A word about train journeys. When you think of it, it is quite a funny concept. There are so and so many people from all walks of life stuck in the same moving worm, or fish womb if you like (modern Jonah, realise?), with nothing in common but the same direction in which they are going that time and day. And apart from the regular noisy children (I love children), stinking food, and snoring old men you do get some weird characters every once in a while.

Like that conductor on the train to Bath the other day, who was very aware of it being his 32th wedding anniversary that day, and who made sure everyone else knew as well. Well, actually that wasn't very weird, just adorable. He must have a very happy wife. In his best of moods, he asked for my railcard. His response when I hold it under his nose: "Smashing!"
He then tried to clear the way for someone with a LOT of luggage: "Watch your legs, please. I mean, don't literally watch your legs."
Next, he asked for tickets from Cheltenham. "Anyone who's got one of those, show them and you might potentially win a prize!" He was lovely.

On the way back, however, things changed. Good facts first: no one ate horrible stinking food; I wasn't thrown out of the train; I even had a seat.
BUT so did those football fans. Nothing wrong with football fans. It's just, they had a massive provision of beer (and stuff). You could probably have worked the train engine with that if it had failed midway. But the train went as smoothly as a spaceship, which left them with all these litres (or pints rather) of beer to consume.
So, the nearer we came to Leeds, the merrier they got, with little intervals of, let's call it, discord, which led them to drive some of their party out of the train.
Now, I find football fans in England slightly more amusing than in Germany, but mainly because I tend to prefer English things to German things in general at the moment, I suppose.
At first they discussed the match at length. Then, they found someone's music a little bit disturbing (not that it was any louder than their palaver), but they tried to make them aware by dancing to it. (intended meaning: "Icanhearyourmusicitssoloud evenIoutsideofyourheadphoneworldcanhearitswitchitoff!") It didn't work, so they tried it a bit more directly. To be honest, at that stage I wouldn't have wanted to mess with them, but the person was brave enough to resist. Fortunately not much later those football fans were so drunk they seemed to not notice anymore. They were obviously supporters of Leeds, but weren't quite sure of themselves anymore. "Did we win?" was one of their brilliant but very earnest questions. They then looked for clues of what they were doing and where they just came from, and decided that cheering was a crucial part of that business, so they started to cheer for the names of the stations we passed through.
Other passengers were either very amused or very upset. The upset part had to sort out problems for themselves, anyway. They argued away about VERY private matters, well yeah, where else than in a fully booked out train would you want to discuss such things. I do hope that girl who got out in Sheffield will sort things out with her flatmate, as she really wants to spend more time with Phil and Chris always gets jealous, and I suppose, we've all been there at some point.

I wouldn't normally be quite so accurate in my observations, as I tend to get absorbed in some book, but due to a cancellation it was rather late and I couldn't concentrate on anything other than my inner train rant which I now got off my chest.

We all get where we wanted to be eventually. And to conclude with the words of those dedicated Leeds supporters (in despise): "This train wins!"

Reflections on reflections

Denn wir sehen jetzt mittels eines Spiegels undeutlich, dann aber von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Jetzt erkenne ich stückweise, dann aber werde ich erkennen, wie auch ich erkannt worden bin.
~ 1 Kor 13,12 ~

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
~ 1 Cor 13,12 ~



...ON WATER
















...ON BUILDINGS























...IN MIRRORS











Wenn aber das Vollkommene kommt, wird das, was stückweise ist, weggetan werden.
~ 1 Korinther 13,10 ~

But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
~ 1 Cor 13,10 ~

Hair adventure (no I didn't shave it again)

No, I'm not going to write a post every day. But the thrill of getting this started is still having an effect on me, which I should make use of.

Anyway, today something amazing happened - I finally went to the hairdressers. For those of you who are cultivated, this might not sound like a big thing. But apparently I'm not, and as much as this is my own choice, I don't enjoy hairdressers making a point of this in suggesting me this and that to lose even more time on my beauty than I actually do already. VAIN!!

