Sandcastle in the Snow

Home and back again

Dear friends, 

If you're living away from home, as I am, and you happen to travel back to your home country you'll find something happens... 

If you're lucky, as I was, to have a wonderful time with friends and family at "home" but also have friends and family waiting for you in your new "home" you may find that you're never really too sad about coming or going. 

But if you've missed your old friends and family very much, seeing them can be bittersweet. Here, in a nutshell, are the things I realised.

1. Its impossible to feel like any visit to your home country is long enough.

2. You may be very anxious about how you spend your time and with whom.

3. You will probably be kept very busy!

4. Being a tourist in your own country is blissful!

5. Hiring your own car, if you can, may just keep you sane.

6. Saying goodbye to people you love never gets easier.

One of the most interesting things I realised when I was back in Australia was that you're never truly free from the Long Distance Relationship or #ldr. I really thought once I moved here and got married and life sort of hit a rhythm, that we'd get to a point where I'd feel "free". The thing is, when you move away to be with your long distance significant other, you may stop being in an LDR with them. But the truth is you're not free. You're now in an LDR with your friends and family. 

Yes, friends. I'm sorry to say but this blog really is still about surviving an LDR. 

 

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the twist in my plot line

There are a few people who might have known me for long enough to remember my on-agan-off-again struggles with pain. Mostly in my back. And I'm also a giant pain wienie. I'm highly sensitive to pain, and really irritated by the inconvenience of it. 

Scoliosis can be sexy! Hold yourself back people

Well, I've finally got some answers to some really old questions about my pain. 

One hip is higher than the other. That simple.

Ok, not that simple. One hip is higher than the other because of the scoliosis twists in my back which have lifted one side up, but hey that's ok, we can work with that. 

Wow, points for Germany. 

But how did I find out? Well I went to my GP, or Allegemein Medizine, and they referred me to and booked me into an Ortopaede (orthopedic specialist). This is the thing with doctors, you need to ask them to book for you if you can. Wait times for specialists are long, and booking with them is tricky. 

This is a huge improvement on my first nightmarish doctor experience. (Bullshit "fat away" injection posters made with word art around the walls, poking in my then very sore back making it worse, asking me if I wanted "holistic" medicine and acupuncture instead of an actual treatment, praxis staff asking me for my personal details over the counter instead of giving me the far more discrete clip board... nightmare). 

Overall, my opinion of German medicine is improving. But it still has a long way to go. There is a stoic "suck it up" attitude here that stops many people from seeking help at all, and the stigma over mental health issues here is so thick and deep people regularly have break-downs from overwork and family troubles. 

But the good news is now I can afford to be a little more German. This problem is in my bones, so I can suck it up when I'm sore, down some ibuprofen (the German go-to pain killer), and get on with my day without the fear of ruptured disks and ripped muscles! 

What have been your experiences of doctors when you're away from your home country? Is it better or worse?

new year, and February already

Hey blog readers!

I've got so much to say to you guys, lots of little cogs whirring in my brain, and plenty of posts half made.

Important things to share right now:

1. January 18 was my 1 year anniversary in Germany

2. Married life is the same, and also super different!

3. Freelancing is going well

4. New projects this year are kind of exciting

5. I'm becoming more into my vegetarian lifestyle and vegan cosmetics! (don't worry no plans to preach here yet!)

6. I want a dog. Like, bad. But I love my cat, so she comes first.

7. I'm blonde again, red wasn't me.

That's all :D

Getting back into the blog, so stay posted.

Mr German and I all pimped out 60's style for a recent work party!

Is giving uncomfortable?

Yesterday overcome by a desire to make someone’s day special in any way I could I gave 50 euro each to two homeless men. Some people might say that by donating to them I’m doing something wrong and would say that maybe I should have broken the money into smaller portions and spread the cheer. But here’s how I felt about the exchange, and my thoughts about giving in Germany. You might be surprised by the way that I reacted.

  After giving each man a single 50euro note I was overwhelmed with emotion. Welling up with tears. Instantly grateful for my life. I was overcome by the act of giving. Why? Well that’s something for a lot of therapy or to just forget until the next experience. But what was going through my head? Well I wondered how what was either a week of groceries for me, or a new pair of shoes could evoke so much gratitude in a stranger. I wondered about homelessness and how people become homeless. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I didn't want their gratitude, just to make someone else happy.

