Summer sun, my favourite songs by @JuanZelada and @Train whilst having abbq, life just doesn’t get much better than that. The thing that made things even better than this for me yesterday was the fact that I got to share this time with my family. See these days I don’t get to spent as much time with my family as I would like to, and since last Christmas it has become more difficult to enjoy quality time together as a family. The reason for our garden bbqyesterday was that my little nephew turned five. It was so nice to see him so happy, and he loved all his presents, but I think what he enjoyed even more was the fact that the presents gave him a reason to get so much needed attention from somebody. I think I must have spent most of the day just putting together model cars, putting up a play tent and watering daisies. it was so much fun even for me, but even we i have having some quiet time reading my book he ended up just cuddling up next to me. He is just the cutest five year old i have ever known.

Sometimes i am worried for my brothers kids and how they are dealing with my sisters disease. I just don’t think there really is a way for a 9, 7 and 5 year old to understand what the hell is going on with their aunt. We have told them that she is ill and that is why she has changed. i mean it is not the change in physical appearance she has gone through which must be terrifying to them. What must be more difficult to understand for them is the way she is treating them. Up till before Christmas she was the a cool aunt, one of their main go to people. She would always take them places and stick up for them. Now she just seem to be constantly irritated with them, and can at time even be pretty aggressive in the ways she speaks not only to them but to everybody. I might be even able to cope with all of this but at times she can even be mean spirited. its almost as if she knows what she says does hurt peoples feelings but she does it anyways and almost seems to be getting a kick out of it. So it we grown ups find this difficult to deal with, the what are kids supposed to think, and who does it make them feel. I don’t even want to begin to imagine how much this could screw them up.

today has been so exhausting! i am still not entirely sure how i even made it through it. i was so glad to get home last night, but even at the airport i realised that things were not good. see last night was the first time in nearly ten years that my sister did not make it to the airport, so of course all the alarms went off in my head.

on the way home, my dad told me just little bits of information. And then this morning when i went food shopping with my mom, she told me  about more things. but nothing could have really prepared me for seeing her today. i was so shocked when i saw her today, and before i could even think anything or feel anything there just tears running down my face. i mean this might sound really selfish to some people but i don’t think i have ever been this scared in my whole life. when i saw my sister today, and how much weight she had lost all i could think of was oh my god, there is almost nothing left of her. its like this disease has just eaten her away, and now all that is left is a ghost of her former self, which looks so much like a skeleton. i am not even really sure how to describe this feeling…. i am not even sure if there are any words to describe the way i feel right now. all i know that i do not want to loose her and even the thought of it right now is making me loose my mind

oh well it seems that once again tumblr has deleted my post rather than actually posting it :( this is especially annoying because it was quite late when i wrote it so i am not even sure if i can “recreate” what i wrote and wanted to say :( but i will try anyways.

i think the main thing i was talking in the last post was that i am pretty excited about going home tomorrow (which means today). but at the same time i am also apprehensive about it because i am not quite sure what to expect when i get there. the thing is that first of all i have not managed to get home since i was home for christmas and new year and when i talk to my parents on the phone we tend to skip the topic on how my sister is doing most of the time. Some times it feels like its the elephant in the room, the topic that is on everybody’s mind but nobody really has the courage to talk about, and when i finally am able to muster the courage to ask how she is doing, my dad usually just says something along the lines of… she is fine and getting some more chemo…

So to be honest i am not entirely sure i will be able to handle the situation. for the past few months my main coping mechanism has been that i have tried to box the issue in my mind and shoved the box as far to the back as possible, so i can get on with what i needed to do over here, but obviously i will not have the chance to do this when i get home and to he honest i am not sure i can handle this…

So the question is can you be terrified of something you are also excited about?

I wrote this one last friday when I was on the train to Aberdeen to visit some really good old friends of mine for the easter weekend. It kinda just came to me as i was watching the world zoom by. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it

Life

Doesn’t matter what
you do with life
the only thing that matters is
that you do something

laugh out loud
cry your eyes out
smile all over your face
scream at the top of you loungh

It doesn’t matter what you do
just live life to the fullest
don’t hide yourself away
Live is too percious to hide from it

So today I am back in Belfast once again, this time after a very enjoyable Easter break indeed. I can’t really believe how quickly that long weekend past and part of me (a considerably large one that is) wishes it wasn’t over yet. There are a number of reasons why I did have such a good time this weekend and part of it was because i had the chance to spend it with some of my best friends which i hadn’t been able to spend time with in almost a whole year. I still don’t really know how not seeing them for such a long time happened but I do know that I will make sure that it will not hapen again. And the chances are good on this one especially because the next trip to Aberdeen is already planned, and i know for sure that we will be having a great time as always when we get together.

The second reason why I did have such a good time this Easter weekend is thanx to the music of Juan Zelada, but I guess that wouln’t just be one reason but rather seven, seeing that Juan is part of a six piece band, which is supported but an amazing sound engineer. Juan himself is a very talented singer/songwriter/musician who was born in Madrid and went to the Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts, has an exciting energy on stage which seems to drawl everybody in the audience in.

