How I Became a Little Mix Fan - Although I Hate Little Mix

I remember the day very well: The X Factor final at Wembley in 2012. I was but the last person from my circle of friends who actually still watched and even I had missed the majority of the live shows. How Little Mix ended up in the final though was a mystery to me. They were four randomly chosen chicks that shouted into a microphone. Fulfilling the formula of a group with ethnicities ranging from the blonde chick to the black chick, Little Mix had only made it that far because people sorta wanted a group to win. In the final they were facing a seriously talented guy called Marcus Canty. Well, he lost, nobody ever heard of him again and Little Mix are now Little Mix.

I watched their progression with awe. Sometimes you have artists with so much talent to be on stage you see them as background singers and know they will just make it to the front one day. Many people can sing, many can dance, many look great. But that certain something you can't teach. In fact, talent then is secondary. Having said that, all four members of Little Mix don't have it. They can sing, they can dance and they're very good-looking. But after years in the business, if Little Mix disappeared tomorrow, you could cast four talented chicks in their role and hardly anyone would notice they're even gone at all.

The reason I never bought Little Mix was the apparent dependency on a great set of producers. Damn, their tunes are catchy! Most Little Mix songs make me want to kill myself but shit, I can't stop singing them. It's the perfect music to clean. If I was trying to get a crowd in a good mood, I'd for sure play that crap. So basically, I'm a huge Little Mix fan. Little Mix just has almost nothing to do with these four chicks. They seem awesome enough, lots of attention on their music obviously came from their high profile relationships, but whether Little Mix sing "Touch" or one of the other dozens, makes no difference to me. I enjoyed their dancing in the video, they're very hot mommas, and I like when girl groups dress as "slutty" as they want but have an empowering message because you can be both an independent woman and a scarcely dressed girl with way too much make up if that's what you like being. For that message I'm thankful but again, was that Little Mix or a good stylist, writer or producer? Probably the latter.

I would never want to take away from Little Mix' success and despite me spending 30 mins writing about this now, I really don't care. But I think I found a silver lining anyways: an artist is never just the artist. Like I love Michael Jackson, he's the greatest and everyone agrees. While he had "it", I'm pretty sure he didn't design all of his outfits, the "Earth Song" video wasn't written by him and that nose he didn't construct himself either. All these things combined made Michael Jackson, the artist, though. And people loved it. Now Jesy, LeAnn, Perrie and Jade might have less "it" than the big ones, but their act works. I can't wait to listen to "Power" again and return to the UK and live by that. So much more that a song, it's just the fucking truth and songs like that are important. So thank you, Little Mix, whatever that means, for existing...

Chaos or Order - What's Better?

While I was sunbathing on the beach in Egypt, a lady next to me was blasting the German radio. At the time, the traffic info was announcing that somewhere in the particularly organized country a ladder was lying on the Autobahn and urging drivers to be careful. Sitting in Egypt, I couldn't help but smirk: the amount of times some shit lies on the biggest street in Cairo, or the street just ending without warning, is untraceable. A similar smirk happened when I saw that someone tried to put up a trash can on Dahab corniche. Like, a trash can is a great idea but it needs the process of emptying as well. And that's how I got to my thought: Process: good or bad? I'm arguably the best person to comment. I lived and worked in utter chaos and now belong to a company that finds a process for "making mistakes", in other words, a process that can never exist. So what is better, letting the ladder lie on the Ring Road or stressing over how it can never happen again, only it will?

Spoiler alert: I definitely prefer process. Order. Rules. At least when comparing them to the chaos of Egypt that made me, the German German, cringe so much. But: Egypt definitely left its traces. Working at Amazon, a place that can only survive as well as it does because those thousands of people are processed like it's goods, I often think "yo, let's get on with it." At the same time, I'm not sure just chilling out once in a while is the better way and I'm not ignorant enough to think that I would manage a situation better than a tech giant that very visibly did something right to become, well, Amazon. But it annoys me. And it's not like me. My performance suffered sometimes because I wasn't keeping a note diary, so I started doing that, or because I wasn't scheduling my day at 8.30 (I'm not doing that, but I probably should). It's a personal challenge rather than a professional one but that's cool, I think. Makes me reassess what I'm doing, and a job should do that.

