...

I don't really get why I always have to defend myself, why I always need to say what bothers me or what I really like... It would be much easier to just shut up and don't react. 

Today was one of those days... I don't know what to say. Because of the reasons above I always end up as the loosing part no matter if I'm right or wrong. Mostly people agree with me (in secret, when talking face to face) but if it comes to the confrontation they go the easier way while I will be left - sticking to my opinion.

Even if people admire outspoken people - they would never ever risk that themselves. Why I will always be on the loosing side they will always win. They don't even care that they didn't stand to themselves, the other way is so much easier.

So the lesson I learned today was once again: Don't trust anyone - even if you think you are friends...

My chaos morning with the Pope - taking me to Hamburg

Today something funny happened, which I definitely have to write about. I woke up far too early but couldn't sleep anymore so I decided to go to work to get some paperwork done before the others arrive. When I drove I realized that the pope would be in town today, which actually doesn't effect me - I thought.  I left home 6:10 am

I had to disagree when I saw that the street was closed 3 minutes from my job around the Bellevue castle, since the pope would be there (I learned later), so I turned to the right, turned left, decided to let my GPS do the work, which I programmed while I was driving. So it send me right, left right .... through a street I knew was not close to my job, but the GPS has to be right - I thought. When I entered the motorway I doubted that this was the right way, since I was almost passing my home again ..... but I couldn't leave it at this point... which I did when the GPS suddenly said please go on the next 30 km.

30 km??? what was wrong? I left the motorway, parked the car and checked the GPS to realize that my "favorite" button for work was right under the button for work Anja - Hamburg. So I was almost going to Hamburg. 

Of course most of the city was closed when I finally noticed my mistake and got back in the other direction, which took me all in all 1,5 hours / normally it takes 20-30 minutes .... When I arrive at work it was 7:30 am ...

Geez what a day... I had the thought while I was driving that I would have converted to another religion if I was catholic today :))

sunny Sunday

... this week in numbers:

- 60 to 65 times of work

- one day with 18 hours

- one day with 13 hours

- 3 days with approx. 10 hours

- 2 viewings that were planned

- 1 that took place at the end

- 20°C today and a sunny day, which makes me longing for summer

- 1 friend that celebrated her birthday

enough of that ;) today was a good day I slept longer than the past weeks, which is just an indicator for how stressful the past week was. The viewing that was planned today didn't take place because the agent didn't show up... so I spent the rest of the day in Spandau, walking along the water, enjoying the sun.

Now I'm working on my secret project, which I'm behind with a lot... the plan was originally to have it ready by now, but plans never work out so I just have to work a little more on that.

Let's see what the next week will bring...

great seminar

so now I'm prepared ... the past 2 days I had a seminar about evolution and leadership, which was very interesting and gave good perspectives on things but it also showed what is not so good in the current structure of our company. I got a lot of input and now I have to deal with that. I leaned that I have to breathe when the world just seems to tumble down on me and esp. before I reply to provocative emails. The question is if I have the time to really do that in the every day work. time will tell, but I just wanted to write that even after a 6-days-week it was worth it. I feel strengthened now ... so far ... reality will tell ;)

I wish I could scream out loud ...

.... today was one of the days I got headache from all the stress I have around me ... nothing is as worse if colleagues are trying to get you down ... I'm not going into details, but I have 2 of those who see it as a sport to put me under pressure ...

Today I worked from 8 to 7 and I can tell I'm totally exhausted ... I feel like I have worked like 48 hours in a row. So since I'm not at work tomorrow (I have a seminar tomorrow and on Saturday) I had to finish certain works. I got an assistant since monday but she has to be fed with information and instructions before she can work, so this doesn't make things easier, even though she is a nice person and very eager to work.

Anyway today was one of the days I wished I had a room I could walk into and just scream ... a punching ball would be fine too.

So enough complaints for today

travelling

Another day of having been in Oberhausen. Since yesterday I have an official cold ... I'm sneezing the whole day, so I skipped choir yesterday due to that fact, the fact that I was going up at 4 am today and I was sooooo tired. So I went home directly.

I was also tired today, so the cold has conquered my whole body right now, but now I'm save home. I didn't have to take the last flight today since there was none at 20:45, so lucky me had to catch the one at 18:50 which meant I was home by 20:45, when I usually take off.

It wasn't that much today besides work that happened so I won't bore you with work.

