You could have barely missed the fact that I’ve been a community servant now heading towards the mysterious thing called university. Before filing my Zivi (community service abbreviation) experience ad acta, I am providing a list of fiveseveral furious facts in a very FM4 copycat fashion. On today’s (my last day of service) agenda is: Reporting my Zivildienst experience.

Immer mehr Krankenhäuser verbieten “Crocs” – also jene modischen, löchrigen Pantoffeln aus Kunststoff, die in unterschiedlichsten Farben erhältlich sind. Das Schuhwerk soll sich gefährlich elektrostatisch aufladen. by news.ORF.at

Verboten!

As a Red Cross person you spend a lot of time in hospitals. Woot, that must have shocked you. And once you get into some sort of routine in life, you start analysing and certain things start bugging you, first slightly (you don’t really know what’s wrong with that person until you discover the happy-cappy plastic “no they don’t smell at all, wanna try?” shoes on their feet) and after some time you eventually start evangelizing for a ban and whose disobey is put into your personal file just like any other felony.

Let's widen the ban to public places. Hands up! Anyone?

I figuratively jumped in joy (and in fact it was heartwarming) when I heard that croc shoes are not anti-static and thus are not to be used in sensitive areas, like ICUs (intensive care units)… I see it on walls: “Croc’s absolutely verboten” whereas the aphostrophe in Croc’s is a typical mistake in hospital sign printing.

Now, can somebody please scientifically proof that other annoying fashion trends are abolished, too.Please? Anyone?

Plus, why not ban crocs in parks and other public places?

Working in the welfare business (is it a business, anyway?) you come across with stories that are terrifying, scary and make you question why disease and bad luck happen to people causing a lot of pain, unhappiness and confusion in the end. This thought ultimately leads you to the point where you have to ask yourself who is in charge of distributing “fate” and who disposes of us?

Kids smiling. Original Title: Freedom To Smile · photo by DJ Arnel G. on flickr.com

Quests we’ve been sent on by higher power

Lower Austria, the final frontier. Endless. Silent. Waiting. This is the story of the Red Cross KTW X. Its mission: a nine-month-patrol of the “galaxy.” To seek out and contact all alien (sometimes, it seems really alien to urbanized individuals) life or at least the one that is in need for typical Red Cross-ish and “not so medical” (most of the times) help. To explore (rather to help). To travel the vast galaxy, where no man has gone before. A trek to places that have me go “where the heck?!”

Check out the places I have been during my nine-month-patrol.

A Google map embedding that will be constantly updated. I’m still doing some hard hard brain work where I’ve been already, but this should cover most of it.

Witty bits of wisdom come in all kinds of faces (that’s my bit of wisdom for today). And xkcd.com’s comic (I already showed their way of interpreting Valentine hearts, remember?) somehow has this word wit and is hilarity-packed. The two topics depicted below are so true! Techno basically sucks (and so do Krocha kids). Second comes a GPS (Global Positioning System – not GPRS, man,…) that tries to fool you into going the wrong direction and then suddenly changing its (I took its since people would have complained if i said “her”, however, our announcment voice, can’t fight facts – right?, is female) mind.

Obviously, starting a blog post to encourage the broad readership of today’s hip blogs is the newest things on the block, so here I am, going for it!

Ask a question – and by that I really mean any question – you always wanted to have answered by me (and not Einstein, so please spare me the scientific explanation kind of Qs) and I will do my best to find a proper answer for it.

Well, here is a little something people would call an update on what has been going on. Ever since I started the community service time flew by so freaking quickly that it slowly starts scaring me. Read on to catch up a bit.

Sometimes, life can be quite fast. One event is followed by the other leaving only seconds in between to take a break. This is quite the essence of what my life is like at this very moment.

After my host brothers said their good-byes, I was rushed into this whole Red Cross training (for being an ambulance man) and, heck yes, that is intense. Trust me on that one, after 10 hours* of CPR, how to put a band-aid on somebody’s upper arm and hygiene lectures (not to mention the exhausting car wash experiences) I felt the sudden urge of going to bed, resting up and shutting down.