I feel so much better today Last week my best friend at work was on holiday, and whilst I knew she was still in the UK, I was nevertheless trying not to contact her and interrupt her week off. Restraint isn’t my strongest virtue, but I managed to content myself by sending her an email on Friday afternoon in which I vented my feelings about the entire business in as much depth as it is prudent to vent one’s feelings about senior management in work email Anyway, I got a text from her first thing this morning in which she said she’d just got my email… and she’d been graded as 2 too! (more…)

The day after my appraisal was never going to be a good day. I actually felt okay yesterday, probably because I still had the adrenaline and was elated to have survived the ordeal relatively unscathed. But today I woke up feeling miserable and proceeded to feel increasingly miserable as the hours ticked by. I thought anti-depressants were supposed to stop me feeling like this. Perhaps I absentmindedly took two hayfever tablets this morning instead (more…)

I’m tired, so rather than explain my appraisal in technicolour detail, I’m going to post the results of the form with a bit of explanatory commentary. It’s over now at least, and as I said to someone earlier, the benefit of always assuming the worst is that you are never unpleasantly surprised It could have been worse, but on the whole it was as I expected - no worse, no better! (more…)

To read this post in English, click here.

Lastatempe mi legis rakonton kiu nomiĝas ‘El la vivo de Esperantistoj’. Al mi ĉi tiu rakonto tute ne plaĉis kaj mi do negative priskribis ĝin sur mia blogo. Eblas ke mi tute miskomprenas la rakonton, pro kio mi ne hontas. Mi ja legis ĝin tute sen kunteksto; tio estas, sen ion scii pri la verkisto aŭ pri lia vidpunkto. Laŭ mi la rakonto estis tre enuiga, kaj pro tio mi ne sugestas al aliaj ke ili gxin legu por doni al mi pli da opinioj. Al mi ne plu gravas, kio la mesaĝo de la rakonto vere estas. Se la aŭtoro intencis verki ironie, laŭ mi li ne tre bone sukcesis Se vi volas legi mian unuan (anglalingvan) recenzon, tiu troviĝas ĉi tie. (more…)

Tomorrow is my annual appraisal, and so I am not a happy bunny Part of me is hoping it will be postponed again, though the other part of me would be glad to get it over and done with and find out if/when I will be getting a payrise. The word on the street is that the full payrise doesn’t come until September when we sign new contracts, but we have to go up at least £1k in theory because the new graduates starting in September 08 will be on £1k more than the graduates who started in September 07, and we always go up proportionally… (more…)

At the moment, I am suffering from a particularly bad bout of hayfever (pause for readers to make a sympathetic aaaah). I am also suffering from an annoying little cold (pause for readers to make a bigger, more sympathetic aaaaah) The upside, however, is that I have rediscovered a love of honey

(more…)

Bored in Stuttgart airport a couple of weeks ago, I decided to have a mooch around one of the duty-free shops, and was pleased to discover it had a small selection of books. My pleasure was actually short lived, as I soon discovered that virtually the entire stand consisted of trashy American novels in translation Just when I was about to give up and find myself a copy of Der Spiegel to read on the flight home instead, I came across a paperback novel by Bernhard Schlink. Having seen it, I had no choice but to buy it (more…)

Right, my T-mobile internet phone is malfunctioning at the moment, which is causing me one or two problems, but I had a rare sort of brainwave which allowed me to access a list of things which have been uploaded to my site, and from there I managed to find out the names of the pictures I was trying to post

(more…)

I have just had a very eventful weekend! My boyfriend didn’t have to work for the first time in ages, and so we were free to do what we liked That was exciting enough on its own, because the past few months have tended to consist of a few snatched hours between rail replacement buses, but added to that was something else to send my excitement to life-threatening levels: we now have a car!!! (more…)

I am starting to think I have missed my vocation in life as a travel agent! I have spent the past few days trying to plan a journey from Bratislava to Szombathely in Hungary, where my boyfriend and I will be attending the IJK at the end of July. I have to say, it is the most complicated piece of travel planning I have ever undertaken in my life, and I am now so incredibly confused that I’m starting to think the most agreeable option might actually be to stay at home (more…)