Before giving, I had my doubts. I remembered that many Germans had told me urban myths about the homeless people being owned by the mafia, about disabled people and poor grandmothers being bussed in from Romania. I wondered also if I were doing the right thing, would it help someone? Would it make someone’s life even a little bit better. Would I be embarrassed or refused?

Taking the money out of my wallet, I felt an odd hurried feeling, as if stopping and considering would look impolite, would attract too much attention. I wanted to be spontaneous. And this was a problem unto itself-- I didn’t ask the two men’s names when I gave them my gifts, and I regret it. I didn’t think to engage with them in conversation. When I wanted them to know that I had seen them, that I acknowledged them as people, I was so uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the ritual of giving and gratitude that I couldn’t offer them more of my attention. And I was afraid of these people. 

I managed to get it together the second time and ask for a picture, even if I forgot the simple human kindness of asking the name. When I saw Alexander again I remembered to get his picture, but I’m a little shaky as to whether or not I’m remembering his name.

I walked past some homeless people too. I chose people that were selling the Homeless magazine. I felt that this would be a good way to be random, but also to recognise their efforts. Was this also wrong? Was it a way to negate the fear that these people might be bussed in by the mafia? I’m not sure. I know my giving was limited by the money I had with me and some need to define some kind of strange rules for giving.

At the end of the day, I wanted to give two strangers an opportunity to enjoy St Nikolaus’ day in a way they didn’t appear to be able to.  

How do you feel about giving? Have you felt so awkward and conflicted just trying to share with people? Do you feel its better to spread your gifts a little at a time across many fronts or in big chunks? Tell me in the comments below or tweet me @Kittibikkies

look through my eyes

Take a walk through my town, Mannheim, with me today and see what I saw... through my eyes. 

Stollen, free bibles in time for Christmas and fresh fruits and vegetables. Pay special attention to the people's faces. Each picture tells a story. 

You can click each picture to go to the full size image. All credit and permissions belong to Lisa Guilpain. You may reuse these where credit is given. 

Stollen and bibles, typical German Christmas fare...

This lady's smile.

These three greeted each other like old friends.

 

This man, above, stopped me to tell me that my picture of his wares was missing the most important subject: him!

And while business boomed for some, others were not so lucky...

DO LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS WORK? Why you shouldn’t listen to nay-sayers

Should you get on the plane? Or book a ticket at all? (Credit:L.Guilpain)

Long distance relationships have a romantic history. Letters on ships, telegrams, long waited for mail. Separation has been glorified in popular culture and historical fiction, and coming together after a separation is portrayed as both the proof of greater moral character and the reward for thinly veiled messages of abstinence, monogamy and marriage. But where does that leave the skypers and globetrotters now? 

The most common thing that people spoke to me about personally or asked me about online was a kind of assurance. People want to know if long distance relationships (LDR) as a ‘thing’ will work.

Having lived on a different continent to my husband (before he was my husband) for nearly four years, I can say that for some people it seems that there is a happy ending. But for most people, or at least anyone who mentioned long distance relationships to me, the story seems to have a sad and often bitter ending involving loss of trust and damage that doesn’t quickly heal.

Tales of woe

Being in a long distance relationship seems to invite people to share their LDR failures. It’s hard to get excited about a relationship if everyone around you tells you horror stories about heartbreak.

I’d like to believe that the times that people have shared their failed love stories they were trying to warn me. They were tying to save me, or maybe their own past selves, from the obviously devastating heartbreaks they had suffered. 

But stories about their own attempts at long distance relationships quickly turned from a ‘good luck, but’ to ‘these relationships never work out’ and in some cases a ‘why do you bother, it’ll never work’.

 

Oh no! not another sad coffee date!

What’s the difference anyway?

Stop telling yourself a long distance relationship is a special ‘thing’ that has different rules to any other kind of relationship.

