Blanche-Neige au bois dormant

The strangest thing just happened to me.

I just got off the train (it was another not-so-fun train ride - I really didn't know where to sit, so I opted for a seat in sight of the toilet even though I realized I couldn't fit my suitcase under the seat because it was too big, and then I went to the toilet long before the train even left the station (I was early), which was smart because the toilet door eventually broke and no longer opened, and a guy took the seat next to me despite there being my suitcase). The moment I stood there waiting for the S-Bahn, I felt ... I don't even know how to describe it. Something was instantly off.

I suppose it's a combination of things.

Realizing that my vacation is over.
Responsibilities looming.
Me still trying to avoid thinking of how to manage the upcoming days. (I am still not sure if I'll try to hand in the USB device today, and if not, when.)
The last chapter I managed to read of my novel before I had to store all my stuff away was the main characters breaking up.
Plus this Michael Schulte song playing on my MP3 player with that song that is so beautiful, yet it always leaves me sad. (I think it echoes a Disney song in me.)
I hadn't eaten all day. I'm just now starting to have the food I prepared for travel.
Also, when I got to the platform, it was super cold. The last time I checked the weather forecast, it was supposed to be 14°C upon my arrival. My phone claimed it was 11°C.

Life was sucked out of me. All the relaxing, happy moments of the last couple of days - gone.

It doesn't help that the trilogy I'm reading is a fantasy one with magic and stuff. I would claim that what I experienced was pretty much like walking into one of those areas without magic.

It's so strange to think that my vacation is coming to a close. After my last entry, I was out and about a LOT. I did an 8+ km beach walk on Monday, for example, and yesterday I met up with my mom in a city we could both "easily" reach by regional train in an acceptable time. It was nice seeing her, but it was also a bit of an odd situation since she was telling all those tiny stories she would have also gotten off her chest if we had had our regular weekly phone call, and I also told a few tiny stories that were on my mind, but I never really got around to telling her much about what I had been up to in my vacation. Not the trips I did in my first week, and hardly anything of what I did while here. She was talking and talking and talking, I guess. Also, I had written her a postcard, and I expected her to read it after I gave it to her, so that we'd get to speak about it in more detail afterwards. But she said she'd probably not even read it on the train because of her travel sickness, but when she's back home. And it was getting exhausting towards the end because I was feeling off (needed to pee, but didn't want to pee too early), and she couldn't decide on where to have dinner. It was her who suggested she'd stay long enough for us to have dinner, but she didn't think of looking up restaurants beforehand. I figured we could have something at the mall and would have loved some Asian food (although I admit that the options weren't exactly what I wanted, either), but she couldn't find anything on the menues she'd try. She is super picky with food. In the end we went to McDonalds, but only after another detour and a break because the place was already crowded when we got there and I lost my nerve and my will to keep walking at some point. I was super exhausted.

Which is also why I hadn't made any specific plans for today. I wanted to sleep in for once. And read in bed. The weather forecast predicted rain and grey skies pretty much all day, so I told myself I'd just start easy and then maybe hope for an opening in the afternoon to get out to get some fresh air and explore the city some more. There are a few spots I would still like to go, but it would be no shame if I had to skip them, either.

Sleep in I did. And reading. And when I was just about to put my book aside and prepare some food, the building was again full of noises and footsteps going up and down the steps. It freaked me out. Which is silly, obviously. I was already freaked out a bit the other day when I arrived at the building and noticed that somebody had fidgeted with that key box at the wall. And now somebody was inside for sure. Rationally, I knew that it's possible that they sent somebody again to check on the heating system. Or to actually fix it. Plus I think that the upstairs apartment is not rented to guests, but a private apartment that probably belongs to the house owners and that they use when they are around. Somebody was in there, too. I just got so used to the thought of having the building to myself that the presence of somebody else just ... freaked me out. To the point that I didn't want them to notice that I was present. In case that would make them come to my door and want to talk or whatever. I stayed put in bed. I later stayed put by the oven. I stayed put at the dining table. I tiptoed around and tried not to make the floor squeak too much. I did not dare to use the toilet or wash my hands (I considered peeing without flushing, but then realized the water would still run for washing the hands). I eventually crawled back into bed to continue reading there.

At some point I no longer noticed any footsteps or other noises. From time to time I checked for people outside. I often saw people with umbrellas. There was supposed to be a 40-minute window of no rain in the late afternoon, but I eventually decided on a pj day. I also had to wash the dishes and my hair, and so this was the first day of me not leaving the apartment. I do feel silly for being afraid of drawing attention to my presence.

Tomorrow is my last full day. My mom thought I'd want to visit yet another city, but I never had that on my list. I looked the distance up yesterday and found out that there is indeed a direct train connection with a reasonable travel time, but I guess I'll skip that. I can be lucky to catch some dry hours, but the day is supposed to be mostly overcast, and I already didn't enjoy that too much on the date with my mom. (I had to get there an hour earlier than her since that exact train connection was cancelled, and I was glad because I arrived in sunshine and blue skies and got in some nice exploration time.) The city would also be too big to really have much of an appeal for a few-hour visit, and I definitely need to be around here long enough to get my empty bottles back to the store and to start packing. I am already annoyed that I will have to get up super early on Friday to make all the deadlines work ... If I could have left the key somewhere here, the timing would have been perfect because I'll have to be out circa 20 minutes before the train leaves with a less-than-10-minute walk to the station. But I have to add an extra 30-40 minutes because I have to get further away from the train station first to drop off the key and then walk all the way back, all with my luggage ...

Well, I'll try to get up early both days. I haven't even started writing my postcards yet. I still have no stamps, so I am pretty sure by now that I will buy the stamps at my S-bahn station in Berlin and send them from there. But I should at least write them while I'm here. And I hope to get in some exploring while the sun is out in the morning (if it is indeed out). Plus read some more. I FINALLY finished to re-read that novel I started on my trip last week, and I brought both of the sequels, and I'm halfway through the second book of the trilogy thanks to the pj day, and I kinda hope I'll somehow magically finish it before I leave, so that I can start the third book on the train ride.

I am dreading that train ride, by the way. I hated the spot I sat in when I got here, but it did have the benefit of the proximity of the toilet (the spacious handicapped toilet nonetheless). (I wanted to check out alternatives when I took the train yesterday, but the toilet situation really is an issue since there are so few - I had wanted to use the train toilet before getting off yesterday, and when I finally found it and opened the door, I could see the bowl covered in toilet paper, so I preferred not to take any risks.) I just hope it won't be as crowded as last week, but I guess it could be, and in that case it would take AGES to get to the toilet of I secured a seat far away ...

OK, enough of that. I still wanna read, and I have already "wasted" about 30 minutes more on this post than I had intended!

I guess I have mentally arrived!

It was good that I sent that e-mail last night. I received a reply while I was still lying in bed (I was trying to sleep again; I woke up way too early from what I first thought was the church bell, but it was probably the construction site/metal against metal from the wind). So the rental service guy apoloogized and mentioned that the owners informed the janitor, who'd take care as soon as possible. I heard noises in the building while I was starting to get up. I think I heard a toilet flush and wondered if somebody moved into the next-door apartment, but it was so early that I considered it being cleaning people. I wanted to go grocery shopping at Aldi, but didn't dare leave the apartment when I heard footsteps on the staircase. I wasn't sure if the janitor was already there and if he'd want to see the heaters in my apartment. When I eventually decided it was safe, and I unlocked my door, the janitor just got out of the upstairs apartment. After I greeted him, he explained that the heating issue wouldn't go away. Apparently it was indeed the heating system in the whole building that had died. He said there's no chance to get that fixed this weekend, and he assumed that the rental service might have to offer me a different accommodation. Awesome ...

