An open book

Let me introduce myself: My name is Svenja and I am an open book.

Yesterday at work we had our first official team meeting. Until one week ago we were all just one big family with three team leaders. Since we will get 50 more colleagues by the end of July we were divided up into teams.

So, yesterday the first meeting. Our team leader had the idea to hand out three little papers to each one of us on which we were supposed to write three secrets about ourselves. We had one hour time during work to come up with ideas. While my team mates were most worried not to share something too private with the team my problem was rather: I don't have a secret. I say what I think, I say what I feel and although I have just been at that job for a little more than two months most people already know quite a lot about me. Since I was little my mother used to warn me not to share too much personal info with strangers but apparently up to this age I haven't managed to hold back. Apparently this is who I am, this is how I roll. If I was a celebrity I would be all over the tabloids and papparazzi don't even need to follow me, I would probably tell them everything straight away and take the pictures for them.

Maybe I should try to be a little bit more careful, the world is cruel to naive girls who assume that everyone is nice and honest. Personal information is such a valuable thing and it should not be available to everyone who is asking for it (and in my case not even asking for it). It is the constant struggle between knowing one thing and doing the other thing, between heart and brain.

I am not sure if me being so open is a good thing or not, but all the time fighting who I am does not seem like the right track either. Some people might find me overwhelming and too talkative, but I am not aiming at being everybody's darling. First of all because it is impossible to be liked by everyone and second: why would I? I used to have classmates and friends who were changing their opinion depending on who they were talking to. I wonder if you are still able to have a really own opinion after all if you keep on changing your direction like a little flag in the wind?

So my colleagues wrote down things like "I like traveling", "I like vampire movies", "I am married" and "Globetrotter" while I wrote down "Have recently been heartbroken", "I am terribly scared of clowns and spiders" and "I hate making mistakes because I wanna be faster at work". While most of my colleagues wrote quite general things on their papers it was rather difficult to guess who wrote what. On the contrary it was very easy for the others to guess which notes I had written. Again, I am an open book!

Good night dear friends!

To hell and back

Today, on the last Saturday before Christmas, I had the semi-smart idea to go to the city center. And believe me, I should have prepared myself for a war-like situation. I just wanted to get some Christmas cards and since my family and me decided to have another Christmas without presents, I had forgotten that everyone else is still doing the annual shopping for presents. When I arrived at the mall, the main entrance was closed as there was too much water from melted snow. The whole floor was basically 4cm under water. So I had to walk aaaaaaaall the way around the mall to the other entrance. I was not the only person, moreover I was in a bunch of some 100 people. Arriving in the mall some idiot teenage boys threw their milkshakes down from the first floor onto the people below. This time I got lucky and nothing hit me, but some other people looked quite disgusting after the milkshake attack.

When I finally got back home, which took a while since the tube didn't work anymore and I basically walked one hour home, all I wanted was food, some nice wine and something funny to look at. Luckily my sister supplied me with some fun animals clips. Oh and in the supermarket the usual thing happened again: As soon as little Svenja goes alcohol shopping, people get a huge interest in my ID. I picked a nice wine and went to the cashier and she kept on looking at me, not constantly but every once in a while while she was scanning all the other items. In the end I just asked her "Do you wanna see my ID?" and she just answered "I was not sure, if you would count it as an insult but I am really not sure if you are old enough..." Note for foreigners: buying wine in Germany is allowed from age 16. 

I say cheers to that!

Back to business!

Soooo, finally, I have something to do again. This week I started my new job at an amazing company. So far I am more than happy: a company full of opportunities, like-minded people (most of us are "home-comers" to Germany and spent a lot of time abroad; also many people from abroad), working language is English, yummy lunch at the office, new office building, big fruit baskets, chocolate surprises for Saint Nicolas' day etc. It is pretty much the kind of working place that I have been searching for a long long time. I am still kind of adapting to being back in Germany and being in the one city in which I never wanted to be. However it does not feel bad at all, especially since I am living in a very handy location close to the subway stop (it only takes me 20 minutes from my house to my work place: booyah!), all kinds of bars, restaurants and nice shops. It is also a cozy apartment with high ceilings and timber floor boards. I think what also helps my transition is that I am surrounded by foreign languages pretty much all the time. 

