As the title says, 2022 was really chaotic. But how much chaotic ? Well…

I got myself a car, got a new job, lost that job, found plenty of new friends, went ballistic with one of them, half fell in love with one of the girls there (you know who you are 😉 … ), helped her moving in her new flat and learned her language because… 😉 faced a rejection from her, understood later it was actually not a good fit anyway, read some books in relation to a therapy I am on…

Yeah, a lot. Of course all of those events happened in parallel, events colliding like atoms smashing each others at the speed of light in the great Hardon collider to discover the secrets of the Universe.

And it’s not over yet.

Let’s start.

A car

For long I did not really want to have a car. I used public transport and biked a lot - and saved a ton of money that way. But then my parents were willing to sell their one. They told me about it at Christmas 2021 and I decided to get it. So I said yes…

Getting the car from France to Denmark

And at the same time, I landed a new job. So at the end of January 2022, I resigned from my job at Elcobyg. My last working day there would be the 25th of February.

And I would then hurry back to France on a plane, have saturday and sunday morning at my parents’ place, and monday 10:00, hit the road to Aarhus, driving just extra cautious across Germany with people hurling past me at minimum 160 km/h like they are not paying gas. But I am keeping my pace because at that time, gas is basically liquid gold, and I don’t want a car accident in a country with names like Schmedeswurtherwesterdeich.

I would be on the road for 2 days, just stopping for the night at Munster.

I would start the new job on Wednesday. Straight away, yeap.

In Herning.

New job

So this new car was going to be extremely useful, as I would drive back and forth to work every day from Aarhus to Herning.

One funny thing : It took me a week for me to get danish plates for the car, so during that whole time, I was driving extra cautious, as the car was basically in a legal limbo, registered and insured in France, not in Denmark while I was doing the paperwork.

And my new colleagues were like…

why does the new guy has a car with french plates ? In Herning ?

The job itself was nice, with my manager always having fun tooling around with various spare parts, like a human-sized meccano.

A few trips

As I had a car now, I used it for trips to Copenhagen, Blokhus and also the museum.

Blokhus

I went to blokhus, in North Jutland for the flying kites festival. That was very nice.

Let’s go vote

2022 was the French presidential and legislative election. We went on to vote at the French school in Copenhagen, on the other side of the country and we did that with the car, with the ferry.

I am not going to complain, it’s not like French citizens in the USA who need to book a hotel room just to cast their ballot. That was still something to organize.

That was quite nice nonetheless. And as we were in the big town (sic), we also went to the National museum.

Well, for the legislative election, I voted by internet, even if I don’t really approve of the process. Moreover, it is implemented in a very complex way. Hopefully it will improve with the new electronic ID cards and digitalisation of public services.

And yeah, I also took the car for a few trips to the Moesgaard museum. I feel like that place deserve better access, taking the bus there is not the easiest thing, it’s a shame.

Therapy

I started psycho therapy at the beginning of 2022.

This is not my first attempt at digging into the troubles of my mind, but this time, it works !

That therapy, along with some books and readings, provided huge inputs into how the mind works and more specially how my mind works and why I am how I am. And there are tons to say.

I can mention the book “The Answer” from Egil Linde and Dan Josefsson, describing how we form love relationships. I would also mention “Atomic habits”, by James Clear, that I try using to reshape some parts of my life in a more positive manner, notably with meditation.

I also gained a lot of knowledge and reflection on the working of life and mind watching the cursus on evolutionary biology from Standford University professor Robert Sapolsky.

New friends …

At the start of 2020 - also known as Corona era - I started something with boardgames, which developed along the years as “the boardgames gang”. I just wanted to improve my social life, but I was always awkward and I don’t want to talk for the sake of talking or socializing. Weird right ? But I also love to solve riddles…

Boardgames is the thing : you can play in silence if you want, you can be smart or stupid, you can be social without the pressure to socialize. And it worked ! So every Friday afternoon, we gather, we drink beer, we play boardgames, we discuss. We created a messenger chat room and people added friends in there, people come in and out. It’s easy, chill and unformal. And I love it. And I got plenty new friends that way. And once again, for once, it works !