In fact, that may have been the remedy for all the shit I have gone through lately. If only I were a car vacationer (is that a word?) and hadn't come by train. While I was on my way to the shops, I got a call (I was smart enough to turn the sound on; I actually stopped doing that months ago). The guy repeated what the janitor had already told me and said he could offer two things: either bringing me electric heaters, or putting me into a different accommodation. I was conflicted and went with his offer to send me some alternatives by e-mail. I checked them out on my way to Aldi, but didn't call him back until after I was back in the apartment. The alternatives were really pretty - especially the first one, which was a much nicer apartment than mine and cost about 100€ more than the one I chose. (I didn't specifically ask, but I assume I wouldn't have had to pay extra since it wasn't my fault that they didn't check before if the apartment was fit for renters in this type of climate.) The issue: it was on the other side of the old town. Close to where I'll have to drop off the keys (which would have saved me time on the departure day). There was another one I remembered having looked at before and pretty much dismissed because the sofa/TV/dinenr table situation was all crammed into aa super slim room, which I didn't like. It would have been too far off, too. The third option was right in the city center. I remembered walking that street last night, although I guess I misremembered it for being the pedestrian street. I didn't really want to live in the pedestrian street because I wanted a quiet stay. So I dismissed that option as well. Besides, it was on the ground floor - hello pedestrians. And it would have been uphill. Uhm, no. Thanks.

I didn't buy much at Aldi, but the 6 kg of water bottles alone (which I carried uphill and downhill again, like my luggage on the day of my arrival) cemented my idea of going with the portable, electric heaters. Because I wouldn't have been able to get my belongings to the new accommodation in one go. The logistics aside (which is me saying that maybe he would have offered me a ride if I had asked, or paid for a taxi instead of having me walk twice) - I didn't really feel like already packing again. Because I for once decided that this should feel like a relaxing vacation and not rushed, so I unpacked almost everything and spread it around the apartment. The only stuff I left in my suitcase were things I wouldn't necessarily need right away (like the camera I brought in case I'd visit the zoo, or the napkins in case there weren't any in the apartment).

Which means: I called the guy to tell him I'd try the heaters. And there went my chance at a pretty, functioning bathroom. :0\

I went for a walk again because the weather was steady and he said he'd take another two hours to get to the matter, and I wouldn't necessarily have to be there anyway. But I got back when the storm got heavier, plus I hadn't eaten yet. I actually stayed inside the kitchen to eat my bread rolls because I quickly realized that the oven had done its magic and made that small kitchen much more bearable than the rest of the apartment. The heaters arrived while I was eating, and when I got them running and the room started to feel nicer, I eventually moved to the dining table.

By now it's super cozy in here. :0) I watched a movie, read a chapter (before the movie started), just watched some YouTube videos, and shrieked during those the way I usually do at home. Because it is cool to know that I have the building to myself and won't disturb any neighbors. Well, I don't know about the house next door, but who gives. I also danced around a bit while I watched the movie. It started to rain again and there is actually a storm warning in place, so I am glad that I can stay indoors now and that I didn't waste half of my day packing and moving!

I tried to call my mom about our potential meeting, but she wasn't at home. The odd thing is that I got a text from her a while later, but that was just a reply to the one I sent yesterday ... And then I got the same message again. Maybe a bug in the delivery? Haven't heard abck from her after that.

Alright, I gotta make sure I have some food for dinner now. I'm a bit annoyed that the heater situation, combined with the no-freezer situation, resulted in me not buying any dinner food at Aldi. I just got water, bread rolls, cold cuts and snacks. I didn't want to risk having to move all the edibles into different vacation rental, and especially not a partly defrosted meal. I guess I'll have to go shopping again next week. Hopefully not while I have big plans.

A few positive thoughts first:

• It was a really nice and warm day. I caught some nice harbor shots in the sunset, I think.

But:

• The vacation rental is super cold. It's colder than my own apartment, imagine that! So I wanted to put on the heating, but the heaters don't get warm at all.


• Thank goodness that the service hours of the rental service are Mon-Fri and I have a whole weekend ahead of me.


• I sent an e-mail anyway. Maybe the person who hands out keys is in the office and sees my e-mail.


• I went grocery shopping in the evening, mainly for bottled water. They didn't have their cheap brand in stock. I'll have to check a different store in the morning.


• The train ride was tough. I didn't expect it to be so crowded. At least I had a seat.


• There is no freezer in the apartment.


• The wooden spoons are all burned black.


• I heard that the weather this weekend might be rather bad, so I had mentally prepared for much time inside the apartment. Yeah, at this rate I'll return sick.

Today is the last day before my almost-two-week vacation. Or should I rather say: days off from work? Because the vacation topic has been haaaaaaunting me. I really wanted to go away, but never got around to organizing anything since I wasn't sure what my tooth situation would be, and then the surgery was (temporarily) scheduled for this week, which only got clarified 11 days ago. I started researching a few days ago, but also got discouraged quite a bit by 1) the travel time, 2) the prices, 3) what you can get for those prices, 4) the weather forecast. After my last proper vacation ("proper" as in not returning to my hometown or doing day trips, not in term of length of stay), I had always wanted to have a longer stay close to the beach at the Baltic Sea, so that I'd be less dependent on the weather. Reminder: that "proper" vacation was a 3-night stay, which means only 2 full days, out of which was was rainy and soaked my shoes.
I spontaneously went for a little walk on Saturday (I figured that the days for sitting down for outdoors-reading are over) and was stunned by the temperatures, which not only gave me a cold face and the realization that I should have switched to a warmer jacket than the one I was wearing, but I also had super itchy legs from the blood circulation. I couldn't wait to get home, scratch those legs, and have a hot chocolate. Spending time and money on a beach trip where I probably wouldn't do much other than beach walks, stay indoors or travel to one or two museums in the area suddenly didn't seem so ideal at this time of the year. After all, my idea at the time involved spending hours in the sand just reading every day ...

I did come up with a great alternative that was been growing on me yesterday. I eventually decided on a vacation rental, too, but still haven't booked anything. Because I couldn't decide if I should leave a day later than I last thought I would, and thus cut the trip a day short. The big issue here is that the temperatures are higher in Berlin throighout. I never intended to be gone all my days off, and I have a few other things planned as well. But the last time I checked, the nicest temperatures would be EXACTLY while I'm on the train! I'm almost ready to ignore that though. I still prefer that travel date for a bunch of other reasons. So while it sucks that I probably can't make better use of that day, I will probably try to make a reservation for this vacation rental during my lunch break. Or later during work. Depending on how things develop and how much longer I'll be typing here. Maybe, just maybe I can arrange to get into the rental apartment earlier than they usually allow as it doesn't seem to be booked before me. Provided I manage to get up eary enough to catch an earlier train.

