Family allowance is finally coming
After the death of my partner in September, the two of us stayed with his son, but it turned out that we did not receive any kind of family support in the short six months so far.
After mom left, we had to claim everything again
I applied for the family allowance online on the first of October, many people said that it takes 6 weeks, after which it will be paid. Barely eight weeks had passed when I called them on the phone in December and asked why they hadn't responded to our request yet.
The online application has not been received
Yes, that's exactly what the clerk said:
We have not received any requests on your behalf. Please apply again!
I didn't think long, that very afternoon I got into the car and went to the relevant office: Familienkasse Villingen-Schwenningen, where the nice little clerk filed my application, originally submitted in October, in about 10 minutes.
Malteser helped
Another 2 months passed, when I was already a little frustrated because, despite having requested almost everything that is theoretically possible, we didn't even get an answer about anything. I contacted my contact at Malteser - the German equivalent of the Maltese Charity Service - to find out what the situation was and, lo and behold, a letter arrived today saying that I will receive the family allowance retroactively until November.
Family allowance is not a big deal
In Hungary, I would probably say the same myself, but the situation is that compared to 12,600 forints in Hungary, the monthly amount here is 250 euros, i.e. 100,000 forints, which is still not enough to raise a child, but it is a very good start.
How can it get any better than that?
We look to the future with great hope, the semi-orphan's pension should also arrive slowly, which is almost the same amount, after which our situation will be much better. We don't have much reason to complain now, because our situation is still much better than in Hungary.
n0rber in front of the computer
I didn't apply for a while because I had all sorts of things to do and I was trying to find ways to make money sitting at home. I listened to some audio from famous and not so famous artists, all kinds of coaches and I found out.
The big secret: Don't work unnecessarily!
It's been going on for about half a year, about the time I've been trying to find all sorts of ways online to earn money from the comfort of my home. The first problem with this is that the work is generally not convenient. Or maybe it is? Or what if you don't have to work to make money?
Earn money with games
I've found some NFT-based games that are quite profitable, but some of them require you to buy some characters to play with later on to earn money. I haven't tried this version yet because I'm not willing to invest my own money in it. There are other games I could get into for free, and I'm playing those now. One of them is a card game where you can earn up to 30-40 dollars a week, that's what I'm playing now. Once I've made about $100 in that game, I can start playing the other game, which older players say promises a slightly higher return.
I will write about this later, I want to gain experience first.
Online crypto casinos
There are some casinos where you can have a lot of fun and make some pretty good money. There are a few games where you can make some pretty good money with different strategies, but of course, as in most cases in life, it is very easy to lose your "hard" earned bankroll.
One of these casinos is one that you can sign up to by following my recommendation link below.
https://bc.game/i-4zlrk6iz-n/
It is easy to transfer the amount you earn to this casino from read.cash and noise.cash, but I was able to transfer a few dollars from there after activating my Coinbase wallet. If you decide you'd like to sign up for that, I have a link to that as well. If you follow that and sign up, you'll both benefit.
https://www.coinbase.com/join/PB6TJP?src=android-link
For example, I just got 1 Euro for reading a course material and answering a question about it.
Watch videos
There are several sites, I tried one where you actually get paid for watching videos, and you can also transfer the money to Coinbase. I'll give you a link to that one too, in case you're interested. You pay for watching the ads. For one euro you have to watch about 600 ads, I think that's pretty good money. Anyway, think about it, in any case I'll include the link to this one.
https://www.idle-empire.com?r=7oouju
So far I haven't found what I'm looking for, but I'm having fun.
I came to the conclusion that these things might not be worth starting because you want to be rich, but for me it was a very good way to spend my time. I have enough problems in life and these things keep me busy in my spare time. The fact that I make a little money on the side is just an added bonus. Maybe I'm wrong, but who knows... maybe that's just an interesting perspective.
Sports betting, but how?
To bet or not to bet? I have thought a lot about this. It's a pretty easy way to make money, you just have to guess the outcome of a few games.
You can find many channels on the internet where people who claim to be experts give tips, first for free and later for money. I join several groups, follow their advice, see if the bets they offer work or not.
I can't always do it alone
Since I'm not a sports fan, I thought I'd pick a few matches that I could put together a winning ticket based on numbers alone. After a couple of days of trying, I got to the point where my latest 6 times winning ticket failed in the last minute of one of the matches. This discouraged me a bit from trying it myself.
Yesterday I found a group where the group leader promised nothing less than a profit of around €200 by the end of the month with a starting capital of €10.
There was someone here who claimed to know the solution
Yesterday, one of the three games he offered at odds of 1.1 was a last-minute winner, but he won. Today, the second day, we finally got a little more excitement. The first game he recommended went through from the first minute in a losing position, the second one I didn't follow knowing it was a bust. I checked later, that game had also lost, and the third had not yet been played.
The group operator wrote to the community immediately after the first failed match:
The challenge ended on the second day with an amazing basketball game, if you want to join our VIP group.
No, thank you.
The next minute I was unsubscribed from the group, figuring I could lose my money on my own.
Maybe it will be better alone.
Starting tomorrow, I will start playing with my own tips. The goal is to increase the pot by about 30 percent every day. This will be one match a day, which I will pick without any knowledge of football, just based on the numbers.
