the last nonsense of the day is probably that article i read in a newspaper today. a co-pilot of a canadian airline freaked out after take off because of a fear of flying. he was battled down and after a emergency stop sent to a mental hospital. chosen the wrong job, i guess. one of my nicest flight story is probably the one where a woman sitting next to me, throw up for about 6 hours on a flight to the us. and she didnt eat anything in between...

while being half way through the dish washing i thought to myself that i should charge facebook for my time (and others). this time facebook asked me to help translating it into german. i signed up, why not. but, it saves them a lot of money if the community does it and not a professional translator. likewise with doctors. patients becoming more and more professional. patients help in finding out what illness it is, in the treatment and with various other stuff. and patients dont get paid for it. and to exaggerate, the cash nexus is reversed and we are now in a situation where we pay to work.

so, how does this facebook thingy work? whereever there is an english word i click on it and type in the german phrase. the translation is done while browsing.

Do i need to say more?!?! very nice evening and we had a lot of fun!! Bring it on, lads!!

Only the sky is the limit...

... or is it something else? well, to start chronological, today i finished a two days training course. nothing in particular for my phd, but for my other thingy. the course was given my an amazing professor here in the department who can kind of light the fire in you for sociology. it was really interesting and engaging. at one point we should think about something with which we could tell our life story. the first thing coming to my mind were music. apart from other weird things... and the song for all would be pink floyd's brain damage. i know some of you are already bored by this blog. "not again, not another youtube video, not another song, not another ranting on about music..." bla bla. back to pink floyd. ok, my interpretation wont certainly fit entirely, but it somehow reflects the continuous state of my mind. it all feels chaotic; thoughts entering on the right side, racing through my brain and leaving on the left side. and when i dont catch them, i lost them. probably. just from the short abstract below, it seems worse. but be reassured, it isnt. its just me... i absolutely love that song and if i take as a chaotic state of mind and the need to make sense from and with it, it will well fit my life right.

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too
Ill see you on the dark side of the moon

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me till Im sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
Theres someone in my head but its not me.

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band youre in starts playing different tunes
Ill see you on the dark side of the moon

(I know I wrote part of the lyrics before here, it's not that bad..) but it would only be half the current story. there are other songs as well. i written about this before, so no need to repeat myself. there would be manfred krug for a holiday in brittany, keimzeit's kling klang for my first guitar lessons (and some good and bad "after show" parties), CSNY's Sweet Judy Blue Eyes for my first year here, K's Choice's Another Year for cycling home from McDonalds, ... i think you got the idea. so anyhow, for me music would be a good way to tell my story. Anybody interested..?!?

Right now, this is on. Elton John, Rocket Man



I love the whole arrangement. Nice one. I want to be a rocket man too, only the limit is the sky. Is it? Listening carefully to the lyrics, rather not the case. Five days a week, he is a rocket man. On the weekend he's a husband. But Mars isnt the place for him, because its so cold and he doesnt understand science either... i leave the rest of the interpretation to you. but the prof was also talking about his experiences on the couch and with scientists. For me I take it simple. I want to become a were rabbit and then take off as a rocket man. Fly everywhere I want to. Maybe even backwards, and faster than light. Then I might have a realistic chance to travel back in time and I would, consequently, have more time now. But it's gonna be a long long time. For whatever comes around.

Other than this? Jazzing around, with Supercharged. And being happy. I will see you on the dark side of the moon...


p.s. yeah, i promised you some pics from germany. they will come, just give me time.

The end is far away

last week i bought a flower/plant in tesco, which were reduced and didnt look very good. was 50p and i thought to myself, that i give a go and if it dies then i will have at least a nice pot. i watered and put it on the ledge. today i saw it again and had become a very nice yellow flower!! the world is saved for the minute. im happy, how are you?

the great gig in the sky...

