The “real” “fake is the new real” is here :)

But I’m not only happy, I’m also crushed. Like really broken. Beaten. Not because I’ll receive the scholarship, but because I had to ask 4 people to give me recommendations for it. And not really because I had to, I knew this of course, but because I did it. It was like “keep it all together and go through with it”. I’ve cried after each of these conversations when I was finally alone and  I’ve been feeling down ever since.. Not caring, not giving a s…tuff , well – grown up.

I’ve been working in research since 2 years now. All this time I was appalled and angry at the way things work at the universities, in research and actually everywhere. What do I mean? I mean the fact, that you simply need good connections. For anything. For scholarships too of course, since you need 3 recommendation to apply to any. Since always I’ve been angry at the system, I’ve been trying to fight it, to avoid it or to flee from it. And now I’m playing along. And as if that’s not enough, I’ve been rewarded for it…

There’s no reason why my consciousness shouldn’t be clean. Each one of the people I’ve asked for an recommendation had a good reason to give me one. To my surprise everyone was even pretty happy to help me and gave me the recommendations pretty quickly, didn’t want anything in exchange and was totally convinced, that I deserve advancement. One of them offered to give me a recommendation a year ago, just in case I need it, because he was so happy with my work. I refused back then. I didn’t want to get involved in this system and to get “dirty” in my mind. Now I am…

Maybe you think that this is stupid like hell. If someone wants to help me, why shouldn’t I take advantage? The answer is in the question itself. Advantage. You take advantage, you have advantage… so someone else has a disadvantage or has to take his disadvantages…

So why did I do it then? Because I’m growing up, I’m seeing and accepting the advantages (yeah, advantages) of a healthy egoism. Mostly because I know, that if I want to be able to help people in the future, I first have to help myself. I can help only if I have enough resources. And to achieve this completely on my own is very, very hard in this system.

A study revealed, that one of the biggest obstacles for women to get to the top is their wish to make it on their own. I don’t want to be my own pulling-downer. Still I don’t want to forget these feelings, that’s the purpose of that post. Thank you for reading.

Do you have some relevant experience? Simply share bellow:

Really not much. It’s like these 5 years just went by in a flash… Overall life was pretty kind to me – I have a sweet boyfriend, a bachelor degree, I’m doing my master now, I have enough money to pay my rent and I don’t have debts. I’m happy with it, keep it going, life, you rock

But after 5 years in a foreign country you start to ask yourself some questions and at least I’m getting a bit of confused with myself.

First of all – this foreign country is not so foreign at all anymore. I pay rent here, my health and social insurance is here, my stuff is here, I live here, my computer is here… My home is here. And still, when people ask me where I am from – well, it’s not from here. And when I’m going to Bulgaria I’m not going to a vacation, but home.  

I know more about the laws of this country than my home country, I’m more comfortable with how things get done here than in my home country, I need more time to adjust to Bulgaria than to Germany, after being in Bulgaria for the summer.

Still, I communicate easier with Bulgarians, especially with Bulgarians, who are living in Germany. My boyfriend is a Bulgarian. I haven’t even managed to make real German friends in these 5 years, if there are some friends around here, than they have some foreign roots or at least they are from the “east side”… If they are real Germans, there are always some awkward moments and I’m never really sure, if we are friends or not… It’s like “yep, you’re pretty cool and I like you, but you’re only my foreign friend and you’re not really welcome to some parts of my life.” Dear German friends, please correct me if that’s just some kind of biased perception of mine, I’ll be glad to discuss all of my “weird-moments” of our friendship and understand them and most of all – understand YOU. 

For 5 years I’ve picked up a lot of stuff, that’s typical for Germans and in many situation I feel like a foreigner in Bulgaria, my home country. Still, as I always say without any hesitation – if you offer me a job with the same pay as here in Bulgaria – I’m gone. In a minute. Only for one reason – to have the feeling of belonging somewhere.

I was never in a certain circle of people or something, I’ve never belonged somewhere socially. It’s just not me, I want to have my distance, my freedom and more or less I’m kind of the “weird bird” of every company. But not belonging in the country, where I live in, has made me miserable in the past more often than I like.

On the other hand, the problem may be a lot more simple than all that above. These year I still haven’t been to Bulgaria, may be I just miss it. The air, the water, the people, the nature, the smell, the sound …

Conclusion:

5 years check: I still can’t figure out how to go back and live happily in Bulgaria, I also still can’t really figure out how to stay here and live happily here, I kind of want to figure out how to go somewhere else and live there for a while, but on the other hand it seems like too much trouble. So? So we’ll just have to wait and see what year 6 has to offer

PS. This post is not completely random. Lately I’m catching myself listening to German Music really often, yesterday it turned out that I’m more familiar with some German (party)traditions than some Germans, this year I haven’t heard any new Bulgarian music (because I haven’t been there for the summer…), really often I don’t know the right word in Bulgarian for something etc. All these makes me wonder if I’m slowly losing my roots…

But look at those too, aren’t they a sweet older couple, they’ve made my day yesterday

Sometimes it goes like that:

Something little and insignificant happens, but for some weird reasons it turns out to be very significant to me. So my blood starts boiling, my thoughts start running around in my head and multiplying themselves. These thoughts are running around like electrons and try to come up with some evil master plan to let the anger-energy out. It feels like a heavy fireball waiting and striving to strike and destroy something, I just have to tell it what and where. It’s so tempting to surrender to that desire. These would be the forth temptation for me, if you remember the temptation-series But I don’t have to do it. I can use these energy for constructive activities too. It’s really so much energy, that when I do something useful and good with it, it’s really something. But I have to say that it’s way not so satisfying and sweet as when I use it for destruction. Still, it’s worth is. The feeling afterwards is way better. After the anger is gone, having to look over the destroyed something is really hard for the real me… So stupid me – try to keep the score construction vs. destruction to something : 0, would you?

What about you?

PS. I’m talking about a situation like when someone spontaneously stops by or something…

You are the best of all possible readers for this blog! I value you so much and I need to say that more often, simply because I want to and because you deserve it!

I’ve always been and still am a really bad blogger and you still stick around with me like in a bad romance – that’s pretty nice from you! You stick around with me, even though I never apologize for not posting for a month or so and that means more for me than you can imagine! And even though I am such a bad blogger, every time some of you stops by, he or she has something nice to say to me – that’s unbelievable!

I don’t care if every sentence here has an exclamation mark at the end – you deserve it! You deserve even more exclamation marks!!!

As I’ve said before - blogging is like a fresh squeezed orange juice for your soul/self-confidence/mind because of you – my awesome readers! And it’s kind of unfair and a pity, that it’s mostly an one way street… So that’s my way of giving something back to you, may dear ones

Keep the awesomeness on, super readers!!!

Thank you so much and see you soon

teo