanji and handwriting skills, but I'm not sure I can do anything with them in two and a bit weeks...

Other than that, some things are much cheaper here than in the UK - I got 50 Loratadine (active ingredient of Clarityn) for 16 Euro, and also got some free glasses wipes and green tea flavoured sugar free gum in the bag with them. I already had some glasses wipes - 1.50 Euro for 20 - to clean the DS with.

I will be moving at the end of the month - Nintendo have decided to move all their contracts to a new agency and so all the contractors are being moved. No concrete news on where, just that we need to move 31 July and we'll have free internet. It also probably means I'll have to go and update my registration, so another trip to the local government offices... At least I'll have a few days to get my German together after the residential!

Not the best day on record...

30 degrees. And that was when I checked at about 7pm, so it could well have been hotter during the day. Was completely zombified at work. Really hoping the air con does arrive soon (it has been promised for next week).

Got home just in time to say hi to someone taking their laundry down to the basement... which is what I was hoping to do. I had even left work bang on time after getting in a little earlier than usual - mainly because the internet connection was down. So, I got ready to go to the laundrette instead.

I decided to have an ice lolly - only to find that the teeny freezer on top of my mini-fridge really doesn't work. They were mush. I should throw out everything else in there as well...

But I got a machine and dryer right away at the laundrette, and another resident has fixed the internet connection, and I have a litre of water and a cold glass of caffeinated soft drink. And I did play my Japanese learning games at the laundrette, and treated myself to an ice cream from the place across the road from there. So, not all bad.

Castles and funiculars and gummi bears, oh my!

Photos are here!

Well, I was going to lie down for a bit after getting home, but Mr. Saxophone downstairs has decided to practice, so...

The day started off with the traditional mad rush for the train - for myself and Z anyway, C was there in good time. We all piled on and then found our seats, changed at Mannheim and from there on to Heidelberg. Most of the journey was spent listening to or talking about each others' music.

We got to the station, went and got our 'Heidelberg Cards' which - if you get the two-day ones instead of the one-day ones - give you free use of the funicular railway, free entrance to the castle and the Pharmacy Museum, and lots of discounts in other places. Out at the front of the tourist office we got a 4-person day pass for public transport to cover the three of us, and off we went!

Unfortunately, we went the wrong way. After about 10 minutes on the bus, we figured out that we were not going towards the city centre. The timetables do that annoying thing of listing all stops instead of just the ones the bus is going to in the relevant direction. We jumped off and raced for the bus across the road - thankfully German cars do stop at crossings. A little later we went past the main transport hub - which is nowhere near the station - and then piled off at the funicular terminal.

We ran up to the gates and popped our two-day tickets in, laughing at the huge queue of primary children barely kept under control by parents. Until we realised that although the two-day passes might entitle us to free use of the funicular, they weren't actually tickets. In the queue we got to get our free tickets.

Although we stood near the front window, there was a huge panel behind the driver which meant we could see next to nothing - it didn't matter that much as we were soon whisked up to the castle (which is only a 10 minute walk up the hill). A short stroll up a cobbled slope later, we were inside the castle grounds - I'll leave that to the photos! The guided tour was interesting, but I found it hard to keep my mind on it. Not sure if it was the guide's French accent or just an attack of tiredness. The World Cup has been rough in terms of getting much sleep, as the Germans (and pretty much everyone else here, such as the Turks) tend to stay at home and roar at the TV, followed by driving around sounding their horns. They were more subdued after their defeat last night.

We dived into the Pharmacy Museum, which was interesting for free and had some fantastic cards in the gift shop, and then stopped for a coffee before heading back to the funicular - stopping again briefly for C to buy a hat. We just need a feather for it now. One stop up and we got out of the lower (new) funicular and transferred to the upper (historical) funicular. Apart from the whole being-a-funicular (you all know about my fascination with them by now, as well as cable cars, and trams, and ferris wheels) it hit a 40% gradient at the end. It was like going up a rocket launch track. We stopped to admire the view, failed to get any food and then headed back down again.

Once back down from 500ft above sea level, we crossed the old town through the old market square to the river bank, across the old bridge and over to my must-see item - the Philosophers' Walk! Yes, anything for a gag - in this case contrasting it with the Path of Philosophy in Kyoto (which Dad has the most amazing postcard-worthy pictures of with cherry trees in full bloom). We started up the winding cobbled path, walled on both sides, as it snaked its way up the steep hill. Now, I had made a bad choice that morning in wearing my MBTs, which are the most comfortable walking shoes I've ever had, but are utterly useless verging on dangerous if the ground is uneven or sloped. And this was a lot of both. After we'd got to the point where we were level with the castle on the other side of the river, and realised we were still directly over the old bridge and therefore possibly not actually on the Walk at all, we took photos and headed back down. I'll try again when I've worked on my cardio. And have different shoes on.

After that we headed back across the bridge and into the cobbled streets around the market square, stopping for dinner at a nice place with outside tables. I had some delicious pork in a cream and mushroom sauce - a little heavy on the white wine. It came with something called spargel (not sure about the spelling) which initially looked like noodles but I think may have been shredded fried cheese. I mostly left it alone.

I dragged the guys back along the road to a shop with a gummi bear logo that we'd passed while we were wandering around. We only just got in before they closed, but it was worth it! There were endless flavours of gummi bears, old favourites like marshmallow strawberries and even playboy/playgirl jellies! I got a mixed pack of sample sizes for the team and a big bag of coffee-flavoured jellies for me. (I later repented and brought them into work for my project team...) Fully stocked on sugar, we went back to the bus stop and back to the station for our train.

