Cola Intoxication

Ok, sooo I drank 1.5l of coke within 1 hour something. And now I strongly believe I might be slightly intoxicated.

Because:

• I had some rather philosophical discussion with a friend on how Warhammer 40k (table top game, apocalyptical settings) reflects our world here and now. And it still seems coherent to me.
• I have serious mood swings. World hates me – loves me – hates me – loves me… no more petals left on the flower… “The flower hates me!!!!”
• My sense of balance is slightly disturbed. Fell down from my chair twice -.-
• I am some kind of hyperactive. Sitting on my chair, bouncing up and down. Second part of reason, why I fell down twice.

So, if any one wants to visit me right now, might be fun 😉

*Eeeeeeek* I. Am. Back.

Finally, I am back.

After I was really very sick last week, I am finally back to write here again. As I already wrote, I caught a virus infection, which hit me really hard. I spent last week in bed – literally. On Monday, my head was about to explode, my body was aching and my circulation was on a roller coaster ride. Going to the bathroom or the kitchen was an adventure to me. But luckily the pain killer (Thank you paracetamlol!) worked well, so at least I was able to sleep. In the beginning this was quite nice, until I realized, that sleeping all day would keep me up all night.. *YAY* Learning by doing. I spent the rest of the week staring at the ceiling.

Spending a week in bed is really far worse than taking antibiotics or something like that. I did not really have a social life for the bigger part of last week. First, because I didn’t want to pass on my sickness to others, second, because I had to stay in bed I did not have much chance to meet people and third, because of my headache I could use neither computer nor telephone. I wrote my thesis supervisor an email on wednesday – looking at a pc screen for about 10 minutes really boosted my headache beyond imagination.

On thursday, my sister called me, to ask how I was and we talked on the phone for about 2 hours – my head hurt like hell, but I was getting a little bit of social life! And I got a really great overview over the lattest gossip from her 😉 I don’t know most of her friends (at least I can’t remember faces belonging to the names) but now I know all the stories 😉

The only great thing last week: my two beloved silver rings turned up again. My ex-boyfriend found them in a seldomly used part of his backpack. I have been searching for those two rings for almost 2 years. If you read this: THANK YOU!

So for the next virus to hit me: please, no headache. Give me a fever and a severe cough, whatever you like, but don’t give me a headache. So at least, I can work.

Amd I was visited by Mr Murphy: no internet connection since some time last week. Now I applied for a key for my university building, so I can go there on weekends to work.

Virus

Ich liege diese Woche mit einer Virusinfektion im Bett. Der Laptop passt zwar mit rein, aber meine Kopfschmerzen sind schwerst eifersüchtig und dulden keinerlei Nebenbuhler (Monitor) Daher ist hier erstmal Pause.

Genesungswünsche und Mitleid in Tüten oder anderen Darreichungsformen bitte in die Kommentare – es wird alles gerne genommen 😉

Things not to do…

in an ambulance. No, I’m just joking. I have never been in an ambulance – and I hope I will never have to be transported by one. *crosses fingers*

… with your keyboard. Especially if it is a company’s keboard and you don’t know, how many users it had seen before you.

So let’s go back in time, let’s say one year. I was in Japan, and had huge problems with the new Japanese keyboard I had been given. For those, who have never had the pleasure to write on a Japanese keyboard: the layout for the letters is the same as on an American keyboard (QWERTY), but almost all punctuation marks are in different places. I am used to QWERTY-keyboards, as long as they have the same punctuation layout as an American keyboard, I can use it. The problem was: I was programming, and I simply could not adjust to the punctuation layout and thus made a lot of typos.

After complaining to very nice Admin-san, I was given a “new” keyboard which had an American layout. But in fact it must have been 8 years old or older. But I was happy – even though colleagues complained that my typing was rather loud now *gg*. To return to the original topic: one day I got bored and I decided to turn the keyboard to see what was hidden below the keys. Very. big. mistake. I found the usual deal of hairs and dust, but also loads of crumbs from cookies, pencil sharpening and some things, that might already be part of some serious evolutionary process again *yuck*.  And I found finger nail clippings. *EWWWWWWWW* Who clips his/her finger nails in an office? In public?… soooo disgusting *eww*

So one might think, lesson learnt, I will never ever do it again.

Not me. That would be far to easy. I am a little bored, waiting for my simulation results right now. Guess what I did? Right…

THERE WAS LOTS OF *YUCK* IN MY KEYBOARD!!!

Hopefully I have learnt my lesson this time…

Strange Vibrations

Currently, every 5-10 minutes my desk vibrates for some seconds. I am definitively not living in an area that is know for its regular earthquakes, so what the <favourite swear word> is it?

Maybe they are remodelling parts of the building and in case this is true, I truely hope, they know what they are doing. I am working on the second floor and I do not want to have my desk relocated to the cellar within seconds.

When working on my student’s thesis, I experienced a similar situation: every now and then the lab and adjacend bureaus would shake rather heavily. Shortly after lunch we discoverd that workers were breaking down walls in the cellar, as the cellar was remodelled for new labs and bureaus.