Many things in Egypt don't work because they're not managed or corrupted. At the same time, I know dozens of people that love that about Egypt. Many Germans, raped by bureaucracy to get everything you need in life, like they can bribe their way out of situations because it's unarguably easier. They like that in Egypt you can do things and then think, and that you don't have to plan every step. It's true, flexibility is great, even Jeff B. would agree. But with flexibility comes chaos. A city council is where dreams and passion go to die, but they put them trash cans in the street and empty them. Without those dark creatures in the concrete buildings, we'd have no trash cans. No process, no trash cans. And trash cans are good 

I like flexible working times, that I can go home early sometimes because I worked five hours longer last week (although I leave early, like, never) but in Egypt, "flexible" just meant I was working at ten at night every other Saturday. In the UK, process, the law and my bureaucratic right as an employee made sure I'm sitting here at the beach relaxing although I procrastinate taking holidays. These processes and rules make it easy for me to check if I'm doing ok although I hate checklists with a passion. However, just having an apathy towards something, as I do, doesn't mean it sucks. Take the biggest party in Germany, for example: I detest them and would never vote for them due to my personal apathy but they quite obviously don't actually suck. Evidence? The German state. Point made!

I see the chaos in Egypt and although it has left its mark on me, I will never miss it. I love my order and the processes I work with every day. Most of them don't come naturally to me but I see their value. Many of them make me roll my eyes and I struggle to see, as an individual, where they will actually lead to change but I'd rather see ten useless processes than the chaos I saw only this week. I'm not kidding, last night at dinner, my company was discussing the right spelling of the word "Maalesh" (or, is that how you could spell it?), a word used by me every day at least five times. Mindboggingly, there is no right spelling because, guess what, centralizing spelling is a process that has never taken place in Egypt. Between what is right and what is wrong, chaos leaves too much room for interpretation. But some things shouldn't be left to interpret. 

For me to prefer order obviously doesn't mean it is the better way, yet, it has proven the more successful one. Apply the management of the Egyptian state to any company and you will see it fail. If Donald Trump can manage the only superpower on this planet like a multi-million-dollar company, then we should probably refrain from reversing that motion when the blueprint is a country with 90 million people completely unaware how to show up somewhere at two oclock if that's when they said they'd be there. Being late is not a problem for many but when has a person who is always late ever been promoted. Even Beyonce has to be on time, as the Super Bowl Halftime Show certainly won't wait even for a Queen. So don't be like Egypt, don't be chaotic and unreliable. Or do, but please don't work with me then. 

"This blog sucks": Writing about "Writer's Block"

When Richard left, he gave me a book. My first week at the job I had asked him what his favorite book was and he had told me it's 'Vile Bodies' by Evelyn Waughn. Richard trying to be an enigma, I thought I'd read Evelyn Waughn. Really, I just wanted to know if Richard was smart at all; an assumption easily made after reading one's favorite book. But I never did. Now that Richard gave me that book, a book that smart people would read, I rediscovered that things can be said, or said beautifully. In our job, we express ourselves in tiny stories. In a way, not much individual expression takes place. Reading Evelyn Waughn on my holiday, this much needed time away from a very numbing last few months in terms of real passion for the words, I now see my writing and expression has taken a beating. But it's not the tiny story that killed it; it's the inevitability of losing the words when feelings are bottled up. And that's pretty much all I've been doing...

I recently mentioned my blog a few times. My team at work said they had read it and two of my friends were looking for clues about my life in that messy writing. While I heard I was read, I didn't feel good. Whatever I've been saying is not profound or helpful or even entertaining to anyone but it helped me make things clear to myself sometimes. If I write for myself, I can also fool myself. But not if its public. Hence, in these relatively emotional times, it's been hard to pen truths because I really can't say anything at all. My emotions are influenced by other people's miseries or lives, I have no right to discuss that. So in this moment, sitting on a train on the way to say goodbye to my best friend in London, then onto a plane to take me to Egypt, there's a plethora of emotional material. But my mind is empty. I have no words. It shouldn't be like that...

