While for some people, summer hasn't even started yet (my parents, for example, who are both teachers in Austria, still have one more week to work before starting their summer vacation), I feel like summer's definitely coming to an end for me. I just got back from a 5-day vacation in Spain with my sister (lots of sun, ocean but not that great food...at least not a lot of Vegetarian food at the hotel we were staying at, especially since I also don't eat fish) and now it's one more week, then one week of vacation with my parents and my sister in Italy and then back to the US and very soon, back to training. Okay, not that soon...training starts on July 21st for us (yeah, we start very early) so that's not "that soon" but it's less than a month....
I'm having a bit of a harder time not thinking about work anymore. There's a book I should really read, a residential curriculum that needs to be revised, lesson plans for my Group Leadership course designed (at least the details...we get the drafts from the coordinator of the course and I've already taught it last year, so I have some more experience this time around) and and and. I'm beginning to dread it a little...and I wish I had started earlier. It feels like I'll be pretty busy with work for the next few weeks and I'm not looking forward to that - I had hoped to enjoy the last few weeks of my vacation relaxing at the lake and hanging out with friends. Well, I may be doing both this weekend. My three best friends are coming and staying for two nights. We haven't made any definite plans yet but going down to the lake will probably be part of that. Then, next week - while my parents are at work - I'll have to force myself to sit down and look at some of those books and documents that I've been avoiding all summer.
It's weird...during the year I'm such a workaholic but once I stop, I really stop and then I have a terribly hard time getting back into the swing of things. During the year, I stay up late and work on things - I have more fun revising a lesson plan for work than hanging out with colleagues sometimes - but then I'm on vacation and I just want to do nothing...or at least nothing that relates to work. I've been re-reading Harry Potter. ;) My family makes fun of me...they say I should know by now how the books end. But they're just so fabulous. I still start to cry when some of my favorite characters get hurt. Fabulous writing!!!!
Okay, I'm off to read some more Harry Potter and then it's time for bed because tomorrow starts my fun weekend with my friends. :) And soon after that I'll hopefully have some news on how preparations for work are coming along.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Being on vacation
We all know I'm a workaholic but if you'd been hanging out with me in the last few weeks, you wouldn't recognize me. I started the vacation with lots of good intention in terms of getting ahead with work, reading some books for work that I should have read a long time ago...but now I've been in Austria for almost a month and I've barely done anything. Maybe it's being so far away from work, maybe I just needed a break, or maybe there are just too many distractions. I haven't even been that busy though - there's been plenty of times when I was sitting around wondering what I could do and even being bored - but work still didn't come to my mind.
So for all you workaholics out there: take some time off, get far far away from work and just don't do anything. It's possible, even for someone like us!!!
I'll probably regret not having done anything when I get back but I'd rather not think about that right now. Instead I'll tell you about the fun things that have been keeping me busy lately:
1) My three best friends and I spent some time together. The four of us met in Innsbruck for a couple days, where we celebrated birthdays and one of the girl's boyfriend getting his doctorate degree. Then, I went to visit one of them in Munich.
2) Family: I visited my grandparents, who live on the other side of Austria. I'm definitely done with riding the train...yeah, it may sound like fun for Americans who haven't taken the train very often, but let me tell you: It's NOT! The seats aren't all that comfortable. And on the ride back I got stuck with a group of middle school students, who were returning from a field trip...and they were just rude and obnoxious and annoying. I'm usually not that impatient but there was something about those kids and being stuck in a train for so many hours...
Anyway, unfortunately my parents and my sister are working, but whenever my parents have some time off (and if the weather's nice), we've been trying to do something. Today, my mom and I went hiking; tomorrow afternoon my dad and I will probably do something.
3) Sports: I've never been a huge fan of sports but I do go running occasionally and have tortured myself with the random "work-out DVD" in an attempt to lose some weight and get in shape. I'm trying to keep that up while I'm here and it's been working out pretty well. I've been doing at least "something" every day since I've gotten home.
