So I returned from Dresden yesterday and jumped right back into online life… Didn’t even notice how much I missed it while I was gone – but now I don’t want to leave my laptop anymore. Luckily today I don’t have to go to uni yet! 🙂

The last two weeks were great. I loved staying with Märrie, the family reunion was interesting (surprised at how well we all got along), and the days spent in Dresden with Mami, Papi, and Michi were filled with good things. Will write a travel log entry when I get my hands on some photos (I forgot to bring my digital camera — I’m such an idiot sometimes!).

While I was gone, nothing much seems to have happened – I didn’t even hear from the ‘Salome’ prof about my paper, which annoys me somewhat. Can I write it, or not? Now I need to try and track her down to get an answer… Oh well, Real Life has me again. 🙂

I’m back in Basel, even if it doesn’t feel like it — it’s only two days before we have to leave for the family reunion, and I have hardly time to relax.

Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing – tonight is the BonJovi concert in Zurich, so Sibylle and I will spend the night there and will have a lot of fun! And I wouldn’t want to miss the days spent with Märrie. I felt so at home with her lovely family and we drove all over the place, seeing countless interesting things (Aachen, replics of the Chinese clay army, a Gothic club, an intact fortress above the Rhine) — and visited my grandparents’ grave to plant a rose tree.

I’d kill for a day at home, but since that’s not to be, I’ll stop complaining and try to do everything that needs doing (for example set up my new digital camera so I can share the few pics I took in Germany, go to the library, answer some emails, go to work, meet up with a friend, and of course pack for Dresden). I’m also trying not to melt in the incredibly heat (32°C).

I’m avoiding the internet at the moment, I simply don’t have the time — and knowing me, once I got started, I wouldn’t be able to stop… But this just had to be.

I will be gone the next week, visiting Märrie, one of my best friends, who I met online. She lives near Bonn in Germany, about five hours away by train, and we try to see each other every three months or so. Can’t wait to see her again! We always get along so great, it’s fantastic!

I’m leaving tomorrow morning, have been packing and preparing yesterday and today, and very glad to say that I managed to get everything done. Feel incredibly accomplished that I even cleaned my room and did my hand laundry… *g*

I’ll be staying with Märrie and her incredibly nice family until Tuesday – not quite as long as I’d have liked it, but we’ll spend loads and loads of quality time (aka giggling, talking, sightseeing and museums) together. I also would like to visit my grandmother’s grave, which is only about an hour from where Märrie lives. My mom has given me money to buy a rose tree and plant it there.

On Tuesday I’ll meet up with Sibylle (who’s visiting friends of hers near Cologne) and we’ll come back together, because on Wednesday we have to be in Zurich for the BonJovi concert. On Thursday I’ll have to work, and on Friday I’m leaving for Dresden with my family, for a family reunion. And sometime in between I have to unpack and repack and hopefully do some stuff for uni… Whee, busy life, that!

Not exactly my style, truth be told — I need time for myself, at home, and these two weeks are not exactly fun to me. Specially since I could do better things with my time than spend them with relatives I don’t really know. But I’m sure we’ll have fun anyway…

Wish everyone who might read this a good time! *hugs*

I’m sitting in class right now — webpublishing, to be exact. Only problem is — do I really need what he’s talking about? Do I need annoying javascript pop-ups that bother people? Didn’t think so.

I’m just a simple person, I don’t like fancy blinking buttons that change color and font. Knowing some javascript is useful, but so far, most stuff has either been unnecessary or so fricking complicated that it takes hours to write. Both is not what I, little Miss insta-site, want.

I’m still paying attention, though — from time to time he actually tells something interesting. Like now. So if my links start to change color, I might have mastered the art of the rollover… 🙂

Yes, this is another weather related entry — can’t help it, the weather is pretty much on everyone’s mind at the moment.

Working yesterday sucked, because the weather was gorgeous, absolutely fantastic — the kind of weather that makes a lot of people complain about heat and sweat, so altogether lovely. As long as one can enjoy it outside, that is. Working in it is horrible. But luckily it was still beautiful when I got off at 9pm, so I met up with my best friend Sibylle and we went to the Rhine, had a drink and talked.

It was still 25°C when I rode my bike home after 11pm.

Today started out great, too — I put on my favorite summer dress (which still fits me, after quite a number of years, yay! *g*) and settled down to research for my Salome paper (have I mentioned that I’ll probably write about the ‘femme fatale’ angle?). I wanted to be finished in the morning, so I could go to the open-air pool with a clean conscience.

Problem? At noon it started to rain. Or pour. And just maybe it’s thundering and not looking as if it’s going to stop any time soon. Great, just great!

Because what do you bet that it’ll be beautiful again tomorrow, when I’m stuck at uni? Yeah, thought so, too.

