Connecting the dots backwards

When it comes to the topic of public speaking there are some quite famous speakers who are always named. I am neither one of them but I love to listen and learn from the best. A particular speech I really like is a commencement speech from Steve Jobs. He is sharing his experiences with the students in an emotional but convenient way. If you don't know the video you can watch it right now:



So why am I showing you this video? In general because it captures a lot of the why, I'm doing so much (e.g. work, music, language, teaching, art, etc.). I don't know why I invest time in some of my hobbies(e.g. learning languages and studying psychology) apart from the fact that I like to do so but I do believe I it will work out some day.
In other areas I think I found a part of the answer. Music for instance is something I always loved. My aunt used to play piano for me and thus I associated music with peace, love, wealth and knowledge. In other words with everything I wanted to achieve. Unfortunately my two bigger sisters imprinted the idea of "we are not talented in music and don't want to have music lessons" deeply into the brains of my parents. As time passed I ended up finishing school without any noteworthy music skills.
Today I practice piano, play violin and sing and I really love to do all of it. Connecting the dots backwards not being able to learn an instrument (apart from trumpet- yes I really was despaired enough to do so) in my childhood equipped me with a strong will to change and learn. I also don't associate music in the way I did before ;).
The world is filled with many fascinating, interesting and remarkable things. It would be a shame not to investigate them, wouldn't it?

Steve Jobs summed it up in with conclusion of the commencement speech:
"Stay hungry stay foolish."

It's Christmas

Yup I'm not kidding it's Christmas. And now I will give you a short introduction why. First because it's not summer anymore it was quite cold some days ago. That's a criteria but I fear that I didn't convince you with this one. That's good because I have another one: I started learning english again and it's paid by my employer. :) Let's combine both criteria together. First it's not summer and second I got a gift.

Ok, maybe your right, that could also be something like divine intervention or pure coincidence. Here is the third criteria I like to add. I bought gingerbread in the supermarket two days ago :). That one is a good one, isn't it? And I have still one left. I received my new car too. To sum it up: not summer anymore, cool english lessons, brand new car, and gingerbread does sound like Christmas :).

There is one downside, I need to fetch up on the correct usage of the past tenses in English. The fabulous teacher spotted my grammar flaw in no time. Today I'll just finish the homework. It's about easily confused words like peace and piece. One of my followed blog's author has trouble to differentiate these words which let to an interesting statement about Michael Jackson's death. So maybe I'll take a look at the past tenses tomorrow.

I'll also post some articles I've prepared to answer some open questions and give you an overview of my past days.

I really hope that you don't have anything resting in pieces :P. (I think my old car will do so soon).

Take care.

The world seems to need NLP

Since I started reading a book about NLP (neurolinguistic programming) I figured out that many people in my office are learning and practising it already. Until now it's a very interesting area. I'll give you a summary about the book once I finished it.
Until then you can watch a video of Derren Brown a magician from UK who uses NLP and hypnosis to acheive very interesting results.

Stay tuned ;)

Junta „Republica de las Bananas“

Good morning everyone ;)

Don't worry I'm not up again, I'm still awake but I will go to bed soon. Today I went to a birthday party of a friend and we played Singstar. I really don't like games like that but as usual after trying out I realize, that I am not going to die playing it. Thank you for this valuable experience.

Speaking of valuable experiences Thursday night we played a game called "Junta" and I learned that I would be a horrible politician if I were trying to be one. The aim of the game is to collect money and put it away in your secret bank account while being a high ranking politician of the banana's republic. The Here are some pictures:

The rules of the game are a bit odd because they explicitly ask you to cheat on the other players. Weird, confusing and mean but maybe it's just like live can be sometimes.

Good night everyone and take care.

Guess what ...

I visited my gym today. Surprisingly it was exactly where I left it the last time :). It nearly didn't change at all apart from the team they are "new" again. Since the weather is beginning to get worse or less friendly for outdoor exercise I will be there more often. The rest of the day had been filled with relaxing, crafting and taking photos. Here are some but the weather wasn't as nice as it was the days before:

I nearly forgot to tell you that we tried something new as our dinner. It's called Seitan and it's some sort of meat substitute for vegans. It's not hard to prepare and it can taste delicious. The next time we eat Seitan I will take a picture and show it to you. Are you convinced to try something new? Great you will find much information on the web page of the vegetarian resource group.

Take care and have a nice Sunday evening.

Pirate Party

As I promised yesterday I will show some photos from the current election campaigns in Germany. I have to admit that I didn't find many interesting posters in the streets except the ones from the pirate party. Some of you might have heard about the swedish pirate party. With a little luck and great timing of the pirate bay process they arouse enough attention to gain a seat in the european parliament. Anyway, we do have a pirate party in Germany too and they are trying to convince people to vote for them. Being a young and exceptional party they use great stylistic devices to convey their message. Here are four posters:

I decided against a brief translation because the texts loose most of their esprit by doing so. The general topics are privacy in the surveillance society and the copy right system we do have with its boon and bane. In case you are allowed to vote, make up your mind on your own and go to the elections!

Long time no see!

I know I promised to write at least a little bit but I didn't feel like sharing my ideas and thoughts of the past days would be a great idea.

Albert Einstein once said that life is like a riding a bicycle. You need to keep going to keep the balance. To my mind the phrase is logical and past week I would have accepted it as it is. Today I dissent from the statement. I figured out that the human body keep running totally unbalanced for a while, a long while.

As I already wrote I prepared for my math exam the past weekends but I also worked on an interesting and challenging project at work. Both "projects" have been important to me and jet both together build up an enormous stress level. Thus I ended up developing tinnitus which kept me awake during the night.

