Difficult decision

Oh ye, I had to make a very difficult decision today. A decision about my future, especially for the next year here in Europe. As I wrote in my earlier blogs Nokia announced the closing of the Bochum site and that means I am affected, too. It looks like there is a solution for the whole research and development team. Reasearch In Motion or RIM, the "Blackberry" phone company, wants to expand its business to Europe and when they learnt about our available and experiences team the decided to build a new center in Bochum. That is fantastic, of course. They would like to hire as many of us as possible. And since they consider the new site being established in Bochum nobody really needs to move. All in all they will get the severance payment from Nokia plus a new job. Sounds great, I know. But it also means no vacation, much more working hours, especially in the first months and less time for Dave and myself. And: it is only for one year. For me it is not the start of a new career since I will move with Dave whereever he has to go next year. I thought of this RIM option a lot during the last weeks. Honestly I didn't do anything else. I reviewed my CV with Dave and created a profile on the RIM page. Last weekend when Dave was here with me in Germany, we discussed it a little bit more. I have to say that he never really told me his opinion. He wanted it to be my own decision, not something that he influenced by his wishes. And I decided not to go there. It was very, very difficult. I informed my current boss and closest colleagues and they are all very sad and wanted me to start this new thing with them. But it is time to move on. It would only be a short detour and I really think that Dave and I need more time together, not less. It is a decision for our future together. I know it is the right one.

One more thing not related to the job. Did you ever hear of a Parsley Anniversary? It is the 12 1/2 wedding anniversary. I never heard of this before, but my brother and sister in law celebrated this last Saturday. It is the tradition that the neighbors and friends organize all the food while they took care of the drinks. It was fun. It started at 11am as a brunch and we stayed until 8pm. Their friends and Silke's mother decorated the house with old photos from their wedding. We were all so young!!!! It is also a Germany tradition for any kind of wedding to do some "fun" things in the house that the couple doesn't know about. For them it was green yello in all sinks (looked really strange) and a lot of dried peas in the bed. I don't like this tradition very much and so I try to avoid this for my wedding in June. Hopefully it works.

The weekend was very, very stormy. I just saw on TV an airplane in Hamburg which touched the ground with one wing while the pilot tried to land it. I just checked my backyard, but everything is alright there.

Only one week until Alaska. We can't wait. Even if we know it will be kind of stressfull we both are looking forward to have some vacation and of course getting married. We are very excited.