Snow, British and German style

It's snowing.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, exciting about that sentence. Rewind a few months, say middle December, and that sentence would be have been written like this:

It's SNOWING!!!!

Such was many a Facebook status at that time, mine included, I must admit. And who can blame us? The first snow of the season has something a little magical about it, especially coming so close to Christmas and all that implies.
And then life got in the way, as it always does. Planes cancelled for days on end, 15 hours or longer to get back home (do NOT get me started!), people afraid to go out on the roads.
In the UK, that is. Of course, here in Munich, it was business as usual. It was just a bit more-white. Everything still worked - the S-Bahn, the buses, classes at work (to many a disappointment).
But it worked. And the reason for it? They knew it was coming, just as it comes every year. You can't say when, but it'll come. The people of Munich know this, and in true Scout style, are prepared. Snow tyres, leaving more time for travelling, lots of grit, they know what to do. But in the UK? Nah. We act as if this cold stuff hasn't fallen from the sky before. We shut the schools, airports, everything. People didn't leave their houses for days.
And do you know what? Part of me misses that. Snow used to be the only reason we could use to get a day off school. I remember listing intently to the radio to hear the list, and switching between local stations in order to get the most up to date one. It was also the only day when I wanted to go to my brother's school, because it began with A and mine began with W. Part of me is still that kid, part of me wakes up to snow and thinks 'come on, do we have go in today?'. It's a mentality the Germans don't get - of course you go into school, why not? Things work. You have no excuse.

And that, to me, is a real shame...

Slumdogs (but not all of them are bad)

I am using today's blog to throughly recommend a book: Slumdog Millionaire. Yes, yes, I know, you've all seen the film and whatever ( and if so, I hope you hate the 'remix' of Jai-Ho as much as I do, but please don't get me started...). But the book is very different. OK, given, it's got the same premise- boy from the slums knows the answers to a TV quiz show and wins a lot of money. Except in the book it's a billion not a million, he's not telling the story to a policeman but to his lawyer and... well, any more and I'll have to declare spoiler alert, so you'll just have to read it for yourself. What I kept thinking was, why didn't they film the book as it was? I guess the film has a lot more 'drama' and there was plenty of drama in the book, imho. I guess the structure may also be a bit confusing and the film straightened it out. None of this, however, distracts from the merit of the book or the film in itself, you just have to take it, as with many good films, as a good film in itself rather than a true adaption of the book. Give it a try!

As for my own rag-tag bunch of Slumdogs (they would kill me if they ever found out I wrote that), I will never be able to understand teenagers. One week they're best buds, the next... were we ever like that?! Of course not... ;). But for some of them, I think it's good. They're the ones who suddenly, out of the glare of peer pressure, want to do badges, or go on trips or, heaven forbid, follow their dreams. The ones which you know it's just a phrase and they'll snap of it soon, once the hormones calm down and the exams set in, and they understand boys aren't just for sucking face but also have brains too, you know. In other words... the ones just like me. Looking back, I remember being like that, not so long ago- the fear of being the 'uncool' one, the one left behind. I still get it, sometimes. But when it came to the crutch, I was a silly little girl who grew up and they were, underneath it all, still bitches. My girls are just the same. You want to say this to them, that this too shall past and it will all work out in the end, but they need to find it out for themselves. And just remeber, like Maria Mena says:
"Think all the mean girls/who pulled your hair/are pregnant now/and barefoot... and all this time you have had it in you, you sometimes need a push..."

A song for my girls, I think... but for all of us, too.

Because we're all Millionaires, even the Slumdogs.