I will share the picks and the previous day's results on noise.cash, and at the end of the month I will write an article here about the experiences and results.
*If you want to follow me, play with me! Up for a win!*
Again an article that was completely transformed by the end
A few days ago, as in almost all of Europe, we had desert sand.
Most of the cars in the city were painted a yellowish brown. There were some who kept them in garages so they didn't have a problem, there were others who washed them off immediately, but most still remained dusty. Our car is yellow to begin with, so it's just a little bit browner than before.
The day after the rain, my partner asked me to take the car to the petrol station to wash it, but I didn't want to. On the one hand, I was sorry to pay eight euros for it, and on the other hand, I was afraid that another similar cloud system would bring more sand. "It will rain and wash it off," I said.
The Universe has done it
Lo and behold, this morning when we took the child to school the car was clean. It wasn't raining, but the fog in the city was condensing on the cars and running off them... Now that washed the cars off.
Bad weather, what can you do?
It's been so overcast all day today. My partner couldn't sleep much last night, now he manages. This is the reason why I am not cooking or doing anything. I sat down in my little meditation corner, picked up the phone and started writing. Again, this article started out with no idea what it was going to be, perhaps that's the best part. I realised that I love writing. I can't, but I do. I am happy to be able to write my opinion on almost anything on this platform. In fact, I have an opinion on almost everything, I just haven't had the courage to write it until now.
What I can do
I think I'll usually write short articles about things that come to mind during the day, but occasionally I'll write longer articles about things that interest me. I'll see what readers like better as I go along.
Four things to make a habit of
I woke up this morning determined to start some new habits in my life from today.
The first one will be writing, I just set myself a 10 minute timer to write.
The second, but perhaps most important thing I need to introduce into my life is to drink 3-4 litres of water a day. This gets a little harder because if I set a timer for this, it usually makes me irritable very quickly. No problem, I need to introduce that into my life now.
The third thing I need to do more regularly from today is meditation. I need to find a fixed time for this, which will be a time for meditation every day. I have to keep to that time no matter what time it is in the apartment or outside, no matter how hungry I am.
One more thing I have to make a habit of, and I'm going to start it today, is Thanksgiving. Each day I will have two fixed times when I will go away and give thanks for the opportunities and the day's happenings. I have been practicing this irregularly, which has resulted in it being missed regularly.
These are four things that I can only incorporate into my life by setting specific times for them and forcing myself to actually put everything aside and do what I need to do in those moments. For example, I'm already sitting here for minutes at a time, thinking I need a drink. I've been awake for an hour and I haven't had a sip.
*I'll finish writing slowly because my 10 minutes are running out, but I'll be in touch later today, have a nice day.*
And you are safe?
Yesterday afternoon I downloaded some programs from the Internet, which is not unusual for me. I always have Windows Firewall on, which I think is stronger than any paid antivirus. In the evening Windows said it detected dangerous files, I deleted them immediately, and when the error message came up again I simply reinstalled my computer.
Last night I had no more problems with it. After the system update I downloaded a professional antivirus, neither the Windows factory antivirus nor the professional antivirus found anything harmful on my computer.
Suddenly my phone alerted me
This morning I received a message from Facebook saying that I had changed my Facebook phone number and password. A few seconds later I received another message saying that my main email address had also changed and that my old details had been deleted from my Facebook profile.
In my email account, I found 5 emails indicating that my old details could no longer be accessed on my Facebook profile. There were two IP addresses written down from which they had accessed the profile, one in New York and the other in New Delhi.
I simply cannot get it back
At the password reset stage, Facebook offered to reset, or more accurately change, my password by sending an SMS to my old phone number.
Mail to the email service
Since I found the newly set phone number and email address in the emails, I decided to write an email to the new email address provider. I sent this email, asking them to try to help me reset my account or, if they couldn't, to give me the contact details of the relevant authority. I don't think I could get my access back this way, but I tried to give it a try.
I actually got help from the hacker
To make the best of a bad situation, I've been thinking about cleaning up my Facebook account a bit anyway, deleting friends, photos, group memberships and page likes. I've just registered a new account, so there's no need to go through all these steps. My computer system also needed a major overhaul, now I have that too. Thanks hacker.
No customer service
I find it a little worrying, by the way, that on the world's largest social network there is no way to talk to a live human being, or chat, or even write an email to the service provider, all our problems have to be dealt with by algorithms.
I didn't even want to re-register
The only reason I re-registered is because I have friends I can only communicate with here.
Make the net safer
To be on the safe side, I turned on two-factor authentication so that no one could steal my access anymore. It's perhaps a bit of a hassle that every time you log in from a new device you need to receive a code, say, in an SMS to your phone.
I used to find this a problem, now I think it's a small little procedure for my security. From now on I will use this option wherever I can, it is a very important decision in today's world.
Anyone can be a victim
I used to think that this could only happen to people who didn't understand computers, who didn't know what pages to open, what programs to download.
*Either I was wrong, or I belong to this group.*
Young or old at 41?
This day has also come. I have completed this beautiful age. Some call me young, some call me old. But how is it?
When I was in my twenties, I had colleagues 10-20 years older than me, and I called them old. Had I known they were in their prime at the time, I might have honoured them more. Anyway, now the tables have turned. Now I am called old by people in their twenties. I always watch in awe as my sister's friends and their "little" friends tell the old man how much different the world is today than when we were young. The world has indeed changed a lot, but they don't know that because they couldn't talk then.
