Markus efter Sverige

Without really having noticed it, March is over. A far too calm month, especially during the weekends. Since my flatmates had either exams or spent time away from Aken with their family and/or girlfriends, I had to realize: I really hardly do not know anybody here. I tried to involve some random people, but I also had to realize real life is not as easy as erasmus or traveling. People are rather confused and on distance when being asked out for a drink or a party, although it is really only about going out. Therefore the going out during the weeks (birthday pary, St.Patrik's day etc.) have been more exciting than the weekends. Anyhow, as winter ends, the calm time does, too. Almost every weekend is booked in April. And as I am talking about traveling anyway, I booked my flights to Iceland to join Sandra and Ulli. Awesome! And last weekend Philipp even visited for a short visit. Ulrich, he and me have been eating, drinking and talking all the time. First coffee, then dinner, beer (a...

My first month as full time employee is over and things are going pretty well. Work is currently quite easy going. I have time to improve things. Most likely it will be worthless when the think-tanks behind the projects create new requirements, but that's ok, because I now get salary. The freshly graduated students I know all go the same prestige-track: first they buy a new computer. I did it, too, for my old one was barely working since I drowned it once during a legen-dary story (Hälsningar till Mainz, lil åpa). Considering the law of freshly graduated students a flat television in a minimum size of 60" will follow, right after a new by-far-too-expensive car and right before the super-duper dolby soround audio system with playstation 3 which gets lost in the living hall of my new huge single-appartment. I - dont - think - so. Instead I asked for holidays and I hope to get a response, soon. If everything goes well, I will escape the summer for two weeks in July. As I said, wo...

I think, I had a first day that is usual for a first day in computer business. Of course, I was 20 mintues too late, because the village of the company was surprisingly bigger than one street and I ended up somewhere in nowhere. Luckily Micha could pick me up. What a start. Next getting a card at the entrance. I am not in the system, so I get a one-day entrance card. Maybe tomorrow I am already registered. Afterwards I met a lot of people, learned a lot of names. At Atos you call each other with the first name (not so usual for distance-loving Germany). And now I have an idea why they hired me. I think I met 50 people, but they had only 10 different names. Maybe they hire people because of their names. Almost everybody seems to be called Wolfgang, Peter, Stefan, Michael, and - of course - Markus. Getting to know a lot of people also means to learn about a lot of different projects. And a lot of technical terms I never heard of before. Until 12 my head was full of technical terms and cr...