Long time no blogg

Looks like it was a long time since I updated the blogg and told the world what I am up to, some people would even say that it was a VERY long time. So to compensate for this, I will do a fast forward through the last two months to list what I have been doing.



Here is a list of assorted, non chronological,  things I have been doing since the last update:

• Seen Roger Waters live
• Seen Logh and Christian Kjellvander live
• Seen  of Montreal live. ( Strange band but some quite nice songs )
• Started working on my new, full time, full pay contract. ( Today )
• Cancelled the apartment. So within 3 months from now, we will have a new address.
• Had my parents visiting me in Cologne.
• Been to Sweden for a short visit.
• Argued with German bureaucracy. More effective but just as unfriendly as the Italian bureaucracy.
  
  

I am sure that I have done a lot more things. Some might even be interesting enough for this blogg but I really cant remember them right now.

The end of an era

As of tomorrow I am officially finished with the University in every possible way. I got the mail about a month ago letting me know that as of the 2:nd April 2007 all my digital access to the university will be ended. That means no more student e-mail account, no more "Studentportalen" and no more access to my account on the school server with my files. All I can look forward to now is to become a Alumni ghost hanging around at the alumni pages.

It's been well over a year since I last set foot at the university and I no longer feel like a student but it still felt a bit sad when I got the mail. My student account has become a part of who I am and a part my identity is "bjola627". Now I have to find something new

Looking back at my time at University I had a lot of fun and it definitely is one of the funniest and most exciting periods of my life so far. But I can't help, knowing what I know now, to regret some things. I regret that I didn't use my 4 years to do something more. Those years are the best opportunities to enjoy your hobbies or developing new ones, or to get engaged in various groups doing something that you like. Or they could just be used to actually learn all that stuff they say is important at the lectures. I can't help to think that maybe all those hours in front of the TV maybe could have been used to something more productive and now it is too late to do anything about it.

On the other hand I still don't know what I should have used them for, so maybe all is good.

Spring is here and I am hungover so I am going to make the most out of my last day of unemployment.

Too good to be true, or......

Last week, on Monday to be precise, I had an interview at a company in Cologne. Despite being outnumbered with 3 to 1 and starting off a bit nervous the whole thing went pretty good and after about 45 minutes of talking we took a tour around the office to see what it is like. It seemed they liked me, and I certainly liked them so we decided that I was going to take a programming test last Friday.

Two hours late (They had to translate it first) the test arrived at around 11:00. Without going into any details I can say that it had to do with football and with games. I must say that I found the test really hard and getting all the football rules right in a nice clean object oriented structure was not an easy task. It took me 15 hours to get me something that looked like a result and when I finally got to bed, most of my body was hurting from staring at the computer screen.

Certain about being rejected at the finishing line I got the phone call this Monday saying that they liked what I had done and that they want me to start working with them. So from next Monday (2:nd April) I will be a working man again. I will start with 2 months of internship and then if nothing goes wrong I will get a full time, full pay position within the company at the first of June. Feels very very good that my days as unemployed are finally over.

I am impressed

Yesterday we went shopping for an interview outfit for me. Apparently interviews are serious business here in Germany, especially if you happen to be an engineer, which I happen to be. It's not like interviews are not important elsewhere it is just that here it seems like you really have to make an impression once you manage to get your self an one. I have, next Wednesday at 11 am. So for this reason we had to go get some new shoes, new belt, new shirt new tie. All put together, I almost look like a man.





Yesterday afternoon I did not have the slightest idea on how to tie a neck tie. But, after some googeling and a lot of practise in front of our mirror I am now proud to say that I am able to do the simple (or English) knot, the double simple knot, the single Windsor and the double Windsor knots, all with a length error no greater than 0.5 cm. Not bad for one days practise. I'm impressed, are you impressed?

To confirm that things work

Posting a small post to confirm that the following guide written by Peter on how to make Gnome Blogger work correctly.

What you have to do is the following (A short translation of Peters guide):

• Blog Type : Self-Run Other
• Blog Protocol : Blogger API
• XML-RPC URL : http://beta.blogger.com/api
  

The user name and password fields you should be able to figure out on your own ;-)

Edit : It appears that the URL setting works fine also for the blogging tool Drivel. Although, now that I have got the chance to test them both, I must say that they both disappoint me.

Rain

It has been raining for more then two weeks now.



I really don't like it.

That's what friends are for

Last night I was talking to an old friend about my economical situation and that I am still waiting and hoping that my letters(yes they are two by now) to the bank will some day arrive and that I will get my money. What he did then was to buy me a 1 month subscription to Last.fm. With friends like that you can't be anything but happy.



Now I will be an internet radio junkie for the next month and for ever doomed to uphold my subscription status. Life is sweet.

My body is weak

I thought I was strong, I thought I could survive a lot. Turns out I don't know my body that well. Thought I was going to skip the morning coffee today and see what was going to happen. I waited with having my first cop of coffee until around 12:00, and the one I had was not as strong as I usually like it. As punishment for this foolish experiment with my body I have had a monstrous headache the whole day and no pills seem to help.