We were ticket-checked on every train, by plain-clothes inspectors on the first train on the way back - they also had the police meet them at the terminus to discuss something with a young man in our car. I still can't get used to the police being armed here. We checked out the bookshop with English books in the train station and then went our separate ways. C later found out that the gummi bear shop has a branch in Frankurt, so we're doomed.

The adventure for today was heading down to the Japanese bookshop at lunchtime to see if we could get anything interesting in their pre-closing-for-refurbishment sale - I didn't in the end, as nothing discounted was that interesting (I already have plenty of reading material I haven't read yet) and anything that was interesting was too expensive and could wait until I got to Japan.

I am horribly tired. It was a battle to even keep my eyes open at some points today, despite coffee, diet coke and coffee gummis (aka sugar). I think I will be hitting the mattress early tonight, neighbours willing.

Protection

I have fallen in love with screen protectors. My initial experience with the DS ones was mixed - the top screen one went on perfectly but the floppier touch screen one ended up with air bubbles and then I put a small scratch on it when trying to get them out with a credit card. I put it aside until the following night and managed to get them all out with the stylus... and the result is fantastic. The scratchy area in the center of the touch screen (which can be completely blamed on the Kanji training game) is gone and both screens look great. The thing still looks completely battered, mind you.

Today I took the camera in to the electronics shop and ended up getting the cheapest of the cases I was looking at - it fits the camera perfectly, although the pockets have flaps that don't close them completely (can see loose batteries falling out). All the really expensive ones were too big - the whole reason I was looking for a new case is because I already have a huge one - and/or had velcro inside them which is just going to damage the camera. And then - screen protectors! I'm trying the toothpaste dermabrasion on the camera's LCD screen at the moment, as it's covered in small scratches from being carried out of its case, and then I will apply the screen protector ready for taking it out tomorrow. I actually don't use the screen most of the time, as it kills the batteries, but it will be nice to have it looking better.

I ended up staying up late last night, and then was subjected to someone playing lounge music at 1:30am. So, after having headphones in all day, I then ended up with ear plugs all night. My inner ears were not thanking me this morning.

Better get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight - Heidelberg awaits...

No, nay, never

I will be going to the local Mexican no more, as I was awake until 3:00am with my stomach trying to implode upon itself. Still not back to normal.

Have a trip to Heidelberg set up for Saturday with Z and another friend from work, should be good. Will take my camera in on Friday and see if I can't get a smaller case. I never use the lens adaptor, which is almost as large as the camera itself, so the case for both of them is far larger than I would like. The local electronics shop has a good selection of them, which I will peruse on the way to former team leader's birthday drinks.

In other news, it rained all day but even now as it's trailing off the humidity is right back up again. Oh well.

Fontainebleau photos!

We ended up using David's camera most of the time - it's much, much smaller than mine - and he has put up his pictures of Fontainebleau!

Retail and forward planning

Having spent the entire week sitting on my rear end at work or at home, I decided to go out on Saturday into town to at least get out of the flat. First stop was the Japanese bookshop OCS, where they were discounting various items in preparation for closing for refurbishment next month - I picked up a translation of The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment and some Nora Roberts book, as I find them easy to read in English. I even got a free newspaper, which will be handy for revision... not so long to go, as I realised when counting up free weekends to go exploring before the mock exams.

I also used my credit note from the headset I couldn't use with my Mac at the electronics shop, getting some AAA rechargeable batteries for my Sennheiser headphones and a screen protector kit for my DS. I got the same cashier who had given me the credit note originally, and she was incredibly animated about the whole thing. I didn't understand a word, of course.

Then it was into C&A where I picked up some Hello Kitty socks (too amusing to pass by) and a mobile phone 'sock' (black with a cute cartoony white rabbit with a lollipop) to put my new music player in, as even sitting in the outside pocket of my bag the protective case is getting quite scratched. It will make it impossible to operate, as it's all done by touch screen, but hey. It's only a 20 minute walk to work.

I got slightly lost on the way back through trying to avoid the main shopping street, but found the supermarket and picked up some supplies for the rest of the weekend. Including gooseberries! Haven't seen them in ages.

Today, I did a study plan (just have to stick to it now) and more thinking about Japan - where to be when, what trains are available and where to stay. Then I gave my DS a microdermabrasion! A highly amusing tip found on a website, basically use a tiny bit of toothpaste (which contains fine abrasive) and spread it over the screen, leave to dry and then scrub off. It has helped, although there are also some crumbs trapped in the casing that I'm going to get out by the Official Nintendo method of a toothbrush before I put the screen protectors on.

After all that I thought I'd read my book of Kenji Miyazawa short stories that I'd bout the last time I was in OCS, only to find that I hadn't been paying attention and had in fact bought a poetry collection. I will wimp out of that and read either Kino's Journey or something else instead...

Quotes and words

From my reading of the BBC website (which really has gone downhill in terms of quality of English):

'"We are carrying out executions by selecting the people whom we can execute with a feeling of confidence and responsibility," Japanese Minister of Justice Hatoyama Kunio told a news conference.' (Full story here)

'But this ... is nothing compared to an e-mail sent by an extremely powerful person at JP Morgan encouraging his investment banking team to be more human. In it he said: "Take the time today to call a client and tell them you love them. They won't forget you made the call." Indeed. I'm sure the client would remember such a call for a very long time.