Work mates and empty plates

Two things have happened to me recently. Neither have anything to do with the other, apart from the fact that they are both happening at the same time in my life.
Firstly, work. The on-going saga of my colleague (name deleted for obvisous reasons) is, well, on-going. But, the good gossip value aside (and in my workplace there seems to be another to talk about without this clouding up our weekend), the whole situation seems to be getting out of hand. It has become a stalemate, in which nothing changes from week to week, but drag us more and more down and involve more and more people. Yesterday, names began to brought in which have absoluting nothing to do with the situation, while the cold war between my boss and my colleague remains the same as the former one. I can't quite fathom why the latter has not quit yet. I have been at the end of a bullying boss; the pressure was unbarable, but I had the choice to walk away. Now, I am not saying for a nano-second that my boss is a bully; indeed, in this battle, I see the blaim lying squarly with my colleague. However, the question still stands - why is she still here?! For all the stress it seems to be causing, it cannot be worth it for the little gained. And I'm not just talking about stress for the 'afflicted' party either; we don't want our names dragged through the mud, espically if we don't deserve it. We don't want to have to choose our lunch breaks to avoid someone, to have to hide everything, to have to lie about things because you know it will provoke a barrage of endless questions, each one as toe-curling as the last. Schluss damit! Ye gods, I have 3 weeks left, I should not be worrying about this; but it does pose the ulitmate question - who goes first, her or me?!
The second pain in my life is not really a pain ( and I count my blessings that it's the one thing I have to moan about!), but just an annoyance - a food theif. I've been trying to figure out a cool term for it - a Freif? A Foreif? A FT? Egal, you know what I'm talking about. SHe started about a week ago, I guess, and is now stealing the weird things - butter and beans are my casulities (so far, touch wood). A notice appeared on the fridge on Sat telling us as such. So far, nothing that wouldn't happen in any other communial kitchen. What's irking (cool word, non?!) me is that someone then wrote underneath who they think it is. I don't know why that is bothering me, but it is. Maybe because I don't like to see people be so petty rather than having a quiet word. Maybe because naming and shaming was just wrong. Maybe because I'll be in the frame (though I do have an alibi). Whatever, it's getting on my nerves. But what can we do? Lock the fridge? Write 'property of XXX' in big letters on everything? Whatever we do is just going to make living together that little bit more uncomfortable and would seem stupid and, yes, petty.
Apart from their proxmity in my life, these two incidents do share one thing. They both stem from someone's inablity to deal with something in a rational and approriate way. I don't want to say that I would never do that; I'm as guilty as the next for overreacting, seeing things the wrong way. But it just goes to show that people never learn. The worse thing that I can do is let myself be dragged into these sorrid mixes as far as possible; to let people get on with their squabbles and just hope that when my time comes, they will let me get on with mine.


PS: I suppose I should really say something about BGT. I must admit, the best people won on the night. Susan Boyle was good, yes, but the hype got in the way and overshadowed the fact that there were other, better acts. And it showed how the media can, and do, get it wrong. Well done, people of Great Britain. To stand up against public opinion and choose with your heads rather than with hype- now that really is talent!

My life, as it is...

Right now, life is good. I'm eating chocolate, drinking red wine and watching Britain's Got Talent. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my life and I am proud. Because that means I am FREE! Which I anm. Well, relatively. Let me explain.
I've just finished doing my degree in French and German at the University of Warwick. I don't know how I've done yet, for some unknown reason I have to wait for about a month for them to tell me as such. The exams weren't too bad, to be truthful; well, not as bad as they could have been. It jiust really hasn't sunk in yet that I never have to take an exam ever again in my life; yesterday in fact I almost went home from work and started to 'work'. Agh!
But all of that doesn't matter, because my biggest challenge is still to come. In three months, I intend to be in the second (third?) biggest city in Germany, because I have been offered a job in Munich, baby! I am so excited. It's being a receptionist at a language school; something I have in fact being doing this for about a year now, with TeachEng, so it will be nice to finally get paid for it, ahem. It will also be interesting to see what happens being thrown into the jaws of what will be, let's face it, the biggest place I've ever lived in. It'll be a challenge, but a good one, hopefully!
And so, the time in between will be spent doing, well, not a lot really. I've got a few things left here for the next month- parties and things, and of course Final Fling, yay!! Plus, after that, I'm doing a course for teaching English as a foreign language, which should be interesting, but not something that I'm really forward to. But we'll see- que sera, right?