On the first days of classes…

It is Saturday, the second weekend after the new term started. And I already feel like freaking out…

My intention was to read all the books (fiction and plays only, of course) for this semester before my classes start, so it won’t be such a hassle and I could primarily focus on all my assignments and stuff. Unfortunately, nothing ever ends up as we planned it, right? Right! By day one, I have not had read one single book on my list. But then, I still got plenty of time… 😉

My first week started pretty well, actually. Two of my classes got cancelled and most of the rest was just of introductory and organizational matter. Yay! I only have one class on Mondays, which basically means traveling for about 3.5 hours and sitting in class for 90 minutes. Double yay!
On Tuesday, my morning-seminar got cancelled so I took the time to go pick up an essay. They sent me an email during the holidays that I gotta pick it up at the German Department’s secretary. Why the German Department? I don’t know… The secretary didn’t know either… The professor who corrected the essay is lecturing there, but I most certainly did not take any classes there. Anyways, I was there at about 11.30, their office hours are 9 to 12. When I finally found the right door (so many doors!), there was a post-it sticking to it, telling me that whoever will “be right back”. Seriously?! You’re supposed to be there for three hours a day, but you have to leave right then?! I still had like half an hour until I met with some friends for lunch, so I decided on waiting there for another few minutes. When the lady finally got back, she told me that she didn’t have my essay, but she thinks she knows where it was, so “let me just make a phone call”. Okay. Glad that she found the right person responsible for this, she sent me two floors up to another secretary, who actually had it! It took me like two minutes to photocopy the thing, after waiting for almost half an hour…!
Other than that, I started pretty well into the new term and since I know I’ll be going home again in summer makes life much easier these days. I think I already dropped a hint in another post that I applied for a more artsy school back in V, and after two very successful interviews in January, I got accepted! So stoked that I’ll be part of that magical team! But then, that’s another story. 😉

My first assignment: I was supposed to write something about British politics. That’s all we got: write two main body paragraphs on any topic concerned British (or American) politics. The paragraphs should each be around 150 words in length. Well, that’s not it, actually, there was some more information about what writing techniques we should use and so on. But seriously, I can not work like this! Gimme a f***ing topic!! So I did some research, found a topic, wrote a few lines. But I still couldn’t find a thesis statement, which is like the most important thing there is when writing stupid shit like this. Excuse my language. After wasting my precious time with writing that assignment (seriously, it took me like half a day – usually, I’m done after an hour or two…), I still had to finish reading Frankenstein. L.O.V.E. that book! And once more I realized how far-fetched some of the interpretations and reviews out there in the wide world web are. (As this is one of my picks for the “50 Book Pledge”, you can read my review on it shortly)
And now here it comes, the worst part of last week: I missed the 85th Academy Awards!! How much more misery do you want to throw in my way, you stupid life?! The reason why I didn’t post anything like I promised in my post on the Golden Globes is simply that I was sound asleep during the Oscars. Friggin’ time difference did not allow me to stay up all night and be all awake and cheerful in class the next day. My apologies for that. Not that I am ever cheerful in class, but still…

Luckily, I got to catch up on everything and I already finished almost all that I’m supposed to hand in or have to have read for next week’s classes. Because I’ve been suffering from terrible headaches all day long, I decided on just reading and enjoy an idle Saturday. Gotta finish Jane Eyre till next Tuesday. Since it’s pretty easy reading and quite catching, I might even manage to finish my readings before the lecture! *wow* (note: this does not happen very often…)

So now I’m being a tiny little bit miserable – mainly just because the world seems to hate me sometimes (and I hate it back, fair ’nuff! 🙂 ). And what do people like me do whenever they’re miserable? Right, they spend hours and hours on youtube (or get a venti something from Starbucks, but there’s no Starbucks anywhere near me). 😉 *Oh sweet procrastination* So far, I’ve been watching like a ton of make up tutorials and now I’m listening to old school rock music. Blame me for my style of music or for my love for the seventies, eighties and nineties rock – I don’t give a shit cuz I was born in the eighties, baby! Additionally, I’m just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world…. You know… 😉

While I was absent from my blog, I have been very productive, believe it or not! 😀 As I was testing the very favored BB Cream, I finally sticked to the product by Garnier, as one of my readers suggested I’d use. And just like my dear reader, I love this product! It produces a fabulous finish and combined with a hint of pressed powder, my skin looks all fresh and (almost) flawless. Plus: it smells really nice!

