Ugly Try

I´m kinda fed up to see on one side those ads glorifying smoking and on the other hand showing those "shocking" pics.

It.Does.Not.Make.A.Difference.

Nor do high costs.

I see so many young people smoking, it´s crazy.
(I admit, I once was that "stupid", too)

The older ones quit, the young ones start. Logic, where are you?
Can someone explain, please??

We have one smoker, female, amongst our trainees.
But we´re only a party of 10...

She´s out in the freezing cold, alone, too, to have a smoke.
Why would one start smoking under these conditions anyways?

Last training-/test day. Please keep your fingers crossed.
Spirits are mediocre... (yes, got up 04:40 to learn, repeat the mostly not even logical stuff)
Results given two weeks later. Because... yes. We do that on paper. In the IT...

Signs Telling Me What?

"Funny" enough I saw this and took a pic yesterday on the way to the training. Scary...

After day one I was a tad shocked about the sheer mass and (artificial) complexity of the contents in the training for certified software tester.

Day two colleague O and I had to realise... we´re the only ones new to the subject.
Esp white-box tests ran way too fast for us.
Let me tell you, I nearly was in tears afterwards.
I didn´t even manage to work through it all afterwards. Brain said "stop!".

Certainly ### stole precious time to show everybody how good informed he is (testing practically since quite a while and having no life after work, studying the subject hence).

Recaptured till 8pm, got up at 04:40 to go on, still I don´t feel fit.

No weekend to learn, tomorrow is THE day.

I´m no pessimist, I´m a realist.
Chances aren´t good I pass the test.

Though in an old test I got 74% - that was before the actual training had begun and I could peek a bit.

I´m not 20 anymore, either...

Can someone explain to me why the training went down from 5 days + test to 3 days + test and in this case minus weekend to learn plus most peeps with knowledge, two starting at 0??? Not fair!

Taking the push-bike, too, to safe time...

I try not to give up.
But it´s hard with frustration so high...

Testing My Limit

Pic taken Sunday - as if I knew this training will be tough!

If you are a certified software tester you might hate me now, but I have to get it out:
It´s actually not that complicated. But to make it appear complicated - as developping software really is - at least in the German version - complicated words, long sentences are used and it´s a sheer mass of information, too!

I´m drifting!

Training went till 5:30, I was home by 06:07 (not that bad for a bit of over 3km, no?) and was done going through the material and writing it down to re-read this morning by 08:00!

In reality as not-certified tester I once even wrote my own tests, haha, VW, really?! Again very unprofessional.

Good thing, with going to the bakery and back home first my status yesterday was 255%, 22994 steps, 16,9km and 2178 calories burned.

Which... speaking of... should get tested!
It´s 2,5 km one way to the bakery, according to google maps.
3,3 km to the training.
Way to canteen maybe 700 m one way.
12-13 km, no?! Ok, I made one lille detour, let´s say 14km, but not one of nearly 3 km!!
Polar probably just insults me of being smaller than average ;-)

Probably more than 2178 calories as my brain was quite active and the room was freezing cold.
And: we were three women!!! How cool is that?! (I´m living in a man´s world (usually))

Oh, my goodness.
The trainer said usually they start Wednesdays so the trainees have the weekend to learn.
Us... not so lucky :-( We have the evening from Wed to Thursday only.
Not fair, is it?

Around The Corner

Friday I took a lille detour from work and (oh, this is such a luxury, to walk to work and back!!!), well, I went past Pestalozzi-street and found this door, honouring him.

I know we do have a school named after him, but never took an interest. My time is done and I have no kids.

It was like really crazy to read the German Wiki-article giving away how he had a son called "Jakobli" whom he educated after Jean-Jacques Rousseau´s method, meaning he had to learn letters and numbers at age three and a half, being punished, not being able to read or write at age 11, dying at 31.

A very short passage on his educational ideas.

The English version is a lot different, not mentioning the failure with the son, who was called "Schaggeli", drawing a much different and more logical picture of the man.

Crazy, huh?

That place has quite some history all in all. Here you cannot buy anything anymore...

And here, wanna get a haircut?

Well, go ahead, do!

I live in a rather boring street, we have no such "features".
But I remember just in front of that former wine-shop we met with the former owners of our condo to have a beer on the transition - it was a street festival never to be repeated.
So much for traditions...
You never know what life has in stock for you...

Off to the bakery now.

Dry Aged... Outch

... Fleisch!!!!
Dry Aged Fleisch!!

Ingo promised to make kale and hence we went to the white horse to get proper meat.
And saw this sign.

It kinda hurts, no?
Like once I saw a sign "Kaffee to go".

Selling the trocken gealtertes Fleisch they put up a proper sign, even more confusing, though correct.

The bakery opposite was more clever:

Have a wonderful rest-weekend! :-)

I Have To Go!

As you maybe know I get our bread on Ingo´s wish from our old bakery.
It´s 20-minutes 2,5km one way walk I enjoy.

On the corner Gliesmaroder/Wilhelm-Bode-Street used to be a very filthy Lotto/cigarettes-shop.

New business, new luck for the place, this is far from filthy, right?

I never took the time to have a look - but that sure will change Monday in a week.
crossoverdesign seems to be "just" a chain, but I found the story to this particular shop, Mama, your shop is magical.

It lets you know the owner is a Dr. of biometrics and population genetics. She then studied agricultural sciences specialization in plant breeding and added design afterwards, too.

And... she is a mama, too.

She loves mathematical graphics, has an eye for colors and loves nature.

In the once filthy shop she recovered the old shelves that once held breads in the 50`s and she recovered the tiles, too.

Her paper-cards are handmade, you get individual wallpaper and much, much stuff there.

Her customers are aged 9 - 99 (must´ve happened) and the best customer-compliment was to her when a young girl bought a bookmark for a euro.

Guess I really should have a look.

Why Monday in a week?
Usually I go to the bakery after work, but next week I´ll have a training on certified testing (I know...) which is from 9-5. Maybe too late to get to the bakery in time.
Plan: walk to the bakery early in the morning (crossoverdesign still has closed then), back home so the bread is packed away properly and head off to the training, which is 3km in the other direction.

But the Monday after that... I´ll pay that amazing lady a visit!
Ok, you could argue a lot of studying for nothing, but you can also say: Brave lady. It took her a while to find a work she loves by heart. But finally she found her passion.

Oh. Shoot. Crazy opening hours, will pop in Wed in a week.

One Age, Still Working

Totally forgot to show you this "gem" I found at Bro´s place.
This is one of the original stamps Bro still uses - guess they´re my age.

He says back then they did cost some whopping DM 300, now that would be €150 just for these you´d pay a fortune, I guess!

Good ole quality, he has some 3-4 of these!
Yes, back then the shop was running like really great!

Our family name translated is Emperor.
One of the staff's family name translated was Pope and one customer´s was Earl - quite a mix, huh? I think one of the trainees was named King, but I´m not 100% sure and there is no one left to ask.

This is what the thing prints, btw:

My Dad was very traditional, yet fair, hence he offered me the shop first as I´m the older one.
Was he releived I declined!
It wasn´t he thought a woman cannot do the job - he thought I´d marry (which I did after all) and loose the family name (which I did not).
He also had a set of golden cutlery for each of us.
Bro´s got engraved his initials, mine not cause... marrying... name...
Did I mention my Dad was very conservative? ;-)

If you wanna see what Bro has on offer have a look here. His gold-smith works are individually made, you can see some here.
I esp admire the neclace with the hidden closure he made for our Mum (from the technique, I don´t like the color gold on me). It was his masterpiece.