Just a quick update to let you know I am still here.

Since my final thesis is due in 4 weeks … OMG, did I say 4 weeks?!?! In writing, this just looks like tomorrow! Just re-read the last 2 sentences and imagine a uncomfortable squirm in your stomach. There, now you know how I feel.
Anyway, it’s due soon and all I do is read and write and read and write. Occasionally, when I don’t forget, I do eat and sleep, but those two things are not very high up on my priority list right now. I still have to finish a whole section of my thesis (the most work-intensive one, figures) and I hope so much I will get it done nicely in the remaining time.

So, that is the reason I don’t get around to write as much as I’d like to. I am collecting thoughts though, so be prepared that there will be more activity here in a month or two (did I mention that I have my final exams after I handed in my final thesis?).

The thing that helps me relax right now when I am too tired to work and too tired to sleep are the Babylon 5 Script Books by Joe Michael Straczynski (JMS). As I wrote, they will only be available for about another four months. You don’t buy by then, you won’t get the chance again.
I am a fan.
I really am a fan.
I ordered Volumes 3,4,5, and 13 on Jan 28.
On Jan 29 I got a call from UPS, asking me what was in the package so they could declare it with customs. On Jan 30 they tried to deliver. That is 2 days after I ordered! Cafepress, the company selling the books for JMS, had those books stored in Kentucky (US). I live in Germany! I love the new technologies that enable fast services like that. You order on the internet stuff from another country and have it at your doorstep about 48 hours later. Amazing!

Oh, and the Books themselves …. WOW! I mean, WOW! I only looked through them yet and started on Vol 3 and I am absolutely happy with my purchase. JMS’ humor is just great and reading his introduction to the volume made me shake with laughter. That’s a good thing … well, except if you are - like me - going to work by tram and the people around you shoot you nervous glances because they obviously think you are crazy. Not that there isn’t a little truth to that assumption.

So, 4 books down, 10 to go (Vol 15 ships with Vol 14 and is free of charge *yay*).

And the birds … it is January! Ok, today is Feb 2, but hey: The birds wake me up in the morning! There are birds here that you never see at this time of the year! Usually they go way south to Spain, Italy or Africa during the winter and return in March and May. But they are back already … though I am not sure if they ever left! This winter has been just as strange as the last one.
Usually we have some snow in November, no snow in December and from mid-January until mid-March lots of snow. Last year (2006/07) we’ve had two days where there was snow. And two days with temperatures below the freezing point (zero degrees celcius). This year, we’ve had (here where I live) no snow at all so far, though we’ve had some cold days (minus 3 to 8 degrees celcius). But the recent days have been depressingly mild, sometimes up to 10 degrees celcius.
Heck, it’s supposed to be freezing and snowing! I especially bought winter tires for the car! And now the garage around the corner has the signs outside that read “Changing tires and storing, just 30 Euros”. What the ***? Usually, these things do not go up before the easter holidays.
The weather really is doing crazy stuff. Let’s hope we do get some winter feeling in February, otherwise I will sooner or later have to trade my snowboard for a surfboard.