Update: IBM Application – Final Interview Invitation

Today I got an e-mail from IBM stating if I can advance to the next round or not. As I wrote before in my opinion I did very badly, even though I believe I had a good presentation I barely contributed to the success of the group tasks. But apparently I was mistaken.

Today afternoon my university colleagues, that attended the assessment centre on the same day, told me that they had received their e-mails already, each of them getting rejected. Honestly I was really surprised since I was in the same group task as one of them and it seemed to me that he did really well. Both of them are quite confident individuals and very skilled at what they do.My e-mail arrived a few hours after theirs and,

I advanced to the next round!!

I honestly do not know why I passed the assessment centre but I am really happy.  It is of course not guaranteed that I get a space as an intern there but I am one step closer to my goal. The only thing I can do right now is to wait for them to tell me a time for the last interview.

Memory

I have mentioned it before but my memory generally sucks. Honestly in past it didn’t really bother me but for some reason nowadays everything questions my memory.

In job applications they ask me about the past. What problems have I solved and how? How the heck should I know? I always research and ask people so why should I be able to pick out one instance and make it seem special?

My friends end up discussing stuff that happened when we first met. And no matter how hard I try I can’t remember.

I actually discussed this with my mates and according to them it’s because I lack focus. I don’t focus on “trivial” things but on my work. But that can’t be the reason either, because I don’t even remember all of the work I’ve done.

After thinking about it for a while I realised I basically live in the moment. I don’t really think about the past much, except my failures, and don’t really focus on the future. Even if I plan my career or base my acts on desired results I don’t really focus on the future. My life is basically about “now”, the moment and the present.

But the problem with this is also that I don’t live my life to its fullest. When I think about what I’m doing at the moment I’m usually just wasting my time. Reading fan-fiction, watching Anime or reading Manga most of the time staying at home. Not doing anything useful. You’d expect that somebody that focuses on their current actions the most would do great things in that “moment” but no, not in my case.

On one instance I played with the thought of what would I do if I lived my life as if it were my last day on earth. Honestly nothing came to my mind. Even then I would not be able to gather my courage and do something  out of my norm.

Honestly I lack intent, courage, will and self-esteem. But I don’t know how I can change. People say that “A fault confessed is half redressed.” but what would the next step be? I have no idea.

I just know that if I continue this way I’m not going to get far in life.

Friendship? What’s that????

Friendship has always been a foreign concept to me. And recently I’ve been thinking about it more and more.

What defines friendship? When can you call a person a “friend”? What does that even entail?

I’ve always been confused about “Friendship” and it always seemed like I’m the only one that has this problem. I know that I’m not the only person in the world that feels this way but I certainly don’t know anybody personally. It seems like everybody else just knows how to act, what to expect and where the limits are with people you call “friends”.

I myself don’t. To me it is really simple to classify people as acquaintances, acquaintances from school, uni or work. That is easy to distinguish, but “friends” “good friends” “best friends”??? I don’t have a clue about these.

I’ve actually gotten better in university I  believe that the people I consider friends are the ones I can hug or talk a lot with without getting annoyed/awkward. But the people I knew before university, honestly I don’t know. I’ve always been bad with communication and it doesn’t seem to get any easier. So when I get home for holidays I find myself sitting at home lonely without knowing what to do.

Should I call somebody? Nah, I’d just disturb them. Do they even still know me? Did they actually consider me as a “friend”. Am I even allowed to do that?

This probably sounds really weird but that’s the way I think. So I end up not calling anybody bored to death until my holidays are over.

I fear that I am going to end up as a angry cat woman without any friends only sometimes contacting my family and otherwise only surrounded by cats.

Lets not even start about romantic relationships, I fail even worse with these that the platonic ones.

Expressing onself through speech

In German there is a saying:

Man lernt nie aus. (Eng.: Learning never stops.)

Talking is an essential action in life. From the day we are born one of the first things we aim for is to learn how to speak.  Unfortunately after learning a few words and the alphabet you are nowhere near done. Grammar and phrase follows, and finally after grasping the concept of various complicated rules you think you finished at last.

But even after all this you are not guaranteed to be able to “talk” or better “express yourself” properly.

I know very well how to properly structure a sentence. I kind of understand grammar and phrase but still I am completely inept of expressing myself.

I constantly stumble over the proper choice of words and even after finally spewing out some proper sentences, I realise I still didn’t succeed in conveying my thoughts.

My frustration reaches its peak and I decide that the best choice for everyone is for me to shut my mouth and give up trying. That is, until the next time I gained enough courage to speak up again.

Back in Brum!!

I’m finally back in Birmingham!

I swear yesterday was torture, after an 11 hour journey I had to set up my room in my new accommodation. And that took ages, when I finished it was 1:30 am UK time. But at least I can now proudly say that I live in there. I’m not quite settled in yet but that’ll happen with time.

It’s just sooo cold… I’m freezing, personally I didn’t think it’ll be this bad but IT IS! I’m even heating (just my room) but it doesn’t help… Damn I’m sure I’ll be sick soon. I wish it was 10 degrees warmer, but that is unlikely.

Tomorrow I’m going to have my first lectures as a second year! Right away it’ll be one of the hardest modules: Prolog Programming. We’ll see if I’ll be able to understand anything.

Totally out of topic:

Do you have any foreign friends? If so how do you feel if you went out with maybe 2-3 of the with the same home country and all of them speak in a language you don’t understand? Do you feel offended, annoyed or even disappointed?

In my case I feel sad. Every time it happens to me I’ll feel disappointed and think “Why am I here again?”. I understand that it’s easier for them to talk in their language and it flows easier but then they should not invite me… It’s even worse when, some time during the talk, I’ll be asked “Why aren’t you saying anything?”. Well duh I don’t even know what you’re talking about how should I input my opinion???

Seriously I don’t mind people talking in a different language, even I do sometimes but not every f$&*ing time! Because of that I even dread going out with them if I know that 3+ of them are going to be there +me. I went shopping with all of them once and will never do so again. It’s impossible they don’t even consider telling me where they want to go or what they are looking for, no they just expect me to understand.

They are still good friends of mine really but honestly I do everything in my might to avoid having them with me in groups or at least have somebody else with me that doesn’t understand them. So that we can talk about whatever while they can talk in whichever language.

I’m sorry if that sounds a bit racist, that wasn’t my intention. Its just that it really saddens me because every time I meet somebody from my home country I pay attention to those around me and include them in the conversation. But they don’t even though we are friends.

Ok I think thats enough ranting… I’ll just leave and try to get warmed up now, maybe a shower will help.. hopefully.