This weekend is going to be incredibly busy. Tomorrow I am invited onto two parties. On Saturday it's my Dad's 60th birthday. So I guess I won't be saying much here then. To tide you over, here's a fun link. But I'll be back with all the gory details, I promise!!

I am convinced I'm having a good day. The good thing is that yesterday I've had an epiphany. No, that's nothing that happened while I was watching Johnny Depp, go look it up :) I mean that I have the feeling that it went click inside my head and now my paper has become clear to me. You know how I was complaining that nothing made sense? Somehow now it does. I still don't know what exactly all the numbers mean, but now I can tell where they are supposed to go and how to work on the thing. I think that's what was missing, the feeling that my work was actually accomplishing anything. I was just floundering about, hoping I'd accidentally strike gold (which I never did). But now I know what I have to work on and that feels much better. Dumped everything I've written so far, started over again, and currently I'm on page 12 and convinced that what I wrote makes sense. That feels good.

Other than that, my day hasn't really been good, but I'm not letting me be convinced otherwise. First, I went to the library to get the books for my exam. Put my stuff in the first locker, drop in coin - doesn't work. Take out my stuff, put it in second locker, drop in coin - doesn't work. Third time's the charm, I think - erm, no. The fourth locker finally works. Get all my books but it turns out I still have outstanding library fees so I can't check it out. Library fees, of course, can only be paid at the Central Library. So I take my stuff and bike up the street to the Central Library. Pay everything (I basically now own the library) and while I'm there, pay a visit to the admissions office, because my professor finally returned from his vacation and signed my admission paper (yay!). Turns out the lady manning the admissions office is on vacation (nay!) and will return on the 15^th. I pray to God that's early enough so I still can register the paper. Well, nothing to be done about it now, really (IT DOESN'T MATTER. Ommmm.)

Then I worked on my paper which was good as I told you. Oh, and a friend of mine called me: She's also taking the exam in October and she also hasn't started learning yet. That lifted my spirits as I only meet people who have been learning for a year or so. I don't know if I mentioned the girl I met last September - even though it hadn't been assigned yet who her examiner would be, she had chosen one and was on her way discussing the exam. Well I for one am going tomorrow (my friend's going and she has the same examiner, so I figured I'd join her). Wonder if the examiner thinks it's really late to be doing this? Ah well, the last time I had an exam with him, he had forgotten he had an exam, so I guess he won't mind. He's the kind of professor that you associate with the "professor" image: rather old, really smart, but tends to look a bit distracted at times.

Anyway, back to the essay: My day. Good or not? After working on the paper I went jogging which, strangely, was really fun today, maybe the mental stuff is starting to work. Anyway, not so good: When I stopped jogging I felt really good. But as soon as I entered the apartment I started feeling really queasy and since then I've been lying around, trying not to throw up. Strange. I didn't have the feeling I was overdoing it while I was jogging, but apparently I was. So I'm going to bed now, still convinced the day was good, though :)

A quick What else? (mainly concerning Pirates):

Downloaded Johnny onto my desktop and acquired the soundtrack. Read the review in the SZ and almost threw up. Good god, how can one person write so much shite? I mean, I am used to that - the SZ has two reviewers. One I usually don't agree with but he goes and sees the movie and then explains what he did / didn't like - that's fine with me. The other one (this one) mainly evokes the impression he hasn't seen the movie at all, throws in jumbled references to old movies and books he has read, and usually quotes Nietzsche at some point. Which makes sense sometimes, but not when you are reviewing Daddy Daycare. And I am not kidding. He rambled on about the "transcendental" nature of Eddie Murphy. I hope he retires soon or my head will explode at some point.

Shiver me timbers!

Well, I've just seen Pirates of the Caribbean, and let me tell you, it's indeed (as has been stated before) rated ARRR! When I came out of the cinema, I actually thought: "I would like to see it again. How about right now? Right now would be a good time." The last time that has happened was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade I think. (Then I actually did go and see it again, but since then I've become older and wiser. *cough*)

A disclaimer: If you absolutely detest pirate movies, or if you fall into the category of my brother's girlfriend, who hates every movie that's not "realistic", you will hate this movie. Cause realistic it aint. Walking skeletons? She's so going to kick your butt, brother dearest. No doubt about it.

Other than that: If the word "swashbuckling" didn't exist, they would have to invent it for this movie. And the swashbucklingest of them all is Johnny Depp. Mr Depp is so cool that if I had had him around this summer I would not have complained about the heat but worn a fur coat. With nothing under it. But that's beside the point. Let me just say: Keira, honey. Listen to me. If you are marooned on a desert island with Johnny Depp and yohoho a bottle of rum, you don't go clamoring for the Royal Navy, if you know what I am saying.

Orlando Bloom, as much as I like him, pales a little in comparison to Johnny's bemascaraed eyes. Though he does hold his own when it comes to swordfights. And there be lots of cool swordfights in this movie. What else? Ship chases. Monkeys (One monkey, to be precise. And a donkey. But at least it rhymes). Funny jokes. Stuff blowing up. Naval battles. Did I mention the walking skeletons? Awesome special effects. Did I hear you say "plot"? What's this "plot" thing you speaketh of? Real pirates don't need plots, arrr. Oh, well, keep in mind it's based on a Disney ride, I'd say there's enough plot to go around.

