Not a good start to the week

Sunday did not end well. No Top Gear (apparently next Sunday means not the next one coming up, but the one belonging to next week and not this week, I will forever get that wrong). So I consoled myself that at least I will get to watch Birdsong, which I had heard so many great things about. What a disappointment that turned out to be. Boring. I didn't believe the characters were in love for one second. So I kind of started reading while the programme was still on.

This was very disappointing considering that the last three weeks I had the brilliant Sherlock to ring out my weekend and milden the Monday blues. Not so this week. Ah well, sucked it up and went to work with a smile.

Hope everyone had a good start to their week. I am obviously hoping now that Top Gear will be on this Sunday. I should double-check that.

The mouse has officially moved out

The mouse is gone. Bf was so nice to get rid off it early in the morning before I had to see it. About five minutes after we went to bed on Thursday I could hear a loud noise from the kitchen. But I didn't want to check. Bf apparently hadn't heard it and the next morning was startled when he almost stepped on to the poor mouse. But he manned up and tossed it in the garbage and actually brought down the garbage so we didn't have the mouse in the house any longer. We kept the other traps out just in case, but I honestly don't think there is more than one. Very glad it's only the two of us again living in our flat.

Otherwise the week was rather quiet. Bf is working hard again and actually had two laptops from work home over the weekend to keep working. That is commitment! I went out with a friend on Saturday. We hit up Borough market so she could get some nice cheese and then we headed into town to shop. I didn't buy anything, but we ended our shopping spree at a nice Korean place and had these amazing sizzling rice bowls. I forgot to take a picture, ate the whole thing as I was starving. I need to remember to take more pictures! I want to post some on the blog, but I always forget to do so when out.

I spent the evening at home reading and watching TV. This morning we went out for a long walk and did some grocery shopping before coming back home. And the rest of the day I spent relaxing with a book and a bit of TV. New Top Gear is on tonight, so that will ring out my day. And maybe Birdsong after that. I did like the book and am interested to see how they turned it into a movie. Though the main actor creeps me out a bit. Eddie Redmayne. Not sure why, but might be a reason not to turn it on.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend and feels refreshed for the new week!

January blues and house guest

January Blues. I think we all get it. After the holidays going back to work just seems so hard. All the Christmas decorations are coming down (I find that very depressing, after all the excitement of putting and having them up the office just looks so bleak) and the weather is cold and all I want to do is hide at home with a good book. The first week back at work was just horrible. I mean work was fine, but having to go to work, urgh.

Second week was a lot better and this week is actually really exciting. I am back in my everyday rhythm and enjoy being at work with my colleagues. There are exciting projects to tackle in the next weeks and I am almost done catching up on things from last month (I hate catching up so sometimes that takes me sometime, especially on things that are not urgent or I just don't give a sh£% about).

I guess there is really no point to this post. I haven't done anything exciting the last couple of weeks. Waiting for pay day. I actually stayed in all weekend and read. Finished two books so I guess I did excellent in that department. Though the shelf is still stacked full of unread books. They are actually making me take home all the books I have at work. So I took another look and put half of them back into the communal bin and are only planning on taking half of them home. Poor bf will get a heart attack.

In other exciting news, we have a house guest! Little mouse hiding under the fridge. No idea how it got in here. But it will not be allowed to live. Put up three mousetraps, but so far it seems too smart to be lured into certain death by peanutbutter. If it's not gone by next weekend I might have to step up my game and get a) poison (though I don't want it to die under the fridge and make my house smelly) b) those traps that get them alive and then drown it in my cleaning bucket c) a shovel and smash it's tiny little head to pieces d) wish it was a spider and I could just vacuum it away.

Right, enough of that. War is on in my house and I am not planning to lose it. Hope everyone else is slowly getting out of their January blues and happy without any house guests!

I'm going to JAPAN!

HURRAY! We booked our flights to Tokyo! I am ecstatic, totally cannot wait to go and wish we would already be leaving next week. Yay!

This trip is going to be amazing. We are planning to stay in Tokyo for a few days and then move on to Osaka, do some day trips to Kobe and Nara, head over to Kyoto for a couple of days and then back to Tokyo for another couple of nights before we have to fly home.