4) Obsessions: There are a few things I'm obsessed with and during the school year I never have enough time to truly live out my obsessions. So I'm using this time as much as I can....
and here's a list of some of those obsessions:
a) Uwe Kröger: Okay, so most of you may not know him and I'm sorry...because that's really a huge loss. :) Uwe is a fabulous singer and has played the leads in a variety of musicals from Starlight Express to Les Miserables to Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera and famous Austrian shows such as "Elisabeth" and "Rebecca." I had my dad tape a show with him, "Musical Showstar 2008" and some evenings (like tonight) I just watch one YouTube video of him after the other. He was voted Germany's best musical star seven or eight times. Check him out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhvA-BmSCU&feature=related.
b) Harry Potter: I tried to read a couple other books (for example, Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father, which was great and then a few German books...some good, some not so fabulous) but in the end, I just had to get back to Harry Potter. I can't help it; I've read the books ten or more times but they're just so wonderful.
Okay, now you know my two darkest secrets...my Uwe and my Harry obsessions.
I hope you're all having a fabulous summer!
So for all you workaholics out there: take some time off, get far far away from work and just don't do anything. It's possible, even for someone like us!!!
I'll probably regret not having done anything when I get back but I'd rather not think about that right now. Instead I'll tell you about the fun things that have been keeping me busy lately:
1) My three best friends and I spent some time together. The four of us met in Innsbruck for a couple days, where we celebrated birthdays and one of the girl's boyfriend getting his doctorate degree. Then, I went to visit one of them in Munich.
2) Family: I visited my grandparents, who live on the other side of Austria. I'm definitely done with riding the train...yeah, it may sound like fun for Americans who haven't taken the train very often, but let me tell you: It's NOT! The seats aren't all that comfortable. And on the ride back I got stuck with a group of middle school students, who were returning from a field trip...and they were just rude and obnoxious and annoying. I'm usually not that impatient but there was something about those kids and being stuck in a train for so many hours...
Anyway, unfortunately my parents and my sister are working, but whenever my parents have some time off (and if the weather's nice), we've been trying to do something. Today, my mom and I went hiking; tomorrow afternoon my dad and I will probably do something.
3) Sports: I've never been a huge fan of sports but I do go running occasionally and have tortured myself with the random "work-out DVD" in an attempt to lose some weight and get in shape. I'm trying to keep that up while I'm here and it's been working out pretty well. I've been doing at least "something" every day since I've gotten home.
4) Obsessions: There are a few things I'm obsessed with and during the school year I never have enough time to truly live out my obsessions. So I'm using this time as much as I can....
and here's a list of some of those obsessions:
a) Uwe Kröger: Okay, so most of you may not know him and I'm sorry...because that's really a huge loss. :) Uwe is a fabulous singer and has played the leads in a variety of musicals from Starlight Express to Les Miserables to Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera and famous Austrian shows such as "Elisabeth" and "Rebecca." I had my dad tape a show with him, "Musical Showstar 2008" and some evenings (like tonight) I just watch one YouTube video of him after the other. He was voted Germany's best musical star seven or eight times. Check him out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhvA-BmSCU&feature=related.
b) Harry Potter: I tried to read a couple other books (for example, Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father, which was great and then a few German books...some good, some not so fabulous) but in the end, I just had to get back to Harry Potter. I can't help it; I've read the books ten or more times but they're just so wonderful.
Okay, now you know my two darkest secrets...my Uwe and my Harry obsessions.
I hope you're all having a fabulous summer!
Friday, June 6, 2008
On life-altering moments
People often ask me why I "choose" to move to the US. That's a tough question. I'm not sure if I ever truly "choose" to move there. It just kind of happened.
I guess it all started with going on vacation to the US. My family travels a lot; my parents are both teachers so we used the summer vacations to explore different countries. We used to have an RV, but after we sold that (after ten years and lots of car trouble in the last few years), we decided to fly and that's when we ended up in the US...twice! I also wasn't all that happy in my high school; I really couldn't see myself making it through junior and senior year at that school. So it was either try to skip a year and graduate early (which I didn't want to do because I didn't want to leave my friends in my class), switch schools (again, not an option because I didn't want to leave my friends), or study abroad (which, granted, meant leaving my friends for a year but I knew I'd be back in the same class with them my senior year.
