Üstra-staff on strike
Yesterday the üstra-staff was on strike. That meant: no tram, no bus within Hannover for the whole day. The event was announced serveral days in advance, so people could prepare. What did I do? I decided to walk. Although it there wasn’t any new snow recently, pavements are often thickly crusted with ice. So going by bike with an almost flat tyre was not an option. So I walked. Maybe you are from Hannover? Maybe you saw me? Around 7o’clock in the morning, singing, doing dancing attraffic lights? Yes, maybe. I had fun 
I’ll do it again, when the staff is on strike.
PS: I had a whole day of fun at work because I was in an incredibly good mood. Although I walk slightly more than 1hour to work. And I don’t pout 
One week off
I took a week off last week and spent it with my favourite Christmas character 
.
We went shopping – I finally got chairs for my kitchen -, visited my relatives despite rather heavy snow and even went to Hannover Zoo, on the day they found the bomb.
During summer season Hannover Zoo is rather expensive, but currently with it being cold and snowy entrance fee is down to 7.50€. That’s really ok. So we decided to spent one day in the zoo. We had lots of fun, despite many animals being kept in their stables. We watched the giraffes licking some metal girder like it was finest food.
We watched the chimpanzees being fed by their keepers: the keeper would hold up various kinds of vegetables and fruits and the chimpanzees held out their hands, if they wanted some. The keeper threw them the food and they ate it. It was fun to watch because some were really choosy abotu their food. Also one female was in heat and the male head of the clan choose to take his chance while eating – and so was she *gg*. The gorillas and also the orang-utans had a very slow day.
Else it was the day of suprisingly non-zoo-like animals: the red panda and a Burmese python. I have seen both species in other zoos and they were sleeping. So in Dresden I only got to see the tail of the red panda, which hung from its hut and most zoo snakes make themselves into a heap and that’s that. Not last Thursday: the panda was out eating. Really cute! And the python was extensively exploring her cage and her possibilities in getting either me or Mr Nicolaus for lunch. After it found, there would be no special human treat for lunch she took a swim, sat on its colleague’s nose and went swimming again, while its colleague seemed to be thinking “wtf?!?” It was really fun to watch.
After we completed our walk through the zoo, we found we had missed the elephants. Weather was fine enough for them to be outside, so we walked back to the elephant area. There we were greeted by a nice young man telling us they just found an unexploded aircraft bomb from WWII and asked us to leave. On our way out, a member of the staff told us, we would get our money back, so we got our money back, and still enjoyed over 4 hours of zoo
Kendo Training 01-25
So much for new year resolutions! Last week I didn’t even join one training session. On Monday I was barely able to stand up straight due to being female and on Wednesday I horribly overslept and stayed late at work. Damnit.
But today, today I went to training. Unfortunately, it didn’t go well at all. I started feeling very sick during changing, but still didn’t want to skip training. I know – I am asking for something bad to happen. – So after the second round of kiri-kaeshi, I had to stop, because I could barely stand: I felt like I had to puke, I was shaking and had a gray tunnel closing in on me. Leckily I neither vomited nor collapsed, but I had to pause. After pausing I joined practice again – but I didn’t put on my men again. I still wonder why I feel so sick. Maybe I ate something wrong.
After re-joining practice I concentrated on doing nice ooi-waza, because trying to be fastest and stuff would have certanily knocked me out. I managed to complete the session, which was my most important aim for today and handling the shinai felt good, too. Other than that I still stick with my aims of last session.
PS: Oversleeping worked like that: I woke up thinking, why didn’t the alarm go off? I looked at the clock on my mobile – 5:10 – still 20 minutes to sleep! While turning around and pulling my blanket tight around my soulders, I realised that it was waaaaaaay to bright for 5:10. So another glance at the clock revealed: it was 8:10! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! I jumped out of bed, swaering at the alarm that didn’t go off and went into the bathroom to shower. I collected my towels and they were dripping fucking wet! So this is my assumption: I got up at 5:30, switched off the alarm clock, took a shower and went back to bed. Anyways, I had to shower again, because I had to wash my hair *sigh* Showed up at work at half past 9. Waaaaaay to late 
Football Cup
On Saturday a football cup for hobby teams from Hannover municipal authorities took place. I took place with a team of the voluntary firefighters.