So, work. This is so absurd because I am used to struggling to get everything organized and taken care of before I'm leaving. I don't quite remember how that went down in August, but February was filled with stress, that's for sure. Today, however, I started into the day knowing that the main issue would be if my sick coworker would be back at work and if he and his boss would clarify the invoicing topics in time. I had already completed all my monthly tasks by Thursday/Friday, as far as that is possible (I'm still waiting for stuff that my mentor is working on, which would then have to be added to some overviews - but that is not urgent at all and would be the perfect to-do for when I'm back). I refuse to put any ideas or energy into coming up with that improvement concept that our supervisor wants to see on the day I return. I also refuse to check the offer paper that was handed over to us with the comment that the project manager was missing information, so we should check it anyway without that. In other words: that basically left me waiting for new tasks (some already arrived and I took care of them), plus I informed the two guys I'm waiting for that I'm only here today to take care of the September invoice and that they should ideally clarify the questions this morning, so that I'd have enough time to complete the case today. Both of them said that they'd have a look/clarify this. That was at 9:14 and 11:08 a.m., respectively. Now it's roughly 1 p.m., which means I am about to take my lunch break. I scheduled the handover meeting and weekly (that we didn't hold on Friday as my mentor was at the office and you can't badmouth well there with so many witnesses) for 2 p.m. I assume that nothing will have been clarified by then and I will have to explain everything to my mentor and potentially have her mess with the project ...

Speaking of the office, I went to the office last Thursday (what was I thinking?! I would have needed that day for watching recordings from Wednesday night instead of commuting!). It was crowded. I met a new project manager who had started in September, and for the first time someone had to find a desk in a different room because all four desks were already taken. Frankly speaking, I thought it was impolite of the person who announced as the fifth peron that they'd be coming that day to take a seat in that room. If you already know that enough people announced their attendance for the room to be full, have the decency to look for a different place yourself if you have to attend as well!
They did have a project manager retro, which they went to a meeting room for. I once eavesdropped over such a meeting when two of my coworkers attended it from their desks. This time I didn't get any intel, but one of my coworkers told me upon returning that my name was brought up. In the context of "we need more like her." :0) That felt really nice. It also means I have no plan to change how I'm slacking. LOL

So here I am, slacking all morning (I have already spent about an hour in the living-room watching a recording and having my laptop open for urgent tasks/messages). Let's see if I return from my break to significant news.

(Ooooooh right, my dad called the other day and announced that my stepbrother and his wife are expecting!)

I had dreams for three nights in a row. This morning, the last one played "Could It Be Magic" by Take That and that made me so happy!
Just thought I'd leave this here, what with all the negativity that I so often have to release here.

What a chaotic day! I have to be super quick with this entry, but I know I won't be able to relax before I write, so I'll see how far I get.

The day started relatively smoothly, only I was suprised to see that my mentor had already archived e-mails by the time I started, but not prepared the list for the time checks by the project managers. A task I had taken over for the weekly updates while she was gone, but now that it mattered, it also had to be me. I had noticed that she had a confirmed 1-hour time block at 8 a.m. and assumed that might be the project meeting I heard about in her absence, because it was said she'd have a meeting then. I had actually offered to her in my handover e-mail to join in case I'd be useful with my knowledge of what recently happened in her absence, but didn't intend to get up early just for that. She was not in a call when I started work, so that confused me as well.

In fact, she remained as absent all day and we have not been in touch at all. When I returned from my lunch break, the project manager of the aforementioned project had sent me a chat message in which he asked if my mentor was sick since she was supposed to be back today, but appeared as absent and even had her "away" sign still shown next to her name. So it was up to me to tell him that for all I knew, she was around. Annoying.

But I was super busy with my own stuff. What started slowly eventually turned into chaos when the guy with the new priority case asked me how long I'd be working today and I was in the middle of a big something which I first interrupted, then continued, then abandoned. It was rather late when I eventually started on that project, and it was rather exhausting to realize I should have prepared some of the bigger stuff early on because it was quite overwhelming so realize the amount of to-dos once I started. And on top of that, I noticed that one budget was overbooked, so I had to invest extra time to see which bookings can go on the invoice and which ones can't. Once I was finally done sorting everything out and handing it over, my phone called. (That was about an hour ago.)

Sigh. Bug sigh.
It was the surgical practice. The surgeon is still sick, so the surgery won't take place in two weeks. The crazy part was that it became apparent over the course of the phone call that I was very much wrong about who I thought would be my surgeon! The whole time, I thought it was the owner of that practice. And I even wrote at the time that the awkward picture on the website doesn't do her justice. Well, that's because that wasn't her. I had spoken to someone entirely different. How embarrassing.
This basically means that I'll also have to do my research again about the reviews. Not that it matters much since I won't get to be operated by her, but still. I know how I tick, I will do that. Besides, I may want to read reviews about my new surgeon. The lady on the phone told me there are two options for me now (how I love that, when you have to decide on the spot and don't have time to research ... ). One was the male surgeon I think I also already read nice stuff about (if I'm not mistaken), the other was a female doctor and I was concerned that might be the one with the bad reviews. I only remembered her first name and the lady only said the last name, and I couldn't possibly ask for the first name. When she said the next appointments for the female doctor would be either November 4 or 11, and the male doctor had a cancellation and therefore she could already offer something at the end of October, it was an easy and obvious choice for the male doctor and the October appointment. I only realized after I had hung up that their advice to eat a lot before the surgery would most likely not work since the appointment is early than I normally get out of bed, and getting a proper meal in would have been difficult even for the initial appointments (which would have been about 2 hours later). But at that time of the day? Unlikely. But I'd rather be gone before the billing cycle, and maybe missing the beginning of it, than being all stressed the days before the surgery and then be out for several days during the billing cycle. Or wait until November 11.
The only problem I potentially see: if they do extract the tooth, I was told I'd have to have that consultation about implants after 8-10 weeks. Which would be exactly the Christmas break. Not ideal. But what is in this terrible case?
I asked about my scans, though, and discussed with them that I'd bring them over sometime before the surgery. They'll keep them for a while, though. And I still haven't even looked at them.

The "good" part is that I'll probably spend the weekend thinking about actually leaving for a vacation since I won't have to sacrifice my days off for that surgery. Maybe I'll find something nice at this short notice.

That confusing 5-minute call turned the moment rather intense, but just when I was done, I got new messages from the project manager whose priority case I had previously just completed. He was confused that I said we had more bookings than the budget allwed because according to his numbers, there was still wiggle room. We had another confusing call - confusing for me because he shared his method of controlling with me and I would have never come up with that method and had a hard time following him, and probably confusing for him, too, as I shared what we actually invoiced. He was rather pissed to realize that his method was risky and faulty and not working. While I get his frustration, now that I've had some time to think about it, I really don't get why he chose that method in the first place. I briefly showed him three places where to track the budget, three places that made perfectly sense and him not using any of those makes no sense at all. I wonder what on earth made him come up with the idea that looking at the individual bookings in total in the system would be a good idea when there are sooooooo many cases in which corrections have to be made to the invoice AFTER the individual bookings already got locked and therefore couldn't be properly corrected.

I was beyond exhausted at that point. My tooth has actually started bothering me slightly more since yesterday, and I think the work stress might have an impact on that. I eventually got to look at all the stuff that entered my inbox since dealing with that priority project. I couldn't take it. Somebody had completed their checks and tagged me in order to start preparing the data, but it was 6:30 p.m. at that moment. It was a long day and it was getting dark, which required turning my desk lamp on (my early starts and lack of to-dos had allowed me to leave around 5 p.m. lately, so I didn't have to work in the dark yet, and frankly speaking that was a downer). The project I would have had to tackle is a bigger project, too, and there are rectifications to be taken care of because the project manager made mistakes in earlier months. So I decided to leave that for tomorrow. Unfortunately someone had the audacity to schedule the company all hands tomorrow at 9 a.m. And shortly after that would be the weekly with my mentor, although I doubt we'll find the time. But it will be another stressful day.