Lenka

Lenka was one of many new friends. She is an amateur photograph and took a whole bunch of great pictures of me and that contributed a lot to a better confidence.

She has created a small business on that passion of her. I can provide contact on request (as soon as she has her website running, I shall update that article with her contacts).

You can also see some of her work there.

Monika

Monika became a friend as she came into the boardgames gang.

She had been a good friend of mine for a good part of 2021-2022. After all, she came on the evening of my birthday at my place and we had pizza and a film together. Just that she had that attention to me showed that she cared, she was a friend.

But she also complained sometimes about somethings I did. Sometimes, that was really overreacting. My therapist gave some big feedback on that and helped relativize.

A trip to Samsø

One day, we just jumped on a trip to Samsø. There Monika was just the usual Monika, deciding all of sudden to run in underwear into the sea.

So half the troup followed suit, myself included. That was fun, and very nice.

Later on we went to the brewery and shared beers. And there, I asked Kris’ if he’d share his beer, something that I calculated would happen. At first, he did not want, fair enough, but at second time, he accepted.

That was just the drop too much. Monika bashed me for asking that just a bit too much. Admittedly it was partly my fault.

But friends also said that there she went too far herself. And when Monika does something, she does it full, one can give her that. And so Monika went ballistic. The day after she continued on the bashing and broke friendship.

Karolina

Karolina also became a friend because of the boardgames gang. She was with us on Samsø.

I helped Karo moving to her flat with my newly acquired car. It’s been quite fun driving across the whole of Aarhus with a trailer full of furniture…

I began to develop serious feelings for Karolina. As she is both Polish and German, I tried to learn a bit of Polish on Duolingo to score some points. And boy oh boy, Polish is a nightmare of a language, when I told it to some friends, they asked, right away “who is it for ?”.

Yeah, what can you do for someone you have a crush on ?

But Karo is not for me

But later on Karolina said she is definitely not for me. Her idea of a weekend is to get up early and go on hike whereas my own idea is to lazy in bed and move on later, play video games or go to a museum. Plus she is allergic to cats. And she said no.

A No is a No.

So, Karo is not for me. Return to square one.

But she has became a great friend.

Needless to say, I stopped torturing myself with Polish and switched to Esperanto. Esperanto is a designed language, which fits well with my wish for logic, coherence and concision. It is also a very good way to learn new languages, because of its propaedeutic abilities, which I think might be useful again later.

What you mean you lost your job ?

You remember that job I had found in January ? Well, I lost it in November. Last day at work was the 18th of November.

Not happy

The repair café starts again

As society pulled out off Corona torper, I took over the Repair Café Aarhus from the previous founder. She was basically taking on too much responsibilities, both personal and professional.

I am now trying to steer it on again and attract volunteers. If that works fine, we might need to establish a profit non-profit structure.

Starters for 2023

This year is just continuation. Therapy is still going on. So are boardgames, repair café and archery - oh by the way, almost a detail in that mess of a year : got myself a new bow. Completely insane luxury now but YOLO.

What else ?

Need a new laptop

For a start I needed a new laptop. Jabberwocky, my main laptop as been degrading recently. It was a second hand laptop and it has lasted some years so I knew I had to replace it.

What can you buy when you’re broke ? I searched for a new second-hand laptop, but settled instead for a chromebook.

That thing is shitty but it does the job. But as soon as I can buy myself a true laptop again, I shall search for one.

I really like to be in control of the hardware. I like to have the software I want on it, a Linux distro, firefox, etc. Also being able to control network settings. The chromebook is very restrained, built cheap and tailored to the needs of Google. Not mine.

If you want a true laptop, don’t go for a chromebook.

Job searching program

I am registered, along with 15 other foreigners, on a program with the Århus municipality and the job center called “The missing job link” to help internationals land a good job. That is helping a lot on the motivation.

One of aims is to place us on internships in companies within our fields (building, design, multimedia, food industry, etc) in hope that they end up hiring us.

That’s it for now. Not too few hum ?

Let’s hope life does better this year.