'If love has no place in the language of business, neither does passion. Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office - unless things have gone very wrong indeed.' (Article by Lucy Kellaway, 'Are you going forward? Then stop now)

And this - amazing torn paper art - look out for the parachuting tanuki and Christopher Walken!

Singing in the rain

Getting to Paris was fairly smooth, but the legendary Charles de Gaulle Airport wasn't about to let it be that easy. I got through Frankfurt without having my passport checked even once - I picked up my boarding card by inserting my bank card into an automated checkin machine, then scanned the bar code on it to get past the gate and into the aircraft. David had a slight delay, but the real fun began when we realised that we had landed in different terminals. In the end I asked him to aim for the RER (mass transit commuter lines) in his terminal and I'd just try to find him. The shuttle between terminals is a bit like an old-style rollercoaster ride and takes forever.

Then it was out into Paris' public transport system, which rumbled along to Chatelet-les-Halles, the metro station I was most afraid of when I lived there as a kid. The RER section wasn't as bad as I remembered the metro part being - more people and more lights. Then it was one more stop to Gare de Lyon, which we would leave from the next morning. Despite it being nearly 11pm there were open cafes, and we had warm goat's cheese salad and a Savoyarde flammkuchen with mushrooms, cheese and bacon. I navigated from the station to the hotel, then David navigated us back when I got hopelessly off track. The Hotel des Trois Gares was neatly tucked into a corner at the end of a footbridge across a canal and we had a nice quiet night there (the only downside about the place was the miniscule lift - you would want to be friendly to use it).

The next morning, after commiserating with the man on reception about France's defeat by the Netherlands the night before and seeing Ireland's 'No' vote splashed across the front pages, we headed to Gare de Lyon and grabbed some warm drinks before boarding a train for Fontainebleau-Avon. It was not a good morning for coffee - at the hotel it was stewed and cold (a rare combination) and at the station more like water. Half of the hour-long journey was spent sitting at an intermediate station, but then we arrived through steadily increasing amounts of forest to Fontainebleau. Or, maybe more accurately, to its outskirts. Not realising the scale of the map we walked in, which took almost half an hour. But we found the hotel easily, and they let us check in and get the key card early. We headed out for a pizza and dessert at a cafe next door - narrowly avoiding a rain shower - and then headed back in to plan but ended up sleeping for a while... obviously we both needed it.

We spent the rest of the evening watching Stardust on DVD, which was a lot of fun. My favourite line of the movie: "But you were a mouse! You wanted cheese!" We realised at one point that as David had brought me over some clothes, my new music player, a very large pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a USB headset - there was no way I was going to get everything back in to my rucksack along with my laptop and camera (which I didn't really need anyway as David had brought his much smaller one). So, case swap it was. Must bring it back in July.

Somewhat more refreshed the next morning, we left our cases at the very nice Hotel Napoleon and headed out. After picking up a map of the Forest of Fontainebleau, I realised that Nemours, where we went on family holidays when we lived in Paris, was quite a bit further than I had thought and would probably require a return to the train station. Damn. The weather was also quite unsettled, with half an hour of sunshine followed by ten minutes of torrential rain. Not really the kind of weather you want for going and rambling around (and knowing me, getting lost in) a forest, no matter how lovely the rocks are.

We resigned ourselves to staying in the town where we could find shelter, which was no bad thing. Lunch was had at a cafe and patisserie we had seen the day before, some nice quiches followed by a raspberry souffle for himself and a coffee religieuse that almost made me ill - I seem to have lost my sugar tolerance somewhat. There were plenty of places in the town to wander around and buildings to admire, then we explored the chateau gardens and did a quick bit of boating on the carp lake (just got out in time as it started to rain again - although we were equally worried about being capsized by one of the giant fish). We even went on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the French Garden and out a little way into the forest, which was lovely but made you appreciate modern suspension. Amazing how even rain can be enjoyable when you're somewhere else on holiday.

After spending a few hours around the chateau and realising that the weather wasn't going to improve, we set off for the station again, this time by bus. The train back was much quicker, and we were in Gare de Lyon over half an hour before we had planned.

For the next half an hour or so, we were reminded why we don't come to France very often. The Japanese restaurant we had seen on Friday was closed, as were the Chinese and Italian ones. Which left the Fruits de Mer (seafood) and Savoyarde restaurants - none of which had a 'vegetarian option' beyond plain omelette. Eventually we got tired of walking around the area - particularly as the number of open restaurants decreased as we went away from the station - and instead headed for the airport.

That was equally bad, and we ended up having slightly stale mozarella and tomato and ham and cheese sandwiches at a terminal cafe. After splitting up to head off to our checkins, I found that my flight was delayed by a technical fault which had caused a delay on the incoming craft, which was then followed after boarding by some passengers from another flight deciding they didn't want to transfer to this one, so their bags had to be found and offloaded. Between that and the irregular evening trains from the airport (filled with celebrating Turkish supporters), I got home about 1:00 am.

Monday was thankfully quiet at work, and although one of the MA seminars was supposed to have started yesterday there was nothing on the bulletin boards, so as I was geared up to do something I instead redesigned my j-trans site. It's still not perfect but at least looks a lot better.

Touch base

It was a fairly hectic day yesterday, but first back to the long walk.

