Jason's Daily Notes

I was awake before 08:00, but I took my time getting ready, browsing the internet, and cleaning up, so I didn't get to the office until around 09:15.

Work is very routine now. Nothing too interesting happening. I don't have much motivation to push creative ideas or take much initiative. I'm occupied just keeping things going at the status quo.

There is still no answer from my intern, Kila. She needs to decide. I'm already interviewing other people.

For lunch, I biked to What's Beef burgers. I figured, why not? I had wanted to go there for a long time, and I was really annoyed that everyone else had gone there without me. I was also feeling particularly jealous of Mike again, for going to Mongo's restaurant last night and saying that there's no way he would go there again because it's too expensive.

I'm slowly getting prepared for my trip to India in less than 3 weeks! But first, halloween. People don't know my costume, except for the Americans. Nick is really excited for it.

We celebrated Jon's birthday by surrounding him at his desk in an ambush. There was delicious cake and "Windbeutel" (cream puffs). Mike couldn't remember the Dutch name for them (soesje).

Also, what am I going to do this weekend? I.e. where am I going to travel? There are no available hostels in Amsterdam or in Hamburg.

I went to Badminton after work. It was raining a bit on my way over. There were just 3 of us - me, Yuti, and Chusin ("Ohm") who is from Thailand and new at the company. They were both better at badminton than I was. But it was fun nonetheless.

Back at the apartment, Badi had two friends over for dinner. They left as I showered. Anton and I had dinner (I just fried up some veggie frikadelles) and lit up a dooooooobie. Watched an episode of Archer which is pretty interesting. I could get into it.

I need to get a new bike bell. Maybe I'll go to the store.

Katie and Victor came over last night, and well, I was still feeling the effects of our sampling the whole day at work.

The clocks went back one hour, so it's at least getting light at 7am, but dark by 5pm. I have been sleeping a lot. Last night, I went to bed around 9:30pm and didn't wake up until 7:30am.

It was a very relaxed, chill day at work. Just doing my daily tasks. Playing around with GDN.

There is a big storm that is hitting southern England today. But over here in Germany, there were periods of rain showers, but mainly it has been very windy! But I love it; the air feels fresh and clean.

Lunch: leftover bolognese + Sardinian pasta in the kitchen with Toby.

Toby and I are planning an academy session in 2 weeks.

Mike had a team event - Mongo's restaurant. He gets the keys to his new apartment on Wednesday, and Friday-Sunday he'll be moving. (I need to stop thinking of Mike all the time. It's making me feel less secure and happy about my own life, which makes no sense.)

I can't find my blue folder. It is important - in there was my TAN list (for banking) and the receipts for my work permit, which I want to be reimbursed for. I don't know where they could be! I came back with the folder from Amsterdam. It's not in any of my bags, or anywhere in my room (I cleaned my room and went through everything this past weekend), nor is it anywhere at my desk in the office. Hmm...

Went home and watched an episode of HIMYM before going to bed early around 10:30pm. I guess this lack of light is really making me tired!

Last night, I crashed my bike. I was on my way to Mike's place from Stadtmitte (I had just rushed to the two costume shops to buy my Halloween costume, and had also stopped at Ho's supermarket). I wasn't paying too much attention, and my bike fell into the tram tracks. I got a bad scratch on my lower right leg, and my left knee got bruised. They will be sore for the next few days.

Mike was stressed because he found out that a big release he was working on had very incorrect data. "I'll have to stay until 10, 11pm," he said. But he was home (Tod couldn't get the data before the end of the day). So I joined him for dinner - we made an asian stir fry thing which he really liked. We stayed in, gezelig as usual, and watched The Road to El Dorado (Mike said I looked like one of the characters) and some Big Bang Theory.

Got up, got ready, then went to the bank. I transferred money to Anna S. for the Justin Timberlake concert ticket. I then went to Kaisers and bought breakfast for the team (it was my turn). I showed up slightly late, so our meeting was at 10:30 instead of 10.

Work is the same; there isn't too much excitement for me. I'm writing a blog entry.

It looks like I'll finally get Kila as my intern!

Went to Salsa dancing after work. My partner was Isadora. The instructor only spoke Spanish. It was pretty good, not too difficult. I'll go back. :)

Stayed after for some beer/pizza at Ratingerstraße with Sabrina, Mathilde (the new Portuguese girl who lives in my room in the flat), Alessandro, Kevin, Hyemee, and Estela.

Biked home. Made ramen. Called home. Slept. (Last week I had been sleeping 10+ hours a night, now I'm only getting 7 and it is making me tired.) Whew!

Walked to work again.

The weather is cold and rainy, showers passing by every hour or two.

Work is much of the same. It's not bad. Just monitoring my campaigns and pushing to optimize. And uploading new pictures, etc.

Lunch: went to the Mensa, with Toby, Francesco, Mike. Robin and Franco joined us after going to the bank. Toby managed to pay for Mike's food, and it was only €1.50 per person (student price).

Dude, it's been 6 months since I started working here.

I'm struggling with whether I should move to Stadtmitte. Everyone is living there. But I don't want to seem weak and do it just because my friends are there. I have to do things for myself. Is that stupid? I mean, lots of people move near their friends, right? I do need to spend less time with Mike.

What am I going to do about this apartment search? Part of me doesn't want to move out, if it will be so much more expensive. I feel like I'm just copying Mike.