I first had the pleasure to experience Juan live in February when he and Luke were opening for Gavin DeGraw in Manchester. And while I was not impressed by DeGraw’s performance, I was more then impressed by Juan’s. Even in such a “challenging” situation (opening for an inpatient crowd of mainly teenagers, and with only part of his band) he was full of energy and managed to win a large part of the crowd over.

 This weekend I had the chance to see the Juan together with the whole line up of his band. In addition to Juan, who switched effortlessly between the keys and guitar, and Luke who plays the guitar the six piece band includes Oscar on Bass, Rick on Drums, Jack on Trumpet and Nik on the Saxophone. This line up leads to a sound which is exciting and interesting and to me sounds incredibly well rounded, which i am sure is not just partially thanx to Duncan the sound engineer.

Even though the gig I saw this past Sunday was not in front of the largest crowd, the band gave it their all, and it was clearly visible that they were enjoying themselves to the fullest. And their effort paid off, seeing that by the end of their set they had everybody in the audience on their feet, singing and dancing along. The set list included their first singles What do I know and the Blues Remains as well as a number of other songs from the debut album “High Ceilings and Collarbones” which range from slow blues songs such as Satisfied to reggae like songs such as Barman. After the show the band took the time to talk to their audience and it became apparent that they are just a handful of down to earth guys, who are in this for the long run and for all the right reasons. Here’s to hoping that they will have the chance to live their dream to the fullest, because if they don’t deserve this then I really don’t know who does.

But I guess now it’s back to reality, with things getting a bit more crazy at work with the important meetings happening next week. In a way it should be pretty good really. I am looking forward to meeting Jeschke and getting his input and thought on my work. You never know what might come out of it in the end. Plus another upise is that now it only is another 12 days before i get to go home to Germany again. I can’t wait because it has been since chrismas since i have been home, but there are a few reason which kinda freak me out about going home now. But i guess i am not not the only one in a situation like me that feels that way.

Oh wow, I really can’t believe that yet another week has gone by so fast. How is it that sometimes days (or should i say nights) can seem to drag on forever yet a week seems to disapear at the blink of an eye. sometimes it really makes me think and it kinda freaks me out.

this week we went into the country side of northern ireland for fieldwork and i do have to say i did see some amazing views. part of me could have simply stayed out there forever. just sitting on a rock enjoying the silence and drifting off into space, too bad the trip wasn’t as successful for the work we were hopping to get done. But then again there is more important things to life than work. And i am starting to understand this more and more with every day that passes by. 

So i went out last night with a group of my friends. it was such a good night and just what i needed so much for the last few weeks. it felt so god to be with a group of people that know me well and i don’t have to worry about what they will think. so what we did was at first we met up at my friends house and just spent some time catching up which was nice and then we to a gig at the empire here in Belfast. the band playing was called Brassroots and they were pretty amazing. I have to admit that i didn’t expect too much of it, but it was pretty amazing and we ended up just dancing like fools on the dance floor. it was sooooo much fun and it felt so good just to have some down time with a group of some of my favourite peoples 

hmmm seeems like tumblr just deleted my last blog instead of posting it, well lets see if i can remember what it is i wrote just a few moments ago….

Well so I am once again in Belfast, and i do have to say it does feel good to be back. But in a way it also feels a bit bizare because on one hand it feels like i was gone forever ehile on the other hand it feel like i was never gone. anyways i am glad to be back and the work is going well. the only downside at the moment is that the harmony of the group i work in has changed and not in the best way, it is funny how much one addition to the group can change everything.

in other news things are going well. i am somehow manageging to cope with things, even if the news we got a few months ago are still difficult to deal with, and while there have been some more bad news there also have been some good ones. my sister is able to get one more chemo after all but it will be months before we will know if it is doing any good, so for now we are once again back to playing the waiting game….

I have also been pretty busy with my poetry. i guess in a way it is the only good thing to come out off al of this. i am so glad that this way of getting things of my mind and chest still works. i really don’t know what i would do if it would stop working. i think i would just loose my mind.

So Its has been a few days more since my last posting than i expected, because things have been kinda crazy, so I will try and make up for his. I will also post things that i did write over the last few days but did not post straight away.

Thursday 5/1/2012

So today has been a really emotional day. First of all something happened which really annoyed the hell out of me. Here is what happened: so my sister did get a call from the hospital today, and they were like “why did you not come in for your blood tests today, your next round of chemo is supposed to start…” I mean seriously?!? How the hell can they do this to anybody? How can they make such a mistake after telling her that there is nothing they can do for her? How can they just forget to make a note of that decision in her medical file? I really don’t think that this should be allowed to happen!!!

The other really emotional situation was today was that i actually had to say good bye to my parents and my sister at the airport. Usually this is kinda buisness as usual mainly because we have been doing this at least two or three times a year for the last decade, but this time was much more emotional with loads of tears and hugs, but i guess that is only too natural with the situation and everything. Also my sister finally told our brother about what is going on so i am kinda worried about how he is doing. He seemed fine straight after but i guess it does take a while for news like this to settle in.