The Singhsons

I stumbled of the Singhsons which made me lough after hanging out the weekend with Amit (Singh ;) and newcomer in town - Rajiv.

By the way tomorrow is Diwali - Happy Diwali

First Female Chancellor in Germany

Some weeks ago the news evoked notice also in other countries and some of my foreign friends were commenting on it - to congratulate or grasp some more details on how it's been taken here or what that would mean. Especially among women I think - even though many didnt seem to find her likeable - there was still a strong sympathy for her in respect of the upcoming challenges she would face forming a very uncommon coalition and having to deal with the "riots" of her male collegues that always have been somehow existing latently.

Unfortunatly instead of appreciating the ultimte win of christ - democrats, regardless of the little difference that still lead to a win, the voices of the cranky conservative male collegues of Angela Merkel seem to get louder and evolve to be more disturbing and even threatening effective cooperation and fast advancements to finally start governing again .

The Spiegel has a good summary on the target - as one could call Angela Merkel.

back to scientific processings...

Am I lucky or is it just the unfamiliar appreciation for scientific discussions or the subjects and topics i deal with in my studies?

Unlike few other frustrated AIESEC alumni who are going back to uni, I don't seem to have many young students around me but the striking difference which stood out last week was definitly the difference in attitude when coming to or being in class. Wheras others seems to constantly try to get around any participation, such as volunteering for presentation, writing short papers on the topics or whatsoever i shined in being prepared and even taking over extra stuff cause i felt so sorry for the professor who had troubles creating the flow and content of his course with hardly any volunteering hands showing up in the first meeting.
Also it required quite some patience out of me to listen to the first meetings questions and answers of the students with regards to formalities, minimum expected requirements and other non-important details which can be read online on the course description. I somehow have to move away from the "effectivity-mind" that evolved throughout the last years or just learn chill out a bit more!

Contentwise I wonder around the question and discourse of What is Knowledge? What makes local knowledge in indigenious societies and how is it or should it be utilized or integrated into the knowledge of societies? In my case i specifically have to examine the local knowledge on management, organisation and conflict solving. ;)

Another interesting topic i have to summarize to a short presentation - What are the habits and frames which influence the logic of our decisions?

or How does the ongoing individualisation of our modern societies and increased disorientation lead to different approaches of integration and how is this linked to the Diversity strategy of organisaitons?

By the way being at my first time juggling last night I took notice that out of app.30 participants there were exactly only 2 coming from the area of social science including me. The others were all located in the nature or technical sciences - hmm is that coincidence?

Start of university

The weekend was used well for heaps of partying, hilariousness, a fair amount of embarassment and lazyness to take leave of the 3 year university break I had.

Today I am back, the first day of university, yeiy and at the same time my last semester. Having the last semester of your life feels good but also leaves a bit of a melancholic tast behind.

I feel like i am in the real Heading to the Future phase, (we used that term in AIESEC describing the last stage of your AIESEC experience ; ) since i am in the process of graduating and at the same time planning out the next steps in life, which at least in short term are leading professionally towards the area of Diversity Management (which by the way is not explained yet in Wikipedia - buuuh, maybe I should go for it) and its role in Change
Processes, organisational and societal. I will be pretty occupied with this in the upcoming year, working in the Diversity department and being able to also write about it for my final thesis will create some good insights on both theory and practise.

At the time I am happy to be back - first seminar starting in one hour on "Rational Choice" in Sociology ;)

weekly weekend visitors

For the last 2 weeks there have been tilers on our roof to renew it. For some reasons they only work on saturdays- well they start saturday morning at 8 am and somehow already finish work around 12ish. Having my appartment right under the typical european old house style pitched roof and my bed right below the window - It is quite an experience of maintaining patience and calmness so i started the weekly happy saturday morning movie routine. (most recent: Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, which was quite nice ; )

It hurts a bit to be waken up by screaming men over your head, who are causing the roof and the entire apartment to shake under them, throughing bricks to each other and using loud drilling machine in the mornings. It also might happen, that right after waking up and walking half sleeping to the kitchen that somebody is greating you through the window - scaring the s* out of you - of the roof 4th floor where you usually have a wonderful view on the old part of Bonn, being way above the hectic and the noise.