I also feel the same way about a lot of things - for example, the clothes I wear and what cologne I wear. I really feel it's important to have my own style, but I can't really have that when all my clothes are bought here. I don't want to be a follower. But is that really what makes me a leader? Fuck, I don't know what to think anymore. I just want to get all the attention. I guess I do have an American style, I'm not as naturally well-dressed as all the Europeans here. Just keep it simple.

Fuck, I still don't have a halloween costume. I'm getting so slow at doing things lately!

I also hate not having a bike. It just makes me want to stay inside all day.

Left work at 6:30. There wasn't really anything to do. Stayed in, cooked a can of soup (eintopf) and watched Glee and New Girl and some TED talks. Slept early, and woke up 7am, and now here I am!

Canadian Thanksgiving.

The sun rises really late now. It's 8:20 and its barely coming up. I decided to come to work earlier today, because there's so much to do on Monday mornings.

So it's been a couple months since I stopped my daily blogging. I have just been focusing on my work, and my social life. My life is still fully trivago, which is awesome.

I just returned from the trivago on tour trip. Wow, what an amazing experience! I cannot believe that I was lucky enough to join. I really wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this.

Today was "back to work." But a lot of people were still tired and hungover from the last few days of the trip.

I played pool "pika" with Mike in the morning. I had lunch with Antonis, to discuss Oktoberfest since he was there over the weekend. It was expensive.

Went home around 6pm. Just too tired and unmotivated to get much work done today.

I just got a phone call from Mike. HE GOT THE APARTMENT that he viewed on Thursday. It's just what he wanted - a big place all to himself, and in a very central location! I'm happy for him, but it's also bittersweet for me, since there's no more chance of us living together anymore.

Going now to the flat to watch the Breaking Bad finale!

The weather has been warm and sunny. :)

Friday, 19 July 2013
End of the day, there was a mini-crisis with one of my campaigns.
Had a couple beers, then went home with Adonis and had dinner together. We then walked together to the altstadt to Sigrid's, where she and Anna were drinking wine and enjoying the terrace. There were fireworks, so we all walked to the river and checked it out. I tried to contact Tobi and Mike but to no luck.
Ran into Francesco, who was celebrating Jureg's birthday. Adonis and I joined them, including Pavlina and Dante, and Petr and Mira, for a night out. We had cocktails (cum shots and white russians) at Mirrors, then stayed for a round of tequila shots. Then we went to Mauer, which wasn't that great but oh well.
I was happy drunk, not the angry drunk that I was before. I guess deciding to act better and care about others really changes the way I act when drunk. Nice.
Nevertheless, I was drunk. I walked back with Adonis and decided I was too drunk to bike, so I just slept on his couch.

Saturday, 22 July 2013
I woke up around 9:30am. I heard someone showering - must have been Mike. Then someone else - Adonis? But I looked up and saw standing in the doorway: Tobi! "You don't live here," I drunkenly said. Haha, he had apparently stayed with Mike the whole night, coming back here to smoke some shisha.
It was a slow day as you can imagine, but I wasn't too hungover. I went home to recharge for an hour (and to charge my phone) then joined Mike and Tobi at Real for the usual shopping. We then went to the Arcaden, where Mike bought shoes, Tobi posters, and me a charger for my phone and earphones. I also got a new pair of good flip flops for only €10.
We then were hungry and I convinced the guys to go for burgers, so Space Burger it is. Along the way, we biked right behind the Bayern Munich team bus, which stopped in front of a hotel. We stayed for about an hour waiting for the team to come out. And yes, we saw them. Maria C and Mira happened to bike by too. Funny.
Space burger was nice, we sat outside and were just making "that's what she said" jokes the whole time and checking out chicks. After 2 beers, we left and then went to the rhine steps to chill and bask in the sun. There were some drunk bums that were entertaining everyone.
Then, we each biked home to rest (bumping into David along the way).

Around 8:30pm, Mike came over with his shisha and we went to Nordpark. We found a place to just chill in the park

Sunday, 21 July 2013
Woke up early (9am) but well-rested. I guess it must have been all the tobacco from last night. Was it that strong? Anyway, I'm surprized that I enjoyed shisha so much.

I was supposed to go on a bike tour with Sigrid, but she was just back home at 11am (from a late night celebrating Tiffany's birthday) and needed to sleep. Ok, then I joined everyone else for a day at the swimming center.

It was the last day of the Kirmes but I didn't even go.


Monday, 22 July 2013
Got up a little earlier and to work. It was warm, so of course I was wearing shorts and my new flip flops. It was the last day of the big fashion/Maserati show in the building, so there were delays getting up the elevators.
Had my 1-to-1 with Thomas. His bikes were stolen.
Lunch: kebab truck with Francesco, Mike, and Tobi. A lot of coworkers were also in the park. It was really warm in the sun, so we sat in the shade. Then, had a meeting explaining product and content to us, which was useful. And then, I had a brainstorming meet
After work, I joined Mike for a really fast dinner. We rushed on our bikes (Mike sweaty and shirtless) to Cinestar and watched World War Z. Tobi and Francesco arrived just at the same time. I tried to minimize my complaining about (having to pay for) going to the movies and tried to just enjoy it. It was not bad, but cost €12.50 (including 3D glasses, ugh!).
Biked home.