Helan och Halvan

Indeed, I went to sauna last night. After I've been back, I felt so cosy tired that I only wanted to sleep... but I got a call from Germany that I would have to copy a 6-page article from a car magazine word by word. It last until half past 1 until I was finished. I was so tired, the letters were only vague dots and I had to read every line twice.

This morning I found a scanner at the university, so I could finally scan those articles from the magazine. But because I have no log-in for my computer I had to run two floors between scanner and student-computer room for checking the scans. And I felt pretty embarrassed scanning car articles on my second day right next to my colleages. Well, since the student-scanner is not properly installed, there is a reason why I have to use the professors' scanner, but nevertheless. After scanning I was upset with that work, because it steals so much time. Cars are very uninteresting for me. In my eyes they are just tools. Of course, it is a job and I earn money, but it wasted so much time I should have invested into my thesis. I will wait until the next issue, before I decide if I work on with this or not.
The assistant job at university brings a lot of nice surprises. I like the office. There I have my own whiteboard and can practise the lesson. And everybody is so friendly! When I started at Fraunhofer two years ago I was left alone. At that time, I arrived, got a task "Write a wrapper" and I wondered if I would have to cook something... But here I get a tour, everybody explains me everything and I have no fear asking questions twice. And until now I could not figure out a hierachy. At the other jobs I had before there was always one boss where you had to keep your head down for not risking to become an example for a difference between a human and a machine. I guess, that is the university-advantage.
And they speak Swedish with me as long as I can understand them. It's so great! Hopefully I can push my Swedish skill to a usable every-day level. And today I discovered a treasure room. I just have to go 5 meters from my office: the fika-room. With a coffee-machine.... Michael would emigrate, for sure. First I was overchallenged by the amount of coffee-options. Then I thought trying "choclate-coffee". In my cup flowed one stream of coffee... and a stream of choclate pouder. Amazing! Even in the cafeteria you have to pimp you coffee with choclate by your own. And it is not for free there. I love that job.
They send an email around with a picture from me and a short description in Swedish. The picture they made this morning spontaniously while I was scanning my "private" articles. Later on I found a picture of me from exactly one year ago. I was quite surprised and I won't hide the pictures from you. Last November I already compared two pictures of me. Here is now the difference of exactly one year. The first is from Ella when she made a photo from me in the first Swedish lesson of September 2006. The other one is from this morning.

Does anybody still wonder, why I want to stay here?