...is played by pink floyd. although supertramp is on now, it is the point. the first three, four weeks of this new year have past like seconds and yet i experienced them like month. the year hasnt really started yet but i already had 2 gigs and will have another confirmed 5 this year, plus 4 others... for each 20 pages, some fancy tables, and miles on the road (i need a roadie). in between there is a journal, who wants to. there will be also a gig in the house of commons in spring, although not on my phd topic. but on the relationship between "the kategorischem imperativ, the cash nexus, the thames link and the impact of europa riding across borders" (dont take the last too serious. there was a series in the guardian over the past couple of weeks on greek mythology, i dont know if they mentioned europa and her bull. otherwise, its roman pre-christian mythology. bla, bla. apart from that, i cant write the real name of the project here because otherwise google saves it and i might get in trouble. confidentiality, you know it all...). for the last i squeezed in some statistic sessions every now and then. i can proof the positive as well as the negative sides of the relationship, as usual. i guess i will have to focus on the negative sides... in other words, i will have to bend my tongue into the right direction to lick someone's else bum... it goes even further (my public website has to be adjusted, my CV, my phd sample). supertramp played "good bye stranger" and is now going over to "logical song".
the first gig of this year was really strange. not only that it was in front of my old professors but also it was in german. i was really scared beforehand as these guys know me a bit and what nonsense i spread in their classes. and they know stats. they really do. if you translate essex with its qualitative knowledge into quantitative, you will get the idea. when i worked in germany during the summer i had to answer tough questions about reliability, analyses' methods, confidence levels, factor analysis, cluster analysis, and so forth. up to the point, why using stata instead of spss. questions i can honestly not answer because they are plain nonsense. so given this context, i shit myself. no joking. anyhow, they didnt really come up in the discussion. the thing about german, this is also a torture. i managed to present 60% of my presentation fluently in german. with the other 40 percent, i really had to think hard. to make it short, i cant speak german any more. for basic everyday conversation its sufficient but as soon as it goes beyond that it becomes horrible. i wish i would never have learned it and can sincerely say, im not german. in terms of language, im caught between two seats. i cant speak english and i cant speak german. great. you know what i do with an email of two lines..? i send it to a german proof reader, and this is no joke either. its necessary. why, why were i born as a german...?!?

i dont know if there will be a post like this in the near future again. im fed up with it, honestly speaking. it's roughly 600 days until the end of my phd and im counting the days. and i hate that mourn too much. and i hate that i love it.

ok, im through with it and no pixie like being can tell me otherwise. im off to dance now, recharging my battery and you should do the same!!!

a few weeks ago i probably scared the shit out of a berliner (a real one, not the one with jam in it...) i was driving out of town and jumping the lanes. well at one point the car on front of me made a sudden stop and i "kissed" its back. i got out of the car, the other driver as well and we both had a proper men's look at the point where i hit his car. he was suspiciously relaxed and told me it were no deal and that the car in front of him just stopped so fast, and everything is allright and he has to leave anyway and he has a train to catch and it's full moon... he didnt even had a proper look whether something was damaged. usually those guys try to take you to court for attempted murder... i was a bit puzzled i must say. when i got back in the car i heard the answer:


(just hear the first few words until the music starts...)

a look in the mirror and i saw a hoodie with paradise lost on it. so, what did i learn? heavy metal is good and hoodies are the new trend! i could smell his fear and his concern that there might be four big "shelves" sitting in my car, only waiting to beat up an old man just like him...

oh, and heath ledger is dead.

ok, i admit this one is a bit old (originally from the 20th of july). i wanted to write a post about it a couple of month ago but it never managed to pass. anyhow, a few month ago there was a headline a german newspaper about rising suicide rates amongst managers of big french companies. so far, so bad. i think i might use this example for my dissertation because it might show one thing: there is a lot of pressure and managers might not be able to cope with that amount of stress and therefore opt for the "free death". so corporate welfare might be one way to lower that king of stress and a measure to keep s.o. alive. but i dont know how far i will get with this argument.

apart from this, this past week has flown by like a month. i came across this one today



i dont know what to do with the lyrics tho. but i like the song somewhat. and i did enough stats for this month...

Parlez vous francais?

oui, je parle. magnifique!

"Aide nous pour traduire Facebook de l'anglais a francais pour que tout le monde peut l'utiliser.

