And the winner is...

Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me
me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me and ME!




Ahhh, it feels so good, I cannot describe it. This year, with so much to do and so little time, I really had my doubts at some points throughout the month. When I suddenly was 8k behind at the beginning of last week, I was pretty down. Sad and sorry for myself. I wondered how I would manage to catch up, how I should do it?
But Inspiration came in a form I hadn't expected, and it not only helped me gain thousands of words only dedicated to this one cause, it only helped clear my mind on one issue I was suddenly starting to have doubts about last week as well (which was also causing me to feel weird and somewhat down in the dumps).
But now all is good. Thanks to Lilly from the forum, I flew over the finishing line today, almost 6k written in around 3 hours or so. What joy! (Lilly, in turn, reached the finishing line about 10 minutes ahead of me, thanks to me. Wow. And I do not even know her, you know? :D)

In the Nano forums, I already thanked the whole community there in the German forums, which is the most motivating bunch of people that I know. But here I would like to thank all my friends around the world who checked in sometimes during the month and cheered me on, thank you, all of you! It would only be half the fun if it weren't for people like you. :)

Now I will have to wait 11 more months until the whole fun starts all over again.
I can hardly wait! :D

My name is Red - Bright Red

Inspired by the nail colour from hell, I decided to photograph some other nice red things that were important this weekend:
1) The nail polish. Amazing, that colour. It blinds my eyes.
2) Gluehweinsterne (mulled wine stars) - fruit gum with mulled wine aroma, bought yesterday and the bag is almost empty now, uh oh.
3) My new PIN letter. I have my new phone number. Adios, old contract. (And all that goes with that.)
4) My earrings, worn today (to match the nails, no less).

I'm starting to really look forward to Christmas now. It will, without a doubt, be the best one in years (unless anyone dies, which I hope will not happen!). Finally, a quiet day, a quiet evening, no more stress. => happy! :)

My own private little joke

See this bright red, which is almost a criminal offense?
It has its own little story, which I am not going to tell.
However, I have had this nail colour for many many years and today...today was the first day I ever wore it, and the last one as well.
My own little joke. ;)

Weekend

I'll be gone for the weekend as there's this big family event far far away to the west (Germany, that is), which I have been looking forward to for quite a while because it's SO rare to get all of my family in one place at the same time. Some of my cousins I've only ever seen once so far, and that not for long, and years ago...how fun it will be to see 'all grown up'! :D
I'm taking my laptop with me so I can continue working on my Nano stuff, which is slowly taking shape...I hope I'll have some time for that as well. And yeah, some books are going with me as well, for the car ride...need to get some of that uni reading done as well.
Anyway, hope you'll all have a good time, and I'll let you know what happened once I'm back!

Status Report Update

Haha! I actually wrote up the status report to make some confessions, and then I conveniently forgot them... :P
Well, there are a few things that haven't been going so well. Like, the lunchbox thing! Usually I'm just way too tired to pack myself a lunchbox for the next day. And in the mornings, of course there's no time at all! So. :P Not much progress on that front yet.
Also, I said no more books, and magazines only if I manage to get an exam with a grade of 3 or better. Well, I did the one at the beginning of October, and I got a 3 (I hadn't studied, at all, bad B, bad!), so I went to buy myself a magazine. But! I didn't! Oh no! I bought myself a book instead! :-O
Yeah, I know...but it's about Pilates, so actually about health stuff, so it's not too bad, is it?
The other bad thing? I bought some make up stuff when I really don't need any. But I wanted to try something out. Too bad. :P Well, I actually like the nail polish I bought quite a bit, not so sure about the other stuff yet...but well. I hope I'll stop with buying this kind of stuff again now. :P
Anyway, I needed to put that down. I'm not perfect! ;D

Status Report

So, how am I doing on all my several projects?

Studying:
Going ok. I don't manage to read everything I should be reading, but so far it's working out somehow. Also, already one presentation down, only 3 (or something) to go. ;)
But, somehow I feel quite good doing all these things. It keeps me occupied and I never sit around thinking "Now what should I do?" as I'm always doing something!
And every week, I like my supervising professor more; I think I definitely made the right choice when I decided to write my thesis with him. Good, eh?