I left without even entering my hours. My timekeeping notes were a huge mess due to the interruptions. And did I mention I didn't even get to welcome my mentor?

This is my second-to-last day at work before my mentor returns. And I notice that I don't need her presence to be stunned by her work approach. This week I got a glimpse into the messy project she's been complaining about forever. Messy it is for sure. But she can't only put the blame on others. The way she "documented" stuff is just unbelievable.

Let me get into detail a bit.

Case 1:
Her handover said that all I'd have to do about this project is to archive the confirmation e-mails once the project manager forwards those to us and then e-mail the link to the finance team and to tell them that the billing can commence since the confirmations are there.
When the finance person approached me with the comment that she can't invoice the project since the numbers don'w match, I was confused because I hadn't received the confirmation yet. Turns out that my mentor had told the project manager to forward the confirmation to finance and to HER, not US. And he followed. Ugh.

Case 2:
Actually part of case 1. I started to investigate what might have caused the unspecified mismatch and realized that my coworker didn't properly document what went on the last two days before her leave. She had told me on said last Friday that they'd be having a meeting about the project, and I was this close to suggesting to take part myself as a listener. But I didn't. And it's quite clear that they made decisions around that time. My mentor created that file for July and sent it out, but it had a file name from August and a timestamp from September. So she must have updated it without correctly renaming the file and archiving the previous version. I also checked the corresponding source file, but that was from August as well and still stated that none of the entries could be invoiced. How great. She should have updated that file when they made the adjustments. I checked the ticket to see if there was any communication about how the September file came to be into existence, but there was no information apart from the link to the file after there was lots of chaos pointed out at the beginning of the ticket's comment section. But that chaos was never resolved or properly explained. So I claimed defeat.

Case 3:
While I didn't deal with that non-matching-numbers issue from case 2, I then received another e-mail from finance a day later with the comment that the numbers for another part of the project didn't match, either. That time she provided her numbers, and the source file from my mentor was also up-to-date, so I could investigate properly. The explanation was quite easy to make out once I had gotten a good overview of the situation: we have this thing in our time-keeping that the times can be classified as billable and non-billable, and the totals of billable hours my mentor had put into the e-mail and file for finance didn't reflect the time-keeping. It was obvious what they wanted to have billed, but they didn't correct it in the time-keeping! Maybe it was already too late for that because the entries were already blocked, which can happen. (That, by the way, is precisely the reason why I instantly ask back when I start working on the numbers. By chat. I don't wait until I have completed everything, hand it over, just to find out days later that they didn't mean the entries to be like that ... I have had that happen too often. Last month, I had two project managers fix the wrong information right away. Helps a great deal.) But IF you run into such an issue, the least xou can do (and I have had to do it a few times) is to add a line into your e-mail with the explanation that the non-billable hours are included in the totals and should indeed be added to the invoice! Her e-mails are super cluttered and it's so difficult to see which numbers come from where ... It would facilitate the finance team's work a great deal if you put better explanations there. But there was no mention in this case, and frankly speaking I am not even sure if she realized what as going on with the numbers.

Case 4:
I had put so much work into creating that Excel file we use to classify the source data. I improved it several times and informed her about the changes, so that she could update her templates afterwards.
During her absence, I not only found out that she keeps the different column orders in different projects (it had been one of my main goals at the time to standardize the different templates - with little adjustments where need be, but overall pretty similar), I also had to realize that she never updated the formula that sometimes led to an undesired outcome and which I had therefore completely reworked from scratch. It was inconvenient that she hadn't implemented the columns that are really useful if you want to figure out if an entry was non-billable - and why. The worst part, though, was that when I now tried to look for the explanations for the mismatches, I ran into serious problems because she had removed all formulas from the file and I had no clue if the output was the result of a formula or manually adjusted. Horrible!
The ridiculous aspect about this is not so much that she's making life harder than necessary. I still remember that when I explained to her the issues I ran into at the beginning of the year because there were unnoticed non-billable entries (for example because a certain project element was first unbillable and only later someone changed it to billable) and that I therefore added new columns to help identify such cases, she was confused and literally claimed that she doesn't have any such cases in her projects! Uhm, I think you do!

We obviously have a project here where a lot of unclarity is provided by each and every person involved. I can totally see how the other people make it so frustrating to deal with the project, but I don't see how my mentor's trying to take over stuff improves the issue much. Not if she is just as messy as everyone else and doesn't point out (or notice) the critical parts. That makes her constant complaints about the finance lady rather hypocritical. What does my mentor do to help her understand what she wants?!

OK, I think I should get back to work. I wanna leave early today to enjoy the nice weather, but I haven't really decided yet what to do or where to go,

I've just finished watching the final season of Babylon Berlin on TV. Made me quite emotional. That ending hit hard.
That was one of those moments where I'm having a hard time to just knock it off and close the chapter and go to sleep. I instantly opened the IMDb reviews because I needed reactions, I needed opinions. Well, there was only one recent review about the current season, so I didn't really get much of what I came there for. Which is also why I then came here to write instead. Because it lingers. It lingers.

Being the good employee that I am ;0), I refrained from cleaning and fixing the kitchen utensils before having the 1:1 today. (And only relaxed in bed for 10 minutes instead, but I did think of what to talk about in the 1:1, so it wasn't even technically a break.)
But now that this took place and I am in a good mood, I did do all that and installed my private laptop by the desk again. Hello. Monday, here we go!

I actually found some tasks to take care of in the morning, which kept me busy until roughly 10 a.m., and then I was lucky that somebody e-mailed with questions about the resource planning tool. I instantly jumped at the opportunity, checked the situation, replied with my assessment minutes later. The coworker replied with a "wow, thank you" since my assessment/question to him was exactly what caused the issue he was facing. He was thrilled that I helped him so quickly. :0)

The 1:1 went pretty well and easy-going, too. I got a chance to mention the above when my boss struggled to find the option how to change his availability status and I helped him out. I mentioned my tooth problems (he has some, too, as it turns out), and then we talked about lots of the topics I had on my list for today. Some because he mentioned them, others because I did. The funny thing is that he did not exactly ask about the task we were given and which his assistant constantly reminds us of. Therefore we didn't speak about what we have done so far in terms of the onboarding stuff. Coincidentally, we somehow still got to talk about the business assistant role because I brought up the topic with the finance team where we had asked to be more involved and aren't allowed. That led to him mentioning his quarrels with our CFO about which tasks the project managers are supposed to take care of and that she doesn't really "get" why it's us business assistants who take care of certain topics instead. To be honest, it was slightly worrisome because it sounds as if our CFO might want to change the core of my work, which would totally suck. My boss said he'd still want us to keep doing the same things even though other business areas have no help and it's the project managers themselves there who take care of those things. He said their numbers are worse, which should be an indication that our model is working. Anyway, it was because of that that he mentioned that he is sure that there are so many things we could add to our role and that one could collect topics with the VPs. He made a note about that. He did NOT ask how far we've already gotten, or if we had already spoken to them. Whis is pretty much in line with how he spoke during the developmental talk, to be honest. Back then, it sounded as if he wanted to arrange a brainstorming meeting with all of us. Maybe the way his assistant presented it to us was all wrong. I don't feel any urge to push for progress now. Although, after what he said today about our CFO, there is a good chance that we will NEED those other tasks. To justify our existence. And to justify why there are two of us.

