I will marry Stuart Townsend.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in Hawaii in our fabulous Apartment.
		We will have 7 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a blue BMW.
		I will spend my days as a teacher, and live happily ever after.

With me being shiftless and tired all week I was really glad I had booked that ticket to Edinburgh. (I promised myself I would go there before Christmas and so I took a calculating look in my diary and got a ticket some time ago.)
On Friday I sneaked out of town at 5 a.m and spent a wonderful day in E. I did some X-mas shopping but mostly wandered around town and enjoyed the change of scenery and the much needed me-time (not spent in a little room in a strange smelling flat).

My credit card took some battering but what the hell - christmas is coming up after all. While sipping my afternoon tea I pondered the difference between "my" two cities. Edinburgh is probably the reason I am here - I fell in love with the city and then with Scotland. And it is a beautiful city and fantastic if you want go go on a shopping spread but back then I haven't noticed how touristic the town is - the High Street pretty much consists of kilt shops. I am not sure, which town I would prefer to live in - not that I have a choice and as long as it is only a 3 hour drive it doesn't really matter anyway.

Maybe I'll be able to make it a regular thing to get out of Aberdeen ever so often. It probably will do me a world of good. And not only Edinburgh, I also would like to see Glasgow again and I haven't been to Wales yet. And I really want so spend a week in London, maybe this time I'll make it to Tate Modern.

Anyways, by browsing through the shops on Princes Street I once again noticed how fashion-conscious people here are. Some of the styles created I would just call BRAVE but at least everyone seem to have a personal style!
I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the fact, that a size 10(38!) is desirable and a size 16 (44!) the "healthy norm". But you can say what you want about the "healthy sized women", I admire and even envy them a little bit. They are probably about twice my size and are not afraid to wear clothes I wouldn't even dream of just trying on.
That's probably why I am surprised about the low body self esteem the women here claim to have - there even is a campaign with the goal to teach body self esteem at schools.

But enough about that. Three more weeks to go before I can enjoy that much needed X-mas break (in which I am supposed to do some work for the drama group. Fuck this.).
Tomorrow the audit period starts and I am not looking forward to it at all - it means tons of stuff I have to correct and I am also a little nervous about the oral exams as in how to mark them.

- and so I went. But I just had about 4 hours of the beautiful city before I was locked up with the others to discuss the state of the UK German Departments and our minds. Both were pretty frightful.

It was really nice to meet the other girls (and the two boys) who are stranded on this island and I enjoyed all the different conversations. We might even do projects together, if we can find time to breath, that is.

By breaking the working habit I finally allowed the exhaustion to creep into my system and now I don't seem to get anything done - I just don't possess any energy at all. And I still have four weeks to go before the winter break. Just now I am starring at a pile of homework yet to be corrected and I swear it is lazily blinking back at me. I figure homework is pretty even-handed: The students are unhappy because they have to do it and I am unhappy because I have to mark it.

Flat hunting is going so-so. On the one hand I am happy because I finally found some flats at the "lower end of the market" as one estate agent politely put it, on the other hand: you have to be damn quick. So far one is already under offer, one is being currently re-altered and I have to arrange a viewing with one I found tonight. So keep your fingers crossed!

Oh, and by the way: The bird droppings are gone! Victory is mine! *does little dance*

Oh my. I just bought the most beautiful dress ever. And I never spent so much money on a single peace of clothing. I actually felt dizzy as I walked out the store. But that's all part of earning money and growing up, right? Right?

Tomorrow I have the drama group all to myself, because E. spends the reading week back in Germany. We'll work on the characters; we will keep us busy with developing background stories and such. I hope Crazy Guy behaves. It is hard enough for me to stay professional when he is just himself and not just collar and shake him.

I also seem to become slightly paranoid over the swine flu. I just had the IT Lady here and she fixed my PC will coughing and looking pretty ill. After she was gone, I pretty much emptied my bottle of Hand Hygiene Gel over the keyboard and everything else she has touched, including the doorknob.