Now this is pretty much all that I can tell of my first two weeks of classes. I hope for you, my dear reader, that my life will get a little more exciting with the approach of spring!
Until then, happy reading and don’t forget to subscribe! 😉
xoxo

Happy NaBloPoMo!!

Apparently, there is such a thing as the National Blog Post Month… Did I get that right? 🙂
What a great opportunity to spam the world with a few words before it’s time to go to sleep.

Because it’s the blogger’s month, I thought I’ll share some thoughts I always had about blogging. At least the ones that come to mind at this late hour.

Some people, like me, blog without a reason and spam the www with… well, you’ll find your own word for this. 😉 Fair ’nuff, I’d say. Others think they do have a reason to blog, but somehow this reason is not entirely obvious for the rest of the world. And then there are those people who actually have something to share – I mean important and intelligent thoughts – but they just get lost in the big ocean of the world wide blog-web.

Additionally, there’s an almost infinite amount of topics out there that people write about. Some useful, others senseless… Personally, I’m a major fan of all baking-related blogs. As a bookworm, I love reading about books and other people’s opinions about books. The blogworld is the place where I find suggestions for new books, or I might get a review about a book I didn’t really want to read, but then this review was so tremendously well written that I just had to put that book on my to-read-list. Also, somebody might be able to entirely change the idea I had about a book and therefore helps me seeing things from another angle.
What I still have mixed feelings about are photo-blogs. I mean, I love looking at pictures, and there are some really talented photographers out there, don’t get me wrong! But sometimes there are just too many photos in one single post, so it tends to get kind of exhausting to look at all of them and to soak up all those impressions.

Sometimes, less is more… And that’s why I’m saying good night, world.

Why do you blog? And why do you like reading blogs? How many people out there write for a cause, and how many just out of boredom or because the procrastination-monster hit them again?

La vita è bella! – Parte V

Apparently, ginatravelstheworld took some time off during summer. 🙂 Unfortunately (for you), I’m back! So many things have happened lately that I can’t really recollect everything. Lucky you, I’d say!

So this is basically what happened during the last weeks (well, let’s be honest – it’s been months!):

Living in a hotel definitely is not what I imagined it would be like…!
After moving out of my sweet and beloved little apartment, I moved a few blocks up into a hotel before I’ll make the big step to the other side of the pond. It’s basically like being on vacation right now. Just with all my stuff sitting around everywhere. I definitely do not travel light these days. 😉

So the first (and probably only) thing I really miss here is a kitchen! To be precise: living without a microwave sucks! I figured I could easily live without a TV, even if I’m a TV-child. But the microwave? Indispensable! Why? Well, there’s several reasons.
Sometimes, I get hungry in the evenings, but I don’t want to leave the house anymore because I already snuggled into the bed and I won’t abandon the show that’s on TV (yuppers, TV-child). The best early evening snack is a sandwich and a cup of soup. First problem: The fridge is part of a power source that automatically switches off as soon as I turn off the lights to the “living room”. Basically means it only works whenever I’m at home cause I don’t want to leave the lights on constantly. So no sandwich. Problem number two: No microwave to boil water with. 🙂 I don’t live in a shabby hotel, so the people there thought about the guests’ needs for coffee or tea and set up a tiny little coffee maker in every room. Too bad that whatever dumbass was staying in my room before didn’t quite get that the coffee powder does not belong into the water tank… Therefore, my hot water stinks and tastes like coffe. No offense, I am a coffee drinker slash lover. But seriously, I don’t want to waste my high end tea and I definitely don’t want my soup to taste like coffee! Thanks heaven there’s a Subway just around the corner!

(side note: I wrote this month’s ago and didn’t edit it, that’s why the time frame’s a bit odd)

Three weeks or so later, I finally took off and now I’m living in the middle of the good Old World. It’s not too bad here, although I miss some stuff. Like Netflix and Cheezies and kettle corn and cheap Starbucks and even cheaper food. And of course my people! 🙂 I probably spent the best summer ever with the girls (or the “chooks” as my fav Aussie would say)! All we did was hanging out at the beach and going out and watching movies and whatever stuff one does inbetween sales shifts. But that’s pretty much it… Well, that’s all I can recount right now…

