Category Archives: Personal

Spring!

Wow, a month and a day passed since my last posting… and winter turned into spring.

After returning from the USA and Canada last summer, I often replied to questions about our vacation that I loved the area we traveled to, but that we’d seen more snow in Canada in July than we had had during the past two winters here in our German Mittelgebirge. Well, it seems like this winter was out to prove me wrong. We had snow several times, for several days or even weeks at a time, and it was a lot more snow than we had during the past two winters. The first snow came in November, and the last bist was just a short while ago.

Yesterday and today were the first days that felt like spring. It was decidedly warmer than before, and even sunny. The crocuses in our garden were blooming, and the air smelled like spring. André and I went for a walk (not a very long one because I am battling a stubborn bout of sinusitis at the moment) today and enjoyed every bit of it even though it was quite windy on top of the hills. It was really great to see the catkins on trees and bushes and others signs of spring. Also, I saw a red kite for the first time since they moved south for the winter. (Take a look at the great photo on Wikipedia!)

Last year we had snow as late as Easter, so we’ll see how long the spring weather holds (it started to rain tonight), but the longer days and better weather do much to improve my mood. Now if only there weren’t four very busy weeks with a lot of work between now and the Easter holidays… I’m already looking forward to a couple of weeks off from school.

André took some photos today, but hasn’t uploaded them yet, so here’s one he took last year.

Nine years

Six days ago, this weblog turned nine years old. I briefly thought of it, but the last two weeks have been very busy at school (lots of end-of-term stuff), so I didn’t get around to posting. Now I’ve been reminded of the anniversary by Jörg of Schockwellenreiter fame who always remembers these things. Danke!

Nine years ago I was a student, living in Bonn and apparently having a lot of free time to write (almost) daily postings. I started a weblog just to try out the software my then-boyfriend worked on. I had no idea that I would keep this up for such a long time.

Well, I’ve moved twice in the real world and once online since I started this weblog, I’m now a teacher with a lot less free time to write (almost) monthly postings. Yet some of you still visit my weblog or read my RSS feed – and have been doing so for nine years. Thanks!

This weblog has allowed me to talk to people living around the world via comments or e-mail and to meet friends who live several thousands of miles from here on another continent, namely Garret and Sandra, and Hal and his wife and son. I still remember this occasion very fondly and would do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks very much, you really helped making this day unforgettable!

Change.

Fortunately, here in Germany we are six hours ahead of Washington, so I was able to watch the inauguration live online. By the way, it’s really amusing to hear the BBC’s reporter ask a couple their names and then say “pleased to meet you!” So very British. ;-)

I have to say that I was really moved. I felt like I have witnessed history in the making, live. This might be one of those moments that you later talk about, starting with “I remember exactly where I was when…”

I’ve felt that way once before, and that was on November 9th, 1989. I was fourteen years old. When I came home in the evening, I heard on TV that the GDR government had opened the borders. It was hard to believe what I saw on TV that night and the following days. Even weeks before noone would have thought that to be possible, and yet it happened.

I bet that a lot of people in the US also believed that it would be a very long time before a non-white president would be elected, and yet it happened last November.

Edited to add:

Take a look at The Big Picture – 48 photos of the inauguration and of people around the world watching it.

Frohe Weihnachten!

As usual André and I are spending the holidays with family and friends, so I won’t have much time for blogging until the new year.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! See you in 2009!

Stacks!

I think Apple invented stacks (which really are just folders that reside in the dock) just for me. No more dropping files willy-nilly on the desktop: Downloads automagically appear in one stack, and I created several other stacks for all my stuff. Now the desktop always looks tidy.

Stacks are a new feature of Leopard. I’m really happy I finally upgraded the system from Mac OS 10.3.9 to 10.5. And by the way, I upgraded the hardware, too. I won’t even call it an early Christmas present to myself because my old iBook was over four years old and there were a few things I could no longer live with in order to be able to work effectively, so I found a good new home for the iBook and bought a MacBook. :-)