NJET

it seems that I am not meant to be in or go to Russia. I think it was now the 6th or 7th invitation to go there to chair a conference. Somehow it never worked out. During my MC term it was timewise difficult, the year afterwards it was job wise difficult and now it was sooo close.

It would have been EuroXpro. And it would have been in St. Petersburg. So all in all a dream combination.

However, the Russian embassy decided not to give me a visa on time and now I am here, a bit sad and a bit pissed on how the whole process went.

Everything happens for a reason and I am curious what's going to be the reason for this...

keeping my balance

is actually much more difficult nowadays than it was a year ago. With entering my new job I found it more and more difficult to keep the habits I established.

I think the main problem is actually workload that comes in bunches. I cannot foresee whether tomorrow will be a long day since a lot of tasks appear all of a sudden. And usually I start to compromise on things that help me to relax like sports, like reading.

My new strategy to overcome this challenge is to somehow change the system. I'll start doing sports in the middle of the day, start forcing myself to leave at 4 and leave the computer in the office. I am actually not creating more time for all the to dos but I think I will get more efficient with this.

Let's see what happens...

ah. and I guess you noticed my imbalance as well by my non presence in this blog. apologies for that

Meeting Paris in Paris

Here you go with my first paparazzo post: Yesterday and the day before I was workwise in Paris, negotiating with two automotive suppliers. Unfortunately I had to wait a long time at the airport for my flight back home as there was no other option. First I was planning to spend the time working in the lounge, but unfortunately there is no Lufthansa Business Lounge in Paris (and I am not privileged enough so far to be Senator or Frequent Flyer).

Anyway, in the end it resulted to be good not to get into the lounge... I was hanging around in a magazine shop and suddenly I noticed this one girl with a blue sweater and huge round sunglasses. I thought I knew her from somewhere. Hm, is it really her? I looked again and was quite sure:

it's Paris Hilton

I couldn't believe it: me in Paris for the first time and whom do I meet: Paris

She was there with some friends I guess - at least I didn't consider them as bodyguards (the only two guys with them were quite fat and didn't seem to me very sporty or strong). Paris and her friends were hanging around in this shop while their Lufthansa Guide wanted to get them into the lounge - but Paris wasn't interested in the lounge (maybe she was well was no senator).

So Paris was all the time next to me buying magazines. I think in total she bought around 50 including vanity fair and some porn magazines. Her open handbag was lying on the floor while she was in another part of the shop - I guess she enjoyed the security here in Europe. Her friends were waiting for her, the guy doing some movies with his camera, the other guy being on the phone and the one girl stupidly trying to look cool.

So in the end the Lufthansa lady told her that they have to move on urgently and so they went away, passed by all the people waiting for the security control and moving to a separate exit where they most probably entered their own plane.

So you might wonder what I did: actually - nothing. I bought a magazine and went away. Then I phoned a friend to tell him this story. As he didn't believe me I took some pictures. So here you go with my Paris pics - unfortunately she was already behind a glasswall so the pics are not that sharp - but it was her.

me and Paris, spending a day in Paris

hm. actually I was thinking about what to talk to her, what to tell her... there is nothing that comes up to my mind. any ideas?

too much emotion?

Some days ago my company and the department in which I know work on a permanent basis had guests. Since it's Christmas time we of course have a big Christmas tree in the middle of the floor which needed some decoration. So we invited children from St. Isidor - a Caritas home for handicapped children and teenagers to educate and raise them in family-like groups assisted by professional teachers with the aim to offer them a self-dependent life. They helped us to decorate the tree and me and my colleagues had some fun with them.

It was really really funny. I first saw the tree and a box with decoration next to it. Then suddenly the door opened and in came around 15 children who immediately started to shout, run, laugh, play and within seconds decorate the tree. It was like blinking two times and the whole tree was beautifully decorated. I thought about inviting them to my home to decorate the tree as well ;-).

There was an enormous variety of characters from very silent and sweet over funny and loud to veeeeeery loud, even to little sweet and flirty girls ;-). Some took a while to start talking, others searched for one-to-one talks and then there were some who wanted to show off completely ;-). One girl showed that she can do the splits, another guy all the time wanted to arm wrestle with us. Simply beautiful and funny.

I especially noticed one boy who had the challenge that he simply couldn't hide any emotion. When he was happy he was not only happy and smiling but he started to jump around and clap or shout loudly. He was getting really really loud as he enjoyed the whole afternoon so much. He won against me in arm wrestling and suddenly started to run around, clap, laugh and scream. I still have to laugh now thinking about this situation...

