About…
… the Westmonster, who doesn’t seem to have any idea what “daily” actually means.
I will constantly (which, to me, means much the same as “daily”, so actually “sporadically”) add tantalizing info about the Westmonster whenever I think of something exciting about myself to share.
1) Ooh, I just thought of something! Browsing this site, you will probably happen upon a mysterious fella simply called “Hubby”. Now I know that “hubby” usually refers to a male who is married to someone. As far as I know, this particular “Hubby” is not married to anyone. Not to me, anyway. And I hope not to anyone else, either. But, and that’s another fascinating bit of information, I am a German girl deprived of speaking English every day and so I collect English terms. Like “hubby”. And what good is a collection if you don’t show it to anyone? Sensible or not, that’s my reason for calling my significant other “Hubby” on this website.
I’ll probably let you know if he turns into an actual “hubby” at some point. 
2) I’m a vegetarian. It started out as an ethical thing when I was a teenager. I was appalled by the way animals were treated before they were slaughtered. Then, I realized that I would have to be more disciplined if I actually wanted to go through with the ethical thing, that I would actually have to become a vegan. After all, I have always eaten eggs and drunk milk in spite of the fact that laying hens and dairy cows are treated no differently, sometimes even worse, than their meat-producing brethren. And I even eat gummy bears now and then even though they contain that stuff from animal bones. But by that time, meat already tasted like blood to me and I couldn’t eat any anymore, even if I wanted to. Moreover, I’m currently reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I’m only on page 15 or so, but I think this book just might get me thinking again.
Update: I am now on page 100 or so (it’s my bathroom book, so there’s usually no serious reading going on… sorry about that piece of information. I just didn’t want you to think of me as a slow reader. Not that this alternative is any better… oh, well), and sometimes I literally cringe when reading this book. Like this morning. The chapter was about sows (Foer viciously calls them “mama pigs” and other endearing things) who, when it’s time for them to give birth, are beaten badly (sometimes so badly their snouts are broken and they die of starvation due to that) in order to get them into the very small confined spaces designated for that purpose. You see, since pigs at those huge factory pig farms aren’t allowed to walk around freely, and their noses are constantly full of *that* smell, those mama sows sometimes step on their newborn piglets killing them, simply because they can’t control their legs the way they’re supposed to (no muscles, no coordination), and because they can’t sniff around for their piglets due to that constant stank. So the sows about to give birth are strapped into their birthing crates and aren’t able to move at all.
I cringed even more when I read that piglets that don’t grow fast enough on their unnatural “food”-cocktail of coagulated blood and antibiotics are simply grabbed by the hind legs and beaten to death by swinging them around and banging their heads on the floor – and sometimes they are beaten only half to death, so they run around with eyes hanging out and have to be grabbed by their legs again…
I’m sorry for sharing (I am really not the missionary kind of vegetarian), but this chapter haunted me. Foer peppers his grisly descriptions with dreamy tales from real pig farms, where mama sows are allowed to roam free, to dig in the dirt, and to live in well-balanced social groups, all of which prevents them from ever stepping on their young. This contrast makes the pig factory farm sows’ fates so much harder to accept for me.
3) I have a niece. She makes me smile.
4) I work in a job that doesn’t pay very well but instead is supposed to be filled with all self-actualizing folks, because people in this line of work are driven by a strong inner desire to pursue a very important goal in their lives. At least that’s how I always pictured doctoral candidates. And I thought they (actually: we) were all terribly grown up and serious about their (yes: our) science. Turns out – we’re not. We’re a bunch of lazy opportunists who haven’t found their respective purposes in life yet.
I admit that some of us parallel the vision I’ve always had of doctoral candidates – there are those who have the next ten years of their lives all planned out, including when to cast their young, when and how long to do their post-doc thing, and how to relatively guaranteedly get back to this place, where they actually want to be. I admire such singlemindedness. I, on the other hand, feel like I’ve just come along for the ride most of the time. But there are those days when you feel you’re actually accomplishing something, when you have a small break-through regarding your thesis, when you feel really good about what you’re doing. And then there are the days when the bossess is present…
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