I am not really in a productive mood I have to confess - I am on LJ - but I've got most of the important stuff done and at 5 pm I will go home to catch Alan Carr on the Paul Grady Show and then finish some of the work at home.

I had a pretty good week.

Saturday I went to an exhibition with serbian girl (I'm gonna stick with this as her undercover name, I think) and later we went to an indian restaurant she discovered. I don't even know how to describe the food - I think, it was the best curry dish I have ever eaten. It was simply beautiful. I'll definitely be back.

(I just had an flashback - chinese man, my newest flatmate - just knocked on my door to ask me, if I wanna go for a walk. I politely declined, because I have stuff to do. Funny enough, it is the exact same thing I did on the very first weekend - I asked serbian girl and we actually went for that walk.)

Monday I managed to frighten my students into learning the irregular verbs at home - or so I hope, we do have a test on monday after all. Tuesday I tortured my Level4 students with viennese dialect and evened out the premises as the german native speakers were as lost as the non-native speakers.
Wednesday on of my students showed up at the drama group - hooray! And another girl wants to come too. After drama group I met up with serbian girl and we went to the castle pub to enjoy a proper pub quiz. We still did very poor but at least the pub was more challenging and fun then the one at the other pub.

Thursday a student actually tried - very charmingly but still - to see if I would give him a hint about the exam questions. The nerve! *gg*
Thursday night was the Bonfire (aka Guy Fawkes Day) and I went to the beach to see the fireworks. The scenery alone (beach, sea, moonlight) was amazing. The whole town seemed to be there and the pubs in town were so crowded we decided to head back to the small pub next to the university.

Yesterday was a little bit heavy-going because I had to mark essays and marking isn't my favorite thing to do. But the DVD I ordered finally arrived so I had an nice evening with Nia.

Today looks amazing - after a so-so week, we finally have sunshine, crisp cool air and blue sky. So far I went to M. to buy groceries, had a very late breakfast and looked for flats on the internet. I think I am gonna mark some more essays and then I either go to town to spend some more of my hard earned money or go to the beach. (I am still waiting for those seals.)

I had very interesting but nevertheless very exhausting two days - I was at the Postgraduate Conference of the Visual Culture Department. It was very well organized with enough breaks in between the presentations but I at the end I was just exhausted. But I enjoyed the two days and got tons of inspiration for my own PHD.

Today I went shopping - I didn't really find anything but had an quite interesting start as I totally forgot about the time change.

At the office it is now Health&Safety (bird droppings on my bookshelves - health issue) vs. Health&Safety (cleaning crew not allowed to clean anything above their head height - safety issue). Who will win? I let you know...

The last couple of days were strange, busy and all in all crappy. But to focus on the good things: I start to get to know my students and I can see when things went wrong. I am really happy about that; now I can focus on improving my teaching rather then on simply surviving the class and keeping the students busy.

Oh, and I went to my first pub quiz on Sunday. We lost but it was good fun and I am looking forward to the next one, just maybe in another pub.

Outside the weather is really frightful and I am calling it a day now and go home (there is sadly no delightful fire there but oh well...)

The first two weeks went reasonably well. I hope everything works out this week too and I hope the language lab finally gives me an answer about those tours.

 Since I spent the last week in bed which I only left for teaching nothing really happened. Last week reads like this: Bed – Drugs – Teaching – Drugs – Bed – Drugs – Teaching – Teaching – Drugs – Bed.

This week will be pretty much the same, just replace drugs with tea and bed with office.

 Speaking of which: The bird droppings are still there and since today I am boxed in by my books which means I will probably spend the week falling over those boxes. (Oh dear! Another health and safety issue! )

Since it has been a while, I try to give you guys a round-up of the last days. This weekend I spent bored out of my mind after reading through the notes I managed to get out of the office. They are kinda cryptic but I start to get a hang of things. I tried to get to the other side of the beach but the Don actually divides the beach  or does so when the tide is in. I will find out some other time.

The weekend before was great, I had a lovely sunny Saturday all to myself and spent most of it on the beach. Sunday, T. kindly invited me along to see the sights (pict stones, old castle) with him, a collegue of his doing scandinavistic and an archeologist. With T. doing old norse, I was given all the background information I could want, which was great.

