Meike, about the work dullness - you identified some of the ways of improving your workspace yourself, when you descried it:
* experiment with your audio environment: either speakers or headphones, either pop music, classical music or sound of the forest
* get yourself a cup of tea with sugar and chocolate
* try to find a more comfortable working posture: experiment with chairs, headrests, handrests, legrests, cup holders, mouse pad holders. Envision your perfect working position (without account on any chairs or tables or stuff, but taking laws of physics in mind) and try to realise it using the things that you have around.
* get some kind of a plastic mat under your chair
* get some cube goodies to spice up the rest of the environment around you

Just be creative :)

On a very unrelated note: got a job offer from Google, exploded with excitement, gathered the pieces, replied with a CV, thinking about meaning of life and this particular implementation of it ...