I thought I was one of the last to leave the office, running out at 5:45 which is when we were meant to be registering at the tent. The park was just down the road, but it was absolutely immense and it took me a while to find any tents, let alone the Nintendo one. When I finally found it, and the other UK translators doing the run, I was still in plenty of time - someone had obviously added a cat-herding margin to the arrival times.

A pleasant surprise was that the company t-shirts were actually quite nice - normally they're things you'd be embarrassed to wear after the event unless decorating, but I'll definitely wear mine in public. We also had inflatable batons to make noise with, and there was a lot of it as we headed off en masse after a group photo (there's no way they got everyone in without a panoramic lens). We filed out of the park, joking about how we were all wearing 'Wii Fit' t-shirts but were being passed out by pretty much everyone else, including some very fit-looking people from Panasonic.

It was a fair walk before we even got to the start area, and it was jam packed. There was some idea of organising yourself by your projected race time, but no-one seemed to be paying it any attention (which came back to bite us later). We stood around commenting on other people's t-shirts (one had 'we love this meeting!') and groaning at the choice of music (themes from Rocky and Chariots of Fire). After several '5-4-3-2-1!' announcements, we finally started to move forward, although it was another few minutes before we got to the start gate. But the crowd was very good-natured, and kept doing Mexican waves while standing around.

G and I walked the whole thing, but didn't do too badly at 50 minutes for 3.5 miles. The worst part was being pushed past by people running, as no-one had lined up by race time (it was simply too crowded to do anything like that) and although they were letting people out in batches the road (2-3 lanes) was still too narrow to allow everyone to be where they wanted. We ended up hugging the side of the barriers, but people still tried to undertake us. After a while the runners from both start gates joined up as we got to use both sides of a 4-lane dual carriageway, which made things much easier.

There were loads of cheering fans standing outside offices, and samba dancers for some reason. Other Nintendo people stopped to talk to us as they passed (which they generally did) and before too long we were passing the 5km markers and trying to figure out what 3.5 miles was in km. The end gate was a fairly subdued affair, with people raising their arms to run through in front of some cameras. From there we carried on walking until we were back in the park - we never did find the places to pick up our post-race JP Morgan t-shirts but we weren't that bothered. Cold drinks were foremost in our minds, and with those supplied we headed back to the company tent. The sight of the queue for the BBQ - and the amount of fat some of the stuff was frying in - put myself and G off and we had some biscuits instead.

I ended up sitting next to the producer from my previous project, a gregarious Frenchman with a love of any chocolate over 60% cocoa (and a corresponding hatred and scorn of anything less). Various areas had begun to hurt, mainly my calves and front of my thighs, followed by the backs of my hips (I did the whole thing in my MBTs, as they're simply the most comfortable walking shoes ever, so long as it's on a flat surface). My neck started hurting as well and I tried stretching it out, which he noticed and pushed his thumbs into the top of my shoulders, and agreed that I was indeed very stiff.

Then he took my hand and started pressing his thumb into various parts of it, which was fine until he reached the area above my thumb on the side of the hand - then it hurt like hell. "Are you sleeping well? You're not sleeping well, and you're depleted." I was frankly amazed - I haven't been sleeping well in Frankfurt, and gave up eating properly in the heat as I had no appetite. Turns out he has been informally studying shiatsu for years, and loved to use it to ease his wife's aches and pains when she was pregnant.

If any guys are reading this, this is a skill that will help you pull. He gives the best backrub, if G and P's reactions were anything to go by (actually, if we'd video-taped P and you didn't know what was happening...). I, unfortunately, was judged too tense for him to be able to do anything there and then, but I was still most impressed. Quite interested in it now.

Thursday was spent crunching through possible localisation issues in files at work - it's always fascinating to talk about it with someone else and see how differently people can think. Now we just need to close down as many as we can and leave as few changes to implement as possible. After that I concentrated on checking my translation, which I also spent most of the night doing. It started raining about 4pm, and I was only in a t-shirt as it's been way too hot for weeks. Bought a brolly in the supermarket.

I've bought some music online in anticipation of getting my shiny new player from David tonight, and am having a lot of enjoyment listening to Sunglasses at Night (Sean Finn and Gino Montesano, Moog Radio Mix) and Dangerous Power (Gabriel Dresden feat. Sean Burton, Gabriel Dresden Extended Mix).

But now it's time to pack the laptop, get a fleece and get to work! Paris and Fontainebleau await!

All walked out

Have dragged myself home from the 3.5 mile JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, one nice t-shirt to show for it. I'm going to be very, very stiff tomorrow.

Something funny

Again, a genuine search - this time for weasel words, to find a nicer way of describing the cop-out of saying 'most people would agree that...' without providing any evidence for my feminism nationalism translation - has led to some new gems.

Follow it through glittering generality to The Society for Propaganda Analysis, then Argumentum ad numerum through to Communal reinforcement and finally you will arrive... at the wonders of truthiness. Keep going until you find the report on the speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

I hope it makes you laugh - albeit in a rather painful way - as much as it did me.

Run!

I completely forgot that I'd signed up to do a charity 3.5k run (after being assured that not only could I walk it, I would probably have to as there were so many people involved). And forgot when it was, so was worried it was this Friday or weekend, when I will not be here. Unhelpfully, the reminders in work were vague in a 'less than 2 weeks to go!' way but not actually giving a date. The internet informs me that it's Wednesday, so I will trundle along with loads of others from work and go to a huge BBQ afterwards. Should be fun.