And speaking of Disney, you can say what you want about them: They treat their employees like crap, they would sell their soul (with funny mouse ears) in a pinch and they even charge 7 dollars for parking at their overpriced parks. But they sure have an eye for the little details. Every scene from the ride is painstakingly recreated in the movie. And trust me, I've been on the ride a couple of times, I know what I'm talking about. You probably won't recognize any, but let me tell you, there they are. If you, too, want to recognize a scene, here's one. Anyhow. Can you tell I thoroughly enjoyed the movie? Go see it. Now. I'll probably be in the row behind you, cheering.

Just installed Google Toolbar and it's wonderful *sniff*. It blocks popups and everything. I just love Google.

Went out and bought printer cartridges today. Obviously they are of the wrong variety and I have to go out again *sigh*. I wish just once I would think ahead and take the old ones to the shop. But strangely enough I never do and, equally strange, my type of printer is never featured on the box of any cartridge. Ah, back to the shop.

And I need to buy cartridges because I need to print out the corrections to my paper my tutor made. Can't really tell what they are yet because I feel really queasy whenever I open her mail and have to make an effort not to throw up. My pulse is around 120, too. I hate that, because I know it's not that big a deal and I just need to work on it. I'm just upset is all, and I don't know why. I mean it was bad enough when I just didn't want to do the thing, but having these reactions to it seems slightly over the top. OK, breathe in, breathe out. Zen-Papering.

I am at one with the universe. Ommm. Off to the shop again.

(The marathon book's mental tip in this case is to add to everything "... but it doesn't really matter.", which is probably good advice.)

Good news or bad news?

Jule is leaving us to go to Berlin to be a not-so-free journalistß. Well, I guess it's good news. You'll be missed, my dear, but we're happy they gave you the job. (Happy but not surprised, we know you're good. :)

Charles Bronson died yesterday. That's bad news, I reckon. He was quite old, though.

It's turned cold today. I was circling the block looking for a parking space while wondering where the summer had gone. It just seems like yesterday I was helping people to push their snowed-in cars out on the street / into a parking space and now I'll soon be doing that again...the year just slipped by. My, my. Soon it'll be time for November depression, I guess. A friend of mine used to say: "Wenn du denkst du sterbst, ist Herbst."

But today I'm in a better mood, actually. And I was introduced to this lovely musical gem today. The "Girl from Ipanema" made me laugh so much I almost fell off my step. (I was doing Cardio Step at the time, if you're wondering.)

Oh, and I bought a new Marathon book. Not because I don't like my old one, but because it said on the amazon page this book included mental tips on how to finish a marathon. And I've discovered on my long run that mental state IS rather important. If I start out in a bad mood and can't shake it off, everything goes downhill. So I figured this book couldn't hurt, the reviews were good, too.

But I don't really like it. Well, the mental instructions are OK, I guess, but the book just takes so long to get somewhere. First of all, it spends ages telling me why it's a good book. I don't like that - I bought the damn thing already, don't advertise it anymore! (Which was by the way why the Allan Carr Non-Smoking Book (TM) annoyed the crap out of me. I think it mentioned Allan Carr Non-Smoking Method (TM) about 500 times on the first page ALONE which made me want to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes in under a minute. But I digress.)

Anyway. It features all those "uplifting" stories about people who finished a marathon. Hm, maybe that's supposed to inspire me, but some of those stories are downright strange. None of those people seems just to have gone and run the darn thing, either they were crippled or handicapped or a big thunderstorm broke loose - it always ends with them finishing the marathon while everybody else has gone home for the day BUT THEY STILL KEEP RUNNING!! (INSPIRATION) Particularly the thunderstorm story did not really inspire me - I mean, if lightning strikes all around you, it's pouring rain, there's cars on the streets because the marathon was cancelled and everybody else has left - that's the instant I stop running and GO HOME and try another marathon, I mean there's plenty out there. I don't pray to God (which she starts doing on the second page, so I shouldn't really have expected anything else) and plod on. No, sirree Bob, not me. But that's probably why I need mental uplifting. And God on my side.

I'm just glad I found my marathon book which is short, precise and to the point and while it does feature some uplifting stories it actually reads like it's written for an intelligent reader and not somebody with the attention span of a four-year-old who doesn't notice the same story turns up in the book about three times and wants to make you say: "Yes, dear. Your mother was so happy you were running the marathon she arrived in the stadium TWO HOURS EARLY!! Please don't tell me again. Thank you."

It's raining outside. The cats are looking out, they don't quite trust rain. Quite funny, actually. As usual, the paper isn't progressing as well as it could. Need to finish it today, too. It's going to be a longish night, I guess. I wonder if I should have some coffee. Can you tell my thoughts are jumbly today? Nah.

I also have a watermelon. Makes you envious, I know - not a lot of people have them nowadays. Dum dee dum.

It's my parents' wedding anniversary today. I think the 35th. Congratulations!

I am watching the athletics championships while doing my paper and I have "Griechischer Wein" stuck in my head as the French have decided it's a catchy tune and are playing it every five minutes. Strangely, I like watching any kind of sports on TV. Well, maybe not golf. And OK, sailing's pretty boring as well. Lumbersports, there's a fun event! Snooker, I like, too. There's not enough Snooker on TV these days. Or maybe I'm just not catching it.

At least I'm not the only one who's really bad at what they're doing - the commentator just said this was the worst world championship the German nation has ever participated in. And whenever I have the feeling I really suck, I can take solace in the fact that the whole nation isn't watching how I am letting the hammer drop onto my toe.