This first week is dedicated to training, which means that we need to learn a lot about the booking system, regulations, the company and hierarchies. I am completely pooped every evening and feel like going straight to bed at like 7.30pm. After two months of no routine whatsoever getting back into a daily routine can be a little tough. Don't get me wrong: I am more than happy to have a routine again and so much input! Getting those rusty braincells back into action! Also getting to know so many different and yet so similar people is amazing!

Friday is the first test to evaluate how much we could actually remember. Since I need to apply all those new things soon, I better study a little tonight!

TTYL

Car talk

We had that chapter before: my car. I believe after 21 years even a Volvo gets tired (although my Swedish friends keep on disagreeing with me on this matter). However, I brought it to the shop a couple of weeks ago just to have some weird sounds checked out. There was squeaking, rattling and a problem with servo steering. Well and of course my windshield wiper went missing on the motorway (ooops). I told the car mechanic to not fix anything but to give me some estimates before taking care of anything. Well, the number came and I would have been very thankful if he would have told me to sit down first: 800 Euros! The breaks are apparently fucked up and get stuck all the time, the windshield wiper motor broken and a hole in the exhauster. Great! I asked him about the squeaking noise and the difficulties with the steering. He didn't check that. And my assumption, that it could have something to do with the v-belt and the hydraulic pump just made him look at me as if I was annoying him. Well I decided to not have anything fixed after all, since 800 Euros would exceed the actual worth of the car. 

This weekend I visited a very capable engineering friend who took a look at my car. First thing he found: a 1 meter long rusty piece of pipe, just lying around in the motor compartment. It belonged to my air filter. Second thing he saw: the loose v-belt and the hydraulic pump are in each other's way as soon as I am steering causing that annoying noise and making steering the car as difficult as pushing a tank. Thanks, my car mechanic, for not even having a look into the motor compartment!

Instead of paying 800 Euros we got a new pipe for 24 euros and by this got rid of noises and difficulties. The breaks can indeed be loosened with cobbled stones. And who needs a back windshield wiper?

But cars seem to be a man's world and the only way for girls to be allowed in it is to wash it.

C'est la vie

It always happens towards the end of the year, that pretty much everyone of us starts reminiscing about the past year. It is also time to evaluate achievements of the year, all the ups and downs, our friendships and so on. It is also often the time when we start getting back in touch with people, at least I tend to do that. Today I heard some really really good news from the other end of the world, but also some sad news from loved ones. It often seems like good news are accompanied by bad ones, just to keep the universe in balance.

2010 hasn't exactly been my year. Most of the things went down the drains in pretty much all parts of my life. After half a year of searching the only job I found was working as marketing assistant, which is not my thing really. The "company" was crushing my spirits within a matter of days, which made me quit something for the first time in my life. And I really tried hard to get along with it. The fact that EVERYONE I worked with has also quit by now says something about the quality of this work place. Then there was trouble in apartment-heaven of Stockholm, which resulted in me being kicked out of the apartment thanks to a stupid little mistake of my landlady. Then there was the third break-in into my car since I am in Stockholm. Before that the back windshield wiper was bend down and the valve of one tire was kicked off. The only thing the thief could get from my empty car was the user manual of Volvo in German. Congrats! Packing up my stuff, leaving Sweden. Packing the car I also ended up with a parking ticket for standing in front of the house two minutes too long. That pretty much closed the deal of me leaving for good. (btw: never paid that ticket!) I simply had no idea anymore what would hold me in Stockholm. Most of my friends wanted to leave soon anyway and besides the fashion industry and the daily styling inspiration on random people there was nothing to keep me from leaving Stockholm for good.

The fact that I really don't miss Stockholm besides the good shops and the few friends left there tells me that it was the right decision to leave.