But that's nothing to worry about today. I was dancing through the apartment instead of worrying. Much nicer.

I think these next 1.5 weeks of the countdown are on a good way of becoming very relaxed, very creative, and full of distractions.

(Please don't check my time keeping.)

The first week of my mentor's vacation is almost over. As expected, it wasn't all that bad. It has mainly been quiet, I got a few small tasks here and there (thank goodness), and I invented a few in between. In a way, the cancellation of my surgery appointment was a blessing in disguise. I never mentioned the dates in advance and just decided for myself that I would spontaneously call in sick (for two days minimum). I always told myself that it wouldn't be a big deal if we had no project assistants there for a couple of days, but I still figured it could leave a bad taste if I didn't actually "fall sick" during my mentor's absence, but have a sort of planned absence. When my mentor called me on Monday, though, she informed me about something in one of her projects which required data analysis on Wednesday (the original date of my surgery) and providing the client with the data no later than Thursday. The client's approval arrived today. That's basically the exact same three days that I thought I'd be out. That would have been a mess ...

I did take the opportunity to join the lunch date with my former coworkers. I was a bit disappointed that my friend happened to sit so far from me, but at some point after we were done eating, I switched places with someone else. But overall it was very little time to get our news exchanged in detail. It was still nice, though, to see everyone again. Well, "everyone" being 8 people who are mostly part of the core that always comes. Speaking of which: our Brazilian coworker, who ALWAYS says he's coming and never does, didn't show up, either. He did let everyone know that he has a lot of time to meet in private in case we're interested.

So I went to the office that day. The door is still not working and I had to ring 3 times in the morning before someone would let me in. Super annoying. I was also surprised when I realized I was the first in our room since it was supposed to be a day where all 4 desks would be occupied. One coworker arrived while I was logging into all my tools. The second one arrived a lot later after his client appointment, and he was drenched from the rain. It turned out to be a very unusul experience: first I noticed him strutting around in his socks because he tried to dry his shoes, then he returned with some super colorful socks that he borrowed from our office manager, and eventually he asked if it would bother me if he took off his jeans to let them dry. I mean, when he left the room to get the socks, his behind looked like he had peed his pants because his bike saddle was probably wet, too. So I told him I'm fine with that, but it was such a silly image to see him sit there in his underpants. I tried not to look over there too much. I had to chuckle so hard when I got a chance (I replayed the image in my head when I was in the women's restroom and nearly lost it LOL).

What's also good: my supervisor's assistant sent us another message in which she informed us that the meeting this month would indeed be canceled. For now I decided to ignore the comment that went along with it and simply sent a heart reaction. What comment, you wonder? Well, she wrote that our boss would like to have both of us present the results together in the next meeting, and that they assume that should be doable by the time the next meeting takes place. Huh. I doubt that. LOL As soon as my mentor is back, the invoicing starts again. Which usually means that she has far less time than I do to do anything on the side. We have a total of 8 workdays before my vacation starts. 8 days will just be enough for me to get everything "urgent" out of the way before I'm gone, and it's highly unlikely that my mentor will be available to tackle the topics in those 8 days, either. The day of my return is the day of the meeting where we're supposed to present. How does that sound? Exactly. Not very likely. But I played dumb (as if I didn't know that the meeting will be on my return) instead of already asking for a delay right away. Let's first get that 1:1 out of the way and see if I make progress one way or another over the remainder of the month.

My mentor is on vacation now. It's the first time that she's gone longer than a few days or even a whole week. She'll be back next month for the next billing cycle.

I am not too stressed out by that. Generally speaking. Most of the stuff I have dealt with on my own anyway. A few things I will probably just ignore, just like she did. And then there's those cases like on Friday when not even she was aware that my predecessor took care of certain stuff that she always claimed was someone else's responsibility, and since it was Friday afternoon before her leave, I had to try it myself without her help anyway.

It started a bit off, though, because she had said on Friday that she'd send me an e-mail with what's open, yet there was no e-mail when I started on Monday. But she had a green dot, and so it was once again the case that she worked for several hours on her first vacation day before she eventually took off.

Just now, though, our boss's assistant contacted us again. I'm afraid I first misinterpreted her request. I thought she just asked to provide an agenda for the next meeting in two weeks, like she so often does. But on second read, I realized she had actually inquired whether we'd manage to prepare that concept our boss already wanted to see for the August monthly (the one where the assistant uninvited him from) by the time the next monthly takes place. Uhm, please no. She was present in our meetings with HR two weeks ago, so she knows what we did. After that, it was merely other tasks. And now that my mentor is gone, I certainly don't plan to deal with this by myself!

It is possible that he expects me to, though. :0\ What a nuisance.

If I'm lucky, the question was mainly to get an idea of whether the meeting makes sense. And in a way it doesn't as my mentor isn't around and I'll already have a meeting with my supervisor the week before. And THAT might be the real problem. Because he might ask me to get stuff done.

In fact, today has been the type of day where I'm struggling to actually get any work done. When I say that, I don't mean that in the way that there are distractions that keep me from doing work. No. What I mean is: I have to go to the office tomorrow, so the few things I know I could work on NOW are better saved for the office day. So that leaves not really much to do right now. Well, not much since I refuse to already dive into the topics that my mentor and I were supposed to work on together. Not on her second (first) day away!

Today is supposed to be: laundry (I almost forgot that!), hopefully running some errands in my work hours, end early because it's supposed to be a nice day, and hopefully have at least one bigger idea that I can put into my time keeping. Otherwise it's gonna be embarrassing. Hell, I already felt bad (kind of) for making time (LOL) for that 1h 42mins recording of a meeting format that was probably supposed to be an occasion for your free time outside work. While I doubt that my boss ever checks my hours/tasks in the time keeping tool, it still feels risky to have such a lazy week right ahead of our 1:1 meeting.

The work day isn't even 3 hours old and I already barely know what to do. Which means: hanging laundry now!

Sigh. I am this close to snuggling back into my bed, bawling my eyes out and all. I feel like my life has been turned into a joke. Right now, it feels like I am close to a breaking point. It's getting too overwhelming.

I was lucky to be about to hang my laundry a few minutes ago, because that way I heard my phone ring. It was the surgical practice.

They cancelled my surgery next week.

It has already been such a long wait. I have been treated awfully in terms of getting the issues fixed. I wasn't looking forward to the surgery. I was avoiding the topic apart from buying glasses of baby food, but I haven't had a look yet at the x-ray or at the many videos I saved for later. That was on my to-do list for this week. I wanted to prepare myself, then call in sick for at least two days next week (hoping for a three-day sick leave from the doctor), and then hope for the best. Get it over with. Finally.

But now the surgeon is ill. They don't know yet when she'll be back. They asked if I wanted to switch surgeons ... I can't really tell. I liked her. I think I trust her. I spoke to her about my situation. She told me how she'd approach the surgery. My gut feeling is that I'd have another disappointing experience if I just went in there and have whoever do whatever. Either way, my appointment can't stay. I told the lady that I'd rather stay with my designated surgeon because we already discussed the case, but that I'd consider switching and would let them know in case I do. For now, I was given a new appointment. Which is, again, effing FIVE WEEKS from now. Five. Weeks.