Unrelatedly: Been spending quite a bit of time trying to turn my palm into a reader. Found free programs for .prc and .pdf files — but unfortunately there’s nothing out there for Mac OSX that enables me to convert my own files into one of those formats (that is, I did find a site offering conversion into pdf, but Adobe’s palm reader doesn’t accept those files).

A pity — it would have been lovely to read on my palm during the train ride to Bonn on Thursday. Unfortunately the free reader Neil Gaiman offers on his website (which you should check out, btw!) is too big for my Zire palm. But maybe I’ll find a free e-book at MemoWare — I already d/led Wilde’s Salomé there and they seem to have tons of other stuff, too.

It’s amazing how much time I can waste playing around with techno gadgets like this — especially considering that I’m a complete amateur. As I said to my friend Cindy on Saturday, during our two hour phone call, all I’ll ever be is an amateur geek… *g*

Title thanks to Tori Amos (‘Carbon’), one of my favorite singers.

So it’s Saturday, the long weekend more than half over — and after doing virtually nothing yesterday (except some shopping, playing online and trying to find an alternative to the non-existant MakeDocDD for Mac OSX for my palm), I’ve been a bit more prolific today so far.

Mainly I read Oscar Wilde’s Salomé in the French original — thanks to the wonders of the net without having to pay a cent. Why I did that? Because while on the phone with my friend Sandra (who’s now in Turkey, the lucky girl!) yesterday I decided more or less randomly that if I write a paper for the Salome seminary in German Lit this semester it’s going to be about Wilde’s play. Simply because I adore Wilde and the other authors we’re covering aren’t half as interesting.

I really don’t want to write a paper at all — I have enough to do with preparing my field trip exercise to NZ in July, without fighting my way through a dull paper for a difficult teacher in a subject I could very well live without. But I want to finish my lic (equivalent to MA) in ten semesters, and that means at least one, if not two, papers a semester, in order to have time to write my Master thesis and prepare for the final exams. I don’t know if I’ll make it — most people take about 12 semesters, if not longer — but I want to try. And that means Salome.

My goal is to have at least a foggy idea what to write about next Wednesday, when the next class is. Wish me luck, I have no clue what acceptable subjects might be for the teacher…

It’s a bit strange that for me holidays and weekends often don’t mean r&r, but work. Of course that’s what makes my job ideal for a full-time student – but still, I can’t help but whine and curse when I have to go to work. Like now – it’s Ascension Day, and I’d love to laze about or meet up with friends, specially since the weather is better than yesterday. But no – I have to leave soon and will be at work until 9pm. Day over.

Luckily I can take my laptop with me and, although I don’t have internet access, I can at least write, read, listen to music and play around when things are slow. And they often are – not a lot to do at the reception of an old people’s home, it’s not exactly a hotbed of action. 🙂

And with that I have to get ready.

I haven’t done anything today. I only left the house to get some chocolate and chips, which I then proceeded to eat in front of the TV, while reading National Geographic. Only thing you could call ‘useful’ I did today was fold the laundry and set the table. Yes, seriously.

There are three reasons for that: first of all, I have the time today, nothing on my agenda at all; second of all, the weather was still not very appealing (see yesterday); and third of all, it’s the first day of “that” time of the month. So yeah, lazing about all day felt just about perfect today…

My mom came home from a conference in Croatia last night. She’s with the Swiss Baptist federation and it was a week long women’s conference somewhere on the Adriatic coast. Funny thing is that my dad left for another conference (something theological in Germany) on Monday, so they missed each other.

Mami brought me a pretty turqoise heart from Israel – one of the Palestinian attenders had given it to her. I love it – can’t wait to wear it, it’s light and summery and tells stories of the sea to me…

Why are my parents going to Baptist/theological conferences you might ask. Well, my dad’s a retired Baptist minister, with ‘Baptist’ not necessarily meaning the same thing as in the Southern states of the US, and my mom has become very active in women’s work and the Swiss Baptist council in the last few years.

My parents are pretty liberal and open-minded, specially for people their age (they met when my mom was 40 and my dad 44, so you do the math), and their religious efforts have always felt like something strong, loving and good, not restrictive at all. I feel lucky to have grown up in such an environment and it’s definitely had a big impact on me.

But I’m not going into my upbringing and my religious beliefs right now – too lazy. 🙂

The last couple of days the weather has changed from summery sun back to grey and drizzly and generally November. It makes me notice how much weather affects me, my mood and my general state of being…

I’m at home right now, although I’m supposed to be in my webprogramming class – but looking out I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house and get on my bike. Everything is so bland and dreary – and while I’m basically in a good mood, I’m feeling strangely lethargic.

All I want to do is curl up in front of the TV and eat chocolate (or whatever junk food is available). The sun hasn’t appeared for days, and that simply feels wrong, as if all my energy is sucked out of me. Luckily this week is easy, so I can pretty much indulge myself.

And inside it’s quite cozy, with warm yellow lights (at five in the afternoon) and hot tea…