Click Translate Facebook pour installer l'application Translations, l'application est produit par Facebook pour que tu peux etre part de la communite de traducteurs."

je fais du fraincais à l'ecole mais je me ne ressouvenis de un mot, sauf termes d'élémentaire... quoi qu'il en soit, parce que je tracai une statut d'information francais, facebook "raisonnet" que je pouvais parler francais très bien... merci!! C'est me rend hereux!!

i just saw 2 pixie-like beings, wavering passing me on the stairs... how beautiful...

p.s. 2, oh and my new gloves...

p.s.

i "buried" my black shoes with a proper new years, quite surreal tho, new years celebration. later on more on that one

Fast note

How pathetic...!

"niger calceus, laudatio funebris" = black shoe, obituary
"niger omnibus-stella calceus" = black all-star shoe
"caeruleus omnibus-stella calceus" = sky-blue (cerulean) all-star shoe

yep, an obituary for my black shoes, which i couldnt wear any longer. there were scratches everywhere and it wouldnt have made a difference if i were walking barefoot or in shoes (nice feeling when snow melts in your shoes...). the new ones look a bit like heaven around my feets, a nice blue. however, at least the black shoes lasted for almost all of 2007. so in other words, forget about the part "then began their long of..." and read the whole thing as my review on 2007 and a late heartily welcome to 2008!

what i forgot for 2007, i did a few interviews with east germans about their daily life and how they experienced the fall of the wall. im quite happy about it and have been dancing and humming around for the last couple of weeks! this really made me smile! ich steck dir die halbe tüte erdnußchips in deinen zuckersüßen mund...

Niger calceus, laudatio funebris

I have come here today,
to say good-bye to the late niger omnibus-stella calceus,
who expectedly died last month after a time of suffering with long rips at their corps.

I still remember the day,
like it were yesterday,
we first met.
It was in January,
me introduced to them,
and to move on with them,
to grow up with them.

We spent together lovely days.
We walked together at beaches and cliffs,
we wandered together through medieval towns and modern cities.
We explored together the English, the Scottish and the German country.

They were always there,
close to me.

We stood together in classes,
we taught together American Society and Statistics.
We wrote together research proposals, PhD chapters and conference papers.
We sat together through board meetings and supervisor meetings.
We presented together theory and research on corporate welfare at conferences.

They were always there,
close to me.

We thought together about my own past and history,
while dancing together in capitalist ASDA.
We read together boring and interesting academic books,
we read together pulp and proper fiction.
We cooked together for a friend, friends, family.
We drank together a pint, a glass of red wine or whiskey.
we were together either dancing the night and soberness away or stayed home for work.
We tried to see the world and life,
the latter sometimes happening when we thought about it and made plans.

They were always there,
close to me.

Then began their long way of suffering.
Rips appeared at their corps.
Long rips, that could not be healed.
The time passed by and their health declined.
Near their end they preferred "air-conditions".
And they made me shiver in the winter,
with its ice and snow.

They were always there,
close to me.

We went together through good times,
we went together through bad times.
We went together through health,
we went together through illnesses.
We went together through harmony,
we went together through arguments.
We went together through relaxation,
we went together through stress.
We went together through happiness,
we went together through woes.

We went together the ups,
and we went together the downs.
But I was never angry with them, because

They were always there,
close to me,
loyal.

I have also come here today,
to say hello to the caeruleus omnibus-stella calceus,
who unexpectedly were born on the second day of this new year.
We already interviewed together managers,
we already gave together a paper in front of my old professors (scary, frightening; shiver...),
we already wandered together the beaches of the baltic sea,
we already wrote together two conference papers,
We already had together a look on statistics for my new, other job.
We already agreed together to revise a possible journal article.
We already had jumping hearts together.
We already spent together bonding time with my brother and his girlfriend.

They will be there,
close to me.

If we have together only half as good and bad times as I had with them, the others,
I and we will be happy.
Finally, good-bye and hello!


post scriptum:
There is some latin in here, bless the 6 years of latin lessons, but I only used non-conjugated words. So all you have to do is to copy and paste "niger", "calceus" etc. into a latin-english dictionary and you will get to know what I mean... or ask (Fortunately, i dont really remember any latin from school, not to mention any grammar...)