I can do it, I can do it!

Should auld aquaintance be forgot ...

I wish everybody a very happy, succesful, healthy and peaceful new year!

Thanks for reading my blog, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. I wish you and your family and loved ones all the best!

Love Julia

Thursday Thirteen #8

13 things about Juliadamus

First of all - a belated Merry Christmas to everybody. I hope you enjoyed your holidays and survived them without greater injuries ;)

As some of you might have noticed I wasn't around very much during December. If you want to know why just read the last post. That's why I'll use today's TT to summarize my last monthfor you:

1.) Most heard Christmas song: Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt



2.) Most eaten Christmas goodie: Gingerbread (the German stuff! I'm from Nuremberg and we are famous for our Gingerbread!)



3.) Question most often asked by Americans while working in the "Atlanta" booth: Are you from America?
Answer: No, I'm German but I've got American colleagues. We're all working here to improve the international relations between our sister cities ...
Reaction: After saying "No.." and while I was still explaining they just turned away and left me standing there.

What's wrong with those people? Of course there were lots of people who didn't do that. But still it didn't just happen once or twice during the market, it happened quite often, even some of my American colleagues recognized it and sometimes got quite upset about it.

4.) Things I've learned for my exams: morphology, syntax, grammar and regional studies

5.) Things I laughed hard about while reading "Lost in Translation":

"In case of emergency, the lifeguards are under the seat in the center of the vessel."
Ferry in San Juan, Puerto Rico

"Keep this candle out of children!"
On a Chinese Candle

"With deepest respect, we hope to wish our insistence you washes your hands when using our facility."
Restaurant in China

You want to read more? Look at one of my former posts here.

6.) Gorgeous new people I met:

Yang (a lovely, funny and totally crazy Aussi), David (a stay-at-home Dad from Illinois, living here with his wife and his 8 month old daughter Paula) and Stephanie (a lovely woman from Virginia, living here since three month and the unbeaten master of "thank you"s, "execuse me"s, "sorry"s and "pardon"s :) )

Thanks for having such a great time with me at the booth!

7.) Christmas presents I got:

My mommy pays for university, that's why I have an agreement with her that I don't want any presents for Christmas. She still bought me some scented candles, but I will generously overlook that ;)

A lovely woolen hat from my roommate, it looks like that one



Some books, two bottles of wine and money from my relatives

8.) Gifts I made:

For my mom I bought some high-quality tea and an ambience scent set.



For my roommate I bought some "Homer" slippers



For my other relatives I bought different stuff, and my uncle got some of the red wine I brought from my Italy trip in September.

9.) My boyfriend hates Christmas, and he does not make gifts nor wants any. But this year he bought a Nintendo Wii as a "Not-Christmas Not-Present" at the beginning of December ;)
It's fun and I love it!

10.) Films I watched over the Christmas Holidays:

Hogfather - based on the Terry Pratchett book, hilariously funny!
Die Hard - it had something to do with Christmas ... ah forget it, it's Bruce Willis, who cares what the movie is about ;)
The Nightmare Before Christmas - simply a classic!

11.) New years resolutions:

Stop smoking! - Yeah I know, but this time I'll make it ... I swear ... really!
Pass my exams!
Finally getting married!

12.) Tonight a good friend comes back from South Korea and will stay here for 3 weeks. I'm really looking forward to seeing him and go out!

13.) Finally I want to wish everybody a happy new year!!!

I'll be back !!!

Hi folks, it's me again - finally!

I hope you haven't completely forgot about me and I deeply apologize for not being around for such a long time. But let me explain ...

Until Christmas I have two jobs in the evenings (including weekends) and university during day. Every tiny bit of free time I use for learning, cause I still try to take my exams in February. I actually don't even check my e-mail on a daily basis or watch TV. It's basically sleep (not much), work and (somehow) eat at the moment.
Nevertheless, I had three free days last week and I planned to do things like term papers, spending a day on my couch watching TV and - of course - blogging and moreover reading blogs. but guess what I did?
Yes! I caught a touch of the flu! Enough to make me stay in bed and feel like dying for three days, and after that - just in time - was able to get back to work!

And yes, I do sound like a weepy little girl and I want you to feel sympathy for me! Otherwise I will be pouting until Christmas!

Luckily it's just another 10 days til Christmas and then I will have time for blogging again, thank God!

