Good morning 2018

Its nice to finally meet you, I am only saying this today because I only sobered up on the 2^nd of January and then was sick until the 3^rd… it only seems right that today is the first day of the year for me.

I just realised I only wrote 7 blog posts last year… It’s not that nothing happened, but that everything happened all at once. It passed in a blur of cycling, cooking, baking, laughing, crying and all the rest.

What has this year been like for everyone? I was sick yesterday so of course I scrolled through FB millions of times and it seems like most of my friends and happy and wowzerssss… super successful… haha.. of course this could just be our FB image… So when you have time write me something real about your year.. I am curious. I can’t pretend that this whole year was a piece of cake… though there were many pieces of cake in this year.. get it??? 

Just to be totally real with you, I am still a penniless fool struggling through life… I do not pretend to be anything else, because I don’t want anyone to look at me and in any way feel intimidated (I don’t think its possible.. but just in case) and say to themselves ‘wow look at that, some people are really doing well’.. in terms of plain old success and countability of gold and shit like that.. I am not doing too well.. Thankfully I am not measuring my life by those means.. at least I try not to. I seem to abound in hilarious moments, friendships, love, adventures, excitement and fun… I wouldn’t trade these for anything… this year has just been an absolute treasure in these ways and I am happy with it. 

Highlights from the year… oh well let’s take a looksee

Cake Baby… after investing in making cake baby a small company and taking off to a flying start, the second half of the year had only one cake order… boo hoo… never mind… I still know how to make good cake, and I loved working with Medea… Maybe one day someone will realise the true geniuses we are.. and it could be any day now. Something I have to say is that I did learn some new recipes and baking ideas that I really wanted to learn, such as cheesecakes. This year I mastered them, and furthermore I look forward to this year learning Vegan cheesecakes and other more complex baking feats.

My messengering was pretty good… I cycled more this year than any other year.. I also got 2 fines,  had 2 collisions with cars and crashed full force into a wall, bending the fork on my bike and bruising myself just about everywhere… oh well… never mind… I love that job, It makes me happy and confident. I love the crew at PP and this year felt closer with them.. so there ya go… I can now ride a bike around a city and earn something from it… I might have a hilarious amount of mishaps… but I am still a messenger.  I might not be the best one, but I improved. 

Culture Exchange… it seems to be slowly ticking along, making progress. Very, very slowly mind you… well it just wouldn’t be right to rush things would it? I mean who wants to be super successful immediately… well that would just ruin the fun… at least that seems to be the way the Gods of fate are playing it.. and what I am telling myself of course.  I did experience so so many conflicting emotional times with the CE here… Culture Exchange as a whole.. Well it’s just been an emotional rollercoaster from day 1, and it does not seem to want to give me a break. 

The Culture Exchange in Novi Sad also closed this year, a sad but remarkable moment and ended a chapter that was forever going on and on in my mind. It was a sentence that no matter how long and poetic, needed a full stop.  It felt like something on the edge of life and death for such a long time now. It’s last and memorable evening ended with a truly triumphant party, which gave me hope for the future. No matter what has happened, it was a beautiful thing, and it always gives me courage that everything can happen… anything can happen. 

This year I lived with 3 amazing people, I had such a good time with them, its hard to express in words just how happy they have made me.  Meeting them, getting to know them, having adventures, sharing lots of stories, fun, food, and laughter made me feel at home in Austria. I sort of had thought that Serbia would kind of be the place that I felt the most at home in, with the dearest friends etc… When travelling back there I would feel that familiar emotional attachment to the city, the feeling that you know it and it knows you, there are memories on every street and familiar faces at every turn.  It took me some time to get accustomed to life in Graz, it was a big change and I was immediately thrown into a hectic and busy lifestyle. It took me time to find this bubble of love, or should I say, create it, and it’s a wonderful thing to live here. I feel so good, sometimes I wonder how anyone can live without these guys, because they are all so great. I noticed recently that I was really laughing again, wholeheartedly and with real joy. After the stressful year in Serbia and coming to Austria, I had noticed that I was not really laughing fully anymore… that I was laughing and kind of happy, but I was so deeply stressed it was so hard for me to really feel fully joyful and like myself. I am so relieved to say, I am through that time.  This year has had so so many happy moments and that is due to the people around me, those 3 awesome guys, Tom, and also my other close friends in Graz. I am happy here. 

What beauties of life can I expect from this next 12 sections of weeks, days and hours that we can a year… moments of time.. it’s all a long string of moments.

My life this next year is going to change a lot, I can feel it. I can’t share it all with you in this post but let’s just say that my time in Graz, my time with Culture Exchange is coming to a big turning point and I am sure the chaotic, beautiful seas of change are going to once again push me to exploring new levels of myself and of this world around me. 

When I thought about cementing goals for the New Year, I felt a bit unmotivated. It’s not that I don’t have ideas and passion for the future… It’s just I am not sure that putting my goals from January forward and projecting them into the whole year is for me. I did most of my goals last year… I did a long bike trip, I improved in my messengering, I did sort of improve my German…, however some I did not complete. I did not really go forward in some of the hobbies that I had thought I would like to learn more about.  I think I will be making more concise goals weekly or monthly and thinking more clearly about what I would like to see happen or expect from myself.  

So guys, hear from you soon