Ikke alt, der kan tælles, tæller og ikke alt, der tæller, kan tælles.

It’s been a while since I last did some blogging… Guess I needed some time off from computers and the constant battle to get on with my life…

But I happy to announce that the effort paid of: I got the scholarship I applied for and began a new journey on Nov. 1st.

COMPLIMENTS: YES PLEASE!

Yesterday morning I was particular happy when I came into my office. I think I had a smile on my face all the way into the city, remembering the dinner-party I had the day before and the comments my friends said the night before. I was happy to see them all again, and in a very good mood.

My advisor stopped at my office door to say good morning or something… he stopped, looked at me and the gave me this nice, a bit shy look as the words just flew out of his mouth: “you look really nice today”, and then he rushed off.

I just mumbled “thank you”, I was a bit surprised, but very happy, because the compliment without a doubt came straight from his heart, and his intentions weren’t suspicious in any way (one of the reasons he’s my advisor – been there, done that…).
He was simply being nice, and he surely gave me a good start that Monday morning :o)

I guess I could go on writing my thoughts on how important is to express your appreciation of the people you like, or even love, but I won’t… (Got a job application I need to finish…) I just wanted to share how it really made my (good) day better to get started with a nice compliment like that!

UPDATE

Yes Tommy, it’s been a while since I’ve shared my thoughts.

I’ll try to give an update…

July meant working and trying to figure out what the H… I’m going to do about my professional life. I’ve previously said that working within academia and trying to get to work within is testing my ability to motivate myself, and this time I reached the limit. When august came and my employment ended I just couldn’t find the motivation anymore. I simply didn’t care anymore, and it infected my personal life as well; nothing really mattered anymore. Fortunately I had some money saved for a vacation, and I decided to start the vacation right away, meaning that I stopped working (searching for a job) a week earlier than planned. The weather finally turned from rain to sunshine and I packed my PC and everything in my office into boxes (the department is moving to another location) and left the (damn) building and meet a girlfriend and her son for ice cream :o)
My advisor told me NOT TO THINK about the project and just rest and find my smile again, and I actually succeeded in doing so, and kept the damn project at a distance by telling people (who kindly asked) that I was trying to relax and think about something else and that I really didn’t remember anyway… which turned out to be truth in the end (and a little bit problematic now that I’m trying to get up to speed again) and I had fun and worked hard at relaxing for a few weeks. This means that I’ve spend a lot of hours with my special someone, saw the family, read some old magazines in the sun and just looked into the blue sky while clearing my brain.

Today I’ve been trying to get my act together at do some research for my next application, a slow start I have to admit, but it seems like the right thing. Now I just have to believe that it will happen THIS TIME! I’ve been here before, and it’s a bit hard to convince myself that something is going to happen this time. So that’s the daemon I’m fighting right now and the reason my blog has been left untouched for a while. Well, maybe the number of daemons is more like two… or ten… but you know about some of them and they are a bit to personal to post here…

Have to go; I'm off to fight one of the bastards ;o)

ITU RECEPTION WAS USED AS FITTING ROOM TODAY

Went out for lunch at the new ITU-building today and Louise gave me a tour of the building. It was pretty cool to see the final result when I’ve followed the process from the first draft - and now the buildings there. It felt a bit empty though and I don’t know where everybody’s offices' is anymore, but I'm sure the receptionist will help me until I know what I need to know about the locations.

It was actually quite funny to talk to the receptionist today; she gave med a “gift bag” when I had signed for my new key :o)
The bag consisted of some sponsored bits; finger-table soccer games, key chain, copy card, a pamphlet with practical information about the building. And she gave me a new ITU t-shirt – I have one of the old (and ugly) grey “IT-højskole” t-shirts - this new one is black, the logo discrete and its much nicer! A bit surreal that the first thing I do at the new ITU is to step into the back of the reception an try on t-shirts for size ;o)

I was nice that everybody gave me a warm welcome and took their time to show me their new offices.

The new bar was nice, and I think the students will have some good times here – I can’t possibly be as smoke-filled as the old bar, and the terrace looks like a great place to have a beer on a Friday afternoon, I’ll definitely give it a try this September and report back later… however, the bar might keep its name and the spirit of the fantastic party-committee, but… to me, the bar at Glentevej will always mean something special – and of course the people in it, I miss you guys sometimes... My Good, we had fun at that place :o)

/R

CHAMPAGNE & SUSHI PARTY

Tomorrow it’s time for the first (?) “Executive Champagne & Sushi Party (ECSP)” as the host named it earlier today as we made the final important arrangements; who brings chocolate covered strawberries etc.

I’ve wanted to set up a Champagne Party in my garden for some years now, but I never succeeded and when I mentioned the idea to tomorrows host 2 weeks ago it turned out that he had the same idea AND the initiative to actually set a date, invite people and make it happen. Cool!

Tomorrow it is then. We’ll meet up late afternoon, make the sushi, probably start tasting the bobbles and when the bobbles run out, the plan is that we’ll make some colourful drinks :o)

JUST MY KIND OF PARTY!

I don’t know most of the people who will come tomorrow, but I look forward to meeting new people. I’ve been working at home all week and NEED to mingle with other people by now! Also this working at home hasn’t really been such a success, I’ve been frustrated and stuck in my chapter, but yesterday I finally got my act together and some writing done. Today I’ve been reading a bit, nothing something directly related to the actual subject, but I helped me eliminate some thoughts and now its clear that I don’t want to include this particular perspective anymore.

…

I don’t know why my blog has this tendency towards describing PARTIES. Maybe it's because it's neutral enough to go on a public blog. Maybe I don’t want to sound too boring (wannabe-researcher as I am…)…
It’s also funny that some of the readers of my blog find it when they search for spinning-related issues, I wonder what they think when they get to my blog and read about my nieces, my parties and other strange stuff. I would be cool if some of you “by-chance” readers would leave me a comment, I can’t help wonder who you are..?

Have to go now (yes, you’ve guessed right, spinning class in 30 minutes ;o)

/R

MY NEW PINK & PURPLE “GLOAT-RING”

This weekend we had the traditional TP-tournament (Trivial Pursuit) at some of my best friends apartment. It was a bit sad and sentimental, because they are moving to a house north of Copenhagen (closer to my home, I believe I can bike to their place in 20 minutes or so…) and this was the last get-together at this address – and we’ve countless hours of fun in that apartment!
Anyway, they supplied us, the guests, with plenty of vine (not wanting to move all 130 bottles to their new home) and good food and the game began. Usually we divide different teams – smokers, girls, boys, academic (and we usually get our ass kicked…) and so on. This time we started out playing girls against the boys. And, as you probably have guessed since I’m writing this on my blog; the girl-team WON!

The boys, of course, weren’t very happy with this, and insisted on a rematch. And they wanted to increase the stakes and we all put some money on the table. It was a very exiting game, the boys got of to a good start and the girls didn’t seem to go anywhere… The boys started to gloat and thought they had it made, but that was a mistake. The girls quickly finished the game and left the boys to wonder what just had hit them. And somehow that ended the night, and the boys just wanted to go home ;o)
We shared the winnings, the incredible amount of 120 d.kr, leaving the 3 of us with 40,- to spend each.

And today I bought something to remember the victory. It had to be something I could get for 40,- and something I could wear for the next game (and really stick it to the boys… hey, they started the gloating!) and I ended up buying a new ring, pink and purple.
I’m definitely going to wear this ring when we meet up for the next TP-tournament in their new home!

/R