At which point would I have waited too long? This has been a process of ups and downs all along. Towards the end of last week, I was having more noticeable pain again - but then realized that the pain I sensed was most likely coming from my cheek as I had chewed on that to the point where it was visibly red. I got rid of that over the weekend. And suddenly it felt much better again. But yesterday was slightly off again. I am almost certain that I move my jaw wrongly due to the tooth situation, and that this causes some or even most of the problems I encounter. It also doesn't help that my online searches now led the algorithm to believe that I need to see more and more dental-related stuff. It's a bit too much right now.

As if all of this wasn't bad enough, the new appointment would be in my vacation. Which means I can totally forget travelling anywhere. There's no way I'd feel up to being away from home mere days after surgery. Not to mention I'd have to be available to have the threads removed. Plus I am not allowed to do any sports, and I am sure that includes carrying heavy luggage.

What's more: they can't even tell yet when the surgeon will be back, so it's not even sure that this appointment will hold. But I don't feel too comfortable with the thought of switching. And part of that is because I read bad reviews about one of the surgeons there, and with my luck I am sure I'd get her.

It really has been one bad thing after another, hasn't it?

I started watching the first season of My Life With the Walter Boys the other day. I'm four episodes down and dealing with the usual "but that's different in the book" situation.

First of all, they got rid of some of the characters. It's two Walter boys less as they got rid of Jack and Zack. I can't even blame them too much as both were always presented as a set with their twins with no real individual traits, so from a production standpoint it probably makes sense to reduce these twin sets to just one person each. But they also cut out Riley, Jackie's first and best friend at the new place.

The overall impression so far is that the series tamed a lot of scenes down.
The welcoming was far less hostile than in the novel.
Where in the book Jackie was pushed into the pool upon her arrival, here she merely got wet from the dog shaking water droplets at her.
Where in the book the boys picked the lock of the bathroom and stole her towel and clothes, so that she had to cover up in the shower curtain, here they merely stole her shower products and put a shampoo bottle with bleach into the shower cabin.
Where in the book the cutting class led to an abandoned warehouse, where Jackie got so drunk that she couldn't even walk, so that Cole had to carry her and hand her over to Alex abck home, here they partied at a friend's lodge and she just tumbled into the house a little tipsy. That would have been the day when Cole stole that kiss from her during the spin the bottle game (here they played Truth or Dare and only almost kissed) and she told Alex that she wanted a kiss (here he just happened to meet her in her room and they almost kissed, but he stopped her).
Where they were grounded got weeks (until further noticed) in the book for the incident above, here they were only grounded for the weekend.
Where they had to babysit sick Alex during a family weekend camping trip where a storm cut off the electricity and all three ended up sleeping on the floor together, cuddled up, here it was just an evening where the parents and older kids were at an event and Cole used the blackout to create a romantic atmosphere with candles, which Alex crashed into when everyone got home and put the generator on.

The name changes are also slightly confusing (Kim got turned into Kylie, Mary into Paige, for instance). Or how some characters are presented differently (Katherine seemed to be a stay-at-home mom in the novel - not surprising considering the number of kids - whereas here she's a vet, and Nathan is apparently gay in the series). There's too much progress already and things got thrown into new order, plus there are a lot of side stories that never took place in the novel as that story was told from Jackie's perspective. I am irritated by the choice to have some of the initial key moments that made Jackie swoon over Cole take place with Alex instead. Besides that, it is interesting to observe that some things I read in the sequel novel are already part of the story here, and by that I particularly mean that I now know that the sequel was written AFTER the series got out, so it seems that the author took inspiration from the series. Oh, but I do love that they used the font of the novel's cover for the series, too.

Now I'll go back to watching the show. Let's see what else is different. (Don't even get me started on the hair colors!)

This week is getting awfully awkward. Not only did my mentor not schedule any meetings in advance for this week, she also stressed that we would be making lots of progress this week because we have to. But other than us talking to someone from HR later this afternoon, nothing advanced. I can already tell that I'll be stuck dealing with these things while she is on vacation most of next month, because I know that by Tuesday, she'll be too busy.

I am having a hard time putting myself into this, too. I mean, I would set up meetings with our VPs, no problem - but I have no clue how to approach the topic and what to put into the invitation as I have no ideas whatsoever what we could provide as suggestions. And why exactly is that a problem? Because my mentor said we should send them suggestions first before having a meeting. Ugh. I can't bring myself to sit down and think about it.

I'm already slightly annoyed by the fact that I have no clue what my mentor is DOING all this time. She asked me if we could postpone or weekly on Friday by one hour, and I noticed afterwards that her calendar now has blockers from 8 a.m. through 11:30 for yesterday and today. She didn't set those as being absent, yet I kinda expected her to be and that she meant to start later these days. 3.5 hours in the morning is a lot for a specific occasion otherwise. Besides, she also had a blocker yesterday afternoon and was asbsent for quite a bit during that. (Same for me yesterday for my appointment for the imprint. Speaking of which - here comes a short aside. I got there way too early, waited, left the practice again at 12:48. And enjoyed the walk so much. I am glad that I realized last time that the street is closer to the shortcut I tend to take when I go to the TV studio than to the main street, so I took that direction this time. With the sun shining and the quiet peacefulness, I would have preferred to sit down and relax there instead of returning home/to work.) I got frustrated that she doesn't tell me in advance in case she is absent; even though I didn't announce my longer break yesterday, either, I figured that it's more likely that I need her for something than the other way round. I also checked her calendar for last week and noticed that she blocked every morning then, too. All the while, it isn't evident what she spends time working on. So I was actually a bit surprised when I saw her logged in this morning. Maybe she does have something to work on I am not aware of.

What I still find hard to believe is that she was oh so busy last week. I realized yesterday that she still hadn't replied to the guy who asked us weeks ago about sometihng (and I figured at the time that she had better be the one replying since it falls into her area, so I even pointed the e-mails out to her on the last day before my vacation). Instead, she moved all resource planning requests into a subfolder, so that they are out of the way, and flagged them as a follow-up for last Wednesday. That's right. I discovered them THIS Wednesday. I took care of two of the requests lying there, but left the others for her. And then arrived more e-mails about such a topic and the e-mails were already marked as read when I discovered then, and the original request lay in another e-mail account of ours (the one she is taking care of primarily) next to 42 other e-mails that haven't been touched sonce Friday. So I quickly shied away as I do not intend to get all her shit done for her.

Today she messaged me about something, and when I replied, she was marked as being in a meeting, and actually she was. My Sherlock abilities tell me she is holding that introduction to one of the projects. For one of our new junior project managers. I (and I suppose the other girl, too) thought this would be tackled in the meeting we had with her two weeks ago, but my mentor hijacked the metting solely for our research purposes about the general onboarding process and suggested they'd do that project-specific meeting while I am on vacation. I was disappointed at the time because I would have liked to join and get some insights, too, since I am not familiar with the specifics of any of my mentor's projects and I have a feeling that the outdated guidelines are pretty bad, so I'd be screwed if something came up while she is gone. It would have been a great opportunity to just listen along. But there was no appointment apparent in their calendars last week, yet now they were both in a meeting at the same time ... Might be a coincidence, but I am almost sure this was what took place. Dang me for not mentioning two weeks ago that it's a shame I'd miss the introduction.

It is too nice outside, I am sleep-deprived, and still mourning the end of my week's vacation. That results in me not being motivated at all. I was glad I came across some tasks yesterday, and today I wrote down a workflow for how to deal with the onboarding tickets and spontaneously corrected information in an HR workflow, so I was somewhat visible dealing with our priority topic right now. But I have no motivation for the next steps. I fully intend to leave early today and go for a walk or something.

