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Today, as I quite often do on a Sunday, I went for a jog. Once a week I like to do something exercise-y that doesn’t involve being in the grey, technopop confines of the gym – but for a very long time I was too anxious to go running or do any exercise outdoors. I was too ashamed and worried about what people would do and say to me as a female runner out in public; particularly as one who was neither athletic-looking nor adult-looking at all. These days I just don’t care as much about what people might think...

To my shock, I have started 2016 with over 1000 followers on my Facebook page. Granted, the majority of those will be bots and fake accounts ‘like’-ing everything indiscriminately, from personal blogs to violent pornography to artisanal mustard. Nonetheless, I like looking at that number. I’ve been thinking for a long time about what the point is of writing this blog anymore. When I started writing in 2010, it was to journal my year abroad as a gift for my future self, who would surely want to look back at the photos and stories from that manic year which made...

One of my beloved regular readers requested a lesson on using the simple past in everyday conversation, so hold on to your jimjams because HERE WE GO. First things first: let’s decide on our terminology. Lots of people call this tense the ‘past historic’, presumably alluding to the ‘passé historique’ in French whose sole purpose is to create lingering acidic hatred in secondary schoolkids. I don’t really think this name is very helpful as it just sounds poncey and doesn’t enlighten us at all about what the tense is actually doing. Others call it the ‘imperfect past tense’, which is...

The craft community has a great many factions. Of course, you always start off with the hordes of grandmas knitting and stitching lovely things for people who can’t wait to wear them ironically outside a pulled-pork food truck somewhere. Then there are the cutesy crafters who insist on making things covered with emblems of cupcakes and owls, and pretend to ‘upcycle’ by using brand-new mason jars for non-jar-related purposes, and fashion cozies for everything and anything which actually manages to stay at a completely acceptable temperature by itself. There are the grunge-crafters, who like old pallets (a coffee table!) and...

When I applied for funding for the course I am now doing, I was assigned a contact person at the Arbeitsagentur who sent me a very long form to fill in (we’re talking ‘Please use additional pages for your answer if required’-long here, people). I diligently filled in the form extolling the countless virtues in learning programming, particularly for someone who graduated in two subjects which are about as much use in Germany as an MSc in Surfboard Repair. I also diligently found and printed out a minimum of ten job ads which were asking for the skills I would...

  Prenzlauer Berg Maintain a steady speed of no more than 2 miles per hour, but ensure that you remain in a low enough gear that your legs are a frantic blur. You must equip your bicycle with at least one of the following: a) a small child, strapped to a plastic chair, bolted to the back of the bike. b) a small child, eating a disintegrating banana, sealed inside a wheeled plastic cubicle attached to the back of the bike. Ideally, you would have both. Friedrichshain Acceptable styles of bike include: ones with huge, thick wheels like an all-terrain...