And there's the other side
When someone asks about my father and says, "How's the old man?" Now that's the question that makes me say that my father is not old. Unfortunately, I had to find out that he was. Not because he will be 61 tomorrow, but because he is very tired. He has been smoking for nearly 50 years and works very hard. His body is getting tired and his mind is following suit. Twenty years ago, my father looked younger than I do now, but compared to other 61-year-olds, he is old today.
Is everyone really as old as they feel?
I think of myself as a young 40 year old because at 41 my only problem is being overweight. Many men are regulars in urology and rheumatology at that age, but not me. I have never been to such surgeries, nor do I plan to for some time.
Many of you might say that it is not up to me, but you would be wrong. I'll write another article about this later, it's not relevant here.
Are you young or old?
This is a question to which both answers are correct. A 41-year-old man is both young and old.
From the point of view of young people, 41 is old, they can't even imagine what it will be like to be them in 20 years' time. Twenty years is as long as they have lived.
But the older generation sees today's 40-somethings as young. Some of them think that younger people can't know anything, that they are the ones who have lived long enough and have all the knowledge.
There are even older people
Today's 60-year-olds don't even think about the fact that there are people older than them, who see them as young, who think of them as they think of 40-year-olds. It may also be important for them that in the Himalayan mountains there are many monks over 100 years old, and they are the ones who no longer think about old age.
So 41 is young.
Sausages, sabotaged tanks and detained children
Today’s dinner was grilled sausage, and that’s the beginning of my article today.
I asked my partner what he thought I was writing about today. He told me to write about putting the sausage in my nose. He thinks you have to write about funny things because that interests people. Well, I don't think it's so funny to have a sausage stuffed in my nose. Sure, if someone else has a sausage stuffed in their nose, there’s no problem with that, it’s really funny, but not mine.
Of course, we don’t put sausage in anyone’s nose, but I did smile at it. Instead, I went to bed and started writing this article.
We watch TV and talk about the world, the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Today, for example, we also read that Russian soldiers are said to be so reluctant to go to war as to deliberately destroy their vehicles. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if I do, I fully understand them.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to head out into another country armed. The people against whom they were sent may be their friends or distant relatives.
I hope this is all over soon and they can go home to their family.
Demonstrations in Moscow
They now said in the news block that four children had been detained in Russia for going to the Ukrainian embassy with their parents to demonstrate. Now really? Children? They were 7, 9 and 11 years old and had already been released, but it could still be a very shocking experience.
Let us hope that the situation soon improves and that as many people as possible live their old habits.
Nothing special today either
And then another day passed. Today it was already light when we got up. It's getting lighter every day, I guess because spring is here.
Lunch
Today we made pancakes. It's not the same thing as what Americans eat as pancakes, it's more like a kebab tortilla perhaps. Slightly thinner, but just as delicious.
People usually eat it sweet, with jam, nutella, cottage cheese or cocoa powder. Not for me lately. I prefer to make it like a sandwich and cook it on a contact grill.
**Dinner**
My sweetheart thought we should have some smoked goods for dinner. I found bacon, ham and sausages in the fridge, already cooking on the stove. That will be our dinner tonight with mustard. We are Hungarian :)
In the evening, as usual, I watch TV, my favourite series are on, but I might write later today.
*Good night to you all.*
Dishwashing
If you are hungry, you have more options to reduce your appetite. I'm going to write mostly about the case when we have lunch at home with our family.
First of all, that lunch has to be cooked by someone, on some kind of stove, in some kind of pot. Cooking is only one thing, it has to be served. If you have a big family, you have to set many times 4-8-10-20 place settings. It is pointless to keep counting, the point is that by the end of a meal there are often a lot of dishes in the kitchen.
What to do with dirty dishes?
Here too, there are several options, one of which is to take them, break them into small pieces and throw them all in the bin. Now this is not an economical method, so I think washing up might be a slightly better option.
But how do you wash the dishes?
If you have one, you simply load the dishes into your dishwasher. Many people don't know this, but before you load the dishwasher, it's a good idea to clean off any major dirt from the dishes, because the dishwasher can get clogged.
There is another solution, take it to the car wash or simply wash it outside in the garden with a pressure washer... a bit difficult to do, but it's useful.
And that leaves the old, boring, yet perhaps the most economical solution, washing up by hand. It's not a bad idea to do this in hot water, starting with the less dirty dishes and working your way up to the dirtier ones, but if you wash your sponge frequently then of course the order is irrelevant.
*Now that I've reached the end of the article, I'm going to start this wonderful operation.*
The evolution of today's money
What is money? We all use it, from a very young age, throughout our lives. Yet we rarely think about what the concept means, and even less about its origins and evolution.
Before money
Before it existed, barter was the basis of trade, and through it the economy. When two individuals met and each needed something of value that the other possessed, they would get what they wanted through an exchange arrangement.
However, these so-called barter transactions soon faced a fundamental problem. Suppose you have bananas and want to buy meat. In this case we don't just need to find someone who has meat, we need someone who has meat and wants to get bananas.
