I kept meaning to update what was going on in the land of MissSin, but somehow I never got round to it. But now I am…
2010 was a good year & a sad year.
It was sad because I lost 2 influential people in my life; my grandmothers.
Molly I lost at the beginning of summer & then grandma in autumn. Both of them had ‘good innings’, but it doesn’t make it any easier to know they’re gone.
Still, neither of them would want me to sit here and write a maudlin blog, so I won’t.
2010 was a good year because I got my own life in Germany.
I found work, albeit part-time. It did, however, mean I had my own money and no longer was a full-time hausfrau. Erm, wait a minute, I STILL am a hausfrau AND working…something went wrong there….
I’ve also improved my German.
In 2010, I joined 2 German courses and am now capable of ordering in restaurants & basic conversations. I’m not as fluent as I would like to be because a) German is a bitch of a language to learn, b) I have to learn everything twice because my brain is frazzled (i.e. old) c) I’m lazy at home & K and I only use English (although we are slowly increasing the percentage of German we use) and d) German is a bitch to learn (oh…did I mention that already?)
2010 was also a year of travel; not as much as 2009 naturally, but in 2010 I started the year in Egypt and finished it in Thailand, with England, France & Italy in between.
I also managed to become an Advanced Open Water diver while in Thailand, so can now dive to depths of 30m. We did a four-day liveaboard (diving holiday on a boat, where you live, sleep & breathe diving) in the Andaman Sea off the west coast of Thailand. It really improved my confidence, and I now feel a lot better about diving. And, hopefully, this year K & I will go diving somewhere warm. We are considering going to the Red Sea, but need to keep an eye on the news in the region…not much fun diving when people are dying.
And I think that covers the rest of 2010.
2011, so far, has been a great year. I started it in Thailand, on Koh Chang, a small island off the west coast of Thailand (not to be confused with the other larger Koh Chang, which is the other side of Thailand, just to make things complicated). Or Koh Chang was incredibly undeveloped with only generators for electricity, which ran from sunset to about midnight. After that, you were reliant on torches. It was great! No cars, no noise, no bright lights. Heaven!
We came back to freezing Germany and at the end of January, I was offered a full-time job. From April, I will be an in-house trainer at the same company as K (although not in the same place) I will no longer be self-employed and will have all the perks that a full-time contract here entails (30 days paid holiday, sick pay and insurance) YAY! And the job itself will be interesting – I’ll be ‘embedded’ in a department at the company and be responsible for all their English needs, which will range from lessons, to proofreading to OJT. I think it will be challenging, but after a year of ‘cookie-cutter’ teaching, I am really looking forward to something more intellectually challenging.
In February, K turned 30, so we are now in the same decade (just for 3 years though, as he keeps reminding me). We also had a visit from my aunt & uncle, which was great. I really enjoy when visitors come, because we actually get up and do things & see places. This time we went to Tubingen, a medieval town an hour away from here. It was really pretty and I definitely need to go back there again when it’s warmer.
And now it’s March and K’s team (Schalke 04) is in the final of the German League Cup, so I have a headache after celebrating a tad too much for a Wednesday evening…
There, think I am up to date now…
