gijasue's blog

“One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.” Chinese proberb

Just something to think about.

I know that I’m impatient sometimes and this could be useful in my life.

Just wanted to let you all know that I’m still here. Yes, it’s been since Feb. that I’ve written regularly and life is just moving on so quickly.

As an update for any of you who don’t keep in contact with me any other way, I’ve still got my same job (writing for the Citizen newspaper in Stuttgart). Although I am really not very busy at my job, it still is a kind of deterrent for me to get on the computer and write a blog. One of the reasons I decided to write a blog was to keep up my writing skills for when I got a job … so now I’ve got one and writing about my daily life isn’t as fun any more. BUT … that doesn’t mean that I’m going to give it up forever. I just can’t promise to be a daily writer.

As far as J. and A. are concerned, J. is still at his job but hoping but not expecting a promotion. We’ll see how that goes.

News about A. is more exciting. We registered her for kindergarten and this will be a big change in our lives. She’s also grown about an inch and a half and none of her old clothes fit her. So, since we’re not in the states to get the hand-me-downs we got before, we’re really in for a huge shopping trip before she starts school. She’s still in ballet, but the teacher moved it to Thur. at 3 instead of Mon. at 5, so it’s harder to get her there on my ever changing schedule. We hate to spend the money when she’s can’t make it all the time.

Other than that, our lives are pretty good. The weather in Germany is horribly hot, which is unusual (especially since it rained so much last summer). We’re hoping it’s not one of those, “get an air conditioner or die” summers, cause we’ll be in trouble!

We are also planning on coming home this Christmas so we’re trying to get our plane tickets now. The problem is finding the best price. Just when you think you’ve found a rock bottom price, you find out it’s a price without tax or any of those additional fees — and I’m just about to pull my hair out. But we’ll get there, no matter if we have to pay a premium or not.

That’s about all for now … I’ll try to keep you updated at a decent interval from now on!

Ok, so I still love my new job, at least the actual doing the job part. But being the “new” person in this office is getting to me.

So here’s the deal. It’s actually a new office, and it’s a combination of two different offices. They added two people that worked in a different office but are doing the same job, under the same title, with a boss that they both know, but didn’t really work under, in this kind of office before. Then there’s another guy who’s been around the community for a long time but had a different job, and there’s me who hasn’t been in this community long but had exactly this job before. So, I’m the only person who’s “new” as far as being in this community.

Now, out of the people that are doing their same job, neither of them has worked in a Public Affairs office before or had any kind of training working in a PA office before. Actually, none of the people I’m working with have had any kind of PA training before. Nor journalism training. To them AP style is gibberish.

One of my first projects has been to restyle the bulletin. Which has been someone elses baby for a long time, but not someone who has any journalism or PA training. And I’m getting argument after argument from this one person about changing their stuff when they don’t even send me articles that are in grammatically or journalistically proper style.

I have to change it. I just have to.

I can’t let the bulletin, that I’m in charge of, and responsible for how professional it is, out of the office looking like that.

And the worst part of it is, that she sends this stuff out between the bulletin weeks (we are bi-weekly) on her own and it has the same awful grammar and incorrect style problems as the stuff she sends me. And it’s coming out of our office (or should I say my office, since I’m the only one who cares how we look as a PA office to others) and making all of us look like idiots.

The worse thing is, is that she is taking this personally and thinking that I want to take over her job or make it harder or something like that. I’d like nothing of the sort. If she would take away from her job title the fact that she works in my office (which she used to leave out before she worked in my office) then I wouldn’t care what she does.

Anyway, it’s just one of the few ways that I’ve butt heads with people in my office recently. Although some people think I’m getting emotional (and personalizing things) when they hear me talk, it’s just that I love my job and I’m passionate about doing it right and doing the best I can. According to one person in my office (and this didn’t come from the person I’m having problems with) , just doing OK is fine with them. If that’s the way they really feel, I’m going to be butting heads with people the whole time I’m here. But I hope not.

I know I (again) haven’t written in a while. Sometimes I wonder at myself. But this week I wasn’t wondering, I know what kept me from writing … work!

This is the way it works, you get a new job, and, of course, you’ve got to get used to it. But, once you’re used to it, then they stick it to you. How I got stuck was they told me I had to take over the community bulletin and change it. Of course, let the new guy get hated.

So, I worked and slaved and tried to make it look nicer than I really had to. But, as it always does, it wasn’t good enough to satisfy the masses. Actually, to tell the truth, the masses are the small elite group of people who send me the information to be put in the bulletin. They, of course, want everything to be the same. They probably wouldn’t be satisfied if I wrote it ten feet high in gold letters (well, maybe some of them would be satified with this).

Anyway, in the end I slaved over a product that is nicer then they need but more unappreciated than if I did the easy thing. But, that’s the way it always is, right?

That’s what I’ve been doing with my time. Hopefully, I’ll have more time in the coming weeks.

So, I haven’t forgotten about you all. I’ve just been busy. Last week was the first week since I’ve started my job (officially on Dec. 20, but I did a few stories before then) that I actually had an office to go to. Just getting that all set up was a chore.

Since I work for the military, there’s lots of password and security stuff that goes on and into the computer, and I can’t do any of it myself. So, I have to call or e-mail this incredibly busy guy to install something or get me some password and it’s just insane how long it takes to get this stuff done.

And it’s so amazing that a 25hr/week job makes me so tired and keeps me going all day. Well, I have to say that it’s not all the job. I’m still not much of a morning person, so getting out of the house is something I have to be disciplined about. And, I have to get the girl out of the house, too. Now, that’s a trick.

It seems that she’s taken to playing a lot more these days. She continually makes toys out of paper (she draws, I cut) and plays with them all the time. Not any old toys either. When I was working out with my weights, she wanted a pair of barbells. Most of the time, she makes animals (snakes, frogs, etc.) and makes them part of the family of similar stuffed animals. It’s really quite amusing.

Then we have my workout stuff that I like to do in the morning, so when I finally get to work and try to do a five hour day, it pretty much takes the rest of the work day. I have started to work out in the afternoon, just to save the showering time in the gym. We’ll see if that works out.

Of course, another reason work is so tiring is just the usual new boss, new job kind of stuff. Just getting to know how my boss works — which is turning out to be quite a trick — and what is expected of me in my new job — new bulletin style that everyone hates — is something of a chore in and of itself.

But I have to say that I like my new job, I’m getting the hang of it (which doesn’t at all mean smooth sailing) and I think I can discipline myself to work out a good schedule. At least, that’s what I’m planning.

This is my first entry into my blog on my own domain. Kind of weird. Since this is my first one, I’m going to make it short.
A lot has happened to me recently. Things I never got to post on my old blog, so you’ll get to hear about what I’ve been up to in the last few months. Some things that have happened are: I ran a marathon, Alexandra turned four, my parents came over for a visit, we passed the first anniversary of our time here in beautiful Garmisch, Germany, and I got a new job. These are a few of the things you will be hearing about in the next few blogs.
I’m glad you stopped by and I hope you come a visit again to read about what’s happening in our little part of the world.