Finally finished translating feminism nationalism over the weekend. Now I just have to check what I've done (especially the last section) and try to make it into acceptable English. It's hard when I'm not sure what some of the passages are trying to say, or when I don't understand the theory behind them. But such are uni assignments, particularly when you're trying to do something vaguely advanced in a field you know little about.

Amusing factoid I found today - there is a Black Day in South Korea. Nothing racial, I stumbled upon it while looking up Baumkuchen (legitimate work-related search!), which led me to White Day, which led me to Black Day. Seen my past failure at baking pretty much anything, I am in no hurry to try a traditional Baumkuchen...

Other than that, all getting a bit existential, in a what-am-I-doing way. Some colleagues have the chance to work closely with their teams or project managers, or actually translate, and so show what they can do, which I am quite envious of (the chance rather than the people). What I'm working on at the moment is checking US English text for anything unacceptable and/or incomprehensible in UK English, which while worthy in its own way is quite boring and simple work. I'm not stretching myself in any way, there isn't much to make an impression (let alone impress) with and although the pay is excellent the work itself isn't getting me anywhere.

My self-motivation is slipping (has slipped?) and without it there's not much to keep me going. While I feel I learned the hard way that trying hard for a lost cause (aka flogging a dead horse?) just ends up driving me crazy, I'm afraid of becoming sloppy and missing a chance if it does present itself, or simply messing up at some point.

And while saying all that, I have to laugh - it's nothing that hasn't happened to pretty much everyone else, including me, and the answer is the same as it's always been. Somehow, bootstrapping.

Too damn hot

Yes, it's still hot. Not quite as bad as it was, but it's been hot for so long that I'm feeling really worn down and light-headed most of the time. So, hiding out in my room reading rather than going out at the weekends, which means not much in the way of news.

Himself has been wonderful and ordered my new mp3 player, headphones and USB headset for me. Can't wait to see him next weekend.

Still trying to drag myself through this feminism nationalism translation. If nothing else it's turning into an interesting impromptu history lesson as I try to place some names - female anarchists executed for treason in the Meiji era.

Quote for the day: "Not unusually, tradition in Japan held that femaleness and an individual identity and destiny were oxymoronic. Thus, when the Tokugawa (1603-1867) authorities chose to execute a woman, she would be given a man's name. This was not unlike the view of progressive medieval Buddhists that enlightenment was not, after all, out of the reach of women. In male bodies, transformed at the point of death through the grace of Amida Buddha, they might gain immediate entry to the Pure Land. Either style of 'annihilation' meant dying a 'man'. However, after the Meiji imperial restoration of 1868, Western-style modernity brought with it a new view of women as modern citizens. The Meiji Constitution, Civil Code and political assembly laws fell far short of according them equality in terms of their rights or duties to the nation, yet the new criminal code promulgated in 1880 spelt a certain equality for women in granting them equal access to criminality."

From 'Resistance to Difference: Sexual Equality and its Law-ful and Out-law (Anarchist) Advocates in Imperial Japan' by Hélène Bowen Raddeker

Now you've done it

I've booked my flights for Japan in October! Finnair are having a seat sale, with Heathrow to Nagoya or Osaka for a mere £392.90. I'm leaving on Oct 3, arriving early on Oct 4 and there until the morning of Oct 26. The three week JR railpass and rental mobile will be sorted out later...

Not much else - it's still too hot. Went out to Yumeya, a ramen restaurant near the Frankfurt Messe exhibition center. It was fun, if quite disorganised on the service front. Not expensive either.

Really, really must concentrate on getting this feminist nationalist translation done this weekend so I can run away to Fontainebleau with himself next weekend. Shall bring the camera - I know I haven't been doing much around Frankfurt recently. There aren't many people interested in going places, and I'm sorry to say my German is still non-existent so I'm still quite nervous. But I should make an effort to at least see Heidelberg and one town on the Romance Road that seems near enough.

June already... been here three months. It feels like it, in that way that you get used to places, but also not in that I feel like I haven't got that much done. Another three months (or possibly four, the one month extension I was promised has not shown up yet) and it's all over. For now anyway.

But I have other things to worry about - I'm managing to read a small newspaper article a day on the Asahi Shimbun website, but as soon as I get back from France I need to start preparing for the residential weekend, which means reading short stories, reviewing the report-writing and preparing visual aids for the presentation. There's quite a lot of work to be done there, so I just hope I have the willpower for it...

yes, yes, YES!!

As the ad goes. I finally got my hair cut (goes a bit like this) which makes me feel like I've taken off a woolly hat. Which is good, as the weather continues to be stupidly hot.

In other news, having far too much fun looking at places to go with my brother and his other half in Japan in October (Tokyo, Matsumoto, Obuse, Inuyama and Kanazawa on the list so far) and generally managing to avoid the MA translation I should be doing.

Victory! (again)

I have an appointment for a haircut. Woo.

The Italians have been measuring the heat in the office, and apparently it hit 31 Celsius on Wednesday. Thursday was equally bad, but Friday was bearable. I did go out on Wednesday and buy four new light tops, and a headset for using Skype now I've paid in to be able to call normal phones.

Except the MacBook Pros don't come with a microphone port. They come with a line-in port, which normal headsets can't use. So, I can't use it. Need to get myself a USB headset or some kind of external amp or sound card. Spent a huge amount of time researching what will or won't work and think I have found one now that I can use.

