Time flies - I don't

(at least not at the moment)
June is already over? How did that happened? Seriously the second half of the year started and I am wondering where the time went.

I am working my butt off, well literally just my legs since I can't feel them except for the pain every night after work but well no pain no gain, right? So since my last real post not much has changes. I am still doing other people's food almost every day, have 2 lovely flatmates and do spend many evenings just sitting in the kitchen talking about this and that. last night my flatmate M and i even cleaned the kitchen. Long planed by us and finally executed. Who need 15 pots anyway, so now our kitchen is a bit more organized and the basement storage space is not empty anymore :D

And I've been to the 4th of July party by the US Consulate General here in Leipzig. Not as a guest but I was there as a service team member and was even allowed to guard the toilets. What a special task! I had tickets for a 'Die Ärzte' concert (one of my favorite German bands) for the same night but I decided to work at the Consulate instead. Kind of stupid I thought but in the end it was worth it. To see everybody from the Consulate again was so awesome, I finally got my letter of recommendation (there will be an extra post about it later), I saw my English professor and had a nice chat with him, met some people I got to know while working at the ConGen (so great that my work actually made an impact), I saw my new bosses (they didn't saw me,luckily) and a colleague from another Subway store. So funny! Oh and of course I made a couple of Euros which is always good. Oh and my vacation is taking shape but I'll post about that also later. So enough for today. Need to get some rest before work and another 4th of July bbq. :) Have a nice weekend

Leipzig part 2

So I am behind on a few stories here and since I might be without Internet for a while, since we are switching contracts, I should better finish some posts here.

So I am  in Leipzig for almost 5 month now. Totally crazy! So many things happened. I finished my internship, moved again, got a job and still didn't manage to get much done for uni which totally sucks but I am on to it.

For the internship part. Well it was pretty cool. i learned many things, met many cool people and could really imagine working for the foreign services in the future. The only bad thing came afterwards. 2 months are gone and i still haven't gotten my letter of recommendation. Obviously the people at the consulate think we just worked there for the fun of it. Will write another email tonight and hope that this whole thing is behind me very soon. Weird is also that I didn't learned much about the US during my internship. Maybe because I new already so much but it is strange anyway. But I learned tons about Germany and the region were I am from (Saxony-Anhalt) and now living (Saxony) which might be good fro the future. And I learned that just because people work for a government doesn't mean that they are necessarily smarter than an ordinary student. And it is obviously much harder to work for the German foreign services than for the US state secretary. ;)

As I mentioned , I moved again. After sleeping at a friends place for a week and staying at my parents place for another couple of days I was very fortunate to find and apartment with 2 lovely flat mates.  the two girls and i get along well and I think we'll have a good time together. After sleeping on an air mattress for 3 weeks I finally have furniture. More about the decoration of my room in another post, very soon. :D


Luckily in the same week that I found my new flat I also found a job. I am working now part time at Subway, the sandwich store. I never thought i would stay there more than a couple of month but who knows. The salary is super bad but the people are very nice and I get free food for every shift I do. So i am very lazy in cooking lately but at least i am eating healthier. And I worked over 50% more than I should this months. Not that I will get that extra money right away (stupid German tax system) but at least i can plan my vacation to Copenhagen for July now without worrying that i won't have enough hours in July.

So much for now!

Leipzig

On Wednesday the 5th, after spending some nice hours in Magdeburg (thanks to Tim and Andy for taking some time to meet me for lunch), I moved to Leipzig to start my internship. Well, moving is maybe not the right term. Since I still don’t have an apartment. I am staying at the moment in a youth hostel until I find a flat. Shouldn’t take so long, I hope. I looked at a room today in which I could move in next week. I will look at some other place tomorrow and decide but the room I looked at today is much cheaper and with the money I save I could buy a new laptop in case my old one cannot be repaired.

So I started my internship on Thursday and after 2 days I can say I like it. Everybody is super nice and although I didn’t do a lot during the first 2 days, the next weeks will be busy. Got 3 assignments 20min before my day ended on Friday. :D Perfect timing. But I will have a lot of research to do and that is something I always enjoyed.

That's more or less all I can say about my internship, at least in a blog. If anybody wants details please email me. :)

end of 2011

So it is a bit late but better than never.