The things that have occupied my thoughts have no cure than to get away from here for a bit. As discussed, I have given my feelings absolutely no time to exist. Since August, I have drowned myself in work so a certain amount of thinking didn't have to be done. I have avoided decisions and I have procrastinated change. As a result, the words simply don't come. Beauty, misery, heartache, that's the fuel for words, not routine and comfort. I didn't want to let go of this blissful feeling I had since coming to Cambridge because of my job, my life, my relationships. There were many, many sources of happiness for me in the past year and only a few sources of confusion or sadness. I didn't give them space, and now they're demanding space.

Many people have told me they're simple people, that what I see is what I get, and I don't understand how and why they think that being "simple" is a quality. I am definitely not part of their club, neither do I try to be, I think that's fairly obvious. But there's also no way that other people are just sufficiently different from me and can just accept things that are affecting lives without experiencing emotional repercussions. Maybe I'm wrong. A friend once told me he started working with the homeless so he could "feel anything" because he wasn't even feeling empathy anymore. So really, being simple doesn't mean normal, it means apathetic. My two favorite people to leave the country within a week is forcing a reaction. I can push it away like I have, but to step away, go to a beach all alone, and take two weeks to think about it, apathy will be the last thing I feel. I'm excited about it because said reaction might bring the hunger for action back, for grabbing a pen and paper and writing stuff up. The last thing I would even want to be is apathetic. If I am, creativity dies. 

The space I need to consult these losses and, really, the past few months, can't be made at home. Lord knows, what I really want to do is stay in my room, sleep for two weeks and do anything but work. Truth is, all I would be doing is watch movies with my Spaniards, drink gin and tonic and eat crap because I'm too lazy to cook. Routines are toxic if you want to make a change. My change is coming: I need to ban a few people from the heart because they left or should be leaving, have to identify something else to keep me entertained but that somewhat reckless behavior I sometimes show and, finally, have to answer a few procrastinated questions. Well, I don't have to do any of that but it's a good idea and I'd like to be smart. Lord knows I haven't been... No harm done, but it needs to stop. Mamma needs to get some distance and reevaluate. As comfortable as it would be, home isn't the most fertile ground for original thought.

My writing has definitely suffered. Okay, before I was a mess and often unhappy but even sadness is fodder for the words. What needs to come back is not the talent or ability to write but the willingness to allow those feelings. Sure, most of my writing was ranting, but once in a while my insane thinking produced wisdom and made my life easier in the process. Today, I'm too busy to think. I try not to because the only rational conclusion to be made of my decisions in the last few months would be that I'm stupid. That doesn't feel good to realize. But that would be writing that means something. That would be a message. And learning could happen as a result. This "sticking to what I know works" is running away from the potential for growth. If I stay in my hood, don't consider change or the possibility that my directions could be wrong, I won't move. And moving is what I ultimately need to do if I want my writing, my thoughts to come back. This can't happen at home. And so I go to Egypt, a place that has done this for me, in pursuit to come back with the answer; the answer to how not to get stuck, break free from bad habits and let originality back into a life that has changed drastically from a month ago.

Emotions in Sinas World: Have I Actually Become English?

Here they come, my first words of 2018. Of course, I write for a living, already wrote dozens of tiny stories for my job, but there I'm a robot, here I am me. Or whats left of me. Sina, the writer, has taken a beating. This blog used to reflect my every thought, all the small things I was feeling. Today, I have too many secrets I can't address in a blog or developed an apathy to most things that made me feel things. One year in England and I have stopped feeling, great! Sort of. By the end of 2017, I didn't even feel sad about bad things happening anymore. This week, I had to say a very hard goodbye and yet, I'm writing this without crying. In fact, I haven't cried about it yet. Or at all since, like, the day I found out he'd be leaving. Have the English actually stained my personality?