After moving here, I spent a few lovely days with my two European girls in and around Barcelona. What a beautiful city! Reallyreally liked it there! We spent the weekend at my friend’s grandparents’ summer home at the Costa Brava and enjoyed the great weather. Partying is pretty cool down there, too. 🙂 On Sunday some a-hole must have set a fire somewhere in the already super dry woods and basically set half of the Province on fire! In the news they said it’s been the biggest bush fire they ever had. Two of our California friends had to cross the border from France that night and the wouldn’t let them through. All the highways to and from Spain were closed in the north. So all they could do was sit there and wait. It took them hours and hours to finally get back to Barcelona. The night after, we went for great Japanese food and clubbing afterwards. It was what they call “Nasty Mondays” at that particular club. And… that it was indeed… 😉 So to all my North American readers: we went home at about 6am, and the club was still open and people were still partying!! On a Monday night! *love it* That’s life in southern Europe, I guess… I don’t have any clue, but I think it’s not like that all over Europe. But you’ll always find one of those uber-sketchy clubs pretty much everywhere where you can party till noon. Which this one wasn’t, that seems to be the regular thing in Spain. I’ll definitely be back, Barcelona. Take this as a threat. 😉

I also read like a ton of books this past summer and now I really miss doing that. I don’t have time anymore to read all the unnecessary crap people write (like “Fifty Shades” LOL). Already looking forward to Christmas and the semester break so I can catch up on all the pulp fiction I keep collecting these days. The “Fifty Shades” comment was a joke, seriously. Although I have to admit that I wasted almost a week to read all that crap. But it was only for research, honestly! I just wondered what all the fuss was about and why we (almost) sold out on all those books at work. I’m thinking about writing a paper about the phenomenon of why people read such crap and what terribleterrible language is being used in books of such kind and how this style of writing might even change the language itself and in what matters. But that’s another story. (Many females might hate and curse me right now because, quote: “This is the best book I’ve ever read! You have to buy it! How do you spell ‘monkey’?”; this really happened, no offense to all the Shades-lovers, I at least admit that I read the books before I started judging the writing. And I only judge the writing, the ideas itself are more or less ok, even tho I think they should have been seriously edited before publishing… But this is just what I say – what do I know anyways, right?) Upshot: if you wanna read romance or erotica, there’s much better stuff out there.

Now I’m finally back at school and back to everyday life… Going back to school’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world, especially if you’re not used to it anymore. Honestly, I’m not sure whether I like it or not… Right now, I’d rather get up in the mornings and go to work to earn some money than sit somewhere in a lecture room. Plus: I think sitting in class kinda is a waste of time, since there’s so much other stuff we need to do, like writing papers and mid-terms and stuff. Am I the only one who thinks that way? Which reminds me that I should be either working on my mid-term or go to sleep now. I’m gonna do latter right away 😉
It also still takes me time to get used to the European lifestyle after all. People always say that it’s pretty much the same yaddayadda, but I’m not convinced. Sitting in class, observing other people while commuting and generally making new friends might help. Even tho I’d still love to get a job…

So that’s it for today folks! I’ll be back on a more regular basis again and keep you posted on that missing knight in shiny armor and white horse, Scout’s honor! 😉 I’ll hopefully be back to my normal entertaining writing and won’t bore my readers to death in the future. 😀

So long – goodnite!
xoxo, the homesick girl

La vita è bella! – Parte IV

… and sometimes, it is quite hard…

Especially if you’re trying to move all your belongings across a continent. And an ocean. I’m trying to always look on the bright side of life (du-dum, du-dum-du-dum-du-dum) and am looking at this as some sort of challenging adventure (oximoron or not, that’s the question). I have to add that I’m not the most adventurous person in the world – nope, I like just sitting on the sofa with a good book, a soft throw and a cup of steaming hot tea.

It is Sunday night and I still have two more days to go. I gotta be out of this apartment by Tuesday night. Plenty of time, right?

Well, the biggest problem is already almost solved. I previously got rid of all my books and today I packed everything into two suitcases. There’s still so much stuff left… So off I go to hunt for another suitcase first thing tomorrow. My biggest fear right now is that not everything will fit into the suitcases and I have to ship even more stuff by post. Which is ridiculously expensive!

Call me weirdo, but I actually take pleasure from cleaning. Yes, I really do! So today before I settled down with a cup of tea and my computer, I cleaned the kitchen. I mean, it’s another thing to tick off the annoying cleaning roaster, right? Not that much left for the upcoming two days, which is such a relief. I’m trying to be systematic and don’t want to get into a huge rush on the moving day. I tend to just break out into tears whenever’s not the time for it (stupid!). Silly as I am, I got a tattoo appointment for my moving day… Didn’t really think that through. I mean, it’s only gonna take half an hour or so, nothing too much to worry about, but all the people out there who ever got tattooed know that it is pretty exhausting. Well, I have to go and clean floors after that, yay!