Even though my hairdresser today kept asking me when the last time was that I had had a haircut - why does she need to know in the first place? - and I tried to avoid an answer (between us, it was about six months ago *cough*), I had a good time. She dressed - or rather, undressed - my hair, I could practice my small talk skills and on top of that they played music from the three months that I was actually into music, which was about ten years ago, and which I admit is quite hard to achieve (they appropriately played O-Towns 'Liquid Dreams', among others. When I got home I travelled down memory lane and found some more songs of that time on youtube (Precious: 'Rewind', Savage Garden: 'Affirmation', Leanne Rimes: 'Can't fight the moonlight' =P) including those of my little trip into 80s rap. Would you believe it - I once was so cool as to learn how to rap 'Roxanne Roxanne' (UTFO), and I realised I can still almost do it! I stop rambling now though before I get into trouble). General verdict: Pass!
While they put dressing on my hair (shampoo that smelled of gingerbread), I had a splendid view of the Leeds General Infirmary which I had just yesterday seen from the inside (it's got a blue tourist plaque; although we took it a bit too far looking for a shortcut and went straight through 'no entry' doors. we didn't end up in an operating theatre if that is of any relief though).
The hair looks nice, just like I want it (if I had any ideas at all), and I appreciate the effort she put into blow-drying it for forty minutes. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I wouldn't even dream of doing that myself, but I paid attention on how to do it in case I need to look that extra bit beautiful in the near future...
My hair is all dressed up now and it was definately worth the money. That'll do me for the next six months I assume.

Hallo? Ist da wer? Anyone out there?

Hello. So I've got a blog now. I don't even know how the internet works. But anyway, one has to go with the time, and herewith I take possession of this space.
It's mine now. You're welcome.

Formalities aside, let me think about a few ideas I've got for this blog, and set the scene.

Basically, I want some space where I can tell all the stuff I can't tell in other formats, and that's very polite of me because you can always stop reading and go and I won't notice. Of course it would be nice if you stayed and read, but that's up to you. My life is pretty funny sometimes, mainly because of how my mind works. It really is easier to understand in pictures and texts, and not in speech, so here we go, that's one reason for this blog.

When I read, which I do a lot because I'm an English Lit student, I have a lot of words in my head which want to get out and be creative. I find brilliant quotes in my books which I would have to learn by heart if I wanted to share them with you at appropriate times, but I can't, so I'll post them in my blog, and hey, that's reason number 2.

Speaking of words, and reading, and writing, language always is a challenge. Really. I mainly read English , so quotes will be in English most of the time. But my brain grew up thinking in German, and a lot of things I can only say in German because they sound funny in English because English wasn't made for saying them, so I'll stick to German for that. Sorry you who don't understand, you can always ask and I'll explain. Or you can learn German, which would be fab and useful anyways =)! So I do my bit to enhance understanding among the peoples and make this a bilingual blog. Genial!

The real reason, of course, is that I want to start a revolution and need raise people's awareness and support. I don't know exactly what I want to revolve of, but I'll think of something as time goes by. Let's do it!

Der nächste Grund, diesen Blog zu schreiben ist, dass ich jetzt eigentlich Shakespeare's Richard III lesen müsste aber mein Gehirn Purzelbäume schlägt. Deshalb vergeude ich meine Zeit und laber ein bisschen, momentan noch mit mir selbst, aber gleich klick ich auf 'Post veröffentlichen' - ja meine settings sind auf deutsch! - und dann fühl ich mich nicht mehr so paranoid.

Back to English, my friends. Keep watching this space, it will evolve (probs most when I should be writing essays like now) and enjoy! Let's get this started!

Oh, just a word about the title in closing. I bought a t-shirt the other day with a snail on it which says 'What's the rush?' It seriously SERIOUSLY made me think and made me want to slow the world down. Have you ever noticed that 'slooww' reminds of 'sluuurb' reminds of the noise snails would make if they made noises? I think that's fascinating.
This blog certainly slows my work process down, and yours probably, too. But it's not lost time, it's sloowwed down time, and we all need that. So I picture people reading this in work breaks, and I want to make them as enjoyable as possible. Because I love you all. x x x