Had a massive thunderstorm last night with constant thunder and lightning, and another one has just moved in. At least it will cool things down a bit. It's hard to concentrate on anything with it so hot, but I have at least managed to buy a card for my cousin's wedding (although I've managed to lose his address) and write to my homestay family in Japan.

My brother has finally firmed up his dates for Mongolia, so I can start plotting my next trip to Japan. Finnair are having a seat sale, and seem to make the journey via Helsinki faster than Emirates via Dubai. The direct flights are all over £800, much as I would love to go direct again.

Round and round and round we go

For anyone wondering what on earth I'm talking about with kumihimo, here's a photo of my attempts so far. One of them is being used a decorative dangle on my bag, as I wove it around a clip. I'm not sure if the thinner ones are meant to twist as mine do... But still an awful lot of fun and really relaxing.

Yesterday was too hot. It was the kind of day where you either are dressed, or move, but not both. Everything I own seems to be too heavy. Yesterday was 23 degrees - today, tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be 29. I'm going to melt.

Still trying to get a haircut.

The horror is in the post

Love these Hammer House of Horror commemorative stamps from Royal Mail - along with the Carry On ones.

Not sure what it says about the contents of what it's on though...

Oops

Apparently, I can lose track of time while doing kumihimo. I was planning on being in bed early tonight...

Easily distracted

I ended up undoing the kumihimo cord and redoing it - then undoing it again after realising I'd got the pattern wrong. How I did that I don't know, as it is literally weave-by-numbers. But on the third go I cut a new thread for the cross-weave so that it would be long enough to use up all the other cords, and wove away while watching a video - I now have a very nice red, gold and brown cord attached to a clip!

I don't have a weight to keep it tense and so keep the weave even, but I found that just holding the braid as it comes from the disc worked nicely. Very happy with it for a third first attempt...

But I really shouldn't be doing it in the morning before work. Need to run now.

Not too bad

As predicted, Friday felt like being called into work on a Saturday, Saturday felt like Sunday and Sunday didn't know what to do with itself. Such is a bank holiday Thursday.

Managed to get some things done - finally did a jewellery repair that I've had since Easter. I needed a few beads for it, so went to search for bead shops in Frankfurt without much hope - I'd searched before and found naught. But someone had posted a question about it a few days earlier on an 'answers' site and I got addresses for two places - the first of which had what I wanted (which was nothing special) and I also caved in and bought a kumihimo set and some carabiners with chains to weave onto. The second store was much larger and nicer, with a larger range of beads, and there too I was unable to resist buying something - in this case a set of 6 butterfly and dragonfly stamps and a set of blue/green ink pads. I know, I shouldn't. But I did.

The other thing I was on the lookout for was headphones. I found a real hi-fi shop, which predictably enough only stocked serious merchandise - 300 and 400 Euro Sennheiser headphones. The strange thing is that I can get both the headphones and the iAudio D2 much cheaper in the UK than here, even taking the strong Euro into account. But I can't seem to pay for them with my German bank card, so I'll have to see if I can get them delivered to a non-cardholder address (always a bit of a pain).

Otherwise, I finished the first section of the Social Science Readings translation, and read the central part we don't have to translate. I still have some way to go before I finish (due on June 13) but at least I've cracked the ice.

Went out to dinner last night with Z to the Thai place around the corner - cheap and cheerful (6 Euro main course) but tasty and just what we were looking for. He sent me one of his songs in production, and I am extremely impressed.

So, I'm now sitting surrounded by rattail (satin cord, in case you think it's something strange) and templates. I translated the kumihimo booklet online from German to English, and although not all of it made sense, I found a video that cleared up most things and actually making one piece has made a lot of the rest obvious. One bit I missed was that some threads have to be longer than others, so my 'finished item' has uneven straggly tails, but I quite like it anyway.

It's dead, Jim

I had a few things I was going to do on the bank holiday yesterday - and did exactly none of them. I slept for 12 hours, watched videos and listened to music and generally faffed around.

Today, the content management system misbehaved to the extent that I managed to get about half of what I was hoping to done, and the rest of the day rechecking files it hadn't loaded properly the first time. I get paid for this.

My beloved and heavily used iAudio G2 has bitten the dust. It was declaring its 1GB disk full although there was nothing on it, so I proceeded to do a firmware update, which fixed that last time. No such luck - it went from being recognisable but full on the Mac to being recognisable on the Windows virtual machine only, and then to only being seen as a defective USB mass storage device. Oh well. I have had it for ages, and used it most days in that time. It has earned its eternal rest.

I'm currently interested it its younger sibling, the iAudio D2, and a pair of out-of-ear earphones. While I hate the way they look, my inner ears are starting to feel funny, possibly because due to the complete and total lack of soundproofing in these flats, I always have headphones on when listening to anything. I'm still not convinced that my hearing is 100%, despite a visit to the Royal Berkshire.

And now - the weekend, where I will attempt to do what I should have done yesterday.

Dream and nightmare

This morning went swimmingly. Oh, I did my usual (this must be the right stop - oh no, the destination looks wrong - cross to other bus stop - bus arrives - tells me I need the other direction - RUN across dual carriageway and only catch bus because it is late) but I was at UPS as they opened, paid my money, got my package and had a good 25 minutes opening everything and reading manuals before the bus arrived.

And I spent the entire day - I kid you not - merging files on the content management system. So I've played some of all three games...