What if you meet someone who wants bananas but only owns spices? In this case, they first need to find someone who has meat and happens to want spices. First you need to make an exchange agreement with them, and if that goes well, you can come back to us to exchange bananas for meat.
Another problem
For example, if you are breeding cows and you need apples, it may not be easy to determine exactly how many cows to give in exchange for how many apples.
Price coins
The apple is divisible, but the cow is not divisible at all, which is the problem of divisibility. These two problems cried out for a solution, and people quickly invented commodity coins. They simply chose one of the many commodities and values, and that became the early money.
It could be almost anything, but it had to meet a few criteria. First, it had to be something that everyone needed, preferably as often as possible. It is easy to see that the axe is not suitable as a commodity, as it is used by many people, but it is important for the work of woodcutters to have it handy at all times.
Not to mention that another important feature of a commodity currency is that it should be relatively easy to move. This should mean that it should not be very heavy. Yet you can't go home with dozens of tables at the end of a successful trading day. The first American settlers, for example, used beaver pelts as a store of goods, which everyone needed in the harsh weather, and which were easy to move and store. So, in summary, commodity coins had to meet these conditions:
Everybody needs it
Easy to move (relatively light weight)
Easy to store
Relatively difficult to access
Another and very important example of commodity money is gold. Gold is also special in the history of money because it has almost no utility, it cannot be eaten, it does not keep you warm, it has a role in modern industry in certain technologies, but this was far from being the case when we started using it.
It was used for centuries by mankind as commodity money, and later as the underlying value of paper money (until the 1970s) because we see it as beautiful, we know that others find it beautiful, and it is faith that gives it its value. Of course, it has another very important property, namely that it is difficult to obtain, rare and therefore available in limited quantities.
If anyone can easily get their hands on a commodity, they are unfit for purpose.
A következő fejezetet a fiat pénzek jelentik ezt a csoportot nevezzük ma egyszerűen pénznek.
Ezek mögött nincs egy áru, ami az értéküket adná. Azért jelentek meg, mert a gyorsan növekvő gazdaságokban fenntarthatatlan volt aranykitermeléssel értéket helyezni a pénz mögé. A kereslet, kínálat és az emberek beléjük vetett bizalma, hite adja az értéküket.
Egy fiat pénz, például a dollár az áruk értékének mércéjét jelenti az emberek szemében. Egyúttal egy fiat pénz értéke mindenkor összefüggésben van egy adott gazdaság teljesítményével. Ha egy gazdaság növekszik, olyan árukat termel, melyekre az embereknek a helyi és más gazdaságokban szüksége van, akkor a helyi pénz értéke is növekedni fog, és ez fordítva is igaz.
Nagyon fontos azonban, hogy valós, "kézzelfogható", eladható árukat kell termelnie egy gazdaságnak ahhoz, hogy a pénze stabil legyen és az értéke még növekedjen is.
A typical day
I am quite at a loss because I have no idea what to write, for once. I thought I'd just sit down at the computer and write what comes to mind.
I got up a little later than usual this morning, it was probably 9 o'clock. I wrote late in the evening, then watched a bit of TV, so my darling woke me up in the morning.
I got up, made breakfast for the family. It was fried eggs, we love them, but only if the yolk is soft. I can make a very good fried egg. I used to mess it up all the time, I just couldn't figure out how to make a good one. Then I had a colleague in Austria who showed me how he did it. He buys a spoon and uses it to pour the hot fat over the still raw part of the egg. That way you can make sure the egg stays soft but still cooks.
A little later I wrote the first script of my life, which, lo and behold, has worked perfectly ever since. It spins the game on a gambling site according to the Fibonacci strategy.
I might write an article about it later, but first I'll test it for a while.
My partner wanted to have fish for dinner and I wanted to go for a walk, so I went to the grocery store and bought fish and chips.
On the way I found some flowers and took a picture of them because I really liked them. I really enjoyed photographing them, I really like the way I can enlarge these tiny plants.
When I got home I fried the fish and then we had dinner.
I'm going to write this little post now, and then I'll get to work on uploading my webshop.
Have a nice evening.
A new life
Half a year at home
In spring 2020, Covid-19 will be home to humanity. At the time, I stayed at home too, I didn't really have any other options. I actually liked having a reason to stay home with my family for a while. We had money saved up, there was no need to look for work.
I would have to find a job
The end of summer came, money was running out and I was getting bored of doing nothing. I didn't feel much like coming back to Germany to work, I would have liked to stay at home, to work at home. At the right moment, I sat down with my girlfriend to talk about taking a job at home, but she didn't want to hear about it. She said there was not enough money to earn at home. Money was always her biggest problem.
If you stay home, we'll starve to death.
I tried to explain to him that even though you can earn less in Hungary than in Germany, it might be better to stay at home.We didn't have an order yet, which would have been another good reason to stay at home, but I let him convince me. I returned to Germany, started looking for a job. A friend's mother-in-law offered me to stay with her for a while. I was very grateful to her because at that moment I could not have afforded the rent of an apartment.
Looking for a job, having fun
I am an electronics technician by trade, I have worked as a mechanical mechanic, but my most experience is as a forklift driver. So I started looking for a job, but I didn't find one straight away. I spent a lot of time with my new friends. Béla's wife Niki worked in a pub. We used to take our CVs to the companies together in the morning, and I would sit with her in the pub from midday to midnight, and walk her home in the evening.