I ask myself what people would say if every time they tried to commit to another person I shared all my own failures with love, “Well, I had a boyfriend once, but we broke up. So therefore no boyfriends are good. And if you don’t believe me, my friend also had a boyfriend and they broke up so there you go.” 

There’s a logical fallacy in the argument. There’s correlation, but no proven causation. And people don’t want to admit they were to blame. They want to blame something that won’t fight back or accuse them of being at fault: distance.

LDR’s  are like any relationship. They’re work. 

What I don’t think people have the courage to say is that the relationship wasn’t for them, or wasn’t for the other person, or that they couldn’t decide on a middle ground place where they could finally be together. What people in my artistic group of friends from my 20’s couldn’t say was that they simply couldn’t afford it.

What does it take to succeed

The price of success for a long distance relationship is the same as any other relationship: you have to stick it out. The difficulty is that long periods away from your partner  will make it possible for the reasons you’re sticking with it slide further and further away.

But the thing is, if you want to be in this relationship and make it work, you will. You’ll do the things that you need to, so that it keeps going and you make it to the next visit, the next trip, the next touch. But Lisa, you're being really vague here... what do I have to DO? I can't tell you. The answer is different for everyone. You’ll learn and research and savour the ways that you grow from being with this person. 

And if you aren’t, if you’re not growing, if you’re not happy -- then you probably wouldn’t have been if you were together anyway. If a person isn’t doing everything they can for you as a partner within their means, and within reason from where they are what makes you think they will in person?

And if you want more than this person can give you from a distance, is it really a compatible relationship? 

Final thoughts

In every relationship we write our own ‘story’, its the one we’ll hand down to our kids, our friends, out biographers, whoever. It’s how we choose to remember and see ourselves. This is a massive factor in long distance relationships.

Distance isn’t the demon that people make it out to be. At different times in your life, you’ll put different things first. If you’re at a point in your life where you choose to, and are able to, put being with someone at the top of your list of priorities, then the rewards will speak for themselves.

I believe that if your long distance relationship is going to succeed, it will be on the strength of your compatibility, patience, trust and compassion in the relationship and not the distance. If you’re willing to work at it you’ll be rewarded with travel culture and excitement, despite the fact that at times you feel like you’re being punished with isolation.

Learning to freelance, or where to go to watch the internet burn

  

 

If you've got freelancer status in Germany, no mean feat, you might wonder 'what next?'. Recently a professional curiosity (read: opportunism) lead me to embrace ‘freelancer’ status in Germany and try to find some extra work. After a lazy web search, there they were: dozens of freelancer websites right at my fingertips. With a cautious feeling in my stomach, and a professional fortitude in my fingertips, I dove into the world of freelancing online.

What did I find? I found the worst possible things. 

 

 

  

Do bots even exist?

Do you keep a blog? Do you visit blogs? Of course you do. You’re here. Have you noticed those ridiculous viral comments that look like bots? 

But now I know where they come from. They are real and they are disappointing.

I joined freelance.com looking for native English speaking editorial jobs. After a few weeks of daily emails matching me to my “skills” and inviting me to bid on potential jobs, I had to ask them to destroy my account with fire.

Riddled among the academic fraud jobs (which these websites are profiting from), are invitations to code personal information stealing viruses -- the very viruses you have to be careful of on social media sites. Bots aren't clever computer programs, they're underpaid freelancers.

Academic fraud is a hot business

Sometimes I miss university. I do. And then I think: would I like to write other people’s assignments for them? The answer is a resounding no. I remember eating gummy bears by the bag and staying up all night to finish my own assignments. It was an adrenaline dream.

I find it repugnant that (for a ridiculously low price) people are buying their degrees an assignment at a time. People who have been admitted to universities without the entry requirements to achieve their degrees are paying freelancers all over the world to cover any topic you can think of.

For me this was an affront. Sure, it took me a decade to graduate, but I earned every grade whether good or bad. And I learned. Helping someone dodge that experience was would not just violate my own beliefs, it would rob the student of a valuable experience. Maybe if I was desperate for money?

Is it all just a question of money?

hahaha! We don't need that money right now!Is it all just a question of money?