 

Monday, the problems with my office just got more fucked up. The original problem was that they lost the spare keys and that U. hasn’t officially given back her keys, because she hoped to keep the office as her PHD workespace. Therefore, even if they had had the spare key by then, I wouldn’t have been allowed to work in there or just get the books, because there were still some personal belongings of her in the office. So far not so good as everything related to my teaching was in the damn office and U. would be back on the very same day teaching starts.

When I finally got the keys from T., I happily showed them to Human Ressourcement Woman, who then took the keys from me and told me, that I can’t have the office after all, because another department has claimed the room. I finally managed to get in the office with a pass key, so T. could get U. things out and I could take some of the teaching material home with me.

 

Home- and ID less I tried to at least get my pc ID and was very kindly told, that they can’t give me the pc ID without my staff ID. Not that I really expected anything from my little visit to them – at least they are in a building of the University, that doesn’t have a security entrance, meaning you don’t need your staff card to enter like in all the other buildings, say Finance, Staff Housing etc. There I had to convince people that I am not a lost freshman but a member of staff.

 

Anyways, Friday things were finally looking up, when the H.R.W told me that she had no idea where my staff card is either but she has an office for me. So of we went to the top of the highest tower in the deepest part of the university.... you get the picture.

 

The office is as far away from my teaching rooms, the copy machine or for that matter a toilet as they possible could manage. The hinges didn’t creak when she unlocked the door but that was that. My soon to be desk was (and probably still is) cluttered with books, dust, candy wraps, dirty dishes and cup marks. While I was starring at the mess, the H.R.W told me, that I had to share the office with another women (who the clean desk behind me belonged to). She then hold her keys in my direction and asked me if she should give me her keys for now so I can start moving the books. For now, because the person who has already “cleaned out” the office forgot to BRING BACK THE KEYS and this were passing keys again. (Is this some sort of insider joke, that I just don’t get? Ha ha? I mean, seriously.)

And no ma’am I am NOT gonna drag a whole fucking library from one side of the campus to another on my own. No fucking way. So I politely (Really! One can’t afford to mess with THAT woman - she is the one who really runs this place) declined and told her, that I would be back for the keys on Monday, after the office has been officially given to me. Then I went straight home, poured myself a glas of whiskey and phoned my mum. I don’t know why it hit me that hard, after all it seems pretty childish to whine because your office isn’t quite what you expected. I should be grateful I get an office in the first place! But the last few days of my staff card not showing up, not getting a pigeon hole or a pc ID, the tons of forms you have to sign and get back to various parts of the university a.s.a.p – and you just can’t, because you need your ID for it – plus the fear of the first week of teaching obviously got to me and I had my first minor breakdown. Hooray. It wasn’t so much me being disappointed or something – I was furious. I was absolutly livid, which as most of you know, is not me, not really.

 

Ah, well.

BUT

We just had our staff meeting and guess what - I got my pc ID! Hooray again! And the wireless actually works!

I met my boss yesterday and he is really nice. He gave me a campus tour, told me some historical facts about the university, showed me the buildings where I will be teaching in and introduced me to some of the staff. I spent most of the day at the department, talking to people and filling out forms. It was nice to finally have some contact with the people I am gonna work with.

At night I went to the nearby pub and watched Scotland vs. Netherlands. Scotland lost 0:1 but at least they went down fighting. The people where all really well behaved - I thought they gonna trash the place. But no, they just sadly finished their pints and went home. I went to watch the game with the serbian girl (Serbia vs. France ended 1:1, same as Austria vs. Romania as far as I know), who is a huge football fan, knows all the teams, their trainers and the tactics. So I had my  personal running commentary, which was great. I actually could see the things she pointed out to me. (And I wasn't drunk after just one pint! Go me! I am finally getting a little scottish.)

We also decided on how to deal with the chinese girl, who doesn't talk to us nor can she be bothered to greet for it is her flat and we are  intruders, who dare to also use the kitchen. We're just gonna ignore her attitude and the lovely notes she leaves for us.