We haven't booked the accommodation yet, but have found a couple of hotels we like. We'll probably be staying near Hanzomon while in Tokyo. No idea if that is a good location or not. 

We'll also be there during Golden Week. Again, don't know if that is a good thing. Some people say it will be emptier and better in Tokyo, others said it's gonna be super expensive and crowded and places will shut down. I guess we will just have to find out and see. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is not getting on trains. We are getting the JR Travel Pass but cannot actually reserve seats until we are in Japan. Ah well, I'm sure we can squeeze on some train (I of course picked Friday as the day to move from Tokyo to Osaka). I guess we could always take a bus.

Anyway, now I got to plan what I want to see while there. Uh, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. 

Excuse me, but I will have to jump up and down for a bit before having to go to work...

2012 resolutions

I had a lot of fun making resolutions last year and revisiting them this year. So of course I will be doing the same this year.

There is not anything big on the list. I think for me it's more about finding a schedule that works for me and balance out different parts of my life.

This year there is no publishing/ work related goal on here. I think for this year I am just planning to stay in my current role and learn as much as possible. Maybe in the year after I will set some goals in this area for development or advancement. But I think for now I just want to gain the work experience and enjoy doing a 9-5 job and the freedom it comes with it. This year will be about enjoying my free time. Since the last years have been about studying and getting into a career.

This time around I thought I divide my goals into categories and see how that works out:

Health

• Keep losing weight. Another 10 kilos this year would be great. I don't want to lose it fast, I want to keep it off, so slow and steady is great.
• Be more active. I started doing Zumba at home last year and it felt great to get fitter. I kinda dropped it the last two months because of holidays, sickness and more holidays. So the idea is to work out twice a week. One time Zumba and one time weights. Bf bought a set of weights and I have done training with him the last few days. It's hard but fun. I hope to keep that up.
• Keep eating healthy. Except for the two weeks around Christmas I have been eating really healthy. I have actually enjoyed doing it. Had much more energy than before and overall felt better.
• Get more frequent haircuts. Try every two to three months.
• Dye my hair again!

Japan

Since I completely failed at any of the goals I set last year I am trying to set a less ambitious goal (like, not working through a whole book). I basically want to stick to what is happening in the lessons. Do the homework/ review and find extra material in the books. Nothing extra. I figure if I can stick to these basics I will do a lot more than I did the last year. And if I really want to do anything extra, I guess I could always find something.

• Do the lesson reviews each week.
• Work on one grammar point per week, matching the one from the lesson or an earlier one.
• Match that grammar point to JFBP and revise.

Fun things

I sometimes get caught up on the internet all day. Instead of doing something I like doing, I end up surfing the net and at the end of the day feel like I wasted my time. So I want to 'schedule' things I like to do in order to remember to do fun things. Yeah, sounds stupid. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the options there are for entertainment (TV, movies, books, games etc) and even though I really want to play or read something I don't start because I cannot decide what to do first and end up doing nothing. 

• Make an effort to go to the movies (6 times a year).
• Spend at least two evenings a week reading for an hour.
• Try to play a game at least once a week.
• Blog once a week.
• Keep the book club running with meet-ups once a month.
• Try out new restaurants (4 times).
• Be more sociable. This is not a very concrete goal. But I do want to become more sociable, stay in touch with people, try to make new friends, keep old ones, etc. Maybe try to go out with people from work more often.

How about you guys? Have you made any resolutions for 2012? What hopes do you have for 2012?

Welcome 2012!

(I wanted to post this a couple of days ago, but for some reason I couldn't upload the video. So now I created my own youtube channel just to share this with you. Sorry, took me a bit to figure out how to work it.)

I spent New Year's Eve at home drinking mojitos and baileys. Good stuff. I tried to find a decent TV show looking at the highlights of 2011, but to my disappointment I couldn't find one. So we settled on the music channels. Did some drunken dancing, played some card games and at midnight we headed out on the balcony to watch the fireworks.

All the excitement was recorded on my new camera. The quality is actually not that good. I guess it was just too dark. Please, please ignore my horrible voice. I hate having to listen to my own voice.

The big fireworks on the left are at the London Eye. The lights you sometimes see that almost look static in the sky are floating lanterns. I thought they were pretty cool. Two of them came dangerously close to our house. I think there was almost too much wind for them, but they were pretty!

Now enjoy!