Three weeks ago, while practicing iaido, my colleagues at the firefighters asked me, whether I wanted to join their football team. Actually, I have never been in a football team all my life, the last time I played may have been 15 years ago and I don’t own any useful equipment – let alone shoes. So three weeks ago I joined them and played barefooted and in my iaido attire. And it was fun! Really! I was told I had feet of steel 
.
On Saturday, we joined the football cup. There were 24 teams in four groups. Frankly, we lost all of our games making last place in our groop. But we had fun and we even managed to score a goal! It was really awesome and a day well spent, and we were lucky, that none of our opponents was rough . I really enjoyed my time.
Kendo Training 01-13
I went to kendo training yesterday. Yay! Second session out of two!
We did very nice basics training. Ôi waza und chîsai waza. I really liked the practice for the chîsai waza, because mine are really messed up. I have to do a lot more training on that. I also had some very nice jigeiko at the end of the training session. Sadly we didn’t do any kirikaeshi
ToDo:
- practice chîsai waza (hana ga mienai men)
- be fucking more relaxed (my shoulder actually are, now I am stiffening my upper arms and back *gnarf*)
- move the mono-utchi faster and have the shinai’s tip describing a large circle (like I was doing Iaido) (aim for the FAAAAAR furture: making a shinai do *swoosh*)
- Nihon kendo kata, sanponme: as shidachi I most often get the attack wrong
What I liked:
- I really had some good moments in jigeiko and used them pretty well (men utchi sounding *pock*: bright and clear *YAY*)#
- Nihon kendo kata, sanponme: getting uchidachi right
Bruise count:
- 2 visible ones on my lower right arm, one on the outside slightly above the kote and one on the inside
- one invisible bruise on my lower right arm, that hurts like fuck
So my main point for the weeks to come will be doing chîsai waza and ôi waza correctly.
PS: I have to repair my shinai over the weekend!
Kendo Training
My new year resolution: take part in kendo training regularly.
Yesterday I went to training, and it went quite well. At least I wasn’t as exhausted as expected. I have to practise Kihon Kendo Kata. That stuff feels so strange when done with a bokuto. Would be much more fun with Shinai and Bogu.
Still on the to do list: strike faster and smaller.
I’ll try to update on every training, so I can write down, what I think I should concentrate on.
Hownotto spend the night on Braunschweig Main Station…
I did something stupid. Really, really stupid – and luckily I only almost had to pay for it. *lucky me*
I gave myself a Iaito as a Christmas present – and of course I wanted to try it as soon as possible! Unfortunately, there is no Muso Shinden Ryu Iaido in Hannover, so I decided to visit the Löwen Dojo Braunschweig. They offer iaido. On Friday nights. I have a train ticket – my student transit pass, so: perfect. (You wish!)
After work I took the train to Braunschweig, which was already somewhat complicated: we have 20cm of snow. The first train available was already delayed by 30min – in terms of trains that means 35min, most probably more. At first the dely was only 20min, but that changed rapidly. So I took another train, and because I still had lots of time, I wasn’t nervous at all. This train was 2 min late in Braunschweig. So what? Who cares. *shrug*
In Braunschweig I learnt: last train back to Hannover 10.20pm. FUUUCKKK!!! Training ends at 10.00pm – I’ll have to leave early. Damnit! I still didn’t consider it a problem.
I waited about 10min in the freezing fucking cold wind for the bus, and about 20min later, I was at the gym. And then I tried to fin out, which bus to take home: like none. That was hwen I realized, I had not my way home! I started phoning my family, because I have realtives in Braunschweig, and my cousin said, he would drive me to the station, so I would reach my train back home. YAY! My family rocks!
But I was very,very lucky: Mr and Mrs Iai have to drive past Braunschweig main station on his way home, so he dropped me off, and I got my train home! My karma must be sky-high currently!
Training was awesome! We did basics to start with – everyone else’s strokes sounded *swoosh*, mine were silent, so I got lengthy corrections on my strokes and the footwork – then Seitei Iai Kata – I didn’t fail miserably – and for the rest of the training, we had free practice. I worked on the strokes and on ukenagashi, which is strikingly easy to do, if the foorwork is done correctly.I also learned how to do noto correctly: if you do it correctly it’s like “eaaasiyyyyyyy”. If you do it like I did before it’s more like “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! Why won’t this $§§&$%”/(“!!!! WORK!!”