Ironically we call somebody handicapped who is simply showing all of his emotions, who is not able to hide a single one of them. In our society on the other hand we have the opposite - people who have problems to show their emotions, who are hiding them, who never let them come out. It was an interesting experience to get to know somebody like this boy. He definitely was a good teacher!

our eastern europe starts were it ends for others

says AUA, Austrian Airlines, in one of their advertisments. Since I was invited to chair a conference (:-) yes, i cannot stop with that) in Russia - Novosibirsk I made a test (if you don't know were Novosibirsk lies, it's in Siberia, north-east to Kazakhstan, near the Ob river - or just click here)

A(ustrian Airlines Lady): This is Austrian Airlines, what can I do for
you?
P(eter): I read your advertisment - so where does your Eastern Europe
end?
A: Well, we fly to nearly all cities in Eastern Europe and Russia
P: Good, so let's see: what about Novosibirsk
A: No, we don't fly to Novosibirsk. It doesn't have an airport.
P: Are you sure? It's the third biggest city in Russia.
A: Hm, I don't know then, but we for sure don't fly to this place

Having found out that I got even more excited to go there...

just looking forward

to a chilly and relaxed weekend

Academy of Life with Antonia Rados

One of the things I started to miss during work was a bit of academic learning. Not really formal courses at some university, but the opportunity to learn something not work related, learn something out of the box to develop further.

I found it at "Siemens Academy of Life", a place where young so called high potentials from different sectors are learning from the successes of others. For me it's a perfect concept: successful people (and success here is defined in a very broad way since success for one person doesn't necessarily mean success for the other one) are invited for an interview. On the next day we have workshops in 6 different departments (art of life, philosophy, psychology, communication, ethics and law and business) trying to view the life of this person from this special perspective. The goal is then to find out what made these people successful and what could we learn for our own life.

So I applied, got selected an already attended two workshops. One with Johanna Maier, an Austrian cook, and the other one with Antonia Rados, a famous war and crisis reporter. I was in the group of "art of life" and really enjoyed the workshop. The two characters were quite different as for example Johanna Maier takes out her energy of spiritual things, being someone who believes in god, doing yoga at least 3 times a week and using as well nature to recharge her batteries. Antonia Rados on the other hand does not believe in god, or as she said - she just believes in god in case she needs it.

I took one thing especially from Antonia since we had to choose at least one characteristic of this person that we think we could use in our current life situation: mine was "walking through closed doors". She told us that a lot of doors in her life seemed to be closed and locked at the beginning but she never gave up to open them. So in my case I believe that I am usually not afraid of walking through doors but sometimes walk to quickly through them, forgetting that there would have been other - maybe closed - doors as well that were interesting.

Besides that we even did a movie in the "art of life department", simulating one of the interviews Antonia does and at the same time applying her "strengths".

in search

In the last few months something within myself changed. I somehow lost my belief that whatever happens will happen for a reason and will turn to good in the end. This has always been my source of self confidence and confidence in the world in general. But more and more over the lat months I got afraid of things I actually shouldn't even think about.

It felt strange as it was a feeling I have never had so far in my life. Fear

I was searching for a reason and I think I found a possible path towards it. As some of you might know I am not really a spiritual person. I am as well not a religious person. In fact I don't believe in god or any higher force. I don't believe in ghosts, angels or any other higher universe that is somehow not understood by us. I always try to explain all spiritual things in an empirical and scientific way which of course is not working out, neither is it the way it should be done. I simply lack this natural belief in something, whatever it might be...

In the last years this "non-belief" has developed even further and I think that is exactly the problem. And that in my opinion is as well the cause for my challenges in the last few months. Believing that everything in the end makes sense, that every mistake and everything that you do wrong in the end comes to a positive meaning in my opinion is essential for giving sense to life. It seems I understand all that and still I cannot change it.

I am in search at the moment, in search of something I don't know and something I cannot understand. Actually I guess it is something that I will never understand, but maybe something I once can believe in.

I got to know a monk some weeks ago at the academy of life. And even though we didn't talk in person he still inspired me a lot. He is working at a monastery called "Europakloster". He was not talking at all about what this monastery does, but when I had a look on the homepage I was really really amazed and inspired. It's a place for a retreat, a place where you can find what you are searching for - whatever it is. I might be going there soon to take this retreat... here are some questions that they would like to answer as the believe those are questions important to invidividuals but as well important to religions or nations

• What is essential in my life?
• How does my life path look like?
• What is my vocation?
  
• What values are important in my life
• How do I cope with my current life situation

"We call ourselves Europa Benedictines" as we we consciously - with our entire life - would like to be a sign for a Europe, in which the variety of people and peoples is not an obstacle, but a chance for a fulfilled life"