me boss?

Today I had my worst workinglife experience ever. I had to give someone tha sack. That was scary. Thats basically it - except that I did quite well, I let her scream and swear at me and was still very polite and understanding and supportive (supporting her out of the shopdoors that is). The good thing was that my John (one of the volunteers who for a reason or other loves me dearly) said: if she touches you I shall beat her up, nobody touches my boss. That was cute. But i remained in my state of cool professionalism and said that no-one should beat anyone up in my shop, that wouldnt be in the interest of the charity (it doesnt say that in my assistants guidelines, but I made it sound as if, kind of: we as a registered charity do not agree with any kind of violence, not even in defence of an assistant manager in training.) All in all Ive decided that being boss is not my forte. Maybe I should become a famous painter. Do famous painters have a book thats called: famouse painters guidelines?

Happy 1 year in england

Its after midnight and therefore I've been in this country for exactly a year today. If everything had gone according to my plans I would now probably be saying goodbye to the lovely kids I used to look after (well, probably not exactly right in this moment because its 1 am, not the best time to say goodbye) (the word lovely is to be taken according to the situation, a wishful, emotionloaded looking back kind of thing)

But, heyho, it didnt go according to my plans.

In this last year I've learned loads and loads (and I came here thinking I knew it all!). Somethings I'd rather not have experienced, like the out of sight, out of mind behaviour certain "very close friends" have been showing...or knowing how it feels when you wanna say something and just nobody understands it and it comes out all wrong...and so on.

There were other quite practical things Ive learned, like playing the cornet or the tiny bit of basic drums Wayne was kind enough to teach me or how to tag clothes or what to look for in food if you dont wanna get any heavier and how to blog and download music and how to phone home without spending all my money and which english shampoo is the best for my hair and how to use the tube and how to order at subways and how to pronounce ironing (and how to iron schooluniforms). And all the bad words including instructions which ones are OK to use always, sometimes and never...still some learning to do there!

Troughout all this id say ive changed quite a lot. Ive become a soldier, joined the songsters and the yp band, lost 2.5 st, changed my haircolour from boringbrown to purple-ish to red-ish to darkbrown, changed job and home...quite a lot for one little Anna in one little year :-)

Anyway, the "essence" of this whole post was to say "Thank you" to some great people who didnt drop me in this year. Some people from Switzerland who kept praying and writing and texting from "europe", and mainly those who even came here to see me. You mean quite a lot to me and, although I do miss the mountains and lakes and the cheese and chocolate and being understood by everybody, what i really miss is you guys.

And thank you to some great english people who I would really love if it wasnt for the fact that they drive one the wrong side of the street (as opposed to the RIGHT side). Thank you for supporting me and having me here and trying to include me and driving me around (still, its the wrong side) and explaining, translating and listening.


This was the first picture taken of me in england...

So here we go, starting a second year in southend....