Uhhh, I am all exited! I watched Would I Lie To You and Mock the Week on TV! Not YouTube! And I also got to see a trailer for Merlin! (And I already managed to get drunk (on cidre) with the serbian girl.)

And if you now think of my as a sad and kinda pathetic person you are absolutely right BUT I am bored out of my mind, don't have enough money to do fun things like travel or go shopping and since I am sanes internet at home, the flat hunting is also kinda difficult. On the other hand, of course, searching for a flat here is really easy, because there aren't any in my price range.

As for preparing my classes - I have to wait for the staff to turn up and explain things to me and the office (where all the stuff is) is still out of reach for me until the end of September. So I try to think pink and get exited about watching my beloved panel shows on an actual TV.  But I might go to the beach tomorrow, the week should be nice and sunny after today.

So far, I really like A. The city center is a lot larger then I have expected, there are some really cool shops and a gigantic Morrison's. The beach is really nice too and I just occasionally have problems with the accent.

The only "problem" is my room at the staff housing. I am usually not really picky, in particularly not with short term solutions, but D. S. won’t do. Not for a whole bloody year as originally planned, not even for three months if I have any say. I already tried  to arrange some viewings, so we’ll see how soon I’ll manage to escape this hellhole. Fine, I am being dramatic now but I am not good with damp, cold, stinky, rooms and nothing annoys me more then a badly lit bathroom.

My flatmates are very different from each other. One of them is a young women from Serbia, we get along really well (No, Bobby, she hasn’t got any brothers, I am afraid.). Then there is the chinese girl. She is really shy, doesn’t speak English very well and the few hours she isn’t in the office but in the flat, she hides in her room where she tends to have breakdowns after she hide all her stuff from us. (Really, shouldn’t communists gladly share everything? Apparently not. )

 Anyways, on Friday I meet my precursor. She is a really sweet girl. After the "official" things, we went to a pub where her boyfriend, who lived in my very room, finally brought light into the very strange orders that are everywhere in the flat. They are not badly written, crazy, official rules but the rules a mentally ill brazilian guy made up. After he moved out just nobody could be bothered with taking his “orders” down.

Right after I came back the chinese girl told me, that she and the korean girl (who moved out before my time at D.S.) changed the “heating time” from 7 p.m to 9 p.m and very kindly asked me not to turn on the heating before this time. Then she very quickly vanished in her room. Me and the serbian girl ripped the notes down today, we still have to tell her about the crazy guy who made them up. I kinda doubt that she’ll believe us, hopefully she won’t have a nervous breakdown when she comes back and finds out, that the ORDERS are gone. (She seems to be a little bit mental too.)

It shows how fucked up this systems are and how they screw with the people’s minds. Neither the chinese nor the korean girl ever stopped to wondered about orders such as to shower in the departments to save water/energy. (Spelling and grammar mistakes aside.) They just obeyed them.

 Anyways, it' s flat hunting for me now.

I fucking hate Thunderbird. There, I said it. It happily works with my U. account just to flip me off when I want it to check my GMX accounts. WTF??? I have been trying to tame the damn program for three days now and I am not a patient person. I don’t invest time in stupid computer programs – period. They either work within half an hour or I delete them. But somehow I am determined to get Thunderbird to work. Go figure.

My favorite comment on TB and I quote:

FAQ: Macht nur Thunderbird soviel Ärger?

Sie hatten mit anderen E-Mail-Programmen (z. B. Outlook Express) nie Ärger, haben sich verleiten lassen Thunderbird eine Chance zu geben, und nun haben Sie nichts als Ärger mit dem Programm?

Dann hatten Sie einfach Glück in den Zeiten des anderen E-Mail-Programms - denn auch dort kann man eine Menge (ähnlichen) Ärger haben.

I kid you not.

