to go or not to go

The issue of utmost importance now is a possible moving in another country. My fiancé insists on living in his motherland, because everything is settled there: he has a job, an apartment, a summer house and a teenage daughter to look after. While I will be a unwelcome emigrant, who has no job, no citizenship and speaks a local language badly. Sounds exciting, isn't it.

I’m now considering if I can survive without my beloved family and friends and if I manage to stay sane there.

Besides, the whole citizenship status thing thrills me, as it requires too much time, efforts and bureaucracy. And I hate waiting in queues and gathering papers from the authoroties.

P.S. This whole situation reminds me "Mistery" by Hugh Laurie

new job

I'd been dreaming about a regular job for a few months and finally got it. Hope, I will survive two months of probation.

The office is a lively place filled with sales managers, who are distributing marine equipment and I’m to translate every document that all these guys feel like giving me. For two weeks I’ve been working on translation of technical specifications, brochures, information notices, drawing, what not, which is quite exciting. I have never translated anything on this topic ever (!) and now learn more and more useful vocabulary. I know I’m going to like all those ships, pumps, navy planes, towboats and so on.

Two sales managers of maritime equipment are sharing desk with me. They are quite peculiar personalities. The guy is a short fat fun-loving fellow, who jokes and laughs all the time, comments any remark heard in the office, mocks on stupid clients, green translators, received e-mails and so on. In the evening he quarrels with another guys in the office claiming that the other guy is lazy and bolder than himself, that this guy has stolen his magazine, talks to much or to little and is an ugly one in general. While the lady is a tall, middle-aged, strict Madame, who is always tired, sick and annoyed with overwork, stupid clients and customers, her desk-mate’s comments and “this whole thing”. She rarely smiles and always complains. Her assistant is a twenty something fellow, who works really hard, is uptight and feels uneasy if there is nothing to do. At the same time he watches working hours, comes exactly at 9am, leaves exactly at 6 pm and has a late lunch out of the office exactly from 1pm to 2 pm.

Watching these guys I do my best to concentrate on translating.

at home, finally

The major repairs are over in my appartment, so I'm back and very excited about it. There are still some minor things to do. Fortunatelly, they can be done while I'm around.

The bathroom is now of a lovely sky-blue colour and the restroom is in emerald one.

The room is still under reconstruction. As soon as the walls are ready I'm going to glue the wallpapers of a deep orange colour and hang curtains with some ethnic pattern. I have also found a huge bookcase in an incredibly beautiful mahogany color, which has enough space for all the books I have and a room for those to be bought. The plan is to turn my roon into some African landscape (see the pic). Hope it will work out.

*sign happily* It is so good to be back home finally.

a better day

Yesterday's evening of moving the furniture around my “garret” (as Sacha van Straten has called it) to clear away more space for a plumber to change the pipes in the room cheered me up. I never realized that I’m strong enough to move sofas and a piano.

The night was wasted on watching House MD season 4 and the most recent NCIS episode that immediately raised my spirits.

This morning I had a lovely stroll down the river to the gulf watching ships in graving-docks, where the most talented shipwrights were getting them ready for deep waters later in March. The sun was shining brightly. Snow was crunching under the feet. The ice on the river was cracking and the whole world seemed to be smiling.

Spring is definitely in the air!

a weekend post

Melissa Leo didn't get an Oscar as I hoped. Well, at least she looked gorgeous at the ceremony. Maybe she will be offered more leading roles in the future.

The guys, who are working on my apartment, have finally installed all necessary pipes. They are neatly built into the walls, so they won't be visible under the tiles. The photo to the right shows my bathroom before the pipes have been replaced. That is really cool!

Some of the new pipes are smaller than they should be, so I will have to use them more carefully in the future.

In other news, those blues are on parade again and are difficult to fight back. Even skating on a frosty and sunny day didn't help much.

I have also finished reading a cool novel by D.Baldacci called "Last Man Standing". The novel is packed with action, tough guys and big guns. It was a very good read! Even Dr Gregory House reads his books.

at the post office

There was that guy at the operator’s window asking for an envelope. The operator asked what size of the envelope the client wanted. The guy was surprised to know that the envelopes can be of different sizes.“The smallest one”, he said. “I’m going to send my sister this SIM. She has forgotten it”.
Now it was the operator to be surprised: “You cannot send a SIM in an envelope, you must send it in as a registered postal packet”.
“No, I don’t. SIMs are not on the banned list”, the guy insisted.
“You see, you may send only paper items in an envelope”.
“Oh, come on. I’m sure it’s going to be fine. No one is going to check the contents, and my sister desperately needs this SIM”…

Their conversation lasted a few more minutes, the queue behind grew irritated. I was standing in it, amused. If I ever forgot a SIM in another city I would just go to the nearest service center of my mobile provider, block the lost SIM and get a new one with the same phone number and data. It is as simple as that!
So, why waste his own time, mine and all the others’ in the queue at the post office?