Doing sports:
Oh, still love it all! With Aikido, two weeks ago I had a day where for some reason (ok I can guess why) I didn't manage to be concentrated enough and had some problems to do things correctly, but last week was fine again, and lots of fun. I'm losing my fear of falling, which is brilliant. I can do those forward and backward rolls quite well by now, at least better than a few weeks ago, so it feels like this huge success. :) Also, I really like the people doing the course, it's always fun to practice and talk with them.
The massage stuff is also going well, we finished the legs and have now started with the back, and oooh, it's brilliant! :)
Climbing this Tuesday was hard, since we had a break of 3 weeks or so, and at one point I almost lashed out at some guy who was trying to help me, just because I was getting so frustrated. (I didn't - thankfully.) But the first bit went quite well - the warming up, really felt good - it was just that after that bit my arms were already pretty much exhausted. :P
And Qi Gong, always good. I always feel loads better afterwards. :)

Meeting old friends, making new ones:
Going brilliantly!
Went to a cabaret show with my sister on Wednesday (Hader muss weg, for those elusive Austrian readers), would have gone to a meeting afterwards but all the people had left already (:P). Yesterday, one of my oldest friends celebrated because she finished her studies on Wednesday, so I met her and her boyfriend and some people from school, really fun as well. I talked so much that my voice disappeared halfway into the evening, and I had to coax it back with a cup of tea. ;)
Also, see below with Bookcrossing. :)

Crafting:
Uh oh. Nothing for a while. But I finished a paitning last week and put it up in my entrance hall, and I bought some more beads to make something nice for some swaps that are currently on. So yeah...not much doing, but some thinking about crafting.
Oh, wait - I did some origami at this Japanese festival we had last week. ;)

Swapping:
Two swaps that are supposed to go out next week or so, and I'm receiving more and more requests! Yay and Argh! I guess I have to update my swap post and tell people I'm all excited about hearing from them, but that it will just have to wait a couple of...months.

Writing:
Well, I managed to drag my Nano-novel over the 1/3 mark yesterday, but I'm a little behind by now. My plan had been to take it to 20k this weekend, let's see whether that works out, as the weekend ends in about 21 hours, and I'm currently writing here and not in my Word document. :P

Refashioning:
Well, except for the two t-shirt refashions I did in October (there was a t-shirt refashion competition, and since there were only three people who did something for it, I'll soon receive a runner-up prize! How exciting is that!) I haven't yet done anything, although I really want to. Ok, so I dyed a few things in this lovely lavender-like colour (should have been violet, but lavender/mauve suits me just as well), but haven't yet done anything with them (not even ironed them, I know, I'm sooo bad. :P) Hope I'll get around to this tube-top thingie I really want to make soon.

Bookcrossing:
Woohoo! Went to my first meeting ever today, and it was so much fun! Actually, one of the girls there studying the same as I do, so now I have a new friend at my department, hehe. We even like the same kind of music - brilliant! I left a few books at the meeting, and got some new ones, which is so exciting! I would soooo love to read them all at once, and now, but of course, no time yet. :P
(So yes, I met some new people here!)

So, as you can see, I'm WAY busy, but I'm also feeling really good about it all. I have these moments of exhaustion, but they only last a very short time now, since I am getting better and better at counteracting these. I could say I'm having the time of my life, but I guess I'll keep that for the moment when I finally manage to talk to Mr Elusive.* ;)

Hope everyone else is also doing well...I am reading your blogs, and I'm commenting whenever I have anything useful to say! I'll be better with posting here again once November is over. ;)

*Funnily enough, at this point in time only my friend's boyfriend would know what I'm talking about...

Winter is here

Hey people!
Actually, when I was at uni, I thought I'd tell you tonight about how temperatures have really dropped, and it was freezing cold, and around ze zero degrees. But I have something better for you...it's freakin' snowing! O_O
Now, when I asked my dad, he told me that yes, two years ago we had snow this early...actually, on October 24. But, of course, last year I wasn't here, and so this time around I'm like a wee little girl and jumping around the flat screaming "I can't believe it! Snow! §%?#!"
So, in about 10 minutes, I'll be leaving this house (Qigong is calling) in my winter coat (already! Woot!), and crunching ont the first few flakes of this year! OMG!
*overexcited*