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Where did you beging 2011? In front of some random person’s house somewhere around Tempelhof with friends and fireworks. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? I got another tattoo in a very visible place, went on a Beer Bike, finally did the Teufelsberg excursion and I guess quite a few other things that I don’t remember. I’m not that boring. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions and will you make more for next year? I didn’t have any, like last year, so there was nothing to keep. I won’t make any new ones, either. Were you in school anytime this year? No, I got the results of my Bachelor thesis and my BA degree at some point in spring so I’m done for now. Did anyone close to you give birth? No. Did anyone close to you die? No. What countries did you visit? England in the summer. How did you earn money? I still worked in my retail job in  January and then started my new sales and marketing job in March which is my main source of income. I’m also doing a bit of freelance web design work at the moment. Where did most of your money go? Food & drink, clothes, shoes and to my savings account. Did you have any encounters with the police? A neighbour called the police when we had our Halloween party – they were pretty relaxed, though. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? A free mind and the ability to simply enjoy myself, regardless of external circumstances. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 11.11.11., for obvious reasons. And I’m originally from Cologne so it’s a pretty important date for the carnival, too. What was your biggest achievement of the year? My BA degree and my current job in terms of education and my career, I’ve also been even more independent and learned to say no more often. What was your biggest failure? I’ve had some bad days of course that made me feel like the biggest failure on the planet, not even for any specific reasons. Where did you go on holidays? I spent around two weeks at my parents’ place near Cologne in February to relax and recharge my batteries, I went to London in July to visit friends and now I’m back in the West for Christmas and New Year’s. What was the best thing you bought? My favourite leather jacket, OSX Lion, this perfume, these shoes, and these & various gig and flight tickets. What did you get really, really excited about? I always get excited about going away. Did you move anywhere? Not this year, no. I’ve been living in my flat for 15 months now. Where do you live now? Germany, Berlin, Neukölln. What songs will always remind you of 2011? David Bowie – We Are The Dead, Frank Turner – I Am Disappeared, Solomun – The Way Back. What do you wish you’d done more of? Listening to what I really want and doing things I actually enjoy. What do you wish you’d done less of? Feeling miserable. How did you spend Christmas? Like every year, with my parents, my brother and my grandparents, church, presents, dinner, cookies, sleep. What did you get for Christmas? Bedclothes and sheets, a towel, tea, money and a lot of candy. Where are you spending New Year’s? In Cologne, I guess, or at least in the area. Did you fall in love in 2011? No. How many one-night stands? I don’t kiss and tell. What was your favourite TV program? I don’t have a TV anymore but I’ve watched Tatort religiously. What books did you read? The ones I remember are Tony O’Neill – Sick City and Irvine Welsh – If You Liked School You’ll Love Work. What was your favourite film of this year? I don’t recall watching any new films except for the weekly Tatort. What did you want and get? A new tattoo on my forearm and a new job. What did you want and not get? Satisfaction. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you? I turned 22 this year and I went out with friends the night before for a drink, had cake in the office and a quiet night at home with a nice dinner. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011? Lots of black, as always, fringe leather jackets, high wedge heels, sheer blouses, tights, dark makeup and straight hair. It’s not exactly a concept, though. What kept you sane? Working. What concerts and shows did you go to? Over 30 in total, the best ones being Frank Turner @ White Trash, Patrick Wolf @ Lido, Deichkind @ Bread & Butter and Primal Scream @ Berlin Festival. What political issues stirred you the most? The Berlin elections in September. What has been your favourite moment? This is hard, I don’t think I’ve had one favourite moment – maybe the moments that I actually felt good and when I made plans and got excited about them. Favourite night out? There have been some good ones, no doubt. Tell us a valuable life lesson your learned in 2011. Don’t get involved too much, sometimes it’s better to keep quiet and don’t say anything. Don’t trust anyone, life is weird sometimes and takes even weirder turns. What’s something you learned about yourself? I ultimately learned it doesn’t matter where I am, I will always be myself and this shouldn’t upset me too much, in the end it’s ok and it won’t help to run away. What lyrics sum up your year of 2011? “She woke up screaming in the middle of the night, terrified of her own insides, dreams of pirate ships and Patty Hearst breaking through a life over rehearsed, she can’t remember which came first, the house, the home or the terrible thirst, she keeps having dreams. And on the worst days when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tonnes, she’s got her cowboy boots and car keys on the bed stand so she can always run.”