Eventually, the operator persuaded the guy to buy a greeting card, hide the SIM inside it and then put in the envelope.

"Next one!"

home sweet home, i miss you.

Excitement over annoying my stepfather with girl's stuff is wearing off. I have grown accustomed to Mum's extreme care and don't go crazy anymore when she meets me at the doorsteps: "Hello, honey. How did your day go?"

Nevertheless I still keep to myself, because time on my own is precious after a working day. I walk  the streets, do freelance on my laptop in cafes or blog work on PC at home postponing visits to mum's. I only shower and sleep there, while mum would like me to be around more often. She even promises to buy DSL. That's really nice of you, but... No, thanks my satellite is fine.

Sometimes I stay at *home*. It does not feel like home though, as hot/ cold running water is still off and the fridge does not work. The computer is in the only room of the apartment that is not under reconstruction. Actually all my belongings are now stored in it leaving a tiny square space near the computer.

Besides, I don't have much furniture, so I blog work staying on my knees in front of the screen and look very much like a heathen at the foot of an idol statue.

Good news. The workmen say they will have got the bathroom into shape by the end of the month. *fingers crossed*

thermoelectric power station?

So much for the blogging addition. I did miss two wonderful days of posting, because in between all the fun of blogging and watching House MD and NCIS I have to make a living.

Monday evening I was offered a translation job, which was so handsomely paid that I accepted it at once. It appeared that there was 10 pages of blueprints and 33 pages of whiteprins of some super powerful thermoelectric power station, which had to be translated by 12PM Thursday. That was tough, as 43 pages of technical vocabulary are quite a challenge for a minor translator of teenage horror stories like myself.

The battle with all types of valves, heat exchangers, various circuits and what not had been going on during most part of Tuesday and for the whole Wednesday. Eventually, I nailed both blue and white prints on time, having learnt a lot of useful words on the way. Exciting!

Now I'm back to NCIS and Blogger.

See you on-line.

family issue

The piggy's adventures at mom's place are in full swing.

Mom's poodle has recently developed a crush on it and even attempted to kidnap my lovely toy. I rescued it twice from his teeth and once retrieved it from the poodle's secret hide-out in the living room. Piggy was so dirty that I had to wash it and then blow-dry.

My step-father got intrigued by the piggy blowdrying and sneaked into his study aka my room. He gasped at the sight of it: his beloved bookcase was now filled with colourful tubes, bottles and tiny cases, the aroma of Kiwi (eau de toilet) used as airspray flying around, some nailpolish was half-opened on his computer table and... there was me drying the piggy with his hairdryer. It was too much to bare.

He muttered "sheer lady" under his breath and left.

family issue

Due to serious repairs in my apartment I had to find a current place to live in. There were several options: grandparents', dad's, or mum and step-father's place.

The grandparents live too far from the city centre. My sister is currently stationed at dad's, so I'd better not go there, as she is a lazy teenager and I'm an ex-teacher who has been telling off lazy teenagers most of her life. I'm sure dad will involve me into upbringing the sister, so I'd rather stay away. Thus the only refuge is mum and step-father's place, which is in two-minute walk from my own apartment, close to the city centre and doesn't contain a crazy teenager. Don't get me wrong I love my sister. I just prefer spoiling her to bringing up.

Anyway, yesterday I collected living essentials, tons of cosmetics and headed to mum's apartment. The step-father answered the door. His jaw dropped when he saw me cuddling my stuffed piggy and clutching a huge bag of cosmetics . He was too startled to say anything. I made my way inside.

Mum and the step-father had prepared their study for my bunking down for a couple of weeks. And I'm now living in a tiny study surrounded by a computer, a huge plant and an empty bookcase that serves as my dressing table. Lovely!

Mum is so excited about the whole thing that even cooks, while the step-father complains that she never gets into so much trouble to feed him. These two are so sweet!

I do feel that three is a crowd at their place. Therefore I'm looking forward to the repair to be completed, so I can go back to my little universe and leave mum and the step-father in peace.

ok day

The bad day turned into an okay day yesterday, as I broke a cup, cut a finger, had a headache and watched BBC film "Murder in Rome". The film inspired me to wonder about the purpose of my life, which was definetly not doing the job I'm busy with now. So when the boss reached the office today and officially fired me I kept calm.

This week is officially my last one here. So far so good.

midnight shopping

While half of the world is celebrating, I'm working fast to tie up loose ends and be able to flee from the cloudy city to snowy montains on Saturday.

