Over the last days I've been looking at my LinkedIn profile and updated it. This is strange, as over the last two years this hardly interested me. I think my mind is trying to get ready for the upcoming changes when Yannick will start pre-school next year. Mind you, this is only in May 2009, and won't give me much more than three mornings per week without him.

Yes, what am I going to do with this absolutely huge amount of free time? Clean the house properly? Change my web site? Go clothes shopping? Sort through all our stuff and throw away loads of things? Clean up the back of the garden? These are all things that I would like to do sometimes, yet don't find the time for as they are slightly difficult to do with Yannick around.

More seriously, as at some point I would like to become a member of the working population again, I think I should look into some training to improve my web publishing knowledge. However I have no clue where to start and what would be really useful. Maybe I should start looking at jobs that are available in this area to get a better idea on where I need to catch up or improve. I can't say that I overly enjoy the thought of having to go to interviews. It's been a long time and the last times I was at interviews I was the person who conducted them.

I'm not sure even what kind of job I should go for. Do I want to be a supervisor again? Or rather be part of a team and just get on with things? Do I want to work from home or go to an office? Questions over questions and no answers in sight.

=============

On a lighter note, Frank has arrived back home today and is now snoring upstairs since 8:30pm. Yannick (who has been much better since Tuesday) was very happy that his favourite play companion was back. I sent them both out this afternoon, a) so that Frank would not fall asleep while playing and b) to be able to do some stuff around the house at last. Two and a half hours on my own did a world of good for me.

My partner has gone off to the US (Silicon Valley) for training - or so he said.

He flew out on Saturday. Today, during a phone call with him, I realised that his training is not going to start before tomorrow, Tuesday. So he's (insert swear word here) sightseeing in San Fran while I'm sitting here with a flue-y toddler who's very whiny and doesn't want to do anything. Especially not sleep in the morning when he would need it most. He's losing his temper very quickly at the moment about anything that doesn't work the way he wants it - and so am I when I don't get my morning sleep. This morning we argued about whether I was allowed to put a blanket over my body while Yannick was sitting on my lap feeling miserable. I was freezing in my nighty at 6:30am so I think I had a point. Not nice. Sigh.

Daddy won't be back before next Sunday. I just hope that Yannick feels better quickly so that we can enjoy our time without dad a bit more and make good use of the car that we have for once.

End of moan - or so I hope.

OK, I can hear a lot of my readers think 'ew'. Don't be so silly.

I'm not writing this to make fun of anybody but the concept of webbed toes is definitely something that I've only ever come across in this country, never back home. I should probably write this in German as it's more interesting for a German to read than an English speaker who's most likely familiar with this concept. But no, writing in German is odd. Simply take this as a view from an outsider.

The first time I heard about webbed toes was about five to six years back in Holland where a friend from the UK told me that he couldn't wear sandals as his feet were just too ugly. I was curious to find out what he meant. He told me that he had feet that looked like something amphibian rather than human. Now I was really curious.

When I found out what he meant I made him show me his feet, only to find something that looked almost exactly like my feet. Big disappointment. What his so-called 'webbing' came down to was that the separation between the second and third toe (the ones next to the big one) was not quite as deep as the one for the big toe. But other than that the length of the smaller toes is perfectly normal. To me that's not webbing.

Next question that came to my mind was did I have ugly feet and didn't know about it? LOL. Actually, I don't think so. I like my feet.

OK, with that sorted out, let's get to what bothers me - a little.

Now that I knew what my disfigured friend meant I started noticing the odd comment about this condition on British TV shows. (Yeah, I probably watch strange shows.) I don't really think that the British population per se has more webbed toes than the German one. So it seems that this phenomenon seems to be a lot more present in the English psyche than in the German one (or is this becoming more unpopular there too)? On British TV as soon as somebody mentions this condition you can hear somebody go 'ew' as if webbed toes are something really disgusting. Come on, what is so horrible about a little bit of extra skin between toes? I can think of much worse things (use your own imagination please).

Apart from the fact that I don't like this reaction as I think it makes some people feel really uncomfortable, especially those who don't have good self esteem or people who suffer from a wrong body image (oh, I'm oh so PC), I'm starting to think that the British are quite squeamish when it comes to most things body related. Well, to be perfectly honest I had that suspicion from a very early time, when I was about 15 and my British exchange partner tended to lock herself in our bathroom for things that German girls most likely would do together - like styling your hair (just so you don't get wrong ideas). In terms of squeamishness I'm sure I could find a lot more examples, especially after going through ante-natal classes in this country, but I think I'll just leave it at this.

(And then the Brits have the audacity to think that Germans have an anal fixation. Pah!)

Bad thing is that living in the UK and hearing about stuff like that, affects me too and all these little insecurities about how I should behave creep into my mind. I'm watching myself very closely about whatever I'm saying when it comes to body related topics as I don't want to stick out as the a) unkempt, b) insensitive, and c) so very German German. Hard work as it goes quite a lot against my personality. I'm German after all.

Hey, from the number of comments I got lately (zilch, zero, none) I think I'm writing my blog just for myself. This is boring.

Could somebody pretty please leave me a comment every now and then? I know I'm not exactly the greatest person to actually answer on stuff, but still…

If I don't get any soon I think I'll stop!

Your result for The Personality Defect Test…

Robot

You are 86% Rational, 43% Extroverted, 29% Brutal, and 43% Arrogant.

Take The Personality Defect Test at HelloQuizzy

===============

I'm OK, I know that I also have a very creative side! Bah!

At work (some years ago now) we did this personality test and I came out to be an ISTJ, with both I(ntroverted) and S(ensing) being very close to the centre of the scale and the other two traits, T(hinking) and J(udging), being more stronger pronounced.
Yesterday I came across a free test of this sort on the internet so I thought I try again to see if I remember my letter combination correctly. Strangely it seems that I've changed into an extrovert…! Is it because I have less opportunity to chat to people than when I was working? I definitely have to be more outgoing nowadays if I want to meet new people.

When looking at the list of typical careers for this kind of personality, I definitely don't feel like I'm Mrs Interesting. Gah.