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Life is easy, I eat leftover Christmas cookies and healthy homemade dinners, play silly computer games, watch series, show my brother things on the internet and work on commission websites (I’ve missed coding websites so much and it makes me feel nerdier than ever). There’s a TV in this room which doesn’t work properly, it’s one of these modern mini TV sets, half the size of my computer screen which is tiny considering I’m only on a thirteen-inch laptop. I zapped from one channel to the other, the usual nightly crap that noone cares about, some random German comedy in between and one or two public channels with theatre documentaries too intellectual for my wrecked post-Christmas brain. I used to make fun of people who didn’t watch TV and seemed to pretend they didn’t miss it but now I know exactly what they mean. I just couldn’t care less.

I read and listen to music, sleep until noon, stay in bed, watch the rain outside, have baths & afternoon naps, get lost in my thoughts, make plans for when I get back to Berlin and walk through the cold and wet city wondering whether I grew, the buildings shrank or my perception of cities simply changed so drastically over the years.

The entire fridge in my guest house is stocked with this stuff so all I drink at the moment is coke made in Cologne. My family seems to love it and I’m not sure, I don’t know if I should feel patriotic about it. But it tastes alright and seems like a good alternative to all the Club Mate I usually drink.

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Christmas is over, presents are exchanged, all food is eaten, most of the cookies are gone. And I’m so glad I still have a week left here which I am going to spend sleeping and being productive. When I’m here I usually stay up until around 6am which massively fucks up my sleeping pattern but for some reason I never get to sleep earlier. The fridge is full of weird fizzy drinks, all these bottles of liquids by fancy brands and in the evening I’m sitting in the living room in my pyjamas, stuffing myself with a box of Ferrero Rondnoirs, helping helping my brother with his website and playing around with mine, installing a new archive for instance and then going back to reading gossip communities on Livejournal. And this is the soundtrack:

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Oh the luxury problems we have these days. The internet is so huge we can’t grasp it and everyday we’re flooded with inspiration that inspires us to do what? Well, nothing most of the time. Still we hold on to it, collect it, share it until we get to a point where it all becomes too much. I tidied up my computer the other day and what I found there was insane: countless folders with images and text files, inspirations and loads of snippets, bookmarks and everything else I saved because I thought I’d be able to use it later. Of course I didn’t, it just kept piling up and I forgot about it. It’s too much, it’s just too much.

So I started using Evernote, a “virtual memory”, mainly because I love shiny, free apps for my Mac, but also to keep track of all the things I save and collect. All “inspiration” goes straight on Tumblr – photos, quotes, texts and music. Real content goes on this blog, I sometimes use Twitter for random blurbs and if it’s personal or location-based, I put it on Facebook. And if I ever get beyond my apprentice status on Quote.fm I will probably use that for reading recommendations. Wow.

I sometimes feel like simply deleting all of my profiles, stop reading blogs that re-post images & other things and, I don’t know, only read books instead. Escape the overload of inspiration that only clutters our lives instead of actually inspiring us to do things. On the other hand, even if we don’t actually do more, it makes us feel good. It makes us feel better about ourselves and less alone. I guess it’s become such a big part of my online life that I just keep going and ignore the ridiculous fact that in addition to the complex system of sharing things online I now need to come up with another complex system to organise what, how and where I share. So I will give in to my nagging fear of clutter which – according to my friends – has already turned my room into the perfect replication of a mental ward and will either make me go ascetic or insane one day. But I don’t care and I don’t complain. I just need a fucking break.

