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Showing posts from 2015

Tagebuch eines Leidenden

Habe gestern mit dem Sitzen auf einem ergonomischen Sitzhocker angefangen. Musste nach dem halben Tag erst einmal meine Tennisballtherapie machen, damit die Schmerzen im unteren Kreuz nachließen. Heute schmerzen mir die Schienbeine, sie sind es nicht gewohnt, das auf ihnen Druck lastet, die armen. Der Rücken ist heute etwas besser. Merke, dass ich mehr Sauerstoff einatme als ich das sonst tat. Mein Bauch hängt raus und lässt mich Abnehmpläne schmieden. Soweit, so enttäuschend.

My December: Thailand!

Yay,  I finally finished my video on my trip to Thailand with my sister! It was quite an experience. I had not done a backpacker trip like that before and it was to serve me as one of those trips where you step out of your comfort zone. As I don't want to bore you with many details, I will show you the video instead: Funny how in the end, I am left with only the good memories. Right after the trip, I dreaded the moment when people would ask me: "So? How was it???" Because honestly, it was not as cool as I had imagined from what people had told me. It was colorful and people were friendly, that part is true. But the backpacking? Well, I'm not a backpacker. I know that now. I don't like to pack and unpack my things every other day. My mood shifts drastically with every hour of transport I have to undergo in order to reach the next place. Travelling with my sister was a new experience. Although we had lived together in a shared flat as adults in the past

Do you dread getting old?

I have recently enrolled in the course Design Thinking on Coursera. If you don't know the platform yet, I strongly recommend to pay it a visit if you're keen on learning. In the course, a case study of " the good kitchen " was presented. In short, it was about a malfunctioning food service for elderly people in Denmark which did a 180° turn after having engaged hatch&bloom, a company specialized in driven innovation and service design. Where the elderly people who made use of the service before were ashamed of having to do so, the meal delivery service is now something they actually enjoy. In the first week alone, the company managed to quintuple their subscriptions. After having finished the video lessons for this week, I went to facebook and saw this: I think, copy-pasting that thought is not enough. If we care about our parents and grandparents, wouldn't it be good to actually do something about that? Senior residences are really a dreadful plac

Hospital visits

Today, we visited grandma in the hospital. She's been there for a few days now. It started out with a respiratory problem about two weeks ago which didn't really go away. I didn't understand what the real cause for being in the hospital was, but at least I know that her results did not show any serious infection or illness and when I was there, she could talk to me and even have a laugh. After having been there with her, we were talking about stays in hospitals and how important visitors are. Or rather, if being in a hospital should be a reason for visiting somebody. Obviously, it's nice to have visitors, especially when you're in a place you don't know and on top of that need to share with sickly or seriously ill people. It sure is not a very health-promoting environment, so having someone there who will distract you is appreciated. But I thought, would I appreciate seeing people I usually don't see or hear from, but who will only come in a special situ

Telegram

Okay, so I said, I would have the video about our Thailand trip done by now, didn't I? Well, truth be told, it's not done yet! I'm doing a little bit on a regular basis and I'm about half way through the trip. Already, it fills about 18 minutes. It's going to be a nice little souvenir! But...not yet. So patience, please, I'm on it. Somehow, I'm into so many things that it takes a decent amount of planification and and even bigger amount of calmness in these moments when you realize that the day only has so many hours, before sleep hits me like a truck at night. I won't give up to sleep at least 7.5 hours a night, though. Having them is a precious part of being happy in life. So, now, I will be doing my  7 Minute Workout , take a quick shower and head off to play with some building blocks with the kids - let's see if say will understand a bit more today already! To not let you off without anything tangible, let me give you a quick recommendatio

Back to routine, baby!

Today is my second Sunday back home and it feels great to be back. Having moved to Madrid just this summer, I felt quite settled in November with my new life being ready to grow into routine. But instead of doing that, I detoured for a month and went to Thailand with my sister. Yes, report is coming up, but it'll take time as I'm not the best editor of videos. But now I'm back and I can't wait to get into everything again. Already, I had a really nice gettogether with Rubén's family, we spent the Spanish holiday "Día de Reyes" together. This used to be the day Spanish children would get presents which were brought to them by the three wise kings. Nowadays, both Christmas and Reyes are celebrated. More food, more presents, more time with the family. Apart from the presents, I'm all for it. We had a nice walk up the  peña of Cenicientos  and could enjoy a lovely view onto the village.  I was lucky enough to find some new friends right in the su

We are idiots.

Recently, I finished reading the novel  El Contrato by Lars Kepler  and I acutally had to cry where it states as the last paragraph of the epilogue: Diariamente se fabrican treinta y nueve millones de balas destinadas a diferentes armas de fuego. Contando a la baja, las cifras militares de todo el planeta giran en torno a los mil doscientos veintiséis billones de dólares anuales. A pesar de que se fabrican sin cesar cantidades ingentes de material bélico, sigue resultando imposible satisfacer la demanda. Los nueve mayores exportadores de armas convencionales del mundo son: Estados Unidos, Rusia, Alemania, Francia, Gran Bretaña, Países Bajos, Italia, Suecia y China. A daily production of 39,000,000 bullets for various fire arms. $1226000000000 per year are spent globally in military. That's $3358904110 a day. Usually, we write numbers this big in short form, because we cannot grasp the concept of such an amount of money. Because this number is freakishly high, I'll try to bre

What I've been up to in the last year

Ok, here is just a quick summary to see where I left off and what I'm writing about. Jauary - Topped up hours to work full time as senior analyst quality management at Computacenter Iberia. February - trip to France with a relationship-changing experience March - Got an award for best performance 2013 - rookie in my job and decided that it was taking up to much of my time. Where's the music? April  - New opportunities coming up - new position or new life concept? May - started my Spanish self-employment: working in Germany June - Started to go running July - Moved to Madrid, stayed with Rubén's parents for a month. Then trip to London to see my Canadian host family again after ten years! August - Trip to Wuppertal, my home town. People are nice, the weather is nasty. Seriously doubt I will ever want to go back. September  - New flat in Alcorcón and the first routines in the new area - meeting new friends, going to blues sessions, going out with Madrileños Oc

2015 - Let's get this baby started!

Hello everybody! Hello nobody! Hi you! Ok, you see it's strange to start over again, but I'll get used to it. This blog is something I've been thinking about for quite some time now, because I started one in 2011, did it for about nine months and then it died peacefully. Writing is important to me, though and that's why I want to start over again. This is for myself and for my familiy and friends who want to be part of my life. If you comment, you'll be part of my life, too, so please do!