So I decided I would write in here now as I don’t know what will happen with my laptop once I call Toshiba tomorrow.

Life has been okay. Not great. Some things that have happened in the past few months are just things I didn’t expect nor want, and it is hard for me to accept that’s how reality is, but eventually I will be okay with it, because it was a good decision, and no loss for me, even though right now it still feels like it was.

I ended up not getting the job at the university because they wanted someone for at least 1.5 years, and I applied for Erasmus so I might not be here Feb-June 07 (I wasn’t going to tell them because I knew it might be an issue, but they specifically asked me about it and I wasn’t going to lie). Ironically a week later I got a letter of refusal for the Erasmus exchange, because there were too many applications. And you know, I am not too upset. I was more upset about not getting the job, because now the reason they rejected me for doesn’t apply anymore, but what can you do. My job at the bookstore is going well, and I am hoping I will get more hours as I show I do a good job. And by not working that many hours I am still flexible, and for example, I can just be gone for half of the semester break without losing my job or having to worry about when to work those hours. Since I do not have a contract, I just get paid for the hours I work, so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid but I don’t lose my job either. It might actually not be a bad thing I only have this job, even though I am not making as much money as I was hoping. But the good thing is I do get discounts at the book store, and for a student of literature and someone who loves reading, this is really useful. :D

I have been thinking about what to do now that I won’t be studying in Spain for a semester (unless some people drop out, I am on the wait list, but I don’t know how likely it is I can get in through the wait list). I decided I would go there this upcoming semester break (in September) for four weeks to take language classes. Since I finally got my laptop back, I looked at the sites of companies that offer language classes and I ordered their catalogues. I don’t know where in Spain I want to go, except I want it to be at the coast, hehe. I will decide that when I have all the catalogues.

Two weeks ago I went to Osnabrück for the weekend. My uncle and aunt were celebrating their 60th birthdays, and my parents and I went there for the weekend. I stayed at my cousin’s Friday to Sunday. It was really nice. The weather was gorgeous, and the dinner on Saturday night was great. Generally there was lots of good food all of those three days. It was nice to spend some time with my cousin as we don’t see each other too often. She has been in Munich more often since her sister moved there and had a baby in 2004 but I am not in Munich every time she is.

My brother’s girlfriend moved into my parents’ house around Easter. She had issues at home, so she is temporarily living with us (I say us, even though I don’t live there any more). She even officially changed her address to ours (it is still my official address as well). Now my brother and she want to look for an apartment together to move in after graduation (which is in June). I think it is kind of early to move in together (they have been together since January) but then it’s their lives and if they want to, that’s their decision. I just hope they won’t end up regretting it. I am happy though that my parents are cool with stuff like that. I know they are very tolerant when it comes to my and my brother’s relationships, and actually I think they are way more relaxed and casual about that stuff than I am (like I would want the first meeting of my parents and boyfriend to go great while my brother probably didn’t think about it too much, but then he still lives at home, so it is inevitable they meet her).

Yesterday I spent the day in Mainz with some of the AJY people. The weather was really crappy but I had never been to Mainz and it was nice to see the town, take pictures, and hang out with the people. You can see the pictures I took here.

Anyway, school has been going okay. One class is a little frustrating because it is taught all in Spanish, and it is just frustrating when I (and most others) only understand half of what the prof says, but I guess I will live. It is not the first time I don’t really feel like I am learning a lot of new things in a class. I have a few assignments coming up and I hope I will not be too stressed out, but then I know I have a rather high stress tolerance so I should be okay. I just hope I will do well on my assignments.
Last week I finally met up with Johanna again since she just came back from the States. We had dinner together and caught up on what had been going on in each others’ lives which was great. On Friday Julia is coming here to visit until Sunday. I am looking forward to that.

By the way, the other week I saw “V for Vendetta” with a few friends, and it was a really great movie. I want to see it again when the DVD comes out. I also want to see “Ice Age 2″ and “The DaVinci Code” when I get a chance. I am a little out of the loop with movies, I usually am in Heidelberg.

Anyway, I have a bunch of homework to do now and it is getting late, so I will end this post here. Damn me for procrastinating all day. ;)
 

I am still alive, just incredibly annoyed. With what, you ask? My laptop. Two weeks ago on Wednesday, I received the error once again that made me turn in my laptop for repair in Munich in March. They couldn’t find an error, so I formatted the harddrive but since that didn’t fix it, I knew it was a hardware problem. I just got my laptop back yesterday, on Thursday after two weeks without it. They had found an error with the mainboard and replaced it. And now, about two hours ago, I got the error again, not even two days after I got it back. I am incredibly pissed off. Of course I couldn’t get a hold of the Toshiba Germany support center any more at this time. (I was forwarded to the UK support center, but they couldn’t help me with it other than telling me it is a memory-related problem… oh really? Only the third time I am told that. Why has no one actually replaced the freakin’ memory then?) So I will have to call them on Monday. I will tell them that I need my laptop for school work, and that it is not acceptable that I am without it for two weeks to have it fixed and then the error comes back within 48 hours. So I hope they can give me either a temporary or permanent replacement for my laptop. I really don’t crae how they fix this error, I just want it fixed. It’s their job, I am paying them (or rather, my dad paid them when he purchased the laptop), and they seem incapable of getting it right.

Well, I will write about what I’ve been up to another time, because right now I am way too annoyed to think about what I’ve done in the past month that was fun, so this would just turn into an even longer rant about my laptop. You know, I really like my laptop, it looks pretty, the files are all neat, the desktop is neat, and everything matches in color. I love my laptop. If only it didn’t have this error for the past 7 months. So far, all that happens is I lose whichever file I was working on that wasn’t saved, and so far I was pretty lucky it never was anything really important, but there will come the day that my computer will not reboot any more and then I could lose all files that are on my harddrive and aren’t backed-up. (Of course, I will once again back-up my files this weekend. It’s such a fun activity after all.)

Anyway, I hope y’all’s computers are working better than mine is. :( I will probably write an update again soon that will be about something other than my computer. Until then…