I suppose at the end of the day it does come down to the idea that this is a job. So perhaps you can put your morality on the side. As someone trading on English as a skill in itself, I was probably being offered some of the worst jobs (article spinning, article re-wording, spamming forums, spamming comments, writing for less than $1.00 per page, stealing people’s information etc).

There were interesting offerings like editing or designing e-books and data entry, and weird requests filed under ‘anything goes’. I still don’t understand how a virtual assistant works.

The truth is, I’m not desperate enough for the money. And I’m not sure enough about a website profiting from obvious fraud to be willing to link a bank or paypal account to them.

If you do find yourself trying to find freelancer work, beware. There are plenty of opportunities out there. I would never have my bill paying job now if it weren't for my freelancer status. But there are plenty of illegal opportunities too and it will be up to you to find them.

  

Do you have positive or negative freelancing/work stories to share? Can you recommend a safe website or warn about an unsafe one? Leave a comment below. 

 

autumn in the park

I have been absolutely dreaming of buying a bike and nipping down to the park for a ride with the camera. This week, the plan came together.

This is all part of a plan to come to terms with the change of seasons, and the next phase of my life. 

Mrs German

 

Mr German and I got married last weekend. And it was lovely.

 

bye summer... hello pumpkin and stereotypes!

Everybody is blogging about summer ending right now. Its the in thing. Now this is generally the kind of thing that is a big deal in Australia, but the changing seasons are a HUGE deal in the northern hemisphere. 

Here is a picture of me and my new favourite scarf to prove it. (Got the scarf and jumper (sweater?) both from H&M, the jumper was earlier this year)

Its pretty late tonight as I write this. I've tried to pack my day full of activities and chores. I did not give in to the nap urge! Although I did spend a good few hours on the couch today playing Knack on the PS4.

The last game I finished before that was Child of Light. You can find my review here. 

On the topic, while my review was negative for Child of Light I feel like responsible gamers should continue to pay for such artistically driven games... but give constructive feedback where possible. 

Lately the German has been napping every day. I just can't understand that. I feel like sleep is almost a waste of time! There's so much to be done. 

So last week was my 30th birthday. I have very mixed feelings about getting older. I honestly don't know how to be "age appropriate" now.

Sure, I don't mind forking out 30 bucks for a lipstick these days, but I'd still spend more than that on a decent videogame. True, to the cliches,  I have a better sense of who I am. 

I am entering a different part of life now. Aren't I? Aren't there things that happen to us as we age and we don't need to fight them because its all part of the "journey"... Well I feel like I'm at the fucking coach station and nobody has arrived to pick me up... so I'm twiddling my thumbs in the middle of nowhere. (Yes, I imagine if I'm going on a metaphorical ride it will be by coach).

It is hard, because many friends and family assume I'll start a family soon. Its as if getting married at 30 means instant kid. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But here are some great links on the topic. Choose your flavour: reddit;   today.com;   Huff Post;   Some flying popcorn blog link but trust me I wouldn't put it in the list if it weren't interesting;    a personal favourite of mine...;   and look at this gem!

In other news this time of year is "freak random storm where we will rain all the water on you" time. I thought Australia had good rainfall around July with flash flooding and I'll admit it isn't as bad as it can be back home... but back home we aren't driving on the Autobahn.

I'm not sure the picture accurately depicts the impending doom. Before you all freak out about me snapping a pic while driving... in inclement weather... like an idiot... I was only going about 10km/hr. 

The rainfall has been quite surprising. Actually today has alternated between pleasant and sunny and really awful heavy rainfall... the kind that sends you reaching for your cup of tea and your book because you know you aren't going anywhere. #thanksgermany

Now check out this awesome vegan chocolate cake my workmate made. I made a deal with myself on my 30th birthday that I would eat more consciously.

This is a celebration cake to mark the success of the ESA Rosetta mission, and simultaneously celebrate her birthday. 

I'm not saying I'm vegan. That seems like a lot of work to be honest... but I am saying that food and I are going to have a changing relationship in the coming months. Stay tuned. 

In fact tonight I made banana pumpkin muffins, and yesterday I made roasted vegetable risotto. It's all coming together. 

But it is late, and Monday will be a Monday... so good night. 

 

==Msbeesy