Villa Blogpost February 2024
Finally! January was 9 weeks long and I was eating bread and water for the second half of it, but it’s over now.
As soon as I received the pocket money, I had to start by buying new running shoes though. The old ones were pretty worn down and not suitable for long distances anymore. This was a pretty well thought out decision, but it was necessary to make, even if I knew that it’s going to put me on a similar diet for the end of the month. But the new shoes are super nice, so it was all worth it. I have to say the marathon training has started to take a bit of a toll on me though, as my motivation seemed to decrease this month and the runs are getting a bit repetitive. The race is still two months away, so it’s kinda crucial to continue now and increase the kilometer count; it’s just hard.
A very dark cloud emerged over the Medienwerkstatt this month, because my colleague, Lena, is finishing her internship here. We almost started at the same time back in autumn, and at that point February seemed so far away, but we’ve already arrived. She has to go back to uni now. I really liked working with Lena, we usually had similar opinions about how things could be done, we developed the podcast together and could also talk a lot about sports and everyday life. Luckily, she’ll be back for occasional workshops in the future, so we can keep in touch. Just to pour some salt in the wound, it is also possible that Leonie’s contract, who is another dear colleague of mine, cannot be extended after April. Without both of them, I really would have a different vibe coming to work, so I’m really hoping that at least Leonie’s future here can be sorted out.
Workwise it was a busy month in the office. The educational board game project that I mentioned in the previous post, really got going. We had to translate 5 different games from English to German and also adjust the cultural references. It was of great help that two new Praktikants arrived in the Medienwerkstatt this month, Mascha and Charlie. They both took a great part of the tasks and we really could organize and work as a team, so all in all the work wasn’t so taxing. With the help of my fellow volunteers, we also managed to record some podcasts in February. My favorite one was the one I did with Alicia about the volunteer healthcare experience. Unfortunately she had a broken wrist and had to get surgery and spend a few days in the hospital, meanwhile I had tooth issues and had to go to the dentist here for an emergency procedure, then travel back to Hungary to finish it up, so we both had our fair share to complain about, and also share useful tips for future volunteers about our healthcare. You can find the episode on Spotify under the Villa Podcast, titled ‘ESC Volunteer Healthcare’.
The highlights of the month for me were the times when I got to go out somewhere with my friends. I mean, it’s still Wintertime so the options were limited but I feel like we made the most of it. With my fellow volunteer Javier, we finally put our money where our mouths were and purchased tickets for an RB Leipzig home-game, against Union Berlin. The funny part was, that we forgot to check the sectors because of course we were trying to get the cheapest places, and we ended up sitting with the guest fans. RB won 2-0 so we got what we wanted but still we felt a bit restricted with how loud we can cheer. The atmosphere in the stadium was still amazing; there was an attendance of 45 thousand people and it was my first time at a proper Bundesliga match so I just loved the way that they were singing all throughout the game. I really fell in love with Garage Ost as well in February. It is a bar / event hall close to Eisenbahnstraße and they have a different style of event basically every day. It became a habit in our friend group to go there every Wednesday to play pingpong and on Saturdays to go to their disco event. Confession time; my favorite part was usually when we got pizza on the way home and ate it on the tram.
So yeah, this was the month of February summed up. Nothing groundbreaking, just following routines, living a content life and making the most of the opportunities of the last month of Winter. Looking forward to what March has in store for me!