Although I was pretty frustrated because I felt, I did everything wrong, I really apprediate all the corrections and explanations. I learned a huge load of things and this training has really helped me alot.I am really looking forward to the next training
Yesterday at my “private training” in the firefighter’s gym some strokes went *swoosh*. I did it I did it I did it. *bounce* At least I hope those strikes weren’t even worse than before
Christmas and New Year’s Eve
I spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve with Mr Nicolaus: more than a week for the two of us. Perfect! Well almost: we spent the time either at his or my parents’ house, so we had to take part in social events like having dinner together or sitting and talking. But that was okay. In return we were stuffed with the most delicious dishes and Christmas cookies!
On the 24th we went to Mr Nicolaus’ grandpa and had sausages, sauerkraut, potato dumplings and ginger bread sauce – sounds strange? Indeed! But it really is very delicious. It is a traditional dish from Silesia. Ans I am really looking forward to eating it again. $grandpa was really happy that I liked the food he had prepared.
We celebrated at Mr Nicolaus parents home in the evening. It was really cool. We handed presents to one another and obvously nobody was given junk and everybody was happy. I gave Mr Nicolaus a medium sized cuddly elephant, which he named ‘Elli’. I was so happy, he liked my gift. I had spent a horrible Saturday out in town, looking for a gift for him. Five hours of pre-Christmas shopping are clearly to much for me! I got a special edition box of Agonoize latest album. Totally cool!
On 25th we decided to go to the Dark Storm Festival in Chemnitz.:
- The opener (Felsenreich or the like) was crap. Totally. Really. Five people or six people standing onstage as if they don’t belong there and most certainly don’t know each other. The female singerwas to low, the guitar and bass player were completely stationary, the male singer marched around in circles, but the drummer partied like it was the last time in his life. Very strange experience…
- Eisheilg were good, but this type of very slow metal-something-music is simply not my favourite. But I really liked their lyrics, as far as I could understand the front man. Very political lyrics. Very nice.
- Letzte Instanz rocked. Anything to mention? In one song, the violin player had pyros attached to the tip of the bow. That was totally awesome! I wish I could play like him.
- Eisregenbrecher were next. Basically the music is cool. But the singer is enerving, and the lead guitar player looks like a freaking grinning zombie… stil. And they should have played before Letzte Instanz, because I didn’t really feel like partying. LI were so much better!
- PITCHIIIIEEEESSSSSSSSS !!!!!! MOSHING! PARTY! AWWWWWWSUM!
- Most difficult decision of the evening: ASP or Agonoize? Well, we had ASP twice this year, so we went to see Agonoize. We stood at the back on a podest or something like that, so we could see everyting. And it was soooooo cool. Well, I wouldn’t want to stand in the first few rows, because the “singer” spattered the audience with fake blood and fake cum. But they were incredible! Really cool.
After that we drove the remaining 400km to visit my parents, where we stayed until Jan. 2nd. I don’t need to say that we were spoiled by my parents as much as by his.
On New Year’s Eve we started the evening with the 3sat concert day. 3sat airs concert videos the whole day – 1hour per artist. We watched Jacko, Tina Turner(goddess!!!) and Pink. Then we had raclette and Krapfen. And at midnight we watched the surrounding cities’ fireworks. We didn’t need any of our own.
I really enjoyed this time very much. After seeing Mr Nicolaus only on the weekends, it was really cool to spend such a long time with him!
Search Engine Terms No 1
Some body came across this blog searching for coffin bdsm. O.O wtf?!?
I am really really really really really not interested in what your fetish exactly is. But I wonder, why you found this blog with it… Giving you some credit, you wouldn’t want to see the pictures in my head.
Will it help if I put soap in my left ear until bubbles come from the right ear?
Niger
Over the time I have been writing this blog, I’ve had some trackbacks which make it necessary to explain one thing:
Niger is (among other things):
- a country in western Africa
- a river in Africa, closely related to 1. or Nigeria
- a Latin adjective, meaning black
I have received some trackbaks due to number one, but I have to disappoint you: the meaning here goes by number three. “Papilio Niger” is Latin for “black butterfly”. So, my apology to everyone, who comes here, looking for stories about the Republic of Niger or Africa in general.
