Happy New Year
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
