Thursday, March 15, 2007

Very belated 7

I am very, very late to this one. I know. I just haven’t had the 48 h a day that I would need to just get through half of all the things I want/have to do these days. Anyway, here it goes, the 7x7:

7 things to do before I die:

1. Realize at least one of my dreams

2. Learn to master French – two years in high school clearly wasn’t enough, but it is such a beautiful language so I really want to give it another go

3. Visit Australia

4. Carry out at least one research project where the result(s) benefit diseased people – preferably diabetics, but others will do too :-)

5. Have kids

6. Experience at least 1 day as a non-diabetic once again

7. Meet as many fellow D-bloggers as possible in person :-)

7 things I CANNOT do:

1. I cannot help being a perfectionist in many aspects of live, including D!

2. Go to work by car when it rains because I don’t have a car, only a bike

3. Avoid being curious and wanting to expand my knowledge

4. Safe the world - but if I can change it just a little bit to the better, if only for a few people, through my work in research, I will be satisfied with that

5. Get my sugars right when swimming or playing soccer (games only, practice is usually not a problem)

6. Go to sleep instantly – especially not if I have had to test during the night!

7. Execute doctors’ (or any other medical personnel for that matter) orders without a bit of scepticism. I just don’t feel like I can always blindly trust that it will work as supposed for me.

7 things that attract me to …. Jimmi:

1. His kindness

2. His sense of humour

3. His honesty

4. Him being so straightforward

5. The BIG child he hosts that usually express itself by him lying on the couch watching cartoons – preferring not to be disturbed, and knowing all the characters in the different cartoons – or reading Jumbo-books (booklets with different comics about the inhabitants of Duckburg), but also when he pretends to be whiny (always in a joking mode, though) when I am leaving or wants him to do something :-)

6. Him being serious and cutting right through when needed

7) His urge to help people, both his immediate family, but also everybody else who have problems (e.g. computer problems, problems with flying ants inside their houses (this is why we are now running a case with the building association that owns our row house – see #6 below), want to learn how to speak/improve their English without having to attend classes to do so – he is continuously working on a website (only Danish-English so far, but his intentions are far wider – and did I mention that he is actually somewhat dyslectic, and thus needs to work even harder with foreign languages?) for people to associate English words with pictures as well as their Danish relatives, both in reading, writing and pronunciation - practical issues at the theatre he is a part of, etc)

7 things I say:

This one will primarily be in Danish (this is also why you may only see funny signs instead of letters in certain words, we have 3 additional letters that are not internationally common), but I will try to translate the best I can :-)

1. Hva’ så? (What’s up?)

2. Så pakker jeg sammen (I will be packing up now – to let Jimmi know that I am finally about to leave work)

3. How much longer? – to whoever is occupying an MS-instrument that I’m next on the list to use, just to know when the instrument will be available and decide whether I need to make an additional instrument booking in order to finish analyses so that I don’t take too much time from the next person on the list

4. Will you put my target in when you are done, and let me know? – in connection to #3, and here target is not associated to desirable BG-values, but a term for the specific metal sample plates that we use for MALDI-MS :-)

5. Jeg skal se, hvad jeg kan gøre (I’ll see what I can do – when new samples with associated analyses and deadlines are pushed to me when my hands are already full from other analyses/when people want to get special information out of their samples, despite not giving me all the information I need to assess whether this information is actually retrievable)

6. Nej, nu må den/de/det lige ta’ sig sammen! (C’mon, please get your act together – said to or about any machine/instrument/person, whose action(s) get on my nerves! Lately this phrase has been used frequently when discussing with Jimmi the issues around his approval for daily allowances, as well as the case we are running with the building association that owns our row house, regarding the rules and responsibilities concerning ants as pests)

7. Det ved jeg ikke… (I don’t know…)

7 Books that I recommend

1. “Sofies verden” (“Sophie’s world”) by Jostein Gaarder – The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder”

2. “Out of the Sun” by Robert Goddard – how insulin is used in the act of a crime

3. “Prey” by Michael Crichton - I’m a great fan of Michael Crichton

4. “Cruel and unusual” by Patricia Cornwell – she is a great crime writer

5. “The Dante Club” by Matthew Pearl

6. “Deception Point” by Dan Brown

7. “Løgnhalsen fra Umbrien” (“The Liar from Umbria”) by the Danish writer Bjarne Reuter – I don’t know if this book has been translated into any other languages, and thus the English title is a just a proposed translation of the Danish one. The book is brilliant, though, so I hope that it is/will be available in other languages for you to read about “the shopkeeper Giuseppe Emanuele Pagamino, who set off from the kingdom of Naples to the bishop’s dominance of Lucca to find the recipe of eternal life, upset the church and incurred the attention of Satan”

7 Movies that I like

1. “Forrest Gump”

2. “De grønne slagtere” (“The green butchers”) – a fabulous Danish comedy

3. “Beverly Hills Cop” – I love Eddie Murphy (except when dubbed on German television - that just sounds awful!)