Oh Anja has a cold too, I really hope she is gonna be better soon :)

Job move

I'm totally exhausted. Today was day 2 of our job move. We are moving north of the city into the centre of Berlin. The move is actually ongoing the past 2 weeks. Which means that you started to sort your stuff, throw away a lot. I found out that I am a messy. I have no idea why but I collected tonz of file lables the 4,5 years I'm working there, so that was the first what I put into the bin :) Yesterday was the first big moving day, when we put all our files into boxes and the moving company took them out of the office.

We have been growing a lot since I started there. When I started working in that company I was one of 6 people, now we have working stations for 35.

Today was the second day of the move, which means the first day in the new office. The furniture came and along with it all the boxes. So it was more or less navigation since the last changes of seats has been made today. And I connected some computers.

I love my new office. From a seven people office I moved into a 2 persons office and one seat is still empty.

My feet are aching so much as if I had been walking the whole day. Tomorrow is the last day of the move. All my colleagues will come and put their files and stuff at their places :) Nothing is more exciting than the first day in a new place :)

When you think it can't go on ...

... then you are in my shoes lol... I have been to our new office today. It's 3 weeks now until we move. If you ask me I get the best office out of all that I have seen from the whole space :) I will sit there with someone else, which means we will only be 2 people in the office. Currently we are almost sitting on each other with 7 people in one room, that was originally planned for 4 people. I can't stand it anymore, it's loud and hard to work there esp. when you have things to do which need high concentration. So that is a big plus.

And I worked so much again this week, although it was only 3 days long. Thank God I went to the gym on Tuesday when I was off, since I worked until 7 the next 2 days and today from 7-4:30 I'm totally exhausted...

ok enough complaints :)

Sunday is almost over

... and I start to get a little nervous about tomorrow. It's always like that if I haven't been at work, no matter if I traveled or was sick or whatever the first day or better the night before the first day I can't sleep. I don't know why. I wake up every 2nd hour at least and feel bad the rest of the day. Tomorrow I will go to the choir again.

I feel still a bit weak, but that can be the case because of the fact that I still don't have any appetite and didn't eat that much the past week. We will see what will happen tomorrow when I'm in my regular times again, without 10 hours of sleep.

I'm still working on my secret project and I'm like 2/3 through it. It feels good :)

So I will enjoy the rest of what is left of Sunday, maybe watch a movie, write some emails and go to bed early :)

Not that much today, huh?

... at work

Friday the 13th is a bad day in Germany ... wonder if the other countries have something like that as well. It is said that you have bad luck on those Friday 13ths. Today it was Monday 13th .... which doesn't seem to be any better than Fridays. My day started with the fact that I woke up too late... which meant I missed the bus, the later bus didn't even arrive and I had to walk to the underground to be at work in time, which is until 9 am.

I had 2 meetings which filled my whole morning + reading aaaalllll those 2 million emails I had gotten in the 2 days I wasn't at work. And because I came late I decided to leave early. I met a very smart person this weekend who told me I should change my life lol so you can see that as the first step. I left work at 5 and went to the gym. I sent out the first CDs as well before the gym.

Now I feel relaxed because I'm totally exhausted and will soon be off for bed :)

Tomorrow driving lesson part 1 this week :)

hugs
/Jessi

Snowchaos in Germany and I in the middle

What was supposed to be a regular business trip turned out to be the pure nightmare for me ... I ended up in Germany's snow chaos, was caught in Düsseldorf, missed flights and a concert I was longing for so bad. But I will start right from the beginning.

When I went on the plane on Wednesday everything was fine, the flight took off almost in time and nothing seemed to be wrong. I took the first flight that day and was supposed to take the last one that evening. While I was working my colleagues that called told me that there was a lot of snow coming down in Berlin. I didn't suspect anything by that time. I checked the website of the airline and no late flights were shown. At 5 at the evening my flight was suddenly shown as 3 hours late. My colleague and I thought about going to the station and check if trains were going. But before we were going there I tried to reach the airline to ask how big the chances were that the flight might get cancelled. I had been at this point last week already.

But the airline support told me that everything was fine and that the flight wouldn't even be late, it would take off just in time. So we headed the airport. We should better have listened to our gut feeling, because when we went through the security check the flight was still shown as going in time. 10 minutes before the boarding the flight got cancelled because of bad weather in Berlin. We were supposed to get to the airline information to get further information how to go on. I was already already in alert since I wanted to go to Sweden 1 day later to see Jenny Berggren perform her X-mas show.