Two months went by and I couldn't find anything. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time with Béla and his family, and we spent many nights together. I met men and women. I realized that my relationship of nearly fifteen years was not as good as it used to be. Maybe it was never as good as I thought.
Dating
I started to consciously meet girls. I registered on a dating website. I met a girl who I talked to a lot on viber. We agreed that I would find her a job and she would follow me to Germany.
I met another woman, Silvia. I also talked to her a lot, but also on the phone. She was very sympathetic, but in the very first conversation she indicated that I lived too far away, so there was no chance of anything happening between us. Anyway, she seems to have found her match.
Back at work
In the meantime, I got a job in another part of Germany and started working there. By the time the job started, another company had applied for me to come and work for them. I finally made good money again. It felt great to see the message on my phone that money was coming in again and again.
In the meantime I had been out of touch with Silvia for a while and with the other girl it seemed more and more certain that we would be a couple. She had financial problems, I helped her out a lot. Sometimes I sent her food, sometimes a little money. She never asked for it, but she always accepted. I would visit my girlfriend at home from time to time, but I always arranged it so that there was no contact between us.
With Sylvie, closer
Sylvie came to see me again. She was in hospital and bored. She wanted to talk. I visited her in the hospital, it was the first "date". In the meantime, it became obvious to me that the other girl wanted nothing more than to collect money cleverly. I cut off all contact with her.
We got another order at my old workplace, I went back to work there. By this time I was talking to Silvia on a daily basis and we saw each other every weekend. We started to fall in love, we had a lot of fun. The three of us would go out with her and her little boy. I ended up sleeping over a lot and slowly moved in.
Break-up with the ex
By then I had a stable job and everything was going well.
When I went home to end my old relationship, she didn't know what to make of it. She thought everything was fine between us. We'd been separated for practically three or four years, with some interruptions. When I went home we had a relationship, but not for the last year and a half.
Our life is going wonderfully, I hope we will be together for a very long time.
I am grateful.
Ray's half Happy-end
The little family
Erica was 17 and Frank was 22. She had lost her mother a few years earlier and refused to live with her father. She lived with her grandparents, knowing she was young, but her heart won out over her common sense. She married Franz. A few months later, their twin daughters Pamela and Renate were born.
Pamela was a little bigger than Renate, and the two parents loved her perhaps a little more, although they both denied it.
Erica's father Dave didn't see his daughter for a long time. They had a disagreement earlier, which caused them to stop speaking for a while. The father called her now because he had heard from elsewhere that she had grandchildren. He visited them and they agreed to keep in touch.
The problems came
As the months passed, life for young adults was not as pleasant as it had been at the beginning. Erica wasn't the best mother, and Frank sometimes abused her. She also neglected cleaning, always talking to the women next door. To make things even more difficult, things with Dave had also broken down.
One day Child Protection visited the young people and what they found was unacceptable. There was cornflakes in the crib between the two children, Erica had gone shopping, only Frank's grandfather was home with the little girls, but he was in no condition to run when he needed to.
Child Protection waited for Erica to come home and placed the girls in foster care with immediate effect.
Blame and cheating
Both parents thought that what happened was the other's fault, Erica still didn't clean up and Frank beat her again. They lived together like cats and dogs. Sometimes they loved each other, sometimes they hated each other. They both kept a mistress, but they continued to live together.
Ray
A year later, parents visited their children regularly. For the time being, there was no chance for them to be with their daughters again because they had not made the required changes.
By this time, Erica and Dave were back in contact, talking on the phone twice a week. Dave regularly calmed Frank down when he came home to find dirt and a mess.
To complicate matters, a third child was born, a son, Ray.
Ray was a beautiful and very bright child, much loved by his parents, but the problems continued. Child protection professionals gave the couple a lot of help, warning them very often how they should behave. At times the situation seemed to get better, at other times it got much worse.
Sometimes together, sometimes apart
The pair split up several times and then reconciled. Frank went abroad to work, doing his best to at least keep their financial problems at bay, while Erica moved out of the poor house with her child in tow. Dave, living abroad, was unable to help with housing, but his parents were happy to take in their daughter and granddaughter.
At first everything was fine, but after a few days Erica was acting up again. She left nappies lying around, scattered food around the room and didn't help with the housework.
When Frank returned home on leave from abroad, he behaved as disorderly as his wife.
One day there was such a big fight that the grandparents' marriage was in danger because of them.
They had no choice but to go.
Mothers' Home
Erica and Ray were placed in a maternity home, and Frank went back to work abroad. They talked on the phone every day, and the staff at the home helped them with everything. Erica only had a few things to do, like keeping house rules and raising her child. These are two things she failed to do.
With Erica Ray on her arm, she left the nursing home, moving in with her old sweetheart. She gave no sign of life for nearly 2 months, so the child protection authorities started looking for Ray.
Back with Frank
Frank went home from abroad and stayed with a relative because their home had been robbed and he couldn't go back. He planned his new life without Erica, knowing it would be better that way. He tried to be a good father, taking Ray to his house every other week.
One day, Erica had a falling out with her old beau, and Frank was happy to take her back. Everything seemed to be back to normal, with Frank going to work and Erica keeping the apartment tidy. Everything was in perfect order. Or so it seemed.