You might ask yourself why I wasn’t just cleaning the kitchen this afternoon, like every sane person would do. Well, my dear friend K. is in town for a very short time, so of course I wanted to spend some time with her! She’s leaving town tomorrow again, so I’m taking her to the airport to say goodbye and stuff. Ergo, I need to get up really early tomorrow morning and get as much done as I possibly can. Do I need to mention that I probably will be up half of the night cause I’m kinda insomniac and I definitely am NOT a morning-person?
Anyhow, I’m a strong woman and I’ll manage. I always did, that’s how it’s supposed to be like, right?

But – as the title to this post says – life is beautiful! So I got to see the one or the other real good movie recently and I’ll be off for the next three weeks, just doing nothing and being tourist in my own city. And I might write the one or the other review for my dear readers.

So, does anybody else have moving related issues to share?
Hugs might be very welcome on Tuesday or Wednesday. 😉

La vita è bella! – Parte III

I just realized it’s been a veeery long time since I updated the blog. So I figured I might as well just sit down on this insomnia-filled night and post something about my latest adventures.
Honestly, my life hasn’t been that adventurous lately. Other than the occasional firefighter-fun and the girl’s nights out, my life is somehow getting boring.

Before I forget: Happy 4/20 everyone!!! 😀 If you have no clue what I’m writing about, google it!! 🙂

School has started again and has been very demanding lately. I’m about halfway through my course now and I have to say, I’m not ready to take any exams AT ALL in the near future! Should probably start getting a little more serious about what I’m doing. 🙂 It actually is really fun, though. I must say, I enjoy sitting in class. The only drawback I’m facing is my current schedule. Starting at 9am is not what I consider being human. Not for a night owl like me anyway. It’s just too early to be on time. And this fact doesn’t even cover the biggest problem of all: My school’s late policy is basically like zero. I think they could even kick somebody out of school if they miss too many classes, which totally sucks! I mean, I’m okay with this sort of rules if they’re dealing with teenagers. But seriously, all the people in my class are adults. No need to teach us any lessons about missing classes and sowhat, since we all pay for school ourselves (most of us, I guess) and should be able to take care of ourselves, right?
Great thing about starting new classes: you always get to know knew people and make some new friends as well.

Oh my, I just witnessed neighbor’s cat doing the most irresponsible silly thing a cat can possibly do! It was standing (no, not sitting – standing, on her TWO hind legs!) on the BBQ, her two front paws on the balcony reiling, watching whatever down on the street!! Very important fact: they live up on the 15th floor… If you’re a cat, my dear reader, don’t count on those seven lives, you never know how many you’ve got left. Just sayin’… 😉

So since I kinda procrastinated updating this blog and, additionally, I’ve got a brain like a sieve, I can’t really remember all the things I did over the last few weeks. I most certainly did some interesting stuff and experienced things that’d be worth writing about, but I just can’t get my head around my hidden memories right now. I’m watching TV, too, so I’m very sorry for any spelling mistakes or sentences that just don’t make any sense. 😉

Remember that post, in which I mentioned that I really really want a dog? Preferrably a poodle? Well, I went down to the water today, sat on a bench and read for a while. Every now and then I’d watch the dogs for a while and I observed this poodle down at the beach, running and almost humping its owner. Let me just get this right here: I’m not talking about a toy poodle, I’m talking about a real poodle. A 20+ inch Standard Poodle. I’m pretty sure that beast was strong enough to drag me all over the city. Might knock me out every time it greets me in excitment when I come home. I still love the breed, tho… But (there’s always a “but”, isn’t there?) I am a very responsible person (when it comes to pets… 😉 ) and won’t get myself a dog because I don’t really have the time to take care of it. Plus I think it’s the cruelest thing ever to leave a dog at home all day long or take it to dog-daycare. Why would you get a dog then? Just to be like everybody else?
Geeee, I’m being carried away by stupid thoughts again…!! Mea culpa!

Yesterday, I went to a Jazz Dance Class. It was supposed to be a beginner’s class. Not so sure about that one. We actually checked the schedule afterwards, just to make sure we were in the right class. 😉 Most of the people in that room were basically pros, I swear!! Not so much fun if remembering the choreography is giving you a real hard time! Well, in the end, it was fun and I think both of us girls had a good time. So if anybody knows how you can memorize all those moves much easier, feel free to get back to me! 😉 Might as well just find something else to do…

Anyways, there’s some stuff that wants to be researched for and homework and laundry to fold, so I wish you a terrific night, my beloved world!
And never forget: La vita è bella!