 

Since two months I am back home, living in my home village and it just happened last week, that something finally happened. I got offered a job at a fantastic company and I will start next Monday. I am so grateful to finally get something to do again. The bonus is that I will start before the years ends which will give me the chance to start 2011 with a brighter outlook. And I will also start exactly one month before my birthday, which I also take as a good omen.

In the meantime I kept myself busy with language courses, visits of job fairs, going to the gym, visiting friends and relatives and taking care of bureaucratic work. Admittedly I had to get used to doing everything a little slower. It was good to slow down for once. The hectic will come back faster than I wish for.

I had made so many plans for going traveling in South America but sometimes unforeseen factors enter the calculation with the result: change of plans. I was really looking forward to taking half a year for traveling, learning new languages, enjoying the company of many different people but also the luxury of being completely on my own. Change of plans does not mean, and that is for sure, that I will not take that journey someday. Just for now I need to be reasonable, start working for real, get experience, enter a new city and save up some money for the one big trip, which will come for sure! I already had the chance to meet so many fantastic people, that I want to visit: Brasil, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Scotland, China. The travelbug has bitten me a long time ago and I am convinced that this bite is incurable!

Until I indulge my travel passion again I will be happy about my new job and the new beginning!

How to fix a car

Recently I had to realize that 21 years are a high age for a car. Last year I had a few things fixed to get it through car inspection once more. Exactly one year later I had to see the shop again because the car started to make funny noises. Turns out that the exhauster has a hole, the breaks got kind of stuck so they make a squeaking sound and on top of that my back windshield wiper first got bent down by an idiot (by this the motor of the wiper also got damaged) and afterwards I lost the dangling wiper on the motorway. Ooops! All in all: it would have been expensive. The costs would have exceeded the actual value of the car.

Yesterday I could actually fix the breaks: A street of cobblestone. No squeaking sounds anymore, woop woop.

Maybe I can fix the hole in the exhauster with chewing gum or gaffa tape, who knows :-)

SIGH

Maybe it is the time of the year, when everything seems a little dull and grey. Or maybe it is just my situation but I am getting frustrated... mostly with myself and my inability to make a decision. Although one decision has been made: I want to work instead of traveling. I need something to do! I tried my best to keep myself busy with short weekend trips and language courses but it is simply not enough. Admittedly I am not 100% behind my decision but it seems like the best thing to do right now. Work, earn money, gain experience, feel needed etc.

And just when I am all in my thought, completely occupied with myself I read the news: yet another suicide bomber in Istanbul and now I am all worried about the dear friends, who live there and pray to God that all of them are fine. All of the sudden so called "problems" seem so little and minor that I nearly feel embarrassed for my meaningless worries. Because after all I still have quite an amount of good things: love, health and choices!

Now I am off to the airport with my mum, getting some nice temperatures into the system in the south of Turkey. Good way also to get deeper into my Turkish language studies and trying my best to apply it.

So, stop sighing and start being happy instead:

Business before pleasure?

With 26 the law considers me a grown-up. I often wonder what being a grown-up actually means. Being reasonable? Making smart decisions? Knowing what you want? To take responsibility? This all sounds so vague and some children might actually be smarter and more reasonable than me. It has been more than a year ago, that I graduated. Writing down my CV I realized that up until my graduation everything went pretty smooth, no gaps on my CV, all pretty much exemplary. It is everything that happened afterwards, that worries me. Since 15 months I am hanging in mid-air, only managed to work for four months in a place I kindly describe as "hell on earth" and I quit it to avoid going insane. Searching for a job for more than half a year and ending up in that terrible place, quitting after only a few months shattered my belief in Sweden which is why I dropped everything and left. Now I am back in Germany, back in my old room, back at the start and I wonder how to continue. There are two options: work or travel, which can also be described as the decision-making-process between reason or fun.

I was surprised to find out that my hometown offers plenty of amazing jobs, so much has changed around here or I simply see everything in a different light. However it would seem like such a failure to return to my small hometown after all the beautiful places that I was allowed to see, after all the the amazing people I was able to meet, all those exciting experiences I could make and start working here.