See you Ray
One day Erica's phone rang. It was a child protection worker. The caseworker told Erica to take Ray to the authorities the next day because they hadn't known where they were for a month and a half. Upon leaving the home, she was supposed to report the whereabouts of the child in protection, as she had failed to do so, Child Protective Services had declared Ray's situation dangerous.
Erica handed her son over to the authorities and they placed him in the same foster home as his siblings.
Unfortunately, Erica and Frank could not create the conditions to get their children back, at least the three children are together, and for them it is probably better than being in the household of their parents who are not good at raising children.
Evening monologue
My girlfriend is asleep, I have to take a shower soon. I should also meditate, for some reason I don't do it regularly enough. I need to introduce some kind of system into my life in this area.
I think it will happen. From now on, the first thing I wake up and the last thing I do before bed will be a few minutes of meditation. When someone told me how good it would be after that all day, I didn't believe them.
I don't know why I don't do it regularly.
Tiring? No.
Maybe it feels wrong? No.
Is it somehow difficult for me? No.
So why don't I do it? The answer may be simple: I don't have time.
Really? A person who has 10-20 minutes to do nothing? It's ridiculous. This frivolous idea must be dispelled. I'm home now, I have time.
Tomorrow I would get up 20 minutes earlier and do anything else, I would sit down to meditate for 20 minutes.
I'm really glad I wrote this post because it's a way to get over the idea that I've always dreaded before. Maybe I will do this every time I think of something, just write it down here. Maybe someone will read it, maybe not. It doesn't matter. I feel good when I write, and that's all that matters.
So the continuation of my evening:
Shower, meditation, TV.
Good night.
Who am I and what am I doing here?
I am a Hungarian "young man" living in Germany. At the age of forty-one I still consider myself young, but you, my dear reader, might think otherwise.
I am not a writer, but I have an opinion about everything. I love to talk, especially to talk. I regularly comment on articles that interest me, but I will not argue with anyone, that is not my habit.
My sick partner needs me at home, so I tried to work reduced hours at first, but unfortunately we couldn't manage. At the moment I can't go to a job to work at regular intervals.
I get in the car in the mornings and drive the child to school and pick him up at 4pm. When we are alone with the toddler we always speak German because we both need the practice.
During the day I help my partner with the housework, but sometimes he feels weak and can't get up. On those days, I do everything myself, so I do all the work: washing, cooking, cleaning.
When school is over, we sometimes go on a trip somewhere. We get in the car and go for a drive to the villages in the area. There have also been occasions when we thought we'd get in the car and go home to Hungary for a week.
As I've written before, I can't go to a regular job at the moment, so I do what I can from home. I do simple websites, sometimes betting, repairing computers and browsing the internet, getting to know the possibilities.
I also found this site when I was looking for something to do from home. I saw an advertisement in a Facebook group recommending read.cash and noise.cash.
I thought I had nothing to lose by checking it out for myself. I must say that what I found was a pleasant surprise. I really like both sites. Although the noise.cash site is still a bit foreign to me, I am getting to know it. However, the read.cash site is becoming more and more appealing. The groups that have been set up to make it easier for members to find each other's articles are very appealing.
In the future I would like to write 2-3 articles a day. I hope I will not bore you all.
I wish you good reading.
Weight loss from a different perspective
I was very skinny until I was 25
When I was a kid, I was so small and skinny that even the girls at school bullied me.
Until I was 25-26, I could eat anything and nothing made me gain weight. I had breakfast at 3 pm, dinner at 1 am, but I was at work by 6 am every morning. I usually spent my afternoons in a pub with friends and a few pints of beer.
I stuffed myself daily with bacon, pizza, hamburgers, anything that fattened me up, nothing hurt.
Aging has caught up with me
My younger readers may know themselves in a similar situation, but they don't understand what I'm talking about. But those of you who are over the magic 30 know very well that I am not alone in my problem.
Sometime around 25, I hit 80 kg, which I think is good. Around the age of 30, I was proud when I went below 100 kg. When I couldn't lose weight for a long time, I suddenly became proud of my weight. I read somewhere that under 100 kg is not a man's weight, so I decided that from that day on, that would be my ideal weight.
At 105 kg, I started to realize that this was no longer a game, I had to start dieting.
Gym
At the urging of a friend, I went to a fitness studio, read a book on losing weight through exercise, and started. On the one hand, I was very determined because I went to the gym every day, and on the other hand, I tried to be selective about the exercises I wanted to do.
After three months I decided it wasn't for me. I kind of blamed my trainer brother and elite athlete sister for not giving me diet advice, but deep down I knew it wasn't because of them.
When I was about to give up the gym game, I met a personal trainer who promised me that if she did her best, I would lose weight.
Of course, I did what he said, but I didn't lose weight. I mean, I did almost everything he said. I didn't follow the diet advice, but I did everything else. Anyway, it's the coach's fault that I didn't lose weight.
Protein shake powder
Of course, I tried the protein shakes, one of them was very effective. I lost exactly 10 kg in 30 days. Everyone except one friend looked at me with approval. This friend kept telling me that it was not real weight loss and that it would not continue. He must have been jealous of my success. Too bad he was right. From that moment on I could not lose 1 gram.
Nothing happened, I found other ways that I could not lose weight.