My new neighbour downstairs might be from the music school. I think he's playing saxophone. I can hear it over my own music with headphones in, and it's given me a raging headache in the 20 minutes I've been home.

Bank holiday tomorrow. Must get a few things done that I've been waiting to do. I just hope Mr. Saxophone is out.

German efficiency?

Dad mentioned on the phone that the TGV booking website is allegedly the worst. No, I can beat it...

Frankfurt's route planner was sending me out two towns to the east before coming back in. Hence the hour journey and unknown fare.

It was only when I used Google Maps (no, not just plugging it because himself works for them) that I realised what on earth was happening. And that there was a U-Bahn station close by that I might be able to walk from. And when I traced the route, I could clearly see a tram on the street.

So, it's now down to a short hop to Willy-Brant-Platz and then Tram 11 to Hugo-Junkers-Strasse. 42 minutes. Or the S-Bahn to the next town east and then a bus. 33 minutes.

I'm sure it's something to do with not defining where I'm going in terms that the site can understand, but it doesn't exactly help me plan my journey...

Adventure calls

Or disaster. It's not clear which it will be...

I could have sworn I checked my mailbox yesterday, but when I checked it today I found two 'we tried to deliver' notices from UPS for the order I placed ages ago for some Japanese language software on the DS - one of the games was out of stock for weeks.

The postal system here has a nasty habit of sending things back, so after hastily online-translating the options I called up and asked for delivery to 'a nearby UPS Centre' - there's one around the corner!

I called the UPS number and after a reasonable start, the conversation degenerated to the point where the call handler switched to English. I got the street name and number for my pickup and was assured I could pay what I assume is import tax.

'Nearby' must be some kind of euphemism. The UPS Center is in a massive industrial park way out on the east side of the city, out by the docks. Google Maps came through for me again, pinpointing the street even though I'd left out a hyphen. The Frankfurt public transport site was far less helpful until I switched to searching on the larger street the UPS Centre is off - it will take me just over an hour on a combination of U-bahn, commuter train and bus to get anywhere near the place.

They're open from 8am to 9pm, so I'll try to get there tomorrow am - and get into work on time...

Weekender

After the morning of misfortune, I met up with A as promised at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. We headed back to mine to drop his case and then had a quick lunch at the Italian place near Iroha. From there we wandered through the historic Romerplatz and through to the river, where we took the 100 minute cruise up and down the river. The boat was bigger than the one I'd taken before for the cruise and Night of the Museums - maybe they're getting into high season. We could hear all the commentary, although it was playing a minute or so after we'd passed whatever they were talking about.

For dinner we tried out a place with a terrace on top of the Galeria department store, but it didn't do much in the way of food. We ended up at the bar at Eschenheimer Tor, where they forgot my cheeseburger. When it did come, I stopped eating the chips halfway through as they seemed a bit funny. And spent most of the night being kept up by having to go to the loo. If it wasn't that, it would have been the party at the house next door. At least A judged the inflatable mattress to be comfortable, and it was large enough.

On Sunday morning, mindful of what might or might not be open, we headed to the Main Tower, passing some really nice parks that trace the old town walls. After the airport-style security check (where they let a man with a pocket knife through...) we got into the lifts, which had a panel showing you where in the building you were and how fast the lift was going - I think we hit 18kmph. The view from the top (190m) was fantastic and it is definitely on my list of Places to Bring People.

Next stop was Fressgasse, supposed to be Frankfurt's one-street stop for all things gourmet. It was however very quiet and many places were closed. After deciding against anything too outrageous, we ended up having sandwiches and coffee at a really nice place that I'll definitely go to again.

Suitably fortified, we got back on the U-bahn and headed to the Sudbahnhof and connected with the No. 14 tram. It all looked very urban until the stop before ours, when we suddenly came into trees and the tram started to climb slightly. By the time we got off, you couldn't see any trace of Frankfurt. We headed off in one direction and found an arboretum and the City Forest House, full of interactive exhibits for kids. It also had a very impressive map of the city and forest with height gradations, and we could see there was a lake not far from the tram stop, so we set off back there with brief pauses to rescue a snail and investigate some kind of dragon mascot.

After crossing the tracks, we headed off in one direction and found some streams, but also a dead end (coming up against allotments) and then went uphill, which we thought couldn't be right. Back to the tram station and map - the only maps were on each side of the tram stop, and there was almost no signposting. The fact that neither of us has any sense of direction didn't help, but we weren't desperate to get anywhere. It was a glorious day and nice to be out of the city. We finally found the lake, took photos and staggered off to a rest stop for beer and diet coke.

Then it was back to the city center and another new discovery for dinner - although it took us a little while to find, the Historical Stork Restaurant was lovely and had great food - veal with mushrooms in cream sauce with noodles with butter and white truffle oil. And very reasonable, compared to Iwase.

Finally it was the traditional sprint for the station, but we got there with 5 minutes to spare and I waved A off. As he'd said, it was great to have someone familiar to chat to, and I was hit by a wave of loneliness as I watched the train fill up. Giving in to the urge to treat myself - but wanting to carry on avoiding sweeties as I had been doing so successfully for that week - I stumbled across a huge selection of novels in English in a bookshop in the station and bought a crime thriller.

Which came in very handy today, which finally was not party time at the laundrette.

But all in all a fantastic weekend - three new places to take people and a comfy mattress to put them up on.

Photos! Main Tower and Frankfurt City Forest

Today's photos are here!

Will write more about it, but for now I need my sleep...