I can speak openly about my devastation about my last goodbye because the departed never reads this. One time he did, made fun of me although the post was about him in a way, and then forgot I sometimes do this. At the same time, he would mock me for the expressive way of my feelings because he is the epitome of English: he has no feelings or at least tries his hardest to make himself think that. If he does read one day, he will learn nothing new when seeing that he was my favorite colleague. It's a very well-kept secret...not! Whereas sometimes I have used my writing to express things to people I wasn't comfortable talking about, I'm happy this guy wouldn't be surprised reading this. He might be surprised about my emotional stability over him leaving though but since he's English and doesn't feel and all, nothing makes a difference...

From day one at Amazon, I knew Richard and I would be friends. On day two, approximately, I told him that. Three months later, he finally obliged after a period of pointless resistance. You could say I left no choice but only because I knew I was right. And as of the day he left England for good, he had become pretty important to me even outside the office. But enough about Richard and more about myself: losing an integral part of your life for almost a year would be hard for me even if it wasn't someone I liked as much. In November, a guy from the other side of the office left and I choked up. For two months, I knew Richard would be leaving, and obviously I wasn't happy, just happy for him. It was easier because I supported his plan to leave and was probably more excited about his new opportunity than he was (Richard doesn't get excited in my sense of the word) but I thought I'd die when he leaves. And then he left and I held it together... So not like me! 

This is big news because I cried for a large part of my life. Everything that ever happened to me, good or bad, I cry. I feel ten things at the same time, I reconsider my whole life and I write epic blogs I can't wait to reread when I have decided how to feel about the issues. All this has changed. Sure thing, I miss Richard, but maybe I have just said goodbye too much. I do feel sad, I really do dislike coming to a Richard-free office and I pure hated speaking to him while imagining he's upsdie down to me at the other side of the planet but yo, I'll get over it. I pout and all, but losses have usually cost me weeks of brainpower. Whatever im feeling about the situation isn't even worth a blog; the fact I don't feel it is the story. 

Maybe I'm growing up and stuff doesn't affect me as much anymore. It's one possibility. But maybe I have actually learned from the English. I'm even sitting here drinking tea right now, and when I'm not it's usually a Gin & Tonic. Maybe this bottling-up-business does work, too. Hell, I have probably been doing that for the majority of 2017. What I feel changes on the daily and whenever I think about it, I just dismiss my thoughts. That's very much what I was doing with Richard's departure as well: dismiss. And I still don't really accept it because I'll probably see him soon. All easy, right? No need to think or feel. Everything is awesome! So English, yet so true. I did know this all my life, just implementing was always impossible. Maybe now that "no emotion" is the only emotion I ever get surrounded with, it's finally possible for me to also leave the heart behind and just live...

The part I never got about the English and probably have to change my mind about is that "no emotion" is not a bad emotion. To me, when an English man I saw earlier in 2017 said he doesn't feel, I immediately considered that a bad trait. I thought he'd be cold, not feeling. And when I realized he wasn't cold but a lovely man, sorta, I thought the assessment he didn't feel must be a lie. That isn't true. Suppressing feelings, controlling them, or not acknowledging them does not mean there are no feelings; it's just a way of handling them I for one have never tried. Right now, I am doing that and it's working, about a few things in life. I have some other things on my mind but  the devastating departure of my favorite  colleague and I just don't address them successfully. That ain't me, yo. In fact, I'm amazed I can do it. I doubt I'll ever manage to be cold. But I've only been in England for a year, who knows, next thing I know, I might actually start laughing about their jokes, too. 

One week in New York, a lifetime on the brain

We've all seen the movies: boy and girl walk through Central Park, the snow is glistening while girl wears a cardigan because, you know, Hollywood. That's the fantasy! So we book our tickets, come to NYC, and see Kevin McAllister on one and Rachel and Monica on the other side of the street. Yo, I wouldn't have anything to say right now if that was the truth. This week, I visited New York for the third time, but this time I chose to arrive during a blizzard the international press affectionately called the 'bomb cyclone'... Yay! Make no mistake, it was awesome. The one thing it wasn't was a fulfilled expectation after watching movies and shows. But what it was instead was a deep search into my soul, a cleaning up with the past and an emotional rollercoaster. If you've read this blog before, you won't be surprised...