Argh me and my body are not friends today.

Progress

I finally made it to the third day of my learn German in 30 days course. I can't say that I feel any smarter or any better in speaking German, but at least I'm making progress and that feels good.

Phrase of the day:
Das Auto fährt gegen den Baum - The car drives into the tree.

How may we loose your mail today sir?

I wasn't a very big fan of the Italian post and banking services when I used to live there. In fact, I have almost had nothing but trouble dealing with either one of them. Today's events didn't help that situation I can assure you.


I called the bank to ask what the H!#L was going on with my money. Turns out that the letter I sent hasn't even arrived. So that's two weeks of waiting down the drain, thank you very much. So today's productive action is to write them a new letter and hope that they can please please make it faster this time.

Will be interesting to see where this one ends.

Spare some change please...

Splendid, the households total amount of money is now down to € 10, and we have at least a whole week up ahead of us before we will see any new money.

The situation is the following:
I have money, on my Italian bank account from when I worked there last year. To save me from the trouble and possible loss of money involved in transferring the money to Sweden and then to Germany, I figured I would stick with my Italian account and just use the Visa card to get the money in Germany. BIG mistake it turns out. About the first things I find out after leaving Italy is that my Visa card has stopped working, its the second time that happens to me, thank you very much! No problem I thought, with the wonders of modern technology this can be fixed with the help of Internet banking. Second BIG mistake from me. It turns out at a closer look that it is only possible to transfer money to other Italian bank accounts, so no luck there. After being in contact with the bank they tell us that a personal letter to my bank office in Catania will fix the problem and transfer the money to my girlfriends account. The mail was sent over two weeks ago, and still we have seen no signs of action. Soon it will seem faster for me to walk down there personally and get the money. Also we found out today that the bank account of my girlfriend is as far bellow zero as possible and her bank simply refuses to give us more money, so no luck there either.

Ironically today's word from dictionary.com is:

hardscrabble \HARD-skrab-uhl\, adjective:

1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

so,
Spare some change please.......or what ever that could be called in German

Because everybody loves a know-it-all

I figured I would use some of my blog space and time to guide who ever ends up reading this to some interesting Internet sites for the person who simply needs to know more.

Dictionary.com : Subscribe to their newsletter and get a new English word in the mailbox every day. A good and not too cumbersome way to improve the vocabulary.

Todays word is:
hoi polloi \hoi-puh-LOI\, noun:
The common people generally; the masses.


There is also a similar site for the chosen few who speak Swedish. The site is omettord.se and you get a newsletter everyday with the explanation of a Swedish word.


The site, weirdfacts.com has a lot of eh, weird facts about stuff that makes for hours of fun and educational reading. And remember that in Tennessee:

The definition of "dumb animal" includes every living creature.

On the right track

What I am doing in Germany right now is that I am looking for a job. I told my former Italian employer that it was time to move on and to go live with my girlfriend in Cologne. Actually I wasn't that persuasive and ended up with a 6 month support contract, well at least it brings in some money and keeps a laptop in my hands so I shouldn't complain too much.

I managed to get three application letters sent today. Feels good, although I have a feeling it's not going to be enough. I have applied for two jobs as software developer in C++/C#, not exactly my dream job but it would do, and as a long shot, I applied for a developer of GIS applications in Java. I hope I have better luck with these than with the earlier ones from which I haven't heard a single word in weeks.

As a final note, spring is sort of here. Actually today it is raining, but you can hear the birds and feel it in the air that spring is about to come. I hope my friends back home are not all snowed in by the time they read this.

Ich heiße Strupsi

I bought myself a German In 30 Days book in the hope of improving my German beyond the point of drinking words and pissing people off. I will be accompanied by Frau Glück and Yuki through my studies, my guess is that I will hate both of them before my 30 day struggle with the German language is over.

So far I have made it to Day 2 so I am on my way. Problem is that we have already made it to the accusative, and if there is one thing I do remember from my German classes in school, it is that accusative is just hopelessly difficult to learn. I hope my language brain has matured since and will be able to understand it this time. Lets see how this turns out.


Phrase of the day:
Das ist die Küche. - That is the kitchen.

The Startup

Ok, So I'm not really a donut, and I don't actually live in Berlin. I live in Cologne, but it just doesn't make for quite as funny title if it would be called "Ich Live in Cologne", so I will stick with my title.

To make a long story short, I moved here to find a job and to live with my girlfriend. I come from Sweden, but have spent the last year living in Catania in Sicily. Why I write in English is just because my German doesn't go much further beyond what I used in the title, and my keyboard lacks the, for the Swedish language so very important keys, "å", "ä" and "ö".

So far living in Germany I have seen.

• Too much rain.
• Too much beer, this can prove to be dangerous in the future ;-)
  
• Nice Germans
• Not so nice Germans
• Moustaches

//B