Back behind the keyboard

This is what all desserts are like in Germany

Prompted by several unrelated comments about what happened to the relatively regular blogarithm I'd established when first in Germanland, I decided to get back into the swing of occasionally anecdotalising my life. I think I've come to the conclusion that unless I relate something to someone in narrative form, it doesn't play any part in my assessment of how my life's going or what my life is like.

When something interesting, wonderful or touching happens (or, equally, something boring, painful or downright disgusting) and it's not converted into he-said-she-said form, then it just doesn't stick as a memory or contribute to my opinion of myself and my existence as an experience. So here goes...

My last post saw me awaiting a trip to the Middle East, wild with the impossible expanses of free time afforded by a Semesterferien; an improbable 6 weeks without lectures (and, hence, with essentially nothing).

Since that time I've taken a job copy-editing a European finance magazine (the fact that the mag is called "Finance Europe" gives you an idea of the tendency for german descriptions towards the prosaic: I was incredulous to learn that the German for 'protein' is 'Eiweiß' lit:eggwhite) and quit it, having found that having two jobs was seriously damaging my ability to learn anything about Economics. While I was in the business of quitting things, I also quit my teaching job, something that, although the students were great, I just wasn't really enjoying as much as I would have expected to.

Actually, as an aside, the fact that I got carried away with playing the earning game, to the point of being distracted from my studies, is a neat little microcosm for something that's been bothering me recently, it having had an impact of late on the lives of some of my favourite people: The need to constantly have money coming in is a serious source of distraction if you're trying to get anything done. The reason I'm here in the first place (as oopposed to being in London having a job) is that I wanted to get a masters and give myself a chance to get out of IT and into something more socially acceptable. This time in Germany is imbued with a very clear and specific purpose, and is funded by an extraordinary windfall of free cash from my redundancy from Accenture. And if even now, when I've got one clear goal to achieve, and (theoretically) enough money to achieve it with, I'm still distracted from that goal by the need to see the old bank balance going up instead of constantly down, what chance have I got in my 'normal' life of getting anything meaningful done? The problem with having savings is that you either keep them (in which case, in the long run, they're no use to you) or you spend them, in which case you have to learn, at some point, to deal with the feelings of dread, guilt and denial which lead you scurrying for the value brands and upping your hours at the grindstone. Or is this just me? Emotional reactions towards mechanical processes do seem rather to be my thing (cf. my feelings of resentment towards a just-spilled glass of water, or dispair that my newly-repaired bike can, as of now, only get worse with riding and the passage of time. I never enjoy things when they're new. There's just too much shininess to lose. Much better to be amazing that something old and knackered is still functioning).

I think if there's any point to having more money than you're currently planning to spend, it's that you can stop worrying about money for a while and get on with doing whatever it is that you want to be doing with your time. In my case that's almost exclusively playing the piano, sleeping and eating fried egg sandwiches, but I'm assuming that some people out there are foregoing genuinely worthy and worthwhile things because of a fear of their next bank statement being lower than their previous.

People of the world: Let it not be an issue! I say: work out how much you've got and how much you are going to need-If the sums work out, turn down that extra shift! If the budgets balance, say no to that next promotion!

I pledge allegiance to the idea that I'm not going to let the sensible goal of ensuring there's quids in the bank enough for eggs and ketchup, mutate into a constant need to see the money piling up at an ever-increasing rate, to the detriment of my ability to do what I want with my time.

Good lord. What a stream of consciousness this blog entry has become. How appallingly un-Twitter. I had plans to tell all about my failed attempt to get a traineeship at the European Union and my hilarious tales of threatening my current employers with moving to London lest they up the stakes compensation-wise.

I think for the sanity of those who are just trying to get to the end of this meandering piece of nonsense before their laptop battery gives up exhausted, these tales are best left for another time.

Liebe Grüße
Rob