Me: What happens, if they remove a supporting wall?
S(upervisor): Well, we’ll have our bureaus in the cellar from next week.
M: What about our IT? (Our bureaus were on first floor, our IT admins were on ground floor)
S: Uhm – we won’t have any?

If this is the last entry for the next few months, I have been relocated spontanously 😉

PS: After one year in Japan I consider myself rather adapted to small earthquakes – but this is really getting annoying.

Suum quicue – Jedem das Seine

Via Tagesschau.de

“Suum quicue” is the short form of a quote attributed to the Roman philosopher Cato the Elder among others. The orignial version “suum cuique per me uti atque frui licet” translates to “as far as I am concerned, everybody should be able to use and enjoy what he owns” (my free translation as my Latin is a little rusty). Other famous Roman and Greek philosophers and politicians to which this saying is attributed are Plato and Cicero, albeit in a slightly different meaning or use. More information here: in English and in German.

As we all know, in mid 20th century some idiots took over power in Germany and misused the German translation “Jedem das Seine” and put it on the entrance of Buchenwald concentration camp as a cynical message to the prisoners in the camp. To add to this cynicism, it is meant to be readable from within.

Still, “Jedem das Seine” is a German saying, which means, everybody should be happy his way or should do as he thinks. People often use it to point out, they wouldn’t do something in a certain way but still approve of other people doing it like that. For example, if someone likes to put chocolate cream on his cheese sandwich, that would be a perfect case to use this saying. When I grew up, it was used quite often and I did never find people annoyed by it. (For information: my environment has always been very aware of historical facts.)

Sing when you’re happy?

Normally my budgies are allowed to fly around in my room, when I clen their cage. Last weekend they did not want to com out. Maybe they didn’t like that their were two human being instead of the usual one (me).

So I let them our today, as I really want them to fly around at least once a week. Up to now they have been sitting in their favourite place for more than 2 hours, looking quite fluffy and they have been singing all the time.  At times as a duett, at times one sang for the other.

I love ’em 🙂

Kenwood Commercial

I was bored. And I was surfing youtube….

Party update

Recently I have been to two really great parties at different local clubs.

Last Saturday (Jan, 3rd) I went to the Welle:Erdball-Party at $biglocalclub. As I really like Welle:Erdball, it couldn’t be too bad, and the dj also tried to be good at playing music (the dj who sometimes plays complete albums). He did a very good job mixing old and new songs, fast and slow, the club hits and the hidden diamonds 😉 . It was a really great night, but it was freezing inside the club. I don’t know why they didn’t turn on the heating properly. Maybe a technical problem or it was too cold outside or they had an event, which had been heated to much and too many complaints about that. Anyway, my clothing wast apt for this “room teperature” and even dancing did not help – so I left at half past two, being felling like a block of ice. I really enjoyed the hot shower at home.

Verbraucherschutz

Verbraucherschutz wird ja in Deutschladn groß geschrieben – und das nicht nur, weil die deutsche Grammatik eben die Großschreibung von Nomen verlangt. Bis 2005 gab es das “Bundesministerium für Verbraucherschutz, Ernährung und Landwirtschaft” – irgendwann haben die netten Politikerlein dann nochmal über den Namen nachgedacht und den Verbraucherschutz hinten dran gestellt. Es gibt auch die Verbraucherschutzzentralen, die mit diesem Ministerium mal rein gar nix zu tun haben und ein bissel aufpassen, dass die bösen Hersteller die armen Verbraucher nicht all zu sehr über den Tisch ziehen.

Die Definition von Verbraucherschutz wäre demnach: “Schutz des Verbrauchers vor <xyz>”.

Es geht aber auch anders. Wer hat noch nie widerspenstige Verpackungen gehabt? Plastikverpackungen, die sich nur mit brachialer Gewalt und unter Zersötrung des Inhalts öffnen lassen? Kartonagen, die als Rache für die Verwendung des Küchenmessers zurückschneiden? Auch das ist Verbraucherschutz, allerdings die meist ignorierte Variante, die eben nicht obiger Definition folgt. In diesem Fall ist die Definition von Verbraucherschutz: “Schutz des Produktes vor dem Verbraucher”.

Nun hatte ich meine Erfahrungen auf diesem Gebiet bisher nur mit künstlichen Verpackungen machen dürfen, aber seit dieser Woche weiß ich: es geht auch voll biologisch. Auch die mit dem Obst von Natur aus gelieferten Verpackungen dienen dem Schutz des Produktes vor dem Verbraucher. Die Clementinen, die ich diese Woche gekauft habe, besitzen eine derart widerspenstige und abpellresistente Schale, dass es kaum möglich ist selbige ohne Verletzung der dünnen Haut, die das Fruchtfleisch einschließt, zu entfernen. Ergebnis: jedes Mal eine Riesensauerei.

Das wird sie aber auch nicht retten, die sind einfach zu lecker!