I am NOT SWISS and I DON'T SOUND SWISS either!

arrgh!!! how come everyone else in the room manages to murmur quietly to their collegues, while the ticinesi have to chatter on at full volume?! how come they never ever turn it down?! it's driving me up the wall! last time i worked in this room (two years ago) they were doing a project here too, but at least then they were half-way across the room from me. this time they've got the desk next to mine! i'd have to turn my ipod right up and blast my eardrums to kingdom come before it could drown them out!!! i hope they started their project long before i started mine, otherwise i've got another 5 months of this!!! arrrghh!!! it doesn't bear thinking about!!!
help! help! HELP!!!
(btw ticinesi are swissies from the italian-speaking part of switzerland ticino)

Labels: arrgghh, rant, uni

i'm a student, of course 9.15am is early morning! so naturally i felt an energy drink would be in order. i went to the migros to buy some of their cheap red bull knock-off (1.- a can and it tastes almost the same as red bull!) before the lesson. it's easy to find, it's the small 250ml cans with the migros budget pattern... can't miss it except now, now!!! they seem to have introduced a new product: energy cola. difference in packaging: on closer inspection (when the taste is completely different from what you expected, more different than can be blamed on the whopping great cold i've got) the writing is dark brown instead of black. how on earth did i not notice that?! i must be going blind!!! don't miss the sarcasm. and the top line still says 'energy'... how on earth are you supposed to tell them apart, especially half asleep?! i was proud of myself for avoiding the diet stuff (until i took the third mouthful (as i said, it was early in the morning, my brain was not up and running yet)). meh. managed to drink it after reminding myself that i really needed to wake up. but i'm not sure i can face drinking the second can... :-¦ maybe if i take it home and stick it in the fridge gabriela will drink it. she's always drinking any red bull or cider she finds in there. dad gets really annoyed cause she keeps opening his beer thinking it's cider and then puts it back when she finds it's not and of course it goes flat... ;-)

the driving lesson went well though. we did a mock exam and i did really well, inspite of the tricky little roads we went down where irene (my instructor) refused to give me any directions. there were lots of barely marked one way streets and i didn't go down any of them the wrong way :-) and we survived the killer motorway slip road (not kidding about it beinig killer, it's really short and at the end there's no hard shoulder to continue on if you can't get into the traffic. apparently one instructor can't drive anymore cause a lorry went into the back of them... eeek!)

in fact only two things went wrong. i stalled right at the end in the car park (moron me, i know). and the other thing was that i got confused: i thought we were somewhere else and when irene said we were heading for heuried i was convinced that was left. but when we came round the bend the signpost said right, so i was a tiny bit confused and my brain couldn't quite work out what the rules are if the lights are flashing but the barrier's not down yet at the level crossing... oopsy. so irene braked hard (i'm not a hundred percent sure my brain wouldn't have come to the right conclusion in time, i was going relatively slow) and i failed the exam... wooooopsy. thank goodness it wasn't the real exam. and i've learnt two things: never assume you know where you are, just follow the signs (these are guidelines for ME, obviously anyone with half a brain and maybe a bit more experience than me might well actually know where they are (and be right about it, too)), and i don't think i'll ever forget that i absolutely have to stop no matter what if the level crossing lights are flashing...

but anyway, apart from that it was fine, irene said i'd have passed if not for the level crossing, which is something i'd never have believed last night :) hurray, maybe i can actaully learn to drive ;-)

Labels: arrgghh, driving

...has left comments.
the moron can't even spell. no i'm not talking about the usual abbreviations, i mean 'didn't jesus ADVICE you...'
go jump off a cliff. meh.