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About five or six years ago my life was all about music. It was all I cared about, music and gigs. We would travel all over the country to see our favourite bands, sleep at train stations, collect club stamps on our wrists & bruises on our knees and spend all our money. It was what made my life exciting, while going to school, waiting for my graduation so I could finally move away and live my own life. Looking back, I was very lucky to be able to graduate from school at the age of seventeen, it gave me the chance to be independent a lot earlier and it saved me from the incredible boredom and frustration. I couldn’t have lasted another year in this town, with the same old faces and routines, and while I still had to, I used the music, the gigs and the excitement to get out of it as much as possible.

I was never hopelessly fanatic or a groupie, more a genuine fan who loved the music, the experience of live music and everything that had to do with it. I was a lot more naive at first, no doubt – it’s like that idea of sex, drugs and rock’n'roll, which you find fascinating at first, then you believe you’re oh so mature to realise it’s only a myth only to later find out that well, there clearly is something about it. I mean of course there is, everyone likes being invincible, a good fuck and the hazy state of intoxication.

Back in the days we always knew what band was in town and of course we would go see them. It made me feel alive, the excitement before the gig starts, the energy of the crowd and the songs. It makes you feel like you’re part of something, things just come together, eventually you end up hanging out with your favourite band, talking about life and sharing drinks and taxis. And suddenly you sit there on some shabby couch in a club at the other end of the country, sipping jägerbombs, discussing the most random things and you’re like, wow, these are the guys I’ve looked up to for so long, whose songs I know by heart, and tonight we’re all just normal people, they’re just very normal people. Well, of course they are.

I’ve become pretty disillusioned over the years when it comes to the whole concept of “fame”. It just doesn’t impress me. I respect people who have done or created something great and I still get excited if I see one of my early-teen heroes in a club or listen to an amazing song that means a lot to me. But that’s about it. It’s great to do something that you love and be good at it but let’s be honest, if you didn’t do it, someone else would. It’s true, when it comes down to it, noone cares whether you’re David Bowie or the milkman, you’re either cool or you’re not. I’m older now, I still go to gigs every once in a while, I’ve seen more, done more and still I sometimes miss the naive excitement of the whole thing, the spirit of it and all the fun we had.

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December 17, Saturday night and I’m staying in for a change, drinking hot chocolate in bed, watching videos, unable to sleep. One more week and I literally can’t wait to get on my flight and get out of the city, sleep in everyday, eat the most amazing food, sit in front of the fireplace, read, write, listen to music, go for walks and be in the city that now feels far away and still so very familiar. I need to recharge my batteries so badly. In the meantime, I put together another mixtape of songs I listen to at the moment, some dark, distorted and calm, yet pretty energetic tunes.

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So I turned twenty-two yesterday, it’s that time of the year again and I realised I’m not a birthday person at all. I jut can’t help it. I don’t like the attention, I don’t like the pressure to do something special, and it makes me feel like an arsehole because I look like I just don’t appreciate the fact that people think of me on that day and wish me a happy birthday.

But my birthday is still something I remember every year and it makes me realise how much and how little things change. Last year I still worked in retail and had just moved into the our Neukölln flat, I took the day off and got my nose pierced as a surprise present from my friends, ended up at my own a surprise house party, went out to a club and had a small breakdown over the fact that the year that had passed was pretty shit. The year before that I went out for dinner in Berlin, I still lived in Cologne and I decided to not stay with friends for a change but in a hostel on my own, at midnight the waiter brought a chocolate cake and I cried myself to sleep because you know, I just don’t like birthdays. In 2008 I was still a uni student and I celebrated in a club in Cologne I frequented at that time, got presents from friends & free shots from the bar and walked home in the morning. I turned 18 the year before somewhere on the motorway between Cologne and Berlin, we bought champagne at the gas station and the random strangers we were sharing a car with sang Happy Birthday for me.

This year I went out for a drink with friends and went to bed early, I bought cake for the office, made myself some nice dinner and watched random videos in my bed. It’s alright, I don’t mind getting old.