There’s a fine line between courting someone and harassment. — Springtime in Berlin “Hey, how are you doing?” I looked up from my phone and saw a man who I did not know. From his stance, I could see he was trying to make an advance. I applaud his bravery, as rejection always lurks around the corner. “What are you doing?” he asked…

Don’t postpone that dream or idea for sometime in the future. — I was twenty. The median age was seventeen. Many of the dancers were even younger. I had wanted to explore this sport much earlier, but I was afraid of sucking through the initial stage of picking up a new hobby. At twenty, a classmate from one of my project groups…

Writer, spreadsheet & tooling nerd, amateur filmmaker, personal development junkie (aren’t we all), language lover, introvert. — My name is Gracia Kleijnen, and I came here to write *aggressively chugs down a cup of coffee and slams it on the table while placing fingers back on the home row*. Professionally, I work in copywriting. That implies I write a lot. …

Eliminate pondering whether “you should give it a chance” — “I wanted to drop by when I saw you here last week. My name’s Brad*.” Once a week, I take my language homework to a local cafe to enjoy an overpriced coffee. Little did I know someone was observing me. When I went for a coffee refill, he made his…

The method is straightforward — Seeking love at first swipe When you seek love on dating apps, you hope to find it at first swipe. That’s the dream of some, the modern-day fairytale. What you find varies. Some find their needle in the haystack. Others keep trying, yet fall into the same traps, or walk into them with open eyes…

After living in Germany for 8+ years, it’s time — Last year, I tried passing the Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom (GDS). I passed only one out of 4 modules. In short: I flat-out failed. This is unacceptable. Someone who lives abroad permanently and by choice should master the language of their host country. Out of respect To ease the…

Lights, camera… crickets? — Sending in a 1-minute video pitch for a job is your chance to stand out. It can be scary, especially when you’re used to traditional (vanilla) cover letters. A 2021 LinkedIn survey revealed video is becoming more widely adopted in the hiring process. …

And how I made things right — “It works and all, right?” “Yep!” I confirmed. It worked, all right. That was no lie. I had been using this foldable table for the past two years. The only undisclosed caveat: the table had to stand on a firm, solid, non-slippery surface. If not, the legs could shift. The…

Keep track of what you work on, from where, and how much time you’re spending in sessions — Focusmate is the most effective productivity tool out there. It’s an integral part of my productivity system that I use with Trello, Toggl, Notion, Google Calendar, and Google Sheets. Sometimes, I want my data visualized in a way the software isn’t offering — yet. Focusmate released a public API. …