General

4 September 2024

A Lifetime

I was a small, clumsy human being and I still needed to find out how to navigate the world. You carried me for the first few years of my life, always with a smile on your face. But one day (or was it the evening, I think the lights were on?), when we you were standing at the kitchen window, I asked you to pick me up and carry me, and you told me that I’m getting too heavy for you to carry me. Perhaps I was looking for different way to be carried, because some time after that, I […]

4 June 2024

Eight years of pen pals

About eight years ago, I revived a very old hobby of mine: writing letters. I used to have a few pen pals when I was a kid in the nineties. Back then, my pen pals were in particular another kid who used to come to my parents’ farm back when we had a vacation apartment business. But with the rise of the internet in the 00s, that hobby fell out of fashion and I lost touch with all of my pen pals. I made new friends on the internet and my primary form of long-distance communication became ICQ and the […]

31 March 2024

March 2024

Went to Berlin to see a concert of Kaizers Orchestra, who I hadn’t seen for over 10 years. They’re still awesome. 🎼 Made my first homemade pesto 🍝 Spent time with friends playing RPGs and board games (but that’s nothing out of the ordinary) 🎲 Entertainment Books finished reading Stephen Fry – Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold nice little overview Susanna Clarke – Piranesi I was so fascinated by this that I read it twice in a row Timur Vermes – Er ist wieder da Kinda fun, but too long J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings I don’t […]

29 February 2024

February 2024

Spent a week in Valencia, Spain to catch some sun and explore this town. Lots of fascinating history, and great museums in the Science Center! 🌞 Went to a concert of Lords of the Rings music. Was nice, but I expected more 🎶 Won an audience award with my team at a work event 🥳 Had a weird but funny experience at an Italian restaurant with an overly enthusiastic waiter 🤌 Entertainment Books finished reading Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games Trilogy + Prequel (4 books) Read the prequel and had to re-read the trilogy – really enjoyed it (more […]

31 January 2024

January 2024

Decided to re-read Lord of the Rings (my pile of unread books scowls at me) 🙈 Visited my nephew in Berlin 😍 Got sick for the 3rd time this winter, this time with stomach flu 😞 Hosted another successful board game meetup 🥳 We had snow in Düsseldorf, a very rare occasion ❄️ Wrote about personal blogs and what to write and not to write 🤔 Entertainment Books finished reading Jason Lutes – Berlin Trilogy Great trilogy and a somewhat scary read in the present political climate, I blogged about it 🥺 Rebecca Yarros – Iron Flame terribly overrated 🙄 […]

16 January 2024

Fear of the personal

This sounds silly from someone having a personal blog, but I’m sometimes having a hard time writing personal things on my blog. How ironic, right? I think this fear stems from having written a mountain of incredibly cringey personal things in the first incarnations of my blog, having made very complicated social experiences in the past, and to some degree, from where I’m from. I used to write literally just what I was thinking in my blog between 2005 and 2008 (and also before that, but on a web 1.0 website rather than a blog). This was a completely disorganized […]

9 July 2023

The search is over: The journey to my new job

I’m happy to report that my job search is finally over! As of July 2023, I am employed again! I’m now working as a developer in the field of conversational AI for Germany’s biggest railway company, Deutsche Bahn. This job is a really great fit for me because it combines so many of my skills and experiences – my far-away past as a web developer and media designer with my more recent past doing a PhD in linguistics. I’m also quite happy to be working for Deutsche Bahn, not only because they play a vital role in Germany’s transformation to […]

29 March 2023

Disconnected

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

2 March 2023

Back to Work

Today is my second day of re-entering the workforce, and it’s been challenging for me – mentally and physically. Yesterday I started to work in an agency for UX, branding and conversation design, and will continue to do so full time for the next three months. My focus will be on conversation design, chatbot user experience, and related topics. I believe that this will be an interesting and educational time for me, and is a good fit for my experience in linguistics and research, as well as for my background in design. However, on a mental and personal level, going […]