How will I ever come to terms with our different types of working? It seems I grab stuff to take care of instantly and ignore it until I do so. She, in contrast, sometimes grabs stuff instantly only to ignore it afterwards and to miss the dealines she or others set for the task. Meanwhile, I and my lack of motivation wonder what to tackle in my work hours.

And so I sit here and write for now. I can do that while appearing present since I sit right below my desk. Not like when I watched the end of the skating anime eps in bed and kept pausing every few minutes to get up and check in at work.

By the way, I haven't mentioned that my former coworker replied to me after radio silence since April, have I? She eventually started a new job this month after leaving our old company the same day as me, but she made it sound as if that's more to have some income now that the payments from the unemployment agency ran out than this actually being what she was searching for. I'm curious to find out more.

Today (and yesterday as well) was a day of doing too many feelgood things side by side. Which sounds amazing, doesn't it? Therefore I'm not complaining. I've had fun.

I wasn't looking forward to returning to work at all. The vacation week had been too short and too packed with you-know-what to really relax. Then there was the meeting with our supervisor which I was dreading. My mentor hadn't really done too much while I was gone (though she claimed it was a very busy week), but we were lucky in that our boss's assistant realized in advance that the meeting wouldn't be what our supervisor imagined, so she uninvited him LOL and only attended on her own. And she was happy with what we told her. So I relaxed after that turned out better than I had hoped for. I also figured that I could officially take longer to catch up with everything. I purposely left a few things on Monday for today. (But by now I have completed all my regular tasks for the month and I will most likely have to push the new topics more. After the appointment for the imprint, which is tomorrow. I totally could have chosen any given option when we spoke on Thursday as my mentor had not scheduled any meetings at all at that point.)

I eventually started reading the sequel novel I alluded to in my previous post. Unfortunately it has been quite windy lately, so I read it entirely in bed. No outdoors for that one. OK, I'm speaking of My Return to the Walter Boys. There, I said it. It was quite funny reading the new one after re-reading the first part because it was so obvious how much time lay between these two stories, even though the story itself picks up more or less where it left off. I thought it was funny that the sequel started with a typical chat from a messenger app and there was a video phone call mentioned a bit later when the first part hardly involved any communication of that type. Let alone mentions of smartphones. Anyway, it was a lovely read, despite sometimes being predictable and slightly shallow. I had to shed a few tears multiple times, warm fuzzy feelings and all, and it really just felt GOOD to read something new again. And a romance. I don't think I've read many of these lately. I finished the novel this evening after work and before buying groceries. Now I can track down the series, which I might do faster than is good for me. I didn't remember when I came across the info about the show, so it came as a surprise to me to read in the acknowledgements that Ali Novak only wrote the sequel after the show was aired on Netflix. And silly me wanted to read it first because I didn't want to have any potential spoilers (you never know what they do in those show seasons - but then again the second season of One of Us Is Lying was not all connected to the original story).

But in between reading that novel and working, I screw everything over and went overboard. A few days ago, I coincidentally came across the info that the full season of Yuri!!! On Ice was on YouTube in a huge marathon video for its 10th anniversary.
Now you might either have no clue what I am talking about or roll your eyes as that's such an old story. But if it's even more new to you than to me, let me give you a very short intro. It's a Japanese anime series set in the world of male singles figure skating.
Truth be told, I had no real desire to watch it at the time. I'm not really into animes, for starters. I saw a mention here and there at the time when it was first released, but from what I remember, it wasn't easy to get a hold of at the time. I did know that a lot of people were swooning over the show for the chemistry of the lead characters. Let's put it that way. There was one thing I came across and really loved, and that was learning that the creators were real skating fans and took inspiration from real stuff from the skating world and added tons of little, precious details that would go above the heads of non-fans of the sport, but add an extra sparkle for those in the know. I particularly remember seeing gifsets online where people compared scenes from the series with real events. The ones I remember were (as I now know) all from the final episode, which means I was looking real close all the time to not miss them! I'm talking about the Ted teddy bear in costume, which was quite appropriately gifted to the Kazakh skater, or that exhibition skate scene with movements from Virtue and Moir's routines.
I have already spilled the beans now that, yes, I decided to watch it now after all. After all, it's skating. And it seemed like an opportunity. I started around 10 p.m. last night and finished after work today. (I watched a few episodes at lunchtime and in the afternoon, too. Hush!)
And the details were really what I instantly fell in love with. The venues! Unbelievable, if you are familiar with the original venues. The logos and the scoreboards! The country jackets at the competitions! It would have been so easy to just invent a random jacket in the colors of the country flags and put the country name on the back, but they really looked like the real deal. I loved how they focused so much on the competitions and showed us great performances, but realistically with those falls and sloppy landings. I loved how they included Nobunari Oda and Stéphane Lambiel for real, and others that weren't named, like Plushenko. I was a bit sad that I didn't watch it 10 years ago because it is harder to remember in retrospect what the inspiration was taken from at the time, which skaters' traits were selected to be portrayed here, who they were modeled after. Everything changes so fast in skating.
I had to chuckle and moan a lot at some of the dialogues and monologues. And many of the music choices for the programs. I had hoped to watch it in Japanese and with subtitles, but this version was in English. Every non-Japanese was given thick accents of whichever country they were representing. It is beyond me how so much sexual innuendo can be put into such a show, yet they torture us with this open end and no renewal! I admit that I was rolling my eyes a lot, but by the end I was dying for a kiss or a proper declaration of love or literally ANYTHING less subtle. Sorry, that's just how I am wired. You have to spell it out for me to understand and believe that I am not imagining things. Really, that ending was torture. Ugh!
I'm still not a fan of animes. This show didn't manage to change that. It just confuses me that the same characters are displayed in at least three different sketching styles depending on emotions or whatever, or how so much seems ridiculous and meant as comedy when so much seems genuine, so you never know what to make of anything. But I really enjoyed this as a whole. It was an amazing effort, and all the explanations and comments about the skating aspects were just wonderful and educational and a true testiment to the knowledgeable Japanese fanbase of figure skating. I'm glad that Yuri, Viktor and the other Yuri took my mind off of things for 4h 41 mins. Well, plus the 2.5 mins of that exhibition special with Johnny's signature slide. It was a blast. ♥

How did I end up having to deal with practices every single day during the vacation where I wanted to get a break from everything?
OK, I got a break from work. I rarely thought about it.

Well, I've had big plans for Thursday as I planned to travel out of town. Which I did, and it was very pleasant. But I already got slightly mad preparing for the trip as I knew I'd have to call back the surgical practice in the morning, plus I wanted to head to Lidl as they were offering hoisin sauce (which is something you never get anywhere apart from a good Asia shop) and I wanted to make sure to grab a bottle or two. That got a bit in the way of getting ready for the trip early, and I was really unsure about the best order of things to make sure I get the information when I can, plus the shopping and food-prepping done.

In the end, that all worked out quite well. I reached the practice at my first attempt. The person on the line told me that something went wrong with the imprint they took and that I'd have to come again next week to redo it. I said I didn't know yet when I'd be available next week, certainly not Monday, though, and that I suppose that sometime mid-week would work out. I also asked if Friday (a.k.a. today) was an option, but she said no since she was alone with the doctor. I was asked to e-mail her the options when I knw them since she'd see that faster (faster than a call?). At that point I was convinced that I was released for the rest of the week. I went grocery shopping afterwards and then enjoyed my trip. I did get a minor blister, and when I took my shoes off back home, the fabric cover of my newly attached heel protection fell off on one of the shoes.

