It’s so hard to think about happy things right now with the news being what it is. Just last night I fell into the doom scrolling hole and of course went to bed too late again. Maybe I should start a rule no news and social media after dinner? I definitely should.
Inspired by Elisabeth and San I am going to try to think about the happy things in my little life this week even if the world seems to be falling apart:
We celebrated a friends birthday with a tea party at another friends house. I got to catch up with a lot of women I have not seen in a long time. We had a little sharing circle and the resounding plan for 2026 to look for more in person connection. I think it’s an excellent plan. My contribution to the event were some flower decorations (thanks to our backyard and Trader Joes).
I organized tickets to go to the Art of Manga exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. My daughter loves drawing and since it was about Manga even my son agreed to come along. It was really cool and got me more interested in checking out books by some of the artists especially Land by Kazumi Yamashita, Mao as well as the Mermaid Saga by Rumiko Takahashi or a book about Steve Jobs by Mari Yamazaki.
I got to meet with my fiber arts buddies on Monday via Zoom. We started this sometime last year and it’s nice to have some company while working on projects and chat about it. I met both of them through my German online book club and it has been a lot of fun.
The students are back! It was a long winter break here on the Berkeley campus and this week the students are finally back. The undergrads make the whole campus come to life and our lab gets busier again.
My daughter had her interview for an exchange program with our sister city in Japan. It’s competitive so even if she does not get to go in the end, getting to the interview stage was already great. I keep my fingers crossed for her and we should find out by mid February.
What was a good thing during your week?
Are you interested in hearing more about any of these highlights?
Home here and there 
So nice to see you blog more often, Meike! I know times are hard right now but I am so glad to hear that there were some highlights during this week!
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Thanks San! I am glad to be back.
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I love hearing about what is going on.
Your tea party sounds lovely and in person connections are so good. I have very few friends in real life and feel often more connected to my online friends. Is that weird. Nevertheless I cherish the ones I do meet and who have time to meet. Your flowers are great and your backyard must be amazing.
Fingers crossed your daughter will be able to go to Japan. My husband is volunteringly learning Japanese for the past two years and I hope one day we will be able to visit.
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I don’t think it is weird at all. My weekly fiber arts meeting became really important to me and so did the women in it – that is online, too. I think we feel similar about that.
I hope you get to travel to Japan. There is nothing better than putting a learned language to good use and I heard it’s beautiful. If we would not travel to Germany every year I think it would be on our list
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I had the week off from work and the absolute JOY of being able to sleep in (the alarm was set for 7am instead of 5:30am) was AMAZING. Yay!
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7am still sounds early to me.m My alarm goes off at 6:30am but if you would let me I would set it at 10am and take the night shift. What I do agree with is the awesome feeling to be able to sleep in!
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Gorgeous flowers!
I would love to hear all about the Japanese exchange program. What a great opportunity, and congrats to your daughter on getting an interview. I hope she gets a spot!
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I am rooting for her. It sounds intense but I am sure she would get a lot from it.
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