March, 2004 - Nr. 3
Vienna Connection
Time for another update! This is actually my second time trying to write this article, because the first time around the computer crashed and lucky me hadn’t saved what I was writing because I was right in the middle of writing it when I had to tend to a phone call and when I came back, it was GONE! Such are the little joys of life sometimes! Am I letting it stress me out? Well not really. Of course, there was the requisite 5 minute rant and initial letting out of said stress and frustration, but in truth, it really isn’t worth getting all that upset over. Because as I said, such are the little joys in life. And little things like that really aren’t worth that much mental space and time in my books, when there are so many other, bigger and more important things to think about. Everyone has their own personal list of what’s important to them, I certainly know what mine are.
So, as it were, technology playing tricks on you only goes to further my theory that technology is one of the paradoxically evil pleasures of life and that if it can be done face to face by a person, at least that way it’s safe and certain. But oh well, sometimes you can’t do something face to face, as is the case with this article, so I will have to put my faith in the hands of this evil genius computer I’m typing at and hope and pray that it’s nice to me and doesn’t crash again! Sometimes I swear these things have a life of it’s own! An example of this is my friend’s DVD player. We were all excited to have a much waited for Harry Potter movie night (just a few more months till the Prisoner of Azkaban movie comes out! can’t wait!) and the darn machine decides to be temperamental. It decides it will not play Harry Potter. My friend’s like what? This is so strange. It’s never happened before. Why don’t we try again. So here we were trying to get this thing to play over and over again to no avail. Sometimes the machine would tease us by starting the process to play the DVD so we’d get all excited, only to be let down at the very last minute after the title shot for the movie would appear! Then we decided ok, let’s try some other DVDs. One after the other they worked! Then we thought, well could it be that the DVD itself has a problem, but no, it was working just fine on another machine just the day before!
So here we were grown ups, begging and pleading, petting this machine like it was a temperamental Siamese cat, grovelling at its feet so that it would play the darn Harry Potter DVD (and if you can imagine this all in German, it would have been kind of a funny Seinfeld scene) and then miracle of miracles, the thing started playing! So we praised it and thanked it, and it kept playing, and here I was thinking, wow, this machine was feeling really underappreciated, and just wanted us to be nice to it. So I started gaining some new respect for what had become the arch nemesis DVD player. Up until the moment where, half an hour into the movie we decided that it was indeed time to move away from the machine and we could go and sit on the couch to avoid blindness and cure the fact that our legs were feeling the worst pins and needles from having to sit on the hardwood floor in a very uncomfortable position just so that we could show the DVD player some love. Well, we moved away and the movie stopped! Just like that. How do the laws of physics explain that one? Huh? Now I’m just hoping that this computer doesn’t start sensing what I’m writing here and decide that it has to defend it’s distant cousin in the machine family! Ok well, enough with technological paranoia! I’m guessing the Rest and Relaxation here in Switzerland I’ve been after is starting to do things to me! I should get back to my hectic life in Vienna! That, or else my body is telling me that it’s time for a cup of coffee!
Anyhow, yes, I am in Switzerland right now, getting a holiday from my holiday! it turns out my social life had become a little too social and sleep was becoming a rare commodity. I decided that it was time to take a step back and slow down the pace, and that, I’ve definitely been doing. Let’s just put it this way, I’m going to make bread today! This seems like quite a funny thing for those who know me, because I’m not really the Martha Stewart-earth goddess type, but I’m starting to get in touch with my domestic side. As a Christmas gift, a good friend of mine had given me a great book called How to be a domestic goddess, and well, I like anything with the word goddess in it, and it was pink and had a pretty cupcake on the front, so I decided to let that inspire me! And now look, she’s created a bread-making monster!
NO, but seriously, it is really rewarding to be able to make something on your own instead of having someone else do all the work for you! And when it goes well (and let’s face it, it WILL go well!) you get such lovely accolades, even if they come from only yourself! What a feeling to be satisfied with something you’ve done. Sigh! I’m actually reading a book right now called Emotional Intelligence, about how the EQ is actually a better indicator about life and the IQ and I’m finding that it’s really right. Managing your life emotionally is so much more important than just being smart (although that certainly doesn’t hurt!), because what’s the point of having the knowledge if you’re to much of an emotional basket case to be able to use it? It also talks about psychosomatic syndromes and how much our physicality is affected by our emotional state. Something we all should know. I know a few people who might have to read, reread, highlight, cut and paste, laminate and post that chapter on their fridges and hang gold stars around it in case they might not notice it otherwise!
The little things in life shouldn’t frazzle us, just like this computer breakdown I had earlier. I ended up writing a very different article, which tells me that really, this is the one I was meant to write! (See, there was some continuity in this article after all! Maybe that makes me sound like destiny has a hand in everything that we do, but in a sense, I do believe that there are so many things that just seem to be destiny. Ahhh, the Fates. What a tangled little web they weave in our lives every day! I was planning on writing about the best exam ever, but I’ll have to save that for next time, or if I never get around to it, you’ll all just have to ask me out for coffee while I’m in town and I can tell you in person! I am particularly partial to Mocha Coconut Frappuccinos and Caramel Toffee Delatos. I won’t tell you which one I like better, since I’m giving both establishments fair time here already plugging them shamelessly and maybe inciting some of you (not so subliminally any more!) to go and grab one of these yummy drinks for yourselves! Anyhow, this is getting rather long, and I have really pushed my luck with this computer so far. Till next time.
Caroline.
Comments to: ckuehn@echoworld.com
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