 

Anyways, I still have a lot of stuff to do, mostly really annoying odds and ends that are stealing my days but apparently have to be done before I can leave the country. Tomorrow, I’ll have to go through my stuff and start packing, fetch some things from the alteration tailor, pick up my watch and find solutions for a zillion little things. In V., Inonsolein will start moving and I really don’t envy her. The sheer amount of things she has to get in her new flat makes me shudder. I’ll move to another country any day if I only have to take one suitcase with me!

Oh wait, I am moving to another country... and I only have one suitcase. Ha! Go me! I travel light ^^. But still. Moving. Yak.

Let’s talk about fun things aka fandom(s) instead. I haven’t been on LJ for ages and lost complete track on the Merlin fandom. I don’t have the time to stalk down five weeks of fiction, besides I am not really in the mood for Merlin. After TW3 I am not in the mood for this fandom either and even the Kevin/Scotty vids on YouTube are only so many. I still have to watch Serenity which could mean two things: I fall heavily (back) into the Firefly fandom or another fandom of mine becomes a forbidden area.

One might think I am running out of fandoms...

I find myself spending the sunny days hiding in the basement instead of strolling through the garden to get a tan – but it is unbearable hot outside (when it doesn’t rain, that is). At least  I managed to clean up my room and organize my stuff in a way that might allow me to actually find the things again in a few months time.

I also made myself start to transfer my CD-Collection to my Laptop, which is all the more fun because MediaPlayer doesn’t recognize 80% of the CDs and makes me (re)name every single song per hand. Currently, I am playing around with MozillaThunderbird  - I seem to be over challenged with the program and all its cryptic abbreviations and how sad is that? But I haven't given up yet, now that I have my beautiful Dell back after two days sans internet.

(I spent the weekend in G. with my grandma and my mum and let’s just summarize the weekend with “Mother-daughter-relationships/interacting through three generations”.

It was fun though. And quite revealing. )

My last week in V. and it is time for a round-up and an update.

 

I got drunk with fabulous people, went to Graz for my aunt’s birtday, worked as an extra again, went dancing the last time and said good-bye to the Iceberg.

Currently, I’m in love with Maria Mena’s Kiss cover, I try to see as many people as possible and I am very very annoyed about the furniture status as I still have to sell everything.

And I have an actual request considering my LJ topics. T. B. wants me to discus femslash as he is annoyed by the level of m/m one can find on my LJ. I really do think it is not that much, considering how much more hardcore I could be about it – in every way.

But as his wish is my command, here are my two cents on femslash: Whatever floats your boat, or as clexy_operative  so fancifully put it, whatever butters your parsnips. Go Girls!

First things first:  I finally managed to fit TW3 in my oh so busy schedule.

( Spoilers for TW 3 )</div>

 

Let’s talk about the real world instead. Or better: my writers-block that seems to last forever. I know exactly what I want to write but I can’t phrase it. And I read through the last few pages I wrote some weeks ago and it is total crap. Do you know the feeling, when you thumb through a book in the store and just can’t wrap your head around the fact that someone without any sense of language, grammar knowledge and the vocabulary of a Teletubbie managed to get published?

It is this kind of writing “style” – that I would have people flogged for if I had any say – that I found myself stutter in. Looks like I have to re-learn writing and being as frustrated with my projects as I am currently, this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I do suspect that one of the problems could be that I haven’t read anything in the german language for ages but I read english fiction every damn day. I am out of writing-practice and catch myself at phrasing things in english and then reword them in german. In other words: I make up poor english dialogs which become even worse german ones.

 

Anyways, I have to clean the flat now and bake a cake and tonight me and ijinx  are gonna go out clubbing.

I have to admit, I am not a grateful person. I should be thankful for getting financial help from THE GODS at all, but instead I am actually disappointed. It is not even enough to pay for my room in A. I just opened the letter and it kinda ruined the evening for me. Ah, well. My fault for being too greedy, I guess.

The Real Life has finally caught up. Apart from realizing that I am – strictly speaking – still homeless, I spent the last few weeks trying to cram my v. stuff in my room in Sbg with the result that both of my rooms are a total mess and I can’t find anything or rather: I tend to forget in which city the item I am looking for is. Good times.

