I was born and raised in Potsdam. I have another younger brother,

he was only smaller for a while.  We used to be like dog and cat, although I

today can't say who was what, or more often ;)

My parents have separated with the turn and I have moved with my mom. Due to the

move and the resulting change of school in the middle in the middle of the year,

elementary school was really a disaster for me. The class teacher was an imposition,

I found no friends in the class, but had good grades.

Certainly a little influenced by my mom, she was at that time as a plant connoisseur

and biotope cartographer, I even wanted to become a scientist.

But of course I wanted to be a marine scientist. Because I always liked water. Further

other career aspirations at that time were princess, librarian and millionaire. Princess

by the way, still holds up today ;)

During the summer vacation I really enjoyed being at the summer camp. Sometimes I was only at home to do the laundry.

 

After I had finished elementary school, in the truest sense of the word, I had to change schools again. This time just in time for "enrollment", which helped my social behavior a lot, but my grades rather less...

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At the age of 13 I started to dance. On the advice of my mom: "if you get married someday and then can't dance, that's really embarrassing". So I went to training. Standard and Latin. Waltz, tango, cha-cha and quickstep. But as is usually the case, boys had, and many still have, no desire to dance. So an ambitious dance partner was out of the question. 

At about the same time, my uncle had built himself an ultra-light airplane. He also fell down with it, but that didn't stop me from flying with him a few times. Besides, there was always something going on at the airfield. And when there was a tandem parachute jump, I could not be held back. In spite of busy newspaper delivery, I didn't have the money for it, of course. 300,00 DM were really a lot. I called ALL my relatives and asked them if they wouldn't like to contribute a little bit. And then I jumped out of the plane. What a feeling! 

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When it came to the topic of education, a trip to the career information center was obligatory. Here we all sat at computers and clicked through the questionnaires. Would we like to work with people or do heavy labor?  The classic back then.

My results: hairdresser, beautician or hotel manageress. There was no way to tick that you would like to be a princess or something else great.

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In the end, I decided to train as a hotel manageress. I saw this as the only way for me to get out of Germany. At the age of 12, I had already decided that I didn't want to stay in Germany. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the old elementary school days and, on the other hand, the child support fund had decided at about this time to stop paying child support, which put even more strain on our family budget, which was always tight anyway. So was I supposed to work out my own support at the age of 12?

I just always wanted to get away.

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But I wasn't quite as brave as I would have liked to be.  So, at the age of 17, I went to Austria to complete my education in a German-speaking country.

Away from home, alone for the first time. I couldn't stand it for longer than a year. So I went back to Germany. I finished my education in Caputh near Potsdam.

With the certificate as a skilled worker in my pocket, I then went to AirBerlin. Now grown up and already 20 years old, I wanted to see the world. (Yes, I know, AirBerlin only flew to Europe at that time, but it was enough for the time being).

After 6 weeks of crash course I was cabin assistant, juice waitress, child entertainer, nurse, cleaning lady, hand holder, market screamer, galley mouse, lifeguard, make-up doll and security officer... for exactly half a year. Then I had had enough.

But I had seen Europe! ...at least from above... and a few airports.

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Other jobs in different German cities came and went and I always had the feeling that something was still missing. I settled down for a while in Bonn. As a car rental agent, I pushed the keys over the counter for the orange provider for several years. Here I also met Gabriel's future father. He was a student, I was a car rental agent, we struggled from month to month and suddenly became parents. Gabriel kept us busy but not my inner restlessness away. Three years of parental leave? No way. After just one year, I started thinking about how to get a daycare in the "West." No, it's not easy...

Short version: I transferred from Bonn to Berlin, moved back to Potsdam and went back to work.

 

During this time, I also made a decision that was to change quite a bit in my life. Between being a mom, commuting from Potsdam to Adlershof (in the east of Berlin) and a long-distance relationship with Gabriel's dad in Bonn, who was still studying, I thought about what would happen to Gabriel and me if his dad and mom didn't like each other anymore. Was nevertheless the money, which I got at that time from the orange ones more than miserable. From 1T € in the month rent, car, food etc. should be paid. And little Gabriel also wanted an ice cream. So there had to be a solution.

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The solution was: I went to university!

12 years after I had left the school, 10 years already working and without graduation I enrolled for economics at the  Freie Universität in Berlin.

Just in time for my university enrollment, I also separated from Gabriel's dad. There I stood now. Single parent, student, hopelessly overwhelmed with this university stuff, plus two part-time jobs so that I could finance Gabriel and myself and I didn't know what to do.

Of course, the classes didn't follow to the daycare opening hours, the professors were mostly stressed, the lecturers were all the more relaxed, the essays had too many pages, the exams were too difficult, the time to study too short, the food in the cafeteria was just so-so , Gabriel got bigger and bigger, I started my first self-employment as a fitness trainer, Gabriel started school, I got a job as a television presenter, got to know Denny, had my first live moderation in Berlin and commuted again.

This time not because of work, but out of love <3

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After a little more than the standard study period of 6 semesters, both I and the university were happy that I had my bachelor's degree in my pocket. I just think my math tutor was sad because I had guaranteed the education for all of his 5 children during my studies.

Now that I write these things down, I think that the time must have been exhausting. In retrospect, even today I don't know how it all worked out. But it did! And a large part to the working contributed my Mama. For example, she looked after little Gabriel during the exam period and provided me with food.

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The next move was already imminent. This time Gabriel and me. Together to Denny in Braunschweig. I found a great job here and Gabriel was already in the second grade. But after a year Gabriel decided to move back to Potsdam. He missed his friends too much.

And not quite a year later, Denny received the offer to go to China for three years.

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Now we are here.

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