When we were standing in a looooong row someone from the staff told us we could only change flights to the day after or cancel them. We decided to go to the train station and stop standing in line since this wouldn't bring us anywhere. So we went to the cab stand, jumped into a car and told the driver our destination. He refused to take us there since the internal skytrain would also go there, the driver would just make 2,5 € and would have to wait another 2 hours for the next guest. He literally threw us off the cab and we ran to the sky train to be taken to the station.

There we found out that the night trains were fully booked and that the first train we could take would go at 5 am. So we booked ticket. After that we went back to the airport to see if there was anything we had to do to get the money for the tickets back. There they told us that also all the trains wouldn't go due to snow. It was like someone was opening a huge hole under my feet ... I felt that I was almost fainting - this couldn't be true...

All we could do is to book the flight to the day after. I told the woman at the counter that I have to catch a flight to Sweden the next day and I needed a connection flight. I also told her that I wasn't going alone so we would have to take that into consideration as well. She found the last seat on the aircraft at 10.50 and I got a hotel room. We catched a cab and went to the hotel. My colleague got a suite ... I got a regular room, but I really didn't care. On one hand I was sure that it was a sign that I had gotten the last flight from the 10.50 flight on the other hand I was sure that I would miss the flight to Gothenburg.

I called my mom and A. so that they would calm me down, but it didn't help. At midnight I was still trying to calm down ... I didn't sleep at all that night. Made plans what to do if the plan wouldn't work out. What chance would I have? None ...

I awoke at 2 in the night ... at 3, 3.30 etc etc. I gave up at 7 although I had time until 8 to get up .... shower didn't help against the strange feeling I had in my stomach. I didn't have any dinner the day before and was still full, so I didn't really ate that much breakfast either.

I went to the airport at 9:30 again ... I went to the check in and asked if the flight would be in time. The man from the staff told me that it was as planned at the moment but if I ask him it wouldn't take off. But that was internal information. So I went to the security check. While I was standing there one of the men there whistled a song I knew from Swedish church. That is a sign I thought. Everything will go like planned. I went to the gate afterwards and there was the aircraft. I saw the pilot and the aircraft getting fuel. Another good sign. I called home and my mom told me that they had no snow and the streets were free. I told her that I see the aircraft and that I think we would board soon.

Suddenly the woman in front of me called someone and mumbled that the flight was cancelled. I went to the counter where the man from the check in was he looked at me and said that the flight was cancelled and that I should hurry to the information desk because he would release the information in a couple of minutes. While I was rushing to the information desk I called my colleague with the later flight and told him what had happened. I was the first at the counter and when it was my turn I was screaming at the poor person in front of me what was going on and how this all could happen. My colleague was with me in between and just looked at me. I asked her what to do and she said I can book you on the 13:05 flight but I doubt this one will start. I yelled again if she was kidding and that she should do her job to get me on my flight to Sweden. We decided to go to the station again to see when the next train was going. There we got to know that the train at 5.00 went like planned. "Shit" I thought because if I had taken that train I would have come to the airport in time.

Anyway the next train would go in 15 minutes so we went there. We had still the tickets which were still valid. The train was of course late too but we took it. I missed my flight to Sweden and the concert but arrived save home. I have never enjoyed arriving in Berlin that much...

Snow Chaos in Germany

Yesterday was a real shit day. I had agreed with my colleague that he would pick me up from the hotel later than usual since he had to pick up another colleague of me from the airport before.

I thought I could sleep until 7 at least ... 10 to 7 my work mobile rang - my flying colleague was still caught at the airport in Berlin - the flight was delayed because of snow in Berlin. Can you believe that? Why does winter always come as sudden as x-mas and b-days? No one knows.

But the fact that my colleague didn't arrive meant also that my other colleague was on the way back from the airport already to catch me up. So I jumped under the shower, did the fastes dressing session ever, put all my stuff into the suitcase and ran down to get some breakfast before he would arrive. I made it in time ....

My flying colleague arrived 2 hours later than expected, we had to postpone a meeting which became one of the worst ever. After that we managed some other things we had on the list. When my colleague was about to go I checked the internet and her flight which was supposed to depart at 4:45 had a delay of 40 minutes already.

While she was going back to the airport again I kept checking the flights .... mine at the evening had by that time a delay of 2 hours. The delays of both flights got worse and worse within the next hour. At the end my colleagues flight was from 4:45 on 9:33 and mine? mine was cancelled. I paniced when I read that I just wanted to go home. I had spent the last 3 days there, I wanted to go back, I had many tasks at work on Friday already and I had my driving lessons.

