Step 1: Take some paint

Step 2: Staple a piece of paper onto a fence and paint a blob on it

Step 3: Squirt the blob!

Step 4: Squirt some more!

Step 5: Refill squirt bottle and start again.

An afternoon of fun in the sun guaranteed!

Space droid by Oskar, age 7

The outcome will be a) I am successful and keep my job and get paid more or b) I am not successful, someone else will join our team on that higher salary and although I will keep my job I will stay on my current salary.

I guess I have no job to lose as such, but it would be really kind of embarrassing if I didn’t get it.  So that’s why I’m stressing out.  And reading about the Maastricht Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty and who’s the president of the European Parliament and what does the Commission do and what’s the difference between the Council of Europe and the European Council.  I’d rather be doing something else :)  Anything else.

I haven’t even thought about the actual ‘what is the job about’ part of the interview. I should at least get a few thoughts together in my head about where I want to go, etc.

Exhausting.  But I bet no one loves job interviews. Especially those interviews that you cannot just walk away from afterwards – the ones that mean that you’ll still be working with the people who interviewed you.

So from now until Tuesday is study time and de-stress time. I have gained a few kgs in the last couple of weeks due to eating way too much pizza and when I get all soft in the middle I lose all my confidence.  So now it’s strictly gluten free life again (and sugar-free of course, but that part is easy these days).

This morning’s 10km run was very good for my head and now I’m going to sit down and eat some boiled eggs (post run protein hit :), drink coffee and study.  My German tutor will come in the afternoon and then again tomorrow and Friday as well.

You can’t say that I’m not preparing, but I’ve still been so annoyingly stressed. I’m hoping that now that the ‘deadline’ is so close I will just bite the bullet, memorise the stupid dates of all the EU treaties, etc. and formulate some thoughts for the interview both in English and in German.

This is my coffee machine. Coffee makes me happy... (and sunshine... and running... :)

One thing I want to have is display shelves of different espresso cups. The initial plan was to just have cups but now the scope has widened a bit because I’ve found a cute little milk pitcher:

Hand printed pitcher from Nina van de Goor (via Etsy)

The pitcher is printed by a Dutch artist, Nina van de Goor (everything in her Etsy store is 20% off at the moment!)

If you order something you might get lucky like I did and also receive a set of postcards with your order. Personal touches like that are what makes me go back to someone’s Etsy shop to snoop around some more :)

Our Dynamic Earth takes you on a journey through our planet’s past, present and future, with interactive exhibits and impressive technology, including a 4D and 3D experience. Beginning with the Big Bang, children and adults alike can witness the creation of the Earth, follow the planet through its evolution and even catch glimpses of its future. From dry tundra to the bottom of the ocean, a journey through Dynamic Earth is exciting, fun and engaging. Whether coming face to face with an extinct dinosaur, feeling the sticky heat of a tropical rainforest or flying over glaciers in prehistoric Scotland, Dynamic Earth presents all aspects of the planet we live in.

Our boys absolutely loved it and if you’re ever in Edinburgh and have little kids tagging along (over the age of 2, that is), make sure you check it out.

Cool badges for 50p each

A very pretty brain...

If you guess what the 3 possible reasons for dinosaurs' extinction were, then you see an asteroid crash and the dinos all fall down. This was Oliver's favorite :)

Yikes

View from the path that leads up to Arthur's Seat

Different rock formations and 'models' of early animals

Q&As

Fascinating stuff ;)

• I have no patience to sit at a nail salon for 1.5 hours every 2 weeks.
• I say every 2 weeks because I cannot stand long fingernails and cannot wait for 3 weeks to get them redone.
• The regrowth is noticeable after 2 weeks and I cannot stand the look of gel nails when they start to grow out.
• My nails are really thin after taking the gel off so it can’t be that good for them to do this on a regular basis :(

In the end practicality wins over vanity and sadly since I had the gel taken off last week, I have completely and utterly destroyed my fingers again… so I’m still on the lookout for the method that will keep me from doing that.

Must.Book.A.Hypnotist.

:|

2. Blogging is very empowering for a lot of women
… and I have a lot of respect for those who have made blogging their job and are therefore in charge of their working hours and times. It’s an admirable achievement.

3. Bloggers are mostly introverts
… but once the initial ice has been broken, they can be crazy wild and won’t stop talking :) (me included ;)

4. Blogging is the ‘village‘ that so many women need to help them ‘survive’ parenthood
… because so many of us live far away from our families/relatives and because parenting is the life experience in which one needs to be able to share the joys as well as the ‘burden’.

5. I personally will keep blogging like it’s 2005 :)
… and pretend that once more there are no memes, no giveaways, no competitions, no networkedblogs, no britmums, no netmums, no mumsnet, no blogging awards.  I will keep writing when and what I want to, and will not spend a lot of time pimping my posts or checking my stats. Blogging is not my job, it’s my hobby and hobbies are meant to be just enjoyed.

My old well-used German dictionary from university.

Last night’s German lesson took me straight back to 1993 – that year I arrived in the States with plenty of English in my brain but not enough speaking experience to actually get it out in coherent sentences.

The mental strain in the first few months actually made me physically exhausted (as well as frazzled my brain so much that I couldn’t even speak Estonian when I met an old Estonian lady a few months into my 1st year :|).

Speaking to my German tutor last night felt exactly the same – I was absolutely shattered and headachy after the 1.5 hour lesson. I had forgotten just how much effort it is to speak a language that you’re not fluent in.

I figure though that the brain is just like any other muscle – you need to exercise it and feel the pain in order for it to get stronger. The process is not nice and hurts a lot, but if one day I can speak German even a little bit easier than at the moment then I will be deliriously happy :)

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A sidenote:

Some of my lovely Twitter ‘friends’ have told me about satellite dishes that pick up German TV channels (I cannot wait to investigate so I can watch GZSZ again!) and pointed me towards funny sites like this to remind me of the importance of correct capitalisation in German, e.g.:

Die Spinnen! = The spiders!
Die spinnen! = They are crazy!

Er hatte liebe Genossen. = He had kind companions.
Er hatte Liebe genossen. = He had enjoyed love.

Helft den armen Vögeln. = Help the poor birds.
Helft den Armen vögeln. = Help poor people with sex.

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That’s your German lesson for the day. You’re welcome :)