Studying abroad led to going to undergrad in the US; I quickly got sucked into ResLife (being an RA for three years and an Orientation Leader for one summer; active in RHA and NRHH), suddenly realized you could do that for a career, applied for grad school and you know the rest.
But did I really ever "choose" to move to the US? It's not like I sat down and said, "Yes, I will spend the rest of my life in the US." It was more a series of events, or "life-altering moments" that led to the move. Not that I realized, at the time, that those were "life-altering moments." It was more seemingly unimportant little decisions: picking a spot for our family vacation, trying to get a job at college to pay for room and board, needing something to do for the summer, etc.
Now I can't imagine moving back to Austria; my life, my carreer - everything is in the US. I still miss my family and friends (I have the three most amazing friends from high school) but I wouldn't know what to do here. I catch myself not "fitting" into the culture here, not knowing how to do things (e.g. not bringing a shopping bag to the store...here, if you don't bring your own bag, you have to buy one...a nice way of forcing people not to waste plastic bags but to re-use them...great idea but it sucks when you stand at the counter and realize you don't have a bag with you and have to cram all the chocolate you just bought into the pockets of your jacket). I'm sure I could get used to the life over here again pretty quickly, but would I be happy? Am I happy in the US though?
Tough questions. I'm not sure I know the answers. Sometimes I feel like I'm just drifting along in my life: after high school, I went to college because that was the next step (granted, I went to a different country which was a little out of the ordinary but it was still college), then I went to graduate school because it was the next step, I applied for a job in my field of studies because it was the next step. But now, what's the next step now? Apply for another job? Try to move higher in my career? Try to find a partner and start a family? But is that really what I want or is it just "the next step?"
And what are those "seemingly unimportant decisions" that will later turn out to be "life-altering moments." It'd be nice to know because then I could spend just a little more time thinking about them as I make them.
I guess it all started with going on vacation to the US. My family travels a lot; my parents are both teachers so we used the summer vacations to explore different countries. We used to have an RV, but after we sold that (after ten years and lots of car trouble in the last few years), we decided to fly and that's when we ended up in the US...twice! I also wasn't all that happy in my high school; I really couldn't see myself making it through junior and senior year at that school. So it was either try to skip a year and graduate early (which I didn't want to do because I didn't want to leave my friends in my class), switch schools (again, not an option because I didn't want to leave my friends), or study abroad (which, granted, meant leaving my friends for a year but I knew I'd be back in the same class with them my senior year.
Studying abroad led to going to undergrad in the US; I quickly got sucked into ResLife (being an RA for three years and an Orientation Leader for one summer; active in RHA and NRHH), suddenly realized you could do that for a career, applied for grad school and you know the rest.
But did I really ever "choose" to move to the US? It's not like I sat down and said, "Yes, I will spend the rest of my life in the US." It was more a series of events, or "life-altering moments" that led to the move. Not that I realized, at the time, that those were "life-altering moments." It was more seemingly unimportant little decisions: picking a spot for our family vacation, trying to get a job at college to pay for room and board, needing something to do for the summer, etc.
Now I can't imagine moving back to Austria; my life, my carreer - everything is in the US. I still miss my family and friends (I have the three most amazing friends from high school) but I wouldn't know what to do here. I catch myself not "fitting" into the culture here, not knowing how to do things (e.g. not bringing a shopping bag to the store...here, if you don't bring your own bag, you have to buy one...a nice way of forcing people not to waste plastic bags but to re-use them...great idea but it sucks when you stand at the counter and realize you don't have a bag with you and have to cram all the chocolate you just bought into the pockets of your jacket). I'm sure I could get used to the life over here again pretty quickly, but would I be happy? Am I happy in the US though?
Tough questions. I'm not sure I know the answers. Sometimes I feel like I'm just drifting along in my life: after high school, I went to college because that was the next step (granted, I went to a different country which was a little out of the ordinary but it was still college), then I went to graduate school because it was the next step, I applied for a job in my field of studies because it was the next step. But now, what's the next step now? Apply for another job? Try to move higher in my career? Try to find a partner and start a family? But is that really what I want or is it just "the next step?"
And what are those "seemingly unimportant decisions" that will later turn out to be "life-altering moments." It'd be nice to know because then I could spend just a little more time thinking about them as I make them.
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