Hello internet.

I have not forgotten about you, I promise. But as I warned you, my new job’s been keeping me busy. I started at a new company on December 1st and while the first week left me entirely drained, I think I’m finally getting the hang of being back to an office job.

Here, have some updates:

Work

As I mentioned, I started a new job on December 1st at a wonderful agency here in Munich. I’m now responsible for a team of five and while I’m lucky that the current team leader is still at the office until the end of the month, it’s also caused me a minor freakout last Friday. I’ve been trying to soak up all the information and learn as quickly as possible. While I was struggling to remember everything (faces, names, processes, politics, places, strategies, more of everything), I couldn’t help but wonder whether I’ll be as liked and confident in the role as my predecessor. [She’s trying her best to make the transition as easy for me as possible. She’s wonderful. But she’s also a lot more experienced in leading a team this large and she has several years of experience on this particular client. I have confidence that I’ll pick it all up with the help of my wonderful team and my supportive manager, but yet, I had a moment of doubt last week. It wasn’t fun.]

My team is larger than any team I’ve managed before. I know I can lead them to success, also largely because they’re so good. The client we’re working on is keeping us busy, a lot busier than I would like for my team, so in order to not drown, they had to learn how to swim pretty quickly. They’re all still fairly young, but they know what they’re doing. My manager is lovely and I think she and I will get along great. [She’s a runner too. We have to get along! ;o)]

Other than that, there’s not really a lot to say yet. I’m trying to take in a lot of information everyday and it’s leaving me exhausted at the end of every day. But at least it’s all coming together. On the bright side, I was presenting to the client over the phone during our weekly campaign performance call yesterday and I did a wonderful job. The client partner (who’ll be my partner in crime when it comes to the daily business and who I don’t really know how to read yet) came up to me afterwards to congratulate me on how well I’d done. That was a nice way to end the week. Win!

We have a little more than a week to go until the Christmas break and I’m excited for the agency being closed between Christmas and New Year. It’ll be nice to take a few days to digest everything I’ve learned.

Workouts & body woes

As a result of the job stress and some body woes I’ve had, my workouts have been a joke. I’m still trying to figure out the right balance of CrossFit and my job and as much as I hate to admit it, CrossFit has been on the losing end during the last two weeks. I went on a couple of runs, but even those aren’t really worth mentioning. I’ve been taking a lot of involuntary rest days. [I’ve been considering switching back to the 7 AM morning CrossFit class since I never know when I’ll get out of the office and whether I’ll make to the last class of the day. But the idea of getting up at a little after 5 AM is just not appealing in the winter. I’d have to get up this early because public transport takes so long. Once I can bike in the summer, it’s an option.]

I’ve managed to get myself a nice little shoulder injury after a bike accident last week. Don’t ask. I was stupid. I’m having it checked out by a doctor next week and while it’s been getting better, it still doesn’t feel right. If it should magically fix itself, I still have an impingement in the other shoulder that he can look at. It’s not that I don’t have enough injuries to chose from. [Another reason why I haven’t been doing to CrossFit: we’ve been doing a lot of shoulder work lately. Presses, handstand, push- and pull-ups and there’s no way I can do any of that right now. Meep.]

Earlier this week, I also managed to get myself a nice little food poisoning. Or maybe just a stomach bug. I don’t know. I met some CrossFit friends at a winter festival here in town, we drank some mulled wine, ate something and went home on our merry ways. I did drink (not paleo), but not too much, kept the food pretty paleo (except for the bread roll – one day I’ll learn that bread makes me miserable now) and then went on a giant eating binge of paleo and non-paleo foods. I already started feeling my stomach rumble once I got home, but some time during the next day, I had the worst stomach cramps and all the other fun stuff. I was in a meeting with our CEO and I nearly fell off my chair and fainted. I was in so much pain. I made myself a chicken soup at night and even the chicken soup sent me into another frenzy. I’m not sure whether it was my binge of non-paleo foods, the bread or whether I simply ate something bad, but the pain has started going away only today. It was awful. It made me very sympathetic for people who have severe diseases like celiac or IBT. Geez.

Food

Oh boy. My eating’s been atrocious and I haven’t been feeling good. The downside of being back at an ad agency just before Christmas is that there’s Christmas treats everywhere. We get so much free stuff, it’s ridiculous. Chocolate. Lebkuchen (gingerbread). Marzipan. Cookies. Speculoos.

I have such poor willpower when it comes to this stuff. I had hoped that I’d have more if I commit to a paleo lifestyle, but no, I don’t. I know this stuff is making me feel bad. Yet I’m like a rat that compulsively hits the pleasure button. It’s unnerving. As a result I’ve gained weight (I don’t know how much, I’ve been too scared to weigh myself) and possibly made the stomach bug even worse.

I’ve used today to reset and while I failed to work out, at least my eating’s been great today. I grocery shopped and filled my home with nutritious, yummy, healthy, wholesome foods. I’m hoping I can snap out of this rut and go back to the diet that’s making me feel good.

Life

Life outside of work has been eventful too. Dad’s had three surgeries since the beginning of this month. He had surgery on one of the veins in his legs a couple of weeks ago, however, the wound would just not heal. Apparently it got so bad, that the doctors decided he need to have another surgery. (It looked that he had an allergic reaction to the plastic stent they used.)

While he was in the hospital, hooked on the IV, something happened with his hand where the IV went in. Mom’s theory was that there was some built-up in his veins that then got flushed to the hand and needed to be fixed too. And while they were at it, they also noticed that his carotid artery was getting clogged and they performed surgery on that last Wednesday. Phew.

He made it through all surgeries OK, but I’m hoping, these were the last for now.

Today I watched The Hobbit at the theater and absolutely loved it. It hit the theaters on Thursday, I think and I wanted to see it as soon as possible. I’ve loved the LoTR trilogy and the first two Hobbit movies were so wonderful. I was a little sad at the end, knowing there was not going to be another part next year. If you’ve been thinking about seeing the movies – you definitely should. You won’t regret it!

Here’s hoping that it won’t take another 2 weeks till the next update! Take care, everyone!