Work/ Arbeit

My supervisors and colleagues have been great motivators. Each job I've had has been rewarding and good, even those that had their tough times.

Thanks to Aunt Sheila and Aunt Roma for my first paid employment. Thanks to the people at Eastern Airlines in Montego Bay, to Marsha at the Yale Cabaret and my waiting buddy Bruce. To the guys with the paper route, to Bill at American Bartending School, to the Irish bar where I worked, to the World Yacht folks, to the staff at Yale New Haven Hospital, to the New Mexico State Hospital people, to medical and nursing staff in Göttingen and Lübeck, to everyone at Grenada General, to the people at KMC, to Julian Shilling for hiring me, to the Check Bus team for the excellent working climate, to Prof Gutzwiller for supporting my doctoral thesis, to Jörg Püschel for his guidance, Regula Häne for her care, all the Panzerknacker colleagues at the PONS, the entire staff of the psychiatric ward and the rest of the Kantonspital Obwalden, all my colleagues at the KJPD Zürich, and everyone I worked with as a clown in Jamaica.

So many people, in so many places; a head count would easily exceed a thousand, but if I think of thanking even one tenth of them, I can easily up the count by 100. I am grateful for the cloud of goodwill that has encompassed all my working life. Hurray!

Arbeit macht frei? Kann sein. Die Arbeit hat mich auf einer besonderen Art und Weise erfüllt. Ich habe den Sinn des Lebens (teilweise) darin gespürt. Ich bin für jeden Job dankbar, den ich jemals gemacht habe und für die Menschen, die mir diese Arbeit ermöglichten.

Familiensinn

I am grateful for my family and all its extensions. Many people have cared for me over the years. My article It Takes a Village in Oneup magazine describes this in detail.

I am grateful to Rev Hettling and his wife and children (David and Elizabeth) for putting me up in Highgate. Thanks to my aunts and uncles for loving support: Carol, Ditta, Enid, Jule, CC(RIP), Del, Godfrey, Ivan , G. Michael, Ranny and Cas. I'm glad for my stowaway uncle Roy in Bristol, his wife Sue, her sister Jill and nephew who put us up on our England trip and the new aunt nobody knew about until my uncle C's funeral three years ago.

Thanks to Robert and Cloval Anderson, their children Delano, Craig and Natalie whom I lived with in Kingston. Thanks to the Goodisons who gave up a childfree existence to take care of me. Thanks to the Whitemans Aunt Leila, Ruby, Etta and Daphne. And Uncle Burchell and his wife and daughters. I am grateful for my cousins Caron, Michelle, Natalie, Stuart, Yanique, Maureen and their kids--but I have exceeded my thirty for today, so I'll be grateful for the kids another day.

Finding a bunch of people to be grateful for and to is not as difficult as one might think. I have 39 today and my thousand thank count is up to 186!

Ich habe eine grosse Familie. Und die Anzahl der Menschen, die sich um mich gesorgt haben ist noch größer. Ich bin dankbar dafür.

Hooked on Books/ Bücher

Thank God it's Sunday. I love the Sunday grey as much as I love the Sunday sun. The sky looks like it hasn't made up its mind about whether to rain or shine.

Today I'll thank 30 or more authors and their books for enriching my life:
Thanks to Benjamin Hoff and A.A. Milne for the Tao of Pooh and the original which remind me of innocence. Thanks to Sögyal Rinpoche for the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying which helped me through the valley of death. Thanks to Redfield's Celestine Prophecy that jumped off a bookshelf at me in Geneva, for Lao Tsu's Tao which I read over and over again, to Hafiz for soul inspiration, to Khalil Gibran for the same, to Eckhart Tolle for The Power of Now and A New Earth, to Louise Hay for her books on healing, to Prof Steinhausen for his child and adolescent texts, and to Frau von Aster for her book on playing.

To Barbara Cartland for scores of historical romances, to Sara Craven for happy Mills and Boons days, to Liane Gentry Skye and Saranna de Wilde on Textnovel, to Stephenie Meyer for superior heart and soul writing. To Agatha Christie for a world of mystery, to Tess Gerritson for the thrills, to Steven King for chills, to Tolkien for hobbits and rings, to Charles Dickens for most of his things. Thanks to Rainer Maria Rilke, to Erich Kästner, to Goethe and Shakespeare, too. Andrew Davidson's Gargoyle was an unexpected treat, David Burns guided my therapy interventions with Feeling Good. Gabriel Garzia Marquez, Miguel Cervantes, and Jorge Luis Borges formed my Spanish literature backbone. That's already 30 and I can still go on. But I'll close with thanks to David, Ruth, Solomon and John, as well as Mark, Matthew, and Luke and all the rest who wrote and rewrote the Bible with some of the greatest lessons I've ever heard.

It seems a good book to end with on a Sunday. The thank count is 147.

Die Bücher, die mein Lebenspfad informiert haben sind ein wichtiger Teil meines Daseins. Ich bin dankbar für all die Autoren, die sie geschrieben haben. Einen frohen 2. Advent!