Labels: arrgghh

went to see 'no reservations' monday night with irina from my lebensgruppe. cute film. we thought we'd buy our drinks from the coop instead of paying an arm and a leg at the cinema. so there we are, chatting away, irina's taking ages to choose a drink, when i think to myself 'hang on, where's my coke gone?' turns out i'd just picked it up and stuck it in my handbag!!! gave myself such a fright!!! imagine if someone had seen me! 'oh, i didn't realise i was pinching it, oopsy!' anyone'd believe that, wouldn't they?! only if they actually knew me... it's never happened to me before and i hope it doesn't happen again!!

tonight i'm going to see 'death at a funeral'. hope it's good. although it's not the end of the earth if it's not, cause i'm not paying :) i won a bet with pij, he bet my average would be at least a 5 (then, when i was adamant it wouldn't he said 4.9 which was fine by me, there was stiil no way i'd be that good). in the end i had a 4.7759 (sorry, used matlab to work it out), thank goodness pij didn't say 4.75, i'd have happily bet i'd never get that either ;-)

Labels: i'm special

what a relief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no more exams! i've passed! can't believe it! hurrayyyyyyy!!!!
oh dear, probably won't be much use for the rest of today... oopsy ;)
yay!!!!!!!!!!!!

Labels: uni

i am officially quitting puzzle games such as minesweeper, sudoku and all such games! they are stopping me coming closer to God and just generally ruining my life (the games are ruining my life, not stopping me from ruining it...). the last two weeks i've spent hours and hours (and more hours) playing them when i should have been reading up on division algorithms for my master thesis, and so i've been getting more and more stressed until now i can hardly get to sleep at night (so i do more puzzles). and by the time i can finally tear myself away from them i think to myself 'it's too late to spend hours reading the bible, i'll do that tomorrow' or 'i'll just read a random (short) psalm tonight'.

the sermon today was great. i think the church is being woken up, maybe we're in for a revival. scary, but cool. that stupid word. 'cool'. i say 'cool' for just about anything. last week i told andrea her testimony was 'cool'. then i had to go 'um, no, of course i didn't mean cool. i meant, um, good. um, you know, um, really, um, moving, right? oh, you know what i mean!'... so i should probably quit the stupid word 'cool' unless i actually mean coldish...

anyway, the sermon about what Jesus would say if you met him right now and asked (like the rich guy in lukes(?) gospel) 'what do i need to do to be guaranteed eternal life', meaning 'what's left in my life that's preventing me from growing in Christ?' chrigi challenged us all to make a decision today to get rid of whatever it is in our lives. for some people it's obvious what it is, for others it's a subject they daren't think about, others (like me) can't tell.

i've got so many things that need fixing... volleyball (although currently it's not something more important than Jesus, it's actually something i'd rather quit, but i've committed myself to playing in both teams), food (but i'm always worried i'd be doing that for the wrong reasons (loosing weight) (and i don't mean quitting food altogether OF COURSE!!!), books (i've managed to quit romance novels, took over 200!! books to the second hand shop a couple of months ago), cds, general material posessions... and probably many others i can't think of right now... so it was quite a difficult choice, but i decided on the puzzle games and i've deleted the links from my blog to reduce temptation. although not the ones i posted specially, there's no point, i know the URLs off by heart (in fact i caught my fingers typing one automatically the moment i opened the browser...).

right, got to go, off to ICF (international christian fellowship), hope it's good this time, i've only been twice and both times it was crap (oops, should also swear less. no, should stop swearing)

Labels: churchy stuff

Or Things to do, so your wife stops asking you to go shopping with her.

1. Take boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.

4. Walked up to an employee and told her in an official tone, 'Code 3' in housewares..... And watch what happens.

5. Go to the Service Desk and complain that the bag M&M's has too many green ones.

6. Move the 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. Set up a tent in the camping department and invite other shoppers in if they'll bring pillows from the bedding department.

8. When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask "Why can't you people just leave me alone?'

9. Look right into the security camera; used it as a mirror, and pick your nose.

10. Go to a knife department, and ask the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are.

11. Run around the store suspiciously loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

12. In the cooking department, practiced his "Madonna look" using different size funnels.

13. Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, yell "PICK ME! PICK ME!"

14. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume the fetal position and scream "NO! NO! It's those voices again!!!!"

(And; last, but not least!)
15. Go into a fitting room, shut the door and wait awhile; then, yell, very loudly, "There is no toilet paper in here!"

www.funny-haha.co.uk

Labels: chuckles

an old schoolfriend of mine's joined the group 'you know you're swiss when...' which sounded amusing, so i had a look at it. there's a list of 34 endings to the title, and tragically at least half of them are applicable to me! nooooo!!!! i'm not swiss, so there! not joining that group!

there's a link to a youtube video: sick of the swiss haha :)

and here's the list of 34 things that characterise the swiss (and some people who've grown up in switzerland but definitely aren't swiss!)

You know you're Swiss when...
1. you complain if your bus/train/tram is more than 5 minutes late. Make that 1 minute
2. you've ever been confused with a Swede
3. you laugh when Americans believe that Swiss Miss is a Swiss product, but then have no clue that Nestlé and Rolex ARE
4. you get frustrated if you go grocery shopping abroad and there aren't at least 10 different kinds of chocolate and 15 kinds of cheese available
5. you have learned three to four languages and think this is completely normal
6. you have ever been asked - upon stating your nationality - whether you live in the mountains
7. you can pronounce "Chuchichäschtli" and you know what it means
8. you have ever been asked who the president of Switzerland is and then failed miserably trying to explain why you've lost track
9. you know what "Röschti" are and you have crossed the "Röschtigrabe" at some point
10. you went to a state-funded ski camp every year with your classmates in high school
11. to you, skis are like the extensions of your feet, because you've skied since you could walk
12. you are amused when people ask you what language (singular???) is spoken in your home country
13. you owned a Swatch growing up... or still do
14. you've ever seen "Sandmännchen" dubbed into Romansch
15. as a female, you give all your friends three kisses on the cheeks as a greeting
16. you love Migros and you swear that some of their products are better than anything you've ever seen elsewhere
17. you've ever been asked by your non-Swiss friends to intervene in a fight and used "hey, I'm Swiss" as an excuse not to
18. your country has six different public television channels in three different languages - and you don't think this is unusual
19. you get amused when you see Swiss German people being subtitled on German television
20. you firmly believe it is more important to do things accurately than to do them quickly
21. you were legally allowed to drink beer and wine at the age of sixteen
22. you walked to kindergarten without supervision, wearing a large orange triangle around your neck
23. you think that Switzerland may eventually join the EU, but you're not truly in favor of that
24. when you are asked to explain how certain things work in your country, you have to use the phrase "it differs for each canton, so..."
25. you are asked to vote on a "Referendum" or "Initiative" at least 3 or 4 times a year
26. you are used to drinking from any public fountain in the street unless there is a warning sign that says "no drinking water"
27. you grew up believing all cows must wear bells
28. you think that driving somewhere for four hours is a hell of a long time
29. you get slightly irritated or at least confused if your foreign visitors ask to see a chocolate factory
30. you know what Betty Bossy books and products are and have bought one
31. you know someone that collects the tin foil lids coffee cream tubs
32. you don't see where the problem is when every male citizen who has been to the army has a machine gun under his bed
33. you have to pay twice the price for museum entries because you're not a citizen of the EU, although you live in Europe!
34. you are in a non-European country and can hear people talking Swiss German and just go up and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger

Labels: chuckles, facebook, YouTube

when i got home last night, dad was just coming out of the living room with a look on his face like someone'd died. very scary look. so there's me thinking 'uh-oh, now what's happened, dare i ask...' 'good weekend?' i venture. the weekend was fine.

EXCEPT! ... wales lost to fiji! they're out of the world cup!!!

duh! seriously dad, it's not the end of the world. no reason to put on a face like that and scare people half to death! ;-)

Labels: arrgghh