I went to a specialist and they recommended a (boring) uneventful or easeful life. Well that sounds like the opposite of my current life, the one I like the way it is. Despite that they put me on medication so that my ear should get better. To regain some air and time to recover I canceled the math exam and rescheduled it to June/July 2010 :(. Somehow that helped a bit but I think it was not the exam alone the pushed me into the situation.

I also thought about getting the recommended type of life but I didn't find a singe activity I want to take the edge of. Here are some activities and my current point of view about them:

• Work- I cannot help myself, I still like what I'm doing
• Learning violin- won't stop doing so. I probably learned more about personality, facing change, emotions, trust and how to tackle difficult situations during the past one and three quarter years than I did in any public speaking or management class.
• Other instruments- hell I am lazy, it just works why should I stop doing so.
• Languages- I wouldn't say that I'm doing much for each of the languages I speak, I just keep reading a book or a magazine etc.
• Fitness- way to important to lower the stress level.
• Distance study- I really want to learn more about psychology....

All in all, pretty bad hmm? Yes, that is exactly how I feel right now. Maybe Einstein is still right, maybe while going on I will find a way to "manage" all my hobbies (including work, I am pretty sure I will explain that in a different post one day) in a more balanced way.

Since my ear and mood is getting better I also will start to post again. In the past days often strolled through the streets after the ear treatment and I found some great adverts for the upcoming elections in Germany. I will post the outstanding ones tomorrow. Keep in touch ;).

The One who

tells me about all my spelling mistakes I make in my blogposts has a new side project. Unfortunately, he doesn't write much in there so I cannot place grumpy comments about his blog :(. Anyhow, let's help him to enter the league of A bloggers because that's what he is aiming.
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Cooking is Art

A glimpse at next week's company meal plan told me that I need to precook a lot. Unfortunately I learned much and didn't find the time to do much but I just put stuffed peppers into the oven.

It's really simple and up to a specific point even vegan. It also is the opportunity to use the roemer tot, clay cooker, or chicken brick. Here is a picture:

And here are the pictures of the peppers and the filling:

I'll give you a report on how it tastes as soon as I ate it as lunch at work :)

Meeting the locals

How do you know it's autumn? Today it's easier: the day your friends will gently push you to to the local "Oktoberfest". So what do you need to have a cool Oktoberfest? First a bavarian decoration, I, well, saved one of this flags to show you:

Then you need big drinking glasses to put beer in:

Some friends:

And finally a very specific type of German music.

That's it. It is easy isn't it? Before I'll have too many complains in the comment area, you can also have typical food ;).

Today I also figured out why "Oktoberfest" is celebrated in September. It was originally celebrated in October but the celebration period was moved into September because of the weather conditions :).

See you on one of the next ones.

Bye bye summer welcome autumn...

When do you know it's autumn? You will figure it out the day you step out of your front door and the weather is neither bright and shiny nor is it raining it's just in-between. You start your usual exercise trip and after a third of it, it starts to rain and doesn't stop until you're finished. While taking extra care not to fall while skating you figure out that all those leaves that are falling are beautifully colored in the worst and ugliest brown. The brown I knew from my boring natural hair color. That's the day you will know it's autumn. So what benefits and risks does skating in the rain on a autumn day offers to the one who is still willing to exercise:

1. You will get wet. Don't think of slightly damp cloth, think of soaking wet from top to bottom than you are on the right way.
2. You will have a brand new exercising experience. It probably was never that adrenalin rich. Okay, you also probably never had the feeling of sliding away sideway instead of going forward.
3. You will train the way your brain organizes the motoric commands towards your muscles because you will be rather sliding than skating.
4. You can sympathize with the jump and run game heros because you will try not to hit one of the many new obstacles in your way. (An author's tip: do not try to jump!)
5. You will feel twice as fatigue as usual because of the reasons mentioned above.
6. You will start to love bad asphalt, because it will give you the grip you need.
7. You will be thankful for every pound you haven't lost due to proper exercise and a sensible diet.

In general I do not recommend skating in the rain but it does not kill you either. When I was close to home it actually stopped raining. So I could enjoy a rainbow and the sun a bit. :)

Apart from my jump and run skating experience I need to drop some lines about my blog. Until now I've posted 47 times and the average post ratio per day was around 1 for the last two month. I probably will not be able to hit this kpi this month because I have to do a lot. I will try to but I'm pretty sure you rather see me sleeping half an hour longer than writing nonsense just to hit that kpi. I'll try to catch up a bit by showing some of the creative projects I'm working on but I don't have much time for them either. I also will write something about THE cookie jar because I haven't found a proper solution jet.

All in all stay tuned there will be news but maybe not daily.

Greetings Me.

Good morning run

Good morning everyone. Today's morning had been a beautiful one and I used it to run. I wrote a lot about fitness, set backs and my goal to keep fit, so today's post will be one of this kind. Recently I listened to podcasts again and I found one with the topic motivation. In this podcast someone said that there are 4 stages of running:

1. I have to run
2. I will run
3. I love to run
4. It's running

When I started to run I really pushed me to do so. That's the first stage. In general I don't believe it's bad to gently force yourself to do anything. However psychologically it's a self suggestion and your subconscious will be working against you all the time. I think the first half year after I started I was running against my subconscious. Then I figured out that running can be fun and entered the stage two in which I still am. In the podcast the trainer said that you can use your thoughts to be better in running or other activities if you just think in stage 4 terms. Being curious about such theories I tried it out this morning. I just imagine myself running as stage 4 runners do, being in a flow not caring about anything else in the world. It (my body) enjoyed this new freedom and ran a little bit to fast :(. I ended up not finishing my usual round and being out of breath too.
Probably all this psychological ticks need to be practised too. The next time I will stick to stage 2 again and will control the speed to be able to finish that round.
I wish everyone a day full of flows :).