4. “Drømmen” (“The Dream”) – another great Danish movie

5. “Ice Age 2” – I am still into animated films, and I love Scrat :-)

6. “The Lord of the Rings” – all three movies, need I say more?

7. “Philadelphia” – another great performance by Tom Hanks

7 People that I tag:

1. If you

2. haven’t

3. done

4. this yet,

5. go ahead

6. and

7. do so! :-)

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Different answers to a single question

I know I have been tagged, and I will do that 7x7 scheme in the nearest future. Right now I need to vent though.

Work has been extremely busy lately. I still have samples to run, data to analyse, reports to do, etc. for 5-6 of the 8 different projects that I’m involved in. Also, I have to take care of all the paper work that has to do with my future Ph.D-employment. One of the things that need to be clarified in connection with this is the health insurance issue. I actually thought that would be easily overcome, but apparently I was wrong!

I was told by my German supervisor-to-be that his personnel department had told him that I need to get a German health insurance, so he advised me to look into that. I thought that I would be able to do with either a small expansion of my current general insurance, or by the coverage offered by the Danish Health Insurance, and if that was the case I saw no need to get involved with a German insurance company. So I started out searching the web-pages of my general insurance company for more information on insurance questions when travelling and working abroad. I talked to the relevant department and was told that of course I could underwrite an additional “youth travelling insurance” to cover all cost of medical assistance and transportation, but I should also consider the possibilities of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), which I could get from the municipality of Odense.

Thus, I contacted the relevant department of the municipality of Odense, and after having my call diverted a couple of times, I finally got hold of someone who knew about this EHIC. She told me that I would need to contact the Danish Health Insurance Department (DHID) as I might have to fill out a form before I could get the card. I got the number for DHID, and got to talk to a very nice guy, who informed me that since my working destination would be Germany, the EHIC would not do, I would indeed have to get a German health insurance. Great! At least he recommended a German health insurance company to me, and told me to , and request a specific form. I looked up the recommended insurance company on the Internet. Their webpage was rather confusing, and only in German (I do know German, but it has just been so many years since I have used it that it takes a longer time for me to scan information when only provided in German). I couldn’t really find what I was looking for, so I decided that I might as well contact them. I found the contact information, hoping that it would hold an e-mail address, so that I could just write a mail. There was indeed a link for e-mail contact, however it turned out to be a specific e-mail form where you had to fill in a bunch of information and only had very little room to actually write your question. The funny thing was that among the required information were address, postal code, and area. I just keyed in my Danish ones, but those were not accepted. The major problem seemed to be the postal code. Danish postal codes are 4-digits, whereas German ones are 5-digits, so of course this form wouldn’t accept my Danish postal code! I ended up keying in my Danish address, the German postal code for my workplace-to-be, and just “Denmark” as the area. Finally it was accepted, and I was informed that my request would be answered within 24 hours.

This afternoon I received the answer from the German health insurance company:

Dear Mrs. Rosenqvist,

thanks that you`re intrested in a AOK insurance.

If you`ll work in germany, you need the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). You`ll get this Card at your Helth Insurance Company in Denmark.

This Card is all you need to go to the doktor in Germany.

If there are any questions, please call me or send a mail.”

Now, I have spoken to a lot of different people the last couple of days, and I still cannot get a straight answer! According to the German health insurance company I do not need other than the EHIC! As soon as I had read this message, I called the DHID, but of course their opening hours had ended for the day, so I will have to wait until tomorrow.

Who should I trust, when they keep giving me different answers??!!!

As a more happy side note, Fido was back for a sleep-over this past weekend, and despite the fact that she had her dog basket along with her to sleep in, this time she preferred to sleep in the soft blankets on our couch :-)

Sweet isn't she? :-)