It's been 12 years since I first stepped foot on New York soil. As a teenager, I had watched Victor Navosky aka Tom Hanks enter the USA via the doors of JFK International in 'The Terminal', imagining myself to do the same thing. Going to the United States was my dream! It was the land of the free, the place with all these people who are outgoing and dramatic like me and a state Germans looked up to since - and before - I was born. It was everybody's dream. Proudly, I posed for a photo in Central Park, an impressive skyscraper called 'Trump Tower' marking the skyline. Today, over a decade and a lifetime of experiences later, I stood in the same place. Of course, we've all changed; we realize we no longer have the same dreams. But more so than myself, the country has changed as well. Or well, it feels like it did, maybe it's me after all...

16-year-old Sina talked to a friend's dad for ten minutes and believed that the incumbent of the oval office in 2005 had a place being there. I still don't hate G. W. Bush, but I obviously hate the guy calling the shots now. The United States as a state, a political entity, is impossible to love. But all I saw this week is what I fell in love with initially: a guy with headphones on the Staten Island Ferry, dancing to whatever was on in his ears, shop attendants telling you their life stories while showing you shoes and every single person at any given shop smiling, saying "stay warm" because there was a blizzard going on outside. Some call it superficial but I couldn't care less; people being nice to me, pretending to care, are making me feel good, even when they're hypocritical Christians that are saying shit to get into heaven. Fine by me, makes my day. Little things go a long way, and for me, these little sentences, gestures, smiles go all the way. They make me want to come back!

There's no reason for me to prefer the US to Europe because Europe simply is the better place. Better health, better education, a better system. Yet, being around Americans this week makes me remember what I had there: being 'one of them'. In the US, I was normal, in Europe, I'm annoying, dramatic or loud. It gets worse living in England where people celebrate the fact they don't express themselves or even eat all their feelings up inside. That's like a quality there. Unfortunately, I don't possess that quality and quite frankly despise it. I like having small talk with a shop clerk. I like random dancers on the subway. I like loud, extravagant, chatty people. In New York, that's at any corner, in England I have to wait until a few Brits get shitfaced. One isn't better than the other, yet I forgot the feeling of being surrounded by people who are sorta like me. One is free to prefer the British way but I don't. Or the Egyptian way. Or the German way, for that matter. When it comes to people, I'm like my accent: American, or something like it...

Now there I was, walking through a blizzard in Brooklyn, remembering my dreams from back in the day. I thought my future was in the US, today I'm not so sure about that. Life in NYC seems rough and nothing like the movies. It's expensive and I know what wages are like, nevermind there's no healthcare and tons of debt for most people. Sure, NYC life isn't like the movies, but neither are British classics Notting Hill or Harry Potter. Both of these lives, the English and the American, were once my life, my vision, the place I saw myself. And now, after nearly 29 years on this planet in all these countries, some good, some very bad, I know for sure that feeling comfortable somewhere matters. And right now, I feel that place is England, but seeing it can also be New York, again, makes me restless once more. This might not be it. Maybe I'll go back one day. And if I do, I'm sure it will feel like coming back here: somewhat like coming "home".

2017: Turns out I'm not ready for "Boring"

I’ve been recapping my years in writing for ten years now. Essentially, this is how my blogging started. At first, I just talked about a year, and I was ridiculously negative so you could say I just ranted. Over the years, the writing, and especially the attitude, got better, and we are now at the end of 2017 and the rhetoric has changed mucho. It’s not just the improved grammar or the fact I realize that nobody really enjoys reading about how much I hate everything; it’s the life that changed. I got a new job and moved to a new country. But, when did I not? Now I don’t sound negative anymore, I sound big headed. But, at the end of this year, all I really see looking back is a year full of things I’d either done before or thought I never would.