And on and on

The Mac is again convinced that the hard drive on my music player is full, despite there being nothing on it. I think I've at least remembered how I fixed it last time, although I think it involved a laborious firmware upgrade.

I walked into town to look for tops - found only one I liked which looked great on the hanger but not on me. Gave up and went to walk to the Hauptbanhof.

Despite being convinced I had gone in the right direction, none of the streets were what they should have been. I gave up and once again got the U-Bahn.

Plan C, anyone?

If I thought Wednesday nights were party time at the laundrette, I was wrong. The true party time is Saturday morning. All 18 washing machines and 6 dryers in use.

Have hidden the washing. It would have been a nice walk if it wasn't so damn hot out. Will now have to wait until Monday night before I can try again...

I might just go into town and buy some more tops.

Visitor

After work on Thursday I ran into town to pick up an inflatable mattress and pillow plus pump as I have company! A friend of David's working in Munich is coming up for the weekend. I just hope the mattress is okay, as it was a choice between slightly too small and far too big...

The plan for this morning was to tidy up between loads of washing - as usual in hot weather it seems to breed in the corner when I'm not looking - but the washing machine in the basement is on the blink. So I now have to run to the laundrette and hope I have enough time before having to meet my visitor at the station. Great way to start an early Saturday morning.

Work is as usual. The heat in the office makes it very difficult not to get sleepy. My team are working themselves up to request reference books as they put together a style guide, but apparently 10 books requested a year ago turned into one book received last week. I am starting to get a bit disheartened that not only will I be doing no translation (no boost to language skills) but I will be reading over-the-top American English until September.

Anyway. Time to bring the guidebook to the laundrette...

... and relax

Had a wonderful long weekend - after an annoying start, with Aer Lingus supplying no information whatsoever about delays until we were halfway through the flight, I met up with himself at Dublin Airport and we headed out to my parents. Much talking, laughing, eating, walking on the beach and playing with the cat ensued, along with some computer fixing.

I got back on Monday night and got down to some actual work on Tuesday - after a week of having almost nothing to do, it was a relief although I really can get used to having free time... I was good and ate at the salad bar at lunch, but suffered for it - I think the sweetcorn had been left out too long. Today was more of the same work-wise, along with some objectively petty discussions about grammar and punctuation that have been dredged up by some of the translators starting to write up an in-house style. At the end of the day, it's not important if we put spaces before and/or after ellipsis denoting a pause in speech or not. It would be nice to do it either rightly or wrongly consistently, if anyone can ever agree on what right is. At least my stomach was happy with the Chinese food counter in the supermarket.

I have booked my flights to the UK for the craft fair and university residential week in July. I also have a guest arriving on Saturday, so one thing I have to do in the next day or so is go and purchase an inflatable mattress. And think of fun places to go.

I started on the translation for the Social Sciences course tonight, and ended up spending most of the evening finding other things quoting a quote I was looking up. Ah, the supreme time-wasting potential of the internet. As usual for this course, it turned out to be immensely depressing if worthy reading.

"They [fascism and religious fundamentalism] both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again." (Sermon: Living Under Fascism) I may not agree completely with the list of causes, but definitely do about civilisation.

It has gone hot and stuffy, especially at work where there is no air conditioning (apparently it's been promised for years now) - I need to try to get to sleep on time to have a chance of surviving the day. The heating is off and the window open, so let's hope that does the trick.

Party time!

It seems that 7:30pm on a Wednesday is the time to do your laundry.

After heading down to the basement to try to use the washing machine, I found that it was in use with another load piled next to it - and I still don't know if the dryer is fixed. So, after a sandwich I headed off to the laundrette which is a pleasant 10 minutes walk away.

It was packed. I got the last of the 18 washing machines and had to wait about 20 minutes for a dryer as two were on the blink. The pay machine wasn't giving change, so I ended up paying for about 40 minutes in the dryer, a huge Miele professional affair, and everything came out bone dry and so hot you couldn't touch any zips or buttons.

And while is it nice to not have to repeatedly go up and down the stairs and worry about whether the machine is in use, and it costs about the same (when I can get change anyway), I have to say that folding my undies while two men sit beside me singing and drinking beer is not my idea of a fun time. I ended up folding everything else first and creating a barricade of jeans and fleeces between us so I could fold with some privacy...

Yes, it really is

One other thing that happened on Sunday was lots of being talked to by older German ladies who don't seem to mind that we're not getting most of what they say. The first one was outside our building, ringing all the doorbells that had German names - I think someone's car was blocking her in the courtyard behind us.

The next time was when we got to the cemetary in Wiesbaden - the button for the pedestrian crossing wasn't working and the ladies who had been on the bus with us sounded like they were cross about it. We did get one bit of German vocabulary out of it though - or rather confirmation that 'das ist kaput' is real German!

Brain like a sieve

I don't even have the hayfever to blame for this (that has largely cleared up). I wanted to write my assessed report today, so I could review it during the week and send it on Thursday as I'm flying to Dublin on Friday.

Except the first half of it, which I wrote in work, and the soft copies of the newspaper articles, which I painstakingly typed up in work, are on my memory stick - still plugged into my machine at work.

Okay, I'll do the Social Studies translation... or I would, except that the glossary I made during the week is - you guessed it - on the memory stick, which I managed to leave in work on Friday.

Another coffee and some practice at newspaper articles and short stories, or some grammar study... not that my brain seems to be up to much today.