Last night I went shopping really late and experienced all benefits of midnight shopping at a sports market. There were very few people, lower prices, mignight discounts and no rush at all. I have to admit that I loved it. So now I'm fully equiped to climb up the mountains and stay there for two weeks.

The cat is to be taken to Granny's in the evening today. The presents are already hidden under the fir-tree so that the family could find them on New Year's Eve. The suitcase is almost packed. Life's good!

slowing down

Holidays are closer and closer. The office routine is so slow and uneventful that I have enough time on my hands to work on side projects. They are completing The A - team and NCIS episode descriptions for my friend's site; translating Dana Fuchs' blog for her Russian and German fans and translating several medical articles for another friend of mine.

The only disadvantage of all that is computer radiation that hurts my eyes and I have to use eye drops more often. I'd love they present me a computer screen that doesn't ruin eyesight.

mystery

Several days ago I noticed that yellow lights on one of my christmas-tree garlands didn't work. That was weird as they had worked fine before. So I checked the electricity distributor to see that all wires were attached properly, then I counted the tiny lamps to make sure they were in their places. Everything seemed to be in good condition. However, later the red lights went off, so I had to examine the garland again. Nothing was wrong. Sheer mystery.

Today I woke up to see my cat champing somewhere between the branches of the christmas-tree. She saw me awake and dashed away under the sofa. The light went on and I saw a tiny garland lamp cracked under the tree. Eventually my cat had screwed the lamps off.

So now I have to take the crazy cat to the vet to make sure she hadn't eaten a light or two pretending to be an electrician. It's going to be a long day...

longing for a white Christmas

The closer Christmas is, the more agitated I become, as that'll be a chance to leave the windy city, where snow melts too fast, the sun seldom shines and the sky is never blue.

Don't get me wrong. I do love my city, but winter just can't be gray and rainy! It must me snowy, the sun must shine in the blue skies and bullfinches must sing in the trees. That's why I'm planning to travel to the mountains to see the real winter and have winter fun.

The tickets're bought, a hotel room's booked, so I just have to be patient.

In the meantime I'm attending birthday parties, as most of my friends were born in December, and visiting relatives.

result

“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.” And burn black in the end.

That's the way I feel today. After several weeks of hard work, heated arguments and long hours on the phone with our partners the deal was finally signed. The first shipment is to arrive on the 10th of December. The bosses are off to celebrate, and I'm left here to clean up the documents.

All the glory is for the bosses, however I'm absolutely satisfied to achive so much in such a short period of time. That is the first contract I've made on my own.

an incident

I'm offered a chair nicely, the same chair I'm offered every time I come. I'm taking a seat, chatting gaily, admiring my friend's new look... Suddenly a crackle comes out of the blue.

The next thing I know: I'm lying supine heals over head, scared and confused. Silence.

My friend's scared, too. Seconds are passing slowly. Finally, we both burst into wild laughter. I'm rising to my feet shuddering with laughter and looking around at tens of wooden pieces around the room, no chair.

We're still laughing. We're still out of breath.

What a fine way to begin a weekend!

Have a beautiful weekend and stay away from crackling furniture!

it's winter in the city

Yesterday was lovely, as winter arrived. It had been snowing since early morning and by the time the work was over the whole city had turned white, and the snowflakes were sparkling in lanterns light.

The moment I left the office building a snowball hit me. I had no idea who the snowball had come from, so I quickly made one and threw at the colleague, who was laughing most. Whithin seconds the parking lot got filled with laughter, flying snowballs and working fellows running around. I was surprised to see all these gloomy and serious guys in such high spirits.

I'm so gald that winter is back in town. Time to polish ski and sharpen ice- skates.

a guessing game

There're certain things that put me at a loss daily. One of them is the bosses' messages, which are so grammatically incorrect that it's difficult to understand what they mean.
For example, a recent post-it I found on my table said: "Receive Mr. Green by kunch --->". Now, how am I supposed to *receive* Mr. Green? And what's *kunch--->*? I was staring at the post-it for several minutes, confused and angry. It took a while to figure out that the bosses had asked me to send the letter marked "--->" aka near the post-it note to Mr. Green before lunch.

The other one is spelling. The bosses make so many mistakes in names and places that I keep on calling wrong contractors and talk to them about something they have no idea about.

The third annoying thing is that they give contradictory instructions. Consequently, I end up carrying out unnecessary tasks. That's frustrating.

weekend post

A whole weekend on my own was something I'd been longing for awhile.

So I walked in one of the most beautiful parks of Oranienbaum, fed fat happy ducks and took photos of picturesque lanscapes, which reminded me of some fantasy stories about magicians, princesses and evil knights.

In the evening I dined at a nice little cafe, and then joined my friends at a beauty shop. It was a funny hen-party: we chatted a lot, had manicure and hair done and then headed to my appartment to get a couple of mojitos.