So I called my office in Berlin and asked if they could book a train ticket for me. I checked with my colleague at the airport and we decided to go together.

When I arrive at the train station the train was of course also delayed - how could we expect this wouldn't happen. Trains in Germany are always delayed even in the hottest summer, so of course also when snow is on the tracks.

We arrived late in the night and I was home by midnight ...

Freeeeezing - winter is here

Geez I'm still freezing .... I'm just back from a tour through a lot of new properties which lasted 2 days. The fact that the temperatures went down drastically from yesterday until today didn't make it easier. I was outside the whole day and I'm still cold. Now I'm at the next hotel since tomorrow is my regular day in Oberhausen. Yippi.

Catastrophy flight 6569

What a week .... It started a little not so stressed lol which means I had a "short" 8,5 hour day on monday followed up by a visit at the dentist. Yeah I finally made it for this year ... it was about time since I had to cancel at least 3 dates at the dentist during the year because of work (meetings and other things). So I didn't have that much time left until the end of the year. In Germany you have to go once a year to have the full insurance in case of damage lol

Tuesday ... was OK too I guess. I really have no clue right now how Tuesday was lol but I went to the gym, so it wasn't that bad. But I had to get prepared for the coming 3 days.

4 hours or sleep on Wednesday .... when I went to the bus stop I met first a huge dog which wanted to eat me (yes you know I'm afraid of dogs - so a running and jumping dog straight in front of me running in my directing IS scary) ... waiting for the bus stop it started to snow. It became worse when I had to switch to the other bus. The flight to Düsseldorf took of almost in time .... so just a small delay. I worked late this day since I had to go back to Berlin ... the flight back was delayed so that I was home around 11:15 p.m.

BUT the worst was actually that this night would also have only 4 hours to sleep since I had to go to Frankfurt the day after ... I had trouble keeping my eyes open during the seminar I was at. And afterwards we went to a nice restaurant so I was in bed around 11 p.m. I slept like a stone. Was late for breakfast the morning after ... another day of the seminar. When we were sitting there it started to snow ... and it snowed and snowed. Well compared to other countries it was probably just a small snowflake on the ground .... on Germany this is enough to delay flights and trains and everthing that is transportation.

So we came to the airport in good time .... when we arrived the flight was already 40 minutes delayed ... and this on a Friday evening ... usch. While we were waiting it went up to 50 .... the staff let us get on board .... we were waiting. Then people came to take the ice away. Now that was interesting .... I took pictures :)


It took a long time after that anti icing until the plane took off ... I was wondering in between if it wouldn't have ice again. All of us were hungry and tired when it finally was time for take off...

Anyway we were sitting in row 13 ... bad omen? The stewardesses came and served .. and right after I had my drink and snack the flight was about to land again .... which means to put the table back .... which means that my snacks flew through the aircraft since I tried to drink and grabbing some snacks at the same time. Tired and multitasking - doesn't work.

So I had to find a solotion for my things:


By now my colleagues must think I'm nuts .... it's not too bad taking pictures of EVERYTHING when Anja or some other friends are around ... but being with work colleagues is different.

Is this life?

I barely have one at the moment ... it's life I'm talking about. For the past 4 weeks I was travelling because of work and this will continue until x-mas as far as I know now. Those businesstrips changed my life a lot since I had to re-plan all my freetime activities. Change dates, make my driving lessons fit and everything else. When I'm home I'm basically just getting some sleep before heading to work or the airport again, since I try to fit in everything else in the time left.

I started to have sleeping problem's again and my mind feels totally blank some times. I start again to forget things, which is the worst of all since I normally remember small silly details. Currently my mind is written on post it papers everywhere so that I don't miss important things and remember the small things.

I was talking to my friend K yesterday and she told me that is life ..... this is life? She can't be serious I thought lol. If this is life I won't make my 40th birthday as it feels right now...

strange day again

well I'm still not here ... at least not my heart ... I guess I just left it somewhere in Sweden.

My feelings are still going up and down ... I hope it's the hormons lol and no depression or something. That wouldn't be nice.

Well, as I wrote earlier I have a tight schedule this week ...