Food supplement
Six months ~~later~~, a friend of mine lost 8 kg in 2 months using a special supplement. I didn't think it was much, but since I had already put on the pounds I thought I'd give it a try.
The special supplement also included a special diet. You cannot eat bread, but you should eat as much fatty meat as possible. I didn't have to think about it too much as I like fatty things.
I started using the product and a miracle happened. The weight loss started. At that stage, I managed to lose 6 kg, which didn't come back for at least a month.
It didn't work either, I don't even want to lose weight, I feel fine this way.
When the son of man, now weighing nearly 110 kg, has to climb the second-floor several times a day, it makes you wonder:
Are you sure this is right? My brother is much heavier. If it's good for him, it's good for me.
It was very hard, but I just explained to myself that everything was fine with my weight, I almost believed it.
You should eat less
My partner says there is no other secret to losing weight, I just need to eat a little less. But then I'll starve to death, it's not a game. I can't live on less food. I need a big portion of all foods, especially pasta. Twice. Sometimes three times.
My problem from the perspective of two people in a worse situation
Christmas came, the family had lunch together. My mother and brother were discussing, to my ears, why they couldn't lose weight. I didn't say a word, I just listened. I listened and I felt... I understand their problem. I could see them with the willpower to eat less. They couldn't help it, as they both have health problems. One can't eat at night because of her cholesterol and the other can't eat dairy. They are both overweight, in my opinion, more severely than I am. They do their best, I do nothing to lose weight, but they are worse off.
If the two of them can do it, so can I.
I made my decision in mid-January, and for the first 30 days, I fasted for other reasons besides diet.
I was looking for a phone app to count calories. So far I'm doing nothing but eating less, as my partner suggested. It's been a month and a half and I've lost 8 kg. Probably by now, my stomach has shrunk because I can eat much less and I am well-nourished.
Far from the end
My first weight goal is 90 kg, which means a 19 kg weight loss, and if I reach that, the final goal is 80 kg.
After reaching the 90 kg milestone, I think I will have much less strain on my joints and I can start jogging.
I don't know when I'll reach my desired weight, but I'm increasingly confident that I will.
I'll let you know when I get there.
Covid travel
In 2020, the disease, known as Covid-19, spread around the world. Everyone was very frightened of him, the countries imposed quarantines, curfews.
At the time, I was working in Germany, but because the borders were closed, the factories stopped, and we didn't have any orders. I went home to Hungary and started working from home.
The borders were closed, only those who really wanted to travel
When the number of cases in Europe increased, the countries of Europe closed. What did that mean? Only those who went to work were allowed to cross national borders. As it happens, if you were an entrepreneur or you were in a truck, you could go. If you took an employer's certificate with you you could go wherever you wanted.
The restrictions were lifted for a while because the "first wave" was over, everyone could go wherever they want. Personally, I was genuinely surprised to see that Austria, for example, made such a concession that it no longer had to wear a mask in grocery stores.
"The epidemic will come back"
It's been a few weeks later they told we it wasn't over, the second wave was coming. The countries tightened up again, and in many places masks had to be worn on the streets. In Germany, for example, shops closed after Christmas, and until March only grocery stores and drugstores were allowed to enter.
Meanwhile, vaccines arrived
Those who wanted to received the vaccines. Society quickly split into two parts. There were the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Vaccinated people began to fear the unvaccinated, they feared the side effects of vaccines.
The borders were closed again
Everyone was informed from elsewhere, so different groups had different information. For example, our relatives living in Hungary thought that we were already in lockdown in Germany, that we could not even go to the grocery stores. And people living in Germany could not imagine that in Hungary, for example, an un vaccinated person could not go to the doctor without a PCR test.
When in most European countries the covid rapid test was free for the population, in austria even for travelers, in Hungary it cost about 9000 HUF.
They said everywhere that vaccines would never be mandatory, while they tried hard to force the people to accept them.
By the middle of 2021, eu countries thought completely different solutions were right to deal with the pandemic. Austria, for example, was the first to introduce a universally mandatory vaccination over the age of 18 in 2022. According to the current position, it looks like they too will abolish this obligation.
Some countries would give the vaccine immediately after surviving a disease, but some say it should be given no earlier than three months after recovery.
In Hungary, for example, the status of recovered has been abolished, and the official position is that only vaccination can achieve immunity. This is, of course, refuted by most doctors, saying that it is a scientifically proven fact that the greatest protection is provided by so-called mucosal immunity, which can only be acquired by surviving Covid-19 disease.
Returning to travel
When the borders were closed, several of my acquaintances regularly traveled around Europe, they never had any problems with the border closure. I have been to Hungary several times, once in Italy, but only at the Austrian borders have I been asked where I am going.
Magic word: Transit
When you entered the territory of a state, that word always worked wonders, they heard it and said have a good way. They may have indicated that you can only stop refueling. When I arrived to Germany, of course, I was always prepared for the check, I always had a valid quick test, but no one ever asked for it. I had acquaintances who came to Germany, but at the Passau border crossing they said they were going to the Netherlands and the police immediately let them go. When even the Hungarian border was "closed" there they said they were going to Romania, hungarian police officers let them go on.
What else this epidemic might bring us, or perhaps another one, I don't know either, but I'm trying to think positively.
