Merry 2008!

So team,
here's what's up: I haven't posted in months. In that time span, my laptop was briefly revived and then subsequently semi-permenantly put to rest by a certain cohabitant of mine, some scissors and a small incision in a slightly defective power-cable.

BE THAT AS IT MAY,
we survived the holidays relatively healthy and harmoniously. Presents were given and recieved, mammoth quantites of homemade rum punch were consumed, along with about a metric ton of red wine, some rabbit, duck, tons of pig and goose. Stephan's Mum is a bad influence on me. Or something. Kai is now officially 30, I saw the fireworks at the Brandenburger Gate for the first time aaaaaaaaaaand I've made a few decisions about how my life is going to progress.

Okay, maybe one.

For those of you who don't get regular emails from me (hahahaha--good one, huh? no one gets regular emails from me!), I've really been loving my job at the nursery school. My boss is pretty cool and my little kids are hilarious. It's not really a "grown up" job, but I'm not really sure I want to be a grown up, either with quotation marks or without. My professional goal for the new year is to try and be more involved and make more suggestions--just generally take a more active role in my group with the kids, as opposed to watching/assisting/observing. It's not that I haven't wanted to before, but I wasn't really sure of my role in the partnership with my co-group-leader, who also happens to be my boss with about 10-12 years of job experience on me. We've talked that out and I've been working on a list of projects, crafts, songs and games to do with the kids in the next few months. So yeah...we'll see how that goes. I've also got to apply for my Ausbildungs-slot--I think the deadline is next month, or maybe March, and the courses start in August. I'm excited. It'll give me a concrete qualification to do something I love anywhere in Germany or in the EU. Other than that, things are moving along. My adult ed classes wrapped just before Christmas, and I've got few loose ends to tie up there (someone forgot to file the paperwork for the certificates of participation...oops), but all in all, things are going well.

In other news, my parents and sister have booked their flight to Berlin, arriving June 17th and leaving the 26th, so if any of you were thinking about swinging by in that time frame, I'll be otherwise occupied as tour-guide/hostess. Wish me luck getting my parents to a wedding on the border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They'll also be meeting Stephan for the first time. Allllll kinds of insanity, folks. Hopefully I'll have time to keep you posted, because I'm sure it's going to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Let's see...is anything else interesting happening? Not really. I start work again on the seventh, which I'm actually looking forward to. It's a completely different feeling from last year at this time, where I really would have done just about anything to be able to leave my old job. Mission accomplished. I think I can say with relative certainty that last year was a bit rough, but ended with positive trajectory. I'm on the upswing, I think. It's just hard to tell from the inside.

Anyway, I know it sounds nerdy, but I got the Joy of Cooking 75th anniversary edition for Christmas and I'm reading my way through it. Out of interest. I know, it's sad, but I love it. I'm going to make me a melange and continue reading about different types of citrus.


Take care of eachother.
oxoxo
.mia.