I hope everybody had nice Christmas holidays and well came good into the new years.

My Christmas was really short. I had to work till 2pm on Christmas Eve and wasn’t home until 6pm. My family had then our traditional Christmas Eve diner, rice with a pork casserole. The only food on Christmas I actually like at my house. ;) Then well we had a small gift giving. It wasn’t much, although probably the first time we had something like that in about 5 years or so. I even got my favorite Finnish chocolate from my sister. Never thought she could be that nice. :P On the first Day of Christmas we had my maternal grandma and my paternal grandpa over which was really nice even though I could have skipped the food altogether. I just like Finnish Christmas food much more, or well just any other food than my mother’s duck or goose. So that was more or less Christmas. I had to be at work again on the 27th at 3pm. I worked then till the 31st. The plan was to have a shift till 6pm but nobody thought we would work in the afternoon after all. But in the end we worked from 11 to 5pm! I was at home around 8pm, so very late for New Years Eve! And I was so tired so no big party for me this time. Not that I ever went on a big New Years Eve party. I don’t consider that evening to be something special so during the past years I was pretty often alone, or just with one or very few other people.

So that was 2011. Very interesting year. The first half was so awesome, and then there were a few not so nice months, or well the rest of the year just sucked but that I got my dream internship was pretty awesome. But the year didn’t end so well. My laptop sort of broke and I might need a new one. Just good that I still have my 7 year old laptop, so at least I can get a little work done, but the monitor is partly broken, you can get any sounds, so no tv or movie watching and you can’t really do two or more things at the same time. So I need a lot of patience. And well it took me 3 days to find out why my laptop wasn’t connecting to the wifi at the hostel.

Work hard. Have fun. Make history.

So 3 weeks ago I started my job at Amazon as a warehouse aid for the Christmas season and well... it is as hard as I expected but worse is that we live about 45min away from the company in a tiny village without internet and even cell phone reception. Who would have thought those places still exist in Germany? But since I really need the money I try to survive till Christmas. Even though my feet hurt so badly every night after work since I walk about 20k each day. I work the evening shift from 3pm till 11:30, which means getting very late to bed, getting up late. This is nice since I can sleep long but I miss the whole evening. But I would miss it anyway since my roommates who have the morning shift go to bed at 9pm since they have to get up at 4am again. And last but not least I met some nice people who make the time bearable. I live together with 2 girls and two boys in a small holiday cottage which is actually not bad, apart from the fact that I never wanted to share a flat again. But I made a good choice with my house mates so it is ok for 6 weeks.

Better late ...

than never.

So I wish everybody a belated Happy St. Nicholas Day! I hope you guys cleaned your shoes and got a little treat. I didn't cleaned my shoes but still got a chocolate Santa and some cookies from my area manager at Amazon. I really liked the idea, especially since I completely forgot that it was December 6th already. Time really flies.

So and for all the Finns and friends of Finland a belated
Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää!!!
It's now 94 years ago that Finland gained independence from Russia. Usually I sit (like many Finns) in front of the telly or computer to watch the Independence Day ball in the presidential palace. And like all girls i just watch it becasue of the dresses and to check how many people i know. Still surprising that the number is usually quite high even when the members of parliament are coming in. but never ask me about German politicians. ;)

Finally good news!

Today I got a lot of e-mails, usually 99% is crap and well today wasn't any different but there was one very interesting e-mail.
'I’m pleased to inform you that we have chosen you for an internship' was all I could read then I screamed and did my famous happy dance. :D And I still can't believe it. Finally I am blessed a little bit too. Was about time after all the good deeds I did this year. ;)
Anyway if I get through the security scanning I will start in January my 2 months internship at the American Consulate General in Leipzig. :D
Cool, isn't it?

So well I had an interview there in Tuesday, so well yeah nothing exciting to tell about that. And that's why (more or less) I am in Halle now, visiting a friend who I haven't seen much in the past years since she was living abroad and just recently returned to Germany. So I stay here till Monday and then return to my parents.

But hopefully not for long.

I will try to find a job and flat in Leipzig now since I can write my essays and thesis practically anywhere. And well anywhere is better than at my parents place so wish me luck :D