Thursday Thirteen #7

13 Things about Juliadamus

Today I wanna talk about one of my favourite books: "The deeper meaning of liff" by Douglas Adams.
It's a wonderful, funny and witty book, or better said an encyclopedia or dictionary. Douglas Adams is known as a critic for restaurants at the end of the universe, and as the famous founder of the Hitchhikers Guider to the Galaxy, but this book is much more about everyday life on earth.
The purpose of the dictionary/encyclopedia is to give names to things, behaviours and feelings in life that are common and well known to all of us, but not named, yet.
For example:

To SPOFFORTH (vb.): To tidy up a room before the cleaning lady arrives.

I hope you get the gist, and here is the first part, letters A-D:

1.) ABILENE (adj.): Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.

2.) AHENNY (adj.): The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.

3.) AITH (n.): The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.

4.) BALDOCK (n.): The sharp prong on the top of a tree stump where the tree has snapped off before being completely sawn through.

5.) BLITHBURY (n.): A look someone gives you by which you become aware that they're much too drunk to have undertood anything you've said to them in the last twenty minutes.

6.) BROMSGROVE (n.): Any urban environment containing a small amount of dogturd and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of concrete with holes claiming to be a scuplture.

     'Oh, come my dear, and come with
    me.
    And wander 'neath the bromsgrove
    tree' - Betjeman.

7.) CLIXBY (adj.): Politely rude. Bliskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

8.) COTTERSTOCK (n.): A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a shed in perpetuity.

9.) DEAL (n.): The gummy substance found between damp toes.

10.) DIBBLE (vb.): To try to remove a sticky something from one hand with the other, thus causing it to get stuck to the other hand and eventually to anything else you try to remove it with.

11.) DOBWALLS (pl.n.): The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be scraped off the crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.

12.) DROITWICH (n.): A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.

13.) DULEEK (n.): Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.

Make sure to stop by next week, to read the next 13!

Belated humor-overkill !!!

Hi folks,

ok, ok, ok - "SORRY!" for being late again, but I spent the last two days building up the booth for the Christmasmarket.
That's why I'll give you the double-dose of humor today, combining my weekly "WTF?!" and "Tuesday Tickle Treatment" series.

I thought about what I would present to you today and finally came up with the idea to have sort of a "theme" for this post. So today's motto will be: Star Wars!

First of all I'll show you my favourite SW-remake:

Store Wars

and talking about StarWars, stores and the dark side, the famous "Chad Vader - Dayshift Manager" is a "must-be-named".



Liked it? Look for more here or here, and to watch the whole saga, just visit the directors' homepage!

May the force be with you!

Please hang yourself here!

Hey folks!

No worries, I won't call the whole blogging-community to suicide, just because of Googles PR-juggling-tactics.
"Please hang yourself here" is written on a sign in a hotel cloakroom in Berlin. Knowing the circumstances now, you can probably guess what the hotel actually intends to offer its guests.

It's just another case of "LOST IN TRANSLATION - Misadventures in English Abroad".

This is the title of a book I came across a few days ago in a bookshop, while buying a present for my MIL. It's written by Charlie Croker and its' hilariously funny. I actually couldn't stop giggling and laughing while reading it.

Well, as the title tells you, it's a collection of signs, leaflets, brochures, menus, etc., from all over the world, all of them written in English and blotched with off-balance vocabulary and iffy syntax. Some of them might be spelling mistakes, with others you can easily guess what was meant, but some are just enigmatic.

Here's my favorite collection, part1 - "travel & hotel":

on the plane:

"Besides, try to prepare all you need before pack, and then, you can arrange everything's position entirely, or you will make yourself confusion" - Chinese In-flight Magazine

in the hotel-lobby:

"Please leave your values at the front desk" - Paris, France

"We have nice bath and are very good in bed." - Zurich, Switzerland

"The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable." - Bucharest, Romania

your room:

"To call room service, please to open door and call Room Service. Please call quiet, people may sleep" - Ethiopia

"Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis." - Tokyo, Japan

"Please keep shutters close or monkey make you crazy." - Brunei

"It is defended to promenade the corridors in the boots of the mountain in front of six hours." - Switzerland

"If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it." - Moscow, Russia

"Dear Guts." - Brasov Romania

"Do you wish to change in zurich? Do so at the hotel bank!" - Zurich, Switzerland

"Depositing the room key into another person is prohibited." - Japan

"Your are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid." - Japan

"Sweat Dreams" - Poland

Tehehehe, I hope I didn't promise to much ;)
I will post more from this book over the weekend and the enxt couple of days, so make sure to stop by, or you'll miss all the fun!