Lead/ Führung

Thank God it's Saturday. After a week of being regular, I considered taking a break from the blog, but the thing's growing on me. Looks like habits may form faster than they say. It all is a matter of choice, of course. We can do anything we set our minds to.

Today I'm grateful to my classmates from first form (grade 7/27) who gave me my first leadership role by electing me as class rep. The gratitude count goes up by 21 for those who voted for me. But it also goes up by another 20 for those who tolerated my awkward leadership even though they hadn't voted for me. I was a terrible monitor, too strict and stiff, expecting too much from everyone, especially myself. I used to take myself and the world very seriously then. Thank goodness I've grown up. And that takes the gratitude count to 110: Yay! I wonder if I can make it to one thousand by the end of the year? That would be thirty thanks a day for the rest of this month. Hey, maybe I'll try it. It certainly can't hurt.

Als ich elf war wurde ich zum ersten Mal Klassenvertreterin. Ich habe das alles fürchtbar ernst genommen, war eine Furie, die immer darauf bestand, die Regeln strikt einzuhalten. Dabei hätte ich das alles viel lockerer nehmen können. Tja. Was man nicht wusste...doch ich weiß es jetzt. Ich bin für mich verantwortlich und sonst nichts. Das reicht aber dicke. Und das Leben ist nun viel schöner.

Entstehungsgeschichte: The Birth of a Blog

I met Eggert Staben at a self-employment fair thanks to a tip from Frau Russamondo at the ARGE in September 2007. We had just come back to Germany and were trying to establish ourselves. One thing was certain, after the initial experience with the gruff ARGE receptionist, it was not a place I wanted to deal with again. But Frau Russamondo was helpful. She wanted to study psychology and I'm sure she'll do well.

Mr Staben liked my clown. We chatted, he smiled and gave me his card. I followed up on his introduction to Dr Michael Hoppe, a member of the senior mentoring group of which Mr Staben was the president. After a couple mentoring sessions, I translated much of the website Steps for Children into English as a contribution to his pet charity. In return, Dr Hoppe told me about Kai.

"Why do you want a website?" Kai asked. It was an excellent question. I didn't know why. Because other people thought I needed one? The truth was, I liked being a homeless web entity, floating from site to site, leaving subtle clues of my existence through collaboration with others online.

"You don't need a website," Kai told me. "Why don't you set up a blog?"
I didn't have a clue. So Kai showed me. And within minutes, this blog emerged, crafted by Kai's skillful hands. He even added the clown face picture he had painted--symbolic of the clown spirit he and I shared. And suddenly, I had a blog which had pretty much evolved by itself.

Kai gave me an angel massage afterwards. It made my spirit soar. And when I came down to earth again, it felt like a new place. Check Kai out at http://www.engelmassage.de/ He's a great guy with magic fingers and a beautiful spirit.

And if I thank Kai, Michael Hoppe, Herr Staben and Frau Rossomondo for their help, that brings my thank count to 69. Yay!

Dieser Blog entstand per Zufall bzw. ist dank einer Folge von interessanten Begegnungen enstanden. Ich bin allen dankbar, die mir dabei geholfen haben, soweit zu kommen. Hurra!

Ending/Aus

Thanks to the two Spanish ladies who hugged me and each other after witnessing the kindness of the stranger who helped me with my luggage at Victoria Station in 2003.

I love good endings. We had one yesterday. A lot of people finished the language course. We watched a fun video where some Australian asks people on the street about their purpose in life. One of my purposes--I have many--is to bring things to good ends. And the way I achieve that is by making them good all the way. That doesn't mean this course didn't go through tough times; we had our crises and problems, too, but we sought and found resolution as we moved along. Now it's over with no regrets. We did our best.

We can move on happily to whatever's coming next. Yay!

Gestern ging ein Kurs für einige Teilnehmende zu Ende. Wir haben vom Morgen bis abend gefeiert mit Blumen, Kuchen und ein Haufen von Schokolade. Vielleicht waren wir nicht besonders strebsam im Unterricht, dafür hatten wir viel Spaß. Und das ist doch auch was wert.

Bonus

Thanks to the stranger who helped me with my bags at Victoria Station in London in November 2003.

Minimal change. Have I mentioned how I made a leap of faith and gave up one job before I officially had another? It was the right decision. I knew it was time to change. Things were turning sour at the old place. I got a job one stop earlier on the same train line, beginning one hour later, earning one Euro more for the day. But the big difference was that I knew it was a job that suited me to the Tee.

Well, now we've been given a big bonus for our good work. One Euro more became 10, which means my income changed suddenly and unexpectedly by 30% and I'm really grateful that the minimal change has had such a big impact. Do the right thing. It's worth it.

Ich habe unerwarteterweise einen erstaunlichen Weihnachtsbonus erhalten zum ersten Mal seit ich in Deutschland arbeite. In der Schweiz war das gang und gebe. Aber ich schätze diesen mehr, denn ich kann es gut gebrauchen und es kam überraschend. Hurra! Gottseidank.