I of course checked plenty of job databases but no matter in which country I want to work, I will always be a foreigner. This is certainly very exciting but Stockholm taught me, that foreigners, no matter their qualification, are not always welcome. (Blimey for taking a little longer to realize this, call me naive) Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Stockholm people are racist, that is not my message, but in my field Swedish people were always given preference. How do I get that impression? Simple: If a job ad fitted me perfectly well, let's say it required an education in the field of media and communication, some internships as experience would be sufficient, working language English and knowledge in one more language and so on... in the end it would say "Swedish mothertongue is demanded" even if it is not needed while executing the job; meaning: please no applications by foreigners. Even if it might not have been meant that way all the time, it was easy to understand it that way, especially after 6 frustrating months of searching and application-writing. BTW: why was the job ad in English if they could have written it as well in Swedish to exclude people with no Swedish knowledge?

The big question is still unsolved: What should I do now? I don't know if it is a German way of thinking but by age 26 you kind of expect it from yourself and you are expected to either have a family or a career. But is this still a realistic expectation? Why do I have the feeling that all my achievements of the past years are worth nothing just because I hit rock bottom in Stockholm?

Traveling seems like the wrong thing to do, so incredibly irresponsable, I should work instead and get some working experience. What the hell, I only have one life and I should enjoy it and as long as my life circumstances allow me to do whatever I like, why shouldn't I, right? But I also don't wanna travel and suffer from a bad conscience from all the "should's". To feel a little bit better and to trick myself I applied at a few jobs to see my chances on the German labour market. If no one wants to hire me, I can go travel without bad conscience though a little worried.

When did life become so complicated?

 

tic-tac, tic-tac, the clock is ticking

My weeks of preparation are starting: my apartment is terminated, I found a potential buyer for my car, besides some small things I already sold my furniture and now I finally need to decide on my traveling route. I first thought that a round-the-world-ticket would be the smartest, but since I want to focus on central and south America a multi-stop ticket apparently is the smartest choice. Oh well, still a lot of things to figure out. There are so many beautiful countries, that I want to see. But where to start? And how to travel? Sometimes some limitations can be good because the possibilities can be overwhelming.

It is very easy to underestimate the whole planning-process: vaccinations, contact lenses, sorting out which clothes to pack... all kind of minor things but still, they require some thinking ahead. Although I am super excited to travel alone, I am also a little nervous because I know that bad stuff can happen and I, of course, want this experience to be the best time of my life. Luckily a friend of mine recommended that amazing website to me. It is called www.travelettes.com (backpacking in heels) which is a website from girls for girls. Since hours I am reading all the entries, which includes tipps on how to best pack your backpack to some safety rules to avoid being robbed the first day, how to save money for upcoming trips and so on.

I will continue with my research and hope to be more clear about my destinations soon...

This song is accompanying me lately:

Living in a globalized world

Most of my friends and me have one major thing in common: we left our home countries to travel or to live abroad. Once one starts with traveling it honestly becomes difficult to stop. This is of course not a bad thing, especially since there are so many wonderful places to discover. Just to be clear: I am not talking about 2 week all-inclusive kind of holidays, but long journeys of a couple of months or moving into another country entirely. 

But, as always, there are two sides of a coin. With every journey one gets to know new people, new traditions, new cultures, new difficulties and excitements. On the other hand, with every further journey you loose friends, or let's say companions, which apparently were only meant to be in your life for this particular period of time. This also concerns relationships. How many relationships broke in my surrounding mainly because it started in one country and then one of the partners went back or somewhere else and the couples tried making the long distance relationship work... unfortunately often this did not go too well. I am loosing my faith in those kind of long-distance-relationships. I admire those couples that actually manage to stay together and after years finally manage to move to one country and start their settled lives. It is good to know that it CAN work but still, they seem to be the exception. Or it was meant to be, whatever this mystic sentence actually means.

Well and for all of us, for which it apparently is not (yet) meant to be: what is left to do? Enjoy the time as a single, live life to it's fullest, enjoy meeting people, enjoy being at amazing places because one thing is for sure: starting with the settled life can happen faster than expected and often happens when you least expect it!