Isn’t life amazing sometimes? I try to see this every day. For decades, I dreamed of being the person that could find happiness in the little things. I wanted to stop being the person that complains. I was over being called the drama queen. I truly hoped my whole life would change…again! And then all that happened. Once again, I relocated, found new friends, started a new life and made poor decisions. But this year, all the misery and bullshit that happened didn’t have the effect it had the other years. It never made me unhappy. And after 365 very challenging days, I’m happy, and I don’t know why.

This year, something pretty drastic happened. I always knew I was a pretty tough chick, and that I could do anything, yet I always thought that at least some of that supposed attitude was an attempt to fool myself. When it’s crunch time, I thought, I would fade like all the others. Sometimes things in life happen that most people can’t handle alone; they turn to family, friends, a loved one. Something along this line happened to me this year, and I was proven wrong: I wasn’t lying to myself, I really was tough as nails. Sure, even I want to feel supported or even weak, but it simply wasn’t possible. Nobody could help, so I didn’t ask; I knew I could do it by myself. I learned this lesson quickly and under unlucky circumstances but knowing that even rough challenges didn’t manage to break me feels pretty good.

So, the vast majority of the summer I spent in awe of the challenges I was facing. At no point, I felt bad. At no point, I felt desperate. It was the knowledge from previous years, I believe, that helped me through it because no other year than 2017 taught me more that failures and challenges have a way of just pointing you to the right direction. All these tear-filled nights in 2016 led me to the life I live now, riding my bike to work smiling almost every morning. I have a job I like, I’m surrounded by people I like there, I live in a house with enough love for a whole city and most of my problems are ridiculous. Like, my biggest “problem” is that most of the men I saw this year are mental but hey, it’s not a problem when it seems like I deliberately choose men who are not great… I just choose badly.

I always looked back on failed relationships and what I learned from them. This year, that doesn’t really work. The relationships I had never failed, they’re just… different. And so, I have arrived at the biggest silver lining of my year: there’s more than one way to do something. Relationships are just one example. Conventions, in all aspects of life, are not my forte; in fact, I reject them. I had to challenge some truths I considered unalienable: you must marry around 30, you can only love one person at a time, you belong in a certain country, you would never do certain things (that I did this year). Many, many of the things that shaped my life this year were things I never thought I would do. And for once, since I blog only occasionally, I stayed mum about them; I never had more secrets than now. Voices are loud telling me my decisions are bad, are controversial, are too risky, but I simply don’t regret them. So, my confusion is: are they really wrong then?

Its all great and all, but for 30 years? I doubt it...

Really, the only thing that changed this year, is my job. I started a pretty big shot job and got caught up in the life that comes with it. I live the most normal version of my life I ever have, so the excitement I am apparently addicted to had to come from other places. As a result, I tried to make a reasonably boring life in a small English city an episode of a soap opera. In short: I did a lot of really weird things to excite myself, some of them actions I referenced earlier I didn't even know I had in me. But that's where the learning came in: I just lived a pretty exciting life so far and thought I was tired. I believed, much like everyone else, I was ready for "this": settling down, Monday through Friday routines, a dog, no travel and, like, one man, maybe. Truth is, I'm not ready; and contrary to other years, I'm now considering the possibility I will never be ready.

At this point, I would like to talk about how exciting it was to relocate, to move somewhere new and meet new people, but I’d simply be lying. My head has gotten THAT big, yes. My relocation to England was a desire and I am overly grateful that it happened, but it just did not excite me as much as that would have done years ago. Altogether, this year was definitely the most boring year of my life but -  and here comes the big head again -  I just lived a pretty exciting life. 2017 was when I consciously decided to tone it down a bit, only to find out that it’s not time yet. So now I head into 2018 without a resolution or a plan because if there’s one thing I learned, it’s the knowledge that as long as I’m moving, I’ll get closer to where I need to be. But where that is, I couldn’t care less…