The very special adventure is using the bathroom. My room mate and I already developed certain science to know the right angles for following human needs, like taking a shower. Its good to not forget the towel closeby. Luckily i recently just happen to change the transparent shower curtains to something more colourful now ;)

Supermegaguilty

Amit from india and Wing from china, my trainee collegues in the Diversity Department are visiting the german class 4 hours a week and they impressively keep on improving their german skills and their attempts to drop some german lines at lunch time. Some funny construction or pronounciations always end up with some laughter.

The other day they found out at lunch that I started studying hungarian seriously 2 months back, when i was in Budapest. Previously, some of the hungarian trainees at work switched to write and talk to me only in hungarian now, soo i am getting all my mails consequently in hungarian and even at lunch i had to try my best, stuttering, getting all silent and superdumb when trying to respond. Amit had this huuge grin on his face, feeling very delighted seeing me all troubled up with that little that i was able to say. "You can't imagine how much pleisure that gives me to see you like that" he said.

If I had not left all my hungarian books there, that sucks so much. Online hungarian - german dicitionaries are not really helpful either... but i will learn soon and then finally be able to reply the waiting mails!!! Hope by then the nice hungarian collegues are still around to read my hungarian responses.

Autumn II

A happy one...upcoming

One of those sunny days, when I was lying down at the Hofgarten, I was once again fascinated by some nearby people juggling the balls, or other objects and couldnt stop watching the smooth movements of the skilled hands perfectly coordinating the balls in the air.

I was wondering how much effort it takes to keep the objects up in the air but then also didnt bother to spend too much attention to it, since it appeared to be way to far away from me - in terms of reachability - so i turned back after a while and continued reading my book or watching the blue sky.

Last friday the registrations for various sport courses and seminars opened up and after already subscribing for a planned 4 week course of climbing (which already has been a standard favoured one of mine) i just about to leave the homepage completely, when i came across this juggling course just at last sight.

For some seconds i paused hesitating whether I should even open that page or not. I have never ever even been considering to start juggling myself - though I enjoyed playing Diabolo which was still fairly managable after a bit of practise - it always seemed to be way too difficult to learn juggling and it always seemed to belong to a certain group of people, those who grew up in a physically artistic environment like in the circus or such.

Realizing that indeed i already did have an ongoing fascination for this kind of skillfulness, i registered myself for a 6 months seminar - starting next week. After booking the course i was surprisingly happy and enthusiastic, almost as if just at this very day i learned about a fascination of myself which never came into my concsious realization beforehand. I am quite curious now how much patience i am able to provide to actually really learn and become good in it or throw the towel :)

Autumn

... is that already a sign of not finding time anymore to write before spring?

I hope not, no, it wasn't meant to be, but in fact I for sure feel like i dont have time to write until next March at least. Besides, Autumn also means preparing for the tough winter to come - settling even more and with everything that needs to be taken care of, before the months of short days start and little time to follow neither duties nor desires. Whether its the real winter starting soon - which in Bonn truly is not that bad or the preparation time to enrol for my graduation end of winter. I feel like some storms and harsh days are awaiting me.

After my first month, being back in normal life - working, studying, living in my own appartment again and speaking the language i know the best, I can hardly believe it would be that exhausting. AIESEC'ers are toughies, they know how to work hard party hard or somethin like that?

Winter, Uni and the time of fully needed attentiveness hasn't started yet am I am already way too consumed with everything. Starting with all the administrations and logistics that probably only took the first month and are still in process for luxury like a health insurance, a phone or an Internet connection at home.

Coming back from Budapest I jumped straight into my new job, where I work fulltime until Uni starts again mid october. It has been at least 2,5 years that i did not visit any faculty and I forgot how tiring it is to wait for various hours in front of the door of a professor, the dean's secretary or any other uni staff to talk to for few minutes. Usually it pays off to visit more than once the same place, depending on the moon and mood the second visit regarding the same concern might end up luckier than the first one in whatever you are looking for.

I am looking forward to my last semester Uni - enjoying the lectures again, the more profound researches and scientific work, different readings and discussions on Sociology or Ethnology, subjects that still matter to me a lot and of which i always will be learning from or draw future conclusions from when i moving on and trying to answer the question how to create sustainable societies.