For today, I had planned another trip out of town, but within the S-Bahn range, so closer to home. Which meant that I planned to sleep in. I also planned to do some grocery shopping in advance as I couldn't squeeze that shop in on Thursday, and I know from experience that the advertised items sell out quickly. But then I had a hard time getting out of bed and it got so late that I couldn't decide how to best arrange the shopping, the trip, and brunch. And I got mad when I checked my e-mails and saw that the surgical practice had e-mailed me in the morning. It was as if that phone call hadn't taken place the day before. I was informed in that e-mail that they'd have to redo the imprint and that I should tell them when I have time. Maybe I hadn't made myself clear in that call. I don't know. I was super annoyed that I wasn't left alone with the tooth topic even for a single day. Originally I hadn't planned to respond, but then I did it anyway a while later because maybe I really wasn't clear enough about only finding out my schedule on Monday, plus it's more professional to reply and I need them to be in a good mood about me.

I eventually decided to have brunch an hour early at home (so that I could skip the part of provisions), then head to the grocery shop, and quickly move on to trip after storing away the goods. Only when I was (almost) done brunching on the couch, I sat up and had an incredible back pain. Whoa. I walked around a bit in the apartment, unsure what to do. I did a few excercises. I decided buying groceries that I'd have to carry around was out of the question, but I still wanted to go on that trip.

I had barely reached the destination when I could tell that the missing cover of that heel protection was more of a problem than I expected. My heel hurt like crazy. It was part of the reason why this trip wasn't as much of a success as I expected. I mainly went because I saw pictures of a pretty old town, and there was a lake where I planned to walk along the shore and pause for some reading.
At first I was surprised to find out that the main street was much further from the train station than I thought, and with my aching foot, I was already somewhat annoyed when I got there. I think the prettier houses might have been in the surrounding streets, but there were kids everywhere, so I didn't take pretty pictures. I noticed an impressive city wall, but never got close because that could have meant a detour with extra steps I didn't mean to take. I bought some ice-cream, which was a highlight. I had it at the spot where the ferry crossed the river. Even though the ferry got there while I was finishing up, I didn't dare to take it as the other side seemed super isolated (all you could see was trees and a few people sitting on the slopes by the water), and I was sure it didn't run frequently. Besides, my plan had been to walk along that lake, not cross it. There was a playground right next to the ferry stop, and it had those lounger benches which I love so much. I stopped there briefly to check my blister and attached a plaster, but I quickly decided that the playground noise was too much to focus on the book, so I walked on. Big mistake. Or maybe not a big mistake, as I wouldn't have known otherwise what was coming. But that path along the lake was not what I had expected. First of all, there were trees and bushes almost everywhere, obscuring the view of the lake. For as fal as I walked, I only passed three benches, which were all already occupied and not that inviting anyway. The houses and gardens to my left were quite impressive, but I eventually decided that it made no sense to go further and further in hopes of a cozy place to read in quiet. In fact, I was regretting that I didn't go to one of the benches that were almost reaching out into the lake in the playground area. That was my destination when I checked that I was still closer to the train station I took off from compared to the next one south. So the playground it got to be. Alas, I found a nice empty lounger closer to the water. I put my music on and finally got to read.

But overall, it was an exhausting day. Walking with two blisters, back pain, and the ever-annoying tooth issues. I am such a wreck.

I finshed the novel in under two days (I re-read a novel so that I can start the sequel - either this weekend or soonish, but I guess I won't wait until my next vacation in October - and eventually watch the series that was made out of it). It felt nice to read fiction again; it's been a while, what with that pile of magazines.

OK this is stupid. While I was writing my previous entry, they tried to call me again. And I didn't hear it. I only noticed it 3 hours later. Again, no message left. No e-mail, either.

What could they possibly want from me?

I finally got to sleep in today. Well, I first woke up before 9 a.m. from music playing, but I managed to fall back to sleep quickly and the next time I checked, it was almost noon. It felt good to rest after those two days that had me on edge because I had to coordinate dental stuff.

The USB device was still something I had to take care of, though. When I returned from the surgical practice yesterday, I probably could have just gone in and asked, but I didn't really feel like it. Besides, they were supposed to give me a call. I didn't get any call yesterday, so I didn't go.

Which means the first thing I did today was to check my phone. And I had a missed call from 8:48 a.m. (but no message on my answering machine). I expected it to have been the dental practice, but when I compared the numbers, it turned out to have been the surgical practice instead. And that one only has service hours until noon today, and since it basically was already noon at that point, I didn't want to give it a try and call back. Not when the call was so many hours ago, and not when I had no indication what they wanted. Which means tomorrow might be another of those days when I have to start the day dealing with dental stuff. Because I have no clue what they could possibly have wanted from me this morning.

Speaking of which, the appointment yesterday was alright, if not slightly unsatisfactory on my part since I knew they didn't know the full story without the overall picture. I indeed got to talk to the main surgeon (whom I wouldn't have recognized if she hadn't said her name; the awkward photo on the website doesn't do her justice). The atmosphere was really nice and she explained the procedures in detail. Basically, the idea will be to indeed try to save the tooth, but that she will take a closer look at the situation when the procedure starts and could still switch to an extraction if that seemed like the more useful option. I'm writing that very poorly here, I know. I can't reproduce what she said. But she also explained what she would suggest in case we do pull the tooth, so that it doesn't come as a surprise while I am sedated. They took an imprint again, and I had to gag a few times, but the medical nurse quickly sat me up and petted my back. The sitting up helped, the petting was slightly awkward, but I calmed down. For the surgery, I was given an appointment 4 weeks from now.

And now they called, and I am irritated.

But I also decided to just head over to the dental practice for a chance visit right afterwards. It's a rainy day, and at that point it was still almost dry. Plus, I wanted to get it over with instead of being on the edge again for hours with that to-do constantly in the back of my head. I was lucky and got handed the device with a few explanations on top for my own usage. She said she would have called me after 2 p.m. otherwise. And luckily she didn't mention the surgeon. I wouldn't have felt like explaining what went on there.

Now I am free for the ret of the day, which for me has only just begun. It's time for food now and for some movies or shows. And housework. Yikes. I've been postponing that for reasons. But I got a few other things done that had been kept postponing, too, so no need to feel bad. Maybe I'll even find the inspiration to hang the picture I bought months ago. I attempted to do that yesterday, but couldn't decide where exactly. So I sorted paper notes instead and threw some away. I'd call that progress, too. Baby steps.

Alright, on to what needs to be done. I hope to watch something captivating; the movie I tuned into last night was supposedly good, but I spent almost the entire time researching potential destinations for day trips instead (I need some more vacation feeling).

Edit: Ha, one more positive note: my electricity provider FINALLY adjusted the numbers I had incorrectly provided! One less thing to worry about.
Also, the other day FB notified me about a comment from a skating friend which revealed that she had apparently moved to Canada? Wow.

It's been an hour and no e-mail arrived.
So I called the surgical practice to reveal the problem, thinking we'd make a new appointment. But she then said I should provide the regular x-rays and that we might take a look at the 3D images at the day of the surgery.
Which means I had to call the dentist's practice again and will have to leave for the appointment today anyway, but I doubt I'll get the kind of consultation that's needed. I doubt that this appointment makes much sense. And my whole morning was messed up, too.