Monday: Work + driving lecture
Tuesday: Work + doctors appointment
Wednesday: Work + driving lecture
Thursday: Work + gym
Friday: Work + driving lecture
Saturday: rehearsals with the band, dunno yet if I can queeze in some gym too
Sunday: first aid cours

Next week doesn't look better. At least I don't have to go on a business trip this week already. But next week it's time. To bad that my schedule next week actually doesn't look very different from this week. And at the end of August my church choir rehearsals will also start. I have no idea how I will manage that. This is also driving me insane at the moment.

If I'm not having stomach problems due to private stuff, this is doing the rest to keep my stomach busy and hurting. :(

Hugs
/J.

... B-A-C-K ....

Back again .... back on track ... back at home .... back at work ... back in my life.

I hate the first days after vacations, since this feels so surreal. I thought this would never happen to me again, after I decided in 2006 not to move to Sweden and stay in Germany to get a reasonable life here. And suddenly those feelings are back. It's not that I regret that I didn't do it back then, it's just that I right now wanna be there...

It's probably just because those 2 weeks of vacations felt so incredible good and I was enjoying myself so much, but I never had such a bad start at work as today. Normally I was happy to be at work again, to meet all my colleagues again. But today it just felt surreal. It felt like dreaming ... I just didn't know if I had dreamt the past 2 weeks or if I was dreaming today. I'm in a strange state right now.

Anyway I got beautiful flowers today and hundrets of hugs because of my birthday and then I also got a really cool present. They had collected money to send me to a special driving training when I finally have my dl :) This is gonna be fun to slide around with a car through water and ice :)

And it looks that I really will have my first business trip after vacations this week. This was kinda surprising. I will know more tomorrow I guess ... and I had so many plans this week already ...

second driving lecture

I wanna do as much as I can before I leave Germany on Saturday, so today I had the second driving lecture, the third one is gonna be on Friday. The topic was vehicles and people in trafic. Those theoretical lessons scare the hell out of me lol since the teacher says in every second sentence and if you do this and this you gonna be killed. And if you don't do this and this you gonna be killed as well ... So I'm sitting there scared at the table thinking geez so many possibilities to die.

Well I'm thinking too much I guess. The other "students" don't seem as scared as me and that scares me even more. lol well I'm a freak :) being a freak isn't too bad though.

Anyway as I wrote I wanna do as much as I can before I leave since when I'm back from Sweden I will get a lot of new tasks at work. One of them will be traveling to the uggly city of Oberhausen 2-3 days a week, because there is a new property situated I will take care of. It is huge and will be one of my new projects. Just for that I got ridd of all the other properties I had before except one. So right now I try to clean and structure as much as I can so that everything is gonna be ready when I am back.

But now it's holidays first .. just 2 more days to go :)

Hugs
/J.

back ...

I'm definately back .... holidays are over .... first day at work, I'm so tired. Although it was nice to be back at work again, at least the first hour lol then I realized how much I will have to do until the end of the week.

Anyway tomorrow I will pratcise some more running since on Thursday the next run is up ... 5x5 km for the company. We will run men against women, this is gonna be interesting although I don't think we really have a chance against the men :)

Hugs
/J.

Another long week .... and full of food

This week seemed it would never end ... although we had just 4 days of work, since Monday was holiday in Germany because of Easter. So I came back to work, after my small holidays (took 4 days of my rest holiday from last year and got 10 free days ... nice deal huh?) with the intention not to go into the stress life again and leave candy and sweet stuff aside since I had eaten far to much during Easter ....

My colleague was sick so that was the deal with the stress free time and my boss and another colleague brought cake and candy so even that itention was destroyed after just 3 hours at work on Tuesday. I went to the gym on Tuesday evening .... Ben cancelled our traing .... he is gonna suffer for that lol ... being at the gym felt good, even if I ran only 2 km this week at the gym ... the day after my whole body was aching. I hope that's the pain the muscles come from, otherwise I will be destroyed lol and will hate me for that waste of time hehe. Otherwise I worked quite a lot this week. So not that much to report.

Oh I made a new years promise ... don't even remember if I wrote it here but either way I'm looking for a new Church to go to. So I think I found one. Will attend the service there this Sunday and see if I like it. Would be so cool if they even had a choir. I long so bad singing in a choir again. I will keep you updated on this progress.

Tomorrow I will go to the gym again ... after that rehearsals and after the rehearsals Mary will have her house warming party in her new apartment. This is gonna be fun I think :)

That was my short update! Have a great weekend :)
Hugs
/J.