Many scientists believe that healing from the current omicron variant will provide adequate protection for enough people on earth to end the epidemic.
Let's hope
lead image: iaea.com
Lehet-e nyelvtudás nélkül külföldön dolgozni? - 1. rész
Anglia - 2010
Életem első külföldi munkahelye az Egyesült Királyságban volt. Egyik napról a másikra indultam, fogalmam sem volt róla, hogy hová megyek és arról sem, hogy mit fogok ott csinálni. Annyit tudtam az egészről, hogy a szomszédom unokahúga fog lejönni értem a kisváros temploma elé, azt sem tudtam hogy néz ki a lány, ő sem ismert engem.
Már a repülőgépem se Magyarországról indult, hanem Szlovákia fővárosából. Ugyan Pozsony tudomásom szerint korábban egy magyar város volt, a reptéren nem találtam olyan alkalmazottat, aki beszélt volna magyarul. Találtam egy stewardesst, aki az akkor még igen szerény német tudásom segítségével útbaigazított a pénzváltóhoz.
Angolul? Úgy mindenki tud...
Mindenki, csak én nem. Szóval... onnantól kezdve, hogy a sofőröm elhagyta a repteret teljesen magamra voltam utalva. Németül annyit beszéltem, ami az iskolából megmaradt, angolul szinte semmit. Annyit már tudtam, hogy az esernyő nem ambrella, hanem umbrella, de ez is csak egy félresikerült középiskolai dolgozat miatt sikerült.
Okostelefon még nem létezett
Nem voltam azért egy elveszett gyerek, abban az időben már sokunknál volt otthon internet, kiírtam az indulási időket, hogy hol mire kell felszállnom, mennyi időm lesz elmenni elszívni egy cigarettát, mennyi pénzt fogok az úton elkölteni és fonetikusan leírtam, hogy mit kell majd az adott helyeken mondanom.
Bristolba érve elmakogtam a jegyárus néninek, hogy mit szeretnék, ő meg elmondta hány állomást kell mennem a busszal. Néhány szót azért megértettem, mondjuk, hogy boldogultam.
This is the Temple Meads
A vasútállomásron a hölgy kezébe nyomtam a telefonomat a kijelzőn a következő felirattal:
Temple Meads - Bodmin
Közölte, hogy "This is the Temple Meads", én pedig magyarul elmagyaráztam neki, hogy "Dehát Bodmin!". Megértette, kaptam egy jegyet.
Négy óra vonatozás olyan emberekkel, akikkel egy szót nem tudtam váltani, közben egy átszállás, végre megérkeztem az ígéret földjére.
Biztonságban
Vendéglátóm lányával sikeresen megtaláltuk egymást, kicsit megnyugodtam, hogy nem vesztem el a nagyvilágban.
Gyönyörű helyen laktunk, ez igazából egy kastély volt. Teljesen más volt a környezet, mint amit korábban bármikor megszoktam.
Házigazdáim este hazaértek a munkából, végre személyesen is megismertük egymást. Kaptam egy saját szobát, másnap délelőtt pedig átbeszéltük a felvételi stratégiát. Annyi volt a feladatom, hogy amikor a felvételiztető hölgy azt kérdezi: "Jú ándersztánd mí?", akkor határozott yes-sel kell felelni.
Nem jöttem hiába
Másnap elmentem az interjúra, ahol feltették az említett kérdést, aztán miután egyszavas angoltudásommal biztosítottam őket arról, hogy megtalálták a megfelelő kollégát békén is hagytak a procedúra végéig. Távozáskor annyit mondtak, hogy:
-Tomorrow with Robert.
Mindegy, megpróbáltam megjegyezni. Később megtudtam, hogy ez azt jelenti, fel vagyok véve.
Egy húsüzemben dolgoztunk, sok magyarral voltam körülvéve, a munkában igazából nem is volt szükség a nyelvtudásra.
Magyarok egymás közt
Mint írtam, sok volt a hazafi, ami nekem nem okozott problémát, mert én mindenkivel megértettem magam, voltak viszont olyanok, akik marták egymást, egymás családját, de rendesen. Találtam egy baráti társaságot, akikkel együtt tölthettem a napjaimat, együtt jártunk dolgozni, szórakozni.
Van aki még nálam is gyengébb?
Később jöttek olyan kollégák, akik mint kiderült még nálam is szerencsétlenebbek voltak a nyelv szempontjából. Volt, aki hétszer volt felvételizni, a hatodik alkalommal már yes-szel felelt a "You understand me"-ra, csak visszakérdeztek: "What's yor name?". Sebaj, hetedszerre sikerült. Ez az ember egyébként évekig maradt Angliában.
Elég volt.
Amikor a családomtól távol töltöttem a karácsonyt úgy döntöttem elég és vettem egy repülőjegyet Pozsonyba. Alighanem örökre magam mögött hagytam az országot, de ki tudja, talán egyszer visszatérek oda.
A királyságban töltött három hónap alatt sikerült annyira megtanulni angolul, hogy eladni már nem tudtak volna, de ez természetesen kevés lett volna az önálló élethez.
Tehát?
Hogy a cikk címében feltett kérdésre válaszojak, igen, Angliában lehet nyelvtudás nélkül dolgozni.
#kulfoldimunka #anglia #nyelvtudasnelkul
@nOrber