 

Anyways, on to the happy things aka the various fandoms. I watched the new Harry Potter today and ( something like spoilers )

So far I managed to avoid the spoilers for TW 3. To take my mind of things (TW spoilers and my broke, homeless future in A.) I stalked YouTube for some Riddick slash. There are a zillion fictions out there, but like FnF there are no (good) vids. Since I wasn’t on LJ the last three weeks or something I totally lost track of the Merlin fandom. But I am to proud to use merlin_finders for recs. I am in the mood for some long, angsty, violent PWP fiction. Suggestions, anyone? ; )

 To anyone who wondered about the “spoiler” cut: Since TW3 aired I tend to overreact. Hmmm... I kinda have enough time to try and make icons again... we'll see....

This is getting ridiculous. I was up until half past five in the freaking morning, ate  ice-cream and watched ATWT. In my defence – I discovered the show only because I couldn’t sleep and I like to think that I would never have spent precious hours of my life flicking through vids of a daily soap if not influenced by a wrecked sleep rhythm.

And by tomorrow I have to get up at 07.00 a.m. (probably sharp) because the boot camp workshop in G. starts. I have precisely 2 h left to pack my bag and tidy up my room before I have to go to the train station.

 

Oh, and Inonso wants me to perpetuate on the www that the high water situation is getting as insane as my sleeping habits – Amstetten is cut off from the outside world. (I wonder, what they will find when they start to pump out the basements there.... Not funny, I know *hides*.)

I actually had a busy few days, but  busy in a good way. My social life seems to finally revitalize itself  ; ) I had coffee with wonderful people, didn’t get to upset about the carpenter not showing up and his calling me at 10 p.m and telling me that he didn’t make it (No, really?). Also Dance class is over but I hope I can go dancing anyway as long as I am still in V.

 I also went to the “Lichterkette” and once again mused about the seemingly non-existent organization of peaceful (and lefty) events – and the utter absence of efficient (loud) speakers. But it was a really nice evening with cool people, music and then of course our evening stroll around the Parlament. I was surprised at the amount of people that showed up – nearly 4000. I am in a good enough mood to view this as a good omen.

 

 

clexy_operative  invited me over for a “Doctor Who”-Marathon and Japanese Take-Out on Friday. Oh, Christopher! Why did you leave?! And David! How could you go?! And damn it, but John Barrowman is gorgeous. Nothing new here, I know, but after my Torchwood-overdose I was pretty immune against the Barrowman charm - or so I thought until Jack entered the scene: My brain just went *guh* and then went straight in the gutter.

 

Fabulous ijinx  organized free seats for a Nestroy play; I said my Goodbyes to the Volkstheater and really, is there a better way to do so then with Nestroy? I could fangirl over his genius as much as over J.B.s sexiness but I think, I will spare you (Der Talisman! Höllenangst! Freiheit in Krähwinkel!). After the play we got smashed and decided to sober up over tons of greasy food. (We should practice more often ^^”)

 Apart from eating too much greasy food even when sober,  I took up knitting again and solved the mascarpone-crisis by baking a Topfen-Mohntorte, which I won’t make again – it is too rich and a total bitch to make. Tomorrow I am making Tiramisu again, but I have a request for another Tiramisu already, so there won’t be any mascarpone left this time. Looks like I am finally becoming an organized housewife. I still can’t be bothered to cook, though. (And to go to bed at a decent time. It is after 01:00 a.m again. arg.)

I have 250 g mascarpone left and I don’t want to throw it away. I think, I will try a new muffin recipe. So far I have found one for Cappucino Muffins, one for Chocolate Chips Muffins and one for Almond Muffins, all of them with mascarpone, of course. I’ll toss a coin or something...  

 But beside the nerve-racking thoughts on which muffin recipe to choose, I found my way back into the real life. I organized packing cases, planned the next three weeks (V.; V.; G. -.-) and made a list of all the stuff I have to take care of (power, newspaper, GIS...). And I finally ironed, which took me two damn hours!

 Who knows, I might even spend the week thinking about my dissertation...