Happy New Year
2008
Hey everybody,
2008 is coming to an end and thus I wish you a happy new year! I hope you will enjoy 2009 healthy and happily and I’m looking forward to have a lot of fun with you guys! 😀 But before moving on to 2009, I thought I would give you a rough overview over „my“ 2008 and would like to thank some people that supported me throughout the year 😎
For me, 2008 was a year with a lot of challenges, changes and ups and downs. Celebrating the new year in Paris turned out to be quite lame and was a little disappointing. Back then, I had no idea how my life was about to change. After having finished my Erasmus-Semester in February, I started searching for an internship which turned out to be quite difficult. But I was lucky and got the best one ever: UNEP. Working for the United Nationes Environment Programme not only gave me the chance to get an insight into international environment politics, but also helped me planning my future: Caring about the environment, that’s what my life is going to be all about! 😀 Besides I got to know sooo many awesome people from all across the world – not only at UNEP, but in Paris in general – that enlarged not only my list of friends but provided me with a fantastic insight into different cultures, lifestyles and viewpoints. I didn’t need long to understand that working for UNEP – being treated as an consultant while paid as an intern – meant a hell lot of work to do. The job challenged me in a way I had not been challenged for a long time but gave me on the other side a lot of great opportunities to learn, understand and gain experience. 😎 After I had prolonged my internship until the end of june, the july back in germany challenged me in a quite different way.
Over the course of the year in Paris, a lot of stuff had happened and now some things waited for me back home that had to be dealt with. I had to fight various administrative obstacles on my way to finish my Bachelor and apply for a Master programme. Meanwhile I had to deal with another big issue: The rupture of my cruciate ligament, which I got back in May in Paris. Seeing myself in the middle of writing my study for UNEP/Bachelorthesis, moving out of my appartement in Bremen, searching for an appartement in Berlin and a couple of holidays I had planned way before my timemangement went out of the window, I decided to skip the needed operation until I would be settled in Berlin with time to do it. Shortly before I flew to Irland, I managed to get my Bachelorthesis done and thus could relaxe, but just to a certain extent, as I still had no appartement in Berlin. Nevertheless being back in Germany, I had one week to move from Bremen to Osnabrück, as I then flew over to Spain in order to make a little roundtrip and visit some friends. I enjoyed it very much and it was one of my best holidays so far! 😎
Back in Germany I travelled to Berlin in order to find a place to stay. That turned out to be as difficult as it had been one year before in Paris, the only difference was that I stayed at different places from friends while I had stayed in a cheap hostel in Paris. 🙄 As you know, just like in Paris, the appartement I’m now living in found me. Besides all that trouble, university started not as smooth as expected, bearing in mind that I changed the programme I was enrolled in three times until I was finally excepted for the one I wanted to do so badly: „Master of public and private environmental management“. Being a registerd student and having found an appartement, a couple of days later I had my operation in order to fix the rupture of my cruciate ligament. As always, something went wrong and instead of going home I had to spent a couple of days in a hospital. 🙄 But rest assured, since then I’m doing very well and my knee is not only about to look normal again, but feel and act! I guess this is for me the most important thing in 2008, as health stands way above everything else ❗ Even though I still miss Paris, Berlin feels now more or less „home“ and I’m looking forward to take a little more advantage of social life going on in town, as I’m now longer „handicapped“… 😀
Speaking of which, I would like to express once again how grateful I’m for some people that helped me very much this year and need therefore to be named:
– first and foremost my family for helping me in every possible way,
– Nadine, as I would not study what I study now without her outstanding help,
– Kyra, as she has been the person that helped me most getting started in Berlin
– Stella and Stefan, for providing me with a roof over my head when I needed one
– Sylvia, for taking care of me after my operation
– and all the others I did not mention by name but where still there helping me 😀
While I lost some friends over the last year 🙁 , I got new ones and some relationships turned out to be stronger than expected. I do know that this year was not always easy with me (mainly because I have had so much to do and no time for you guys), but I’m really thankful to have you as my friends and I promise, in 2009 I will be there for you as you have been for me in 2008 ❗
What can I say other than,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR AN AWESOME 2008 AND I WISH YOU A HAPPY AND GREAT 2009 ❗
Take care, Philip