hmpf

says my ancient (ca. 25 years old), long-neglected bike is fixable and I may get another 10-12 years of use out of it. Yay!

It'll cost me around 200 euros - nearly all the moving parts have to be replaced. That's okay, though. A good used bike would cost me not much less than that, and also, I'm kind of sentimentally attached to my old warhorse.

I was recently told that when you work a fulltime job, you also get better at fitting more stuff into your spare time even as the amount of available spare time shrinks to just a fraction of what you had before.

I'm not sure what I think about that (though, to be fair, this effect is only supposed to set in after you've worked fulltime for several months). Well, I've worked fulltime, pretty much, for the past two and a half weeks, and been mostly busy with seminars on weekends on top of that. Today I did have a full day to myself, though, and managed to fit three loads of laundry, cleaning the entire flat, writing and editing a (very) short article about bread, talking to a friend on the phone for half an hour (I felt too busy to call anyone, but he called me), washing my hair, and cooking today's dinner/tomorrow's lunch into this day. (None of this is what I would really like to do with my spare time, of course, but these things needed to be done.) Oh, and I even watched one ep of Third Doctor DW during dinner. Still, I don't think that's significantly more than I would have managed before I started fulltime work.

I do feel different about it, however. My To Do List is as intimidating as ever, including, as of last Thursday, learning the basics of statistics and Excel, so I'll have at least some chance of success at that scary two-day application procedure I mentioned. (Because that job would actually be completely and utterly perfect for me. Cross your fingers for me!)

Usually, my To Do List leaves me with a persistent feeling of "OMG I need to DO MORE!!!" when I go to bed. Today, though, I feel at peace with leaving the rest of the list for tomorrow (and the days after that). I think that has something to do with the fact that, working fulltime, I don't have unrealistically high expectations regarding what I can manage beside work in a given day or week. It's easier to make your peace with your inability to keep up with everything you want and need to keep up with - or, in other words: work makes a very efficient excuse for neglecting Other Important Stuff. Like friends, hobbies, art, non-work-related responsibilities, even job hunting... (Well, okay, even without work, experience has demonstrated that I can't manage to keep up with all this on a regular basis. But with work it becomes oh so easy to stop beating myself up about it.)

I'm not sure I like this effect, despite the temporary peace of mind it provides...

a pointless post on what I did after the 'Zwischenprüfung' and what I'm going to do next. And why this journal will have a lower priority for a while still.

For months and months I have postponed things I wanted (or had) to do that were not absolutely necessary, because *something* always was more important. Getting my application papers for Birmingham ready. Getting my paper on early bronze age daggers ready. Preparing for the exam.

Prioritizing is important. I know that. But it is also frustrating if you have to always put the things you really want to do on the back burner. Things like writing fanfic, making jewellery, rebuilding my website, posting on forums, doing various Save Farscape related stuff, updating my LJ... So, I've 'saved up' a whole lot of Things I Want To Do (and a few I Have To Do, too), and now I'm going to do as many of them as possible. In fact, I started immediately after the exam. On that one day, in less than 12 hours, I made three simple rings, burned a dozen CDs, edited my fic, built one new page for my website, watched two eps of Angel (I'm still in S3! And I'm just as far behind on Buffy!!), cooked dinner, called some people, gave feedback on the first version of the next Scape Sisters video, sorted an about knee-high stack of paper that had accumulated on my desk... in other words, I got a lot done.

On Friday, the day after that frightfully effective day, I mostly met friends (and battled with the washing machine, but that's another story). We had our monthly Farscape meeting, an old friend who's so far avoided our congregations decided to join us, and we had a very nice evening. The next day was similar, only that I just met one friend (that same old friend, in fact), and we watched some Stargate. (Yes, I'm trying to look beyond the rim of the FS plate. After one and a half seasons of SG I find it not particularly exciting, but nice in a harmless, popcorn kind of way. I'd never write fanfic about it, but it's watchable, and a few eps had rather nice ideas behind them.)

Well, and these three days are very good examples of how I intend to spend my last few weeks in Germany before I leave for Birmingham: getting all kinds of things done that I missed doing in the last seven months or so, and meeting my friends as often as possible (and meeting *as many* of them as possible, I might add! - *waves to elbatsnud, dunkle_feuer, ankae*)

So, if you're not reading any updates here, or not many updates, anyway, it's likely that I'm doing one of the following:

- writing or editing fic
- rebuilding my website
- making jewellery
- catching up with a dozen series I'm way behind watching
- reading
- hanging out with friends

In other words, I have a life! ;-)

Nah, I'm just kidding. I don't mean to say that updating your LJ equals having no life! And since much of the stuff I intend to do is fannish in nature I'll probably update rather more often than usual. But in case I'm *not* updating, that will be the reason.

In other news, I burned a hole into a very old favourite t-shirt of mine today. Which is noteworthy because it's actually the first 'casualty' (apart from various cuts in my fingers and burns on my hands and a ripped-off bit of hair etc.) of my goldsmith's work in uhm, ten years or so. I've never damaged my clothing before; only myself *g*.

Well... I'll be back with something more interesting soon, I expect.