the advise

i went to a counselor and she says there are 3 piles

-the have-to pile
-the want-to pile
-the feel good pile


and to get better i have to minimize the have-to pile, semi-ignore the want-to pile and focus only on the feel good pile. it may sound easy but think about it. i don't think i've ever really focused on that pile.

perspectives

i just read in a comment on a blog i sometimes read someone, american i assume, calling hillary clinton far left. it's funny how different we see things depending on what we're used to or how our society works. no one in sweden would call her anything other than right. politicians here who agrees with her belong to the right, not far right, but the right. according to swedish standards democrats and republicans are right and right +, respectively. no wonder some think of sweden as a communist country. of course they are heavily misguided, but still.

_i_ am far left. hillary is not even close. :)

damnit!

getting a doctor's certificate in this city has proven to be a kafkaesque nightmare! am i just being cynical or do we have all this bureaucracy just to drive people who's already got problems insane?!

life in all its glory

when your life really sucks, how do you answer people who asks you about it? i never got any good at that.

to begin with many people asks how one is doing to be polite, right, it's just what you say. when you haven't seen each other for a while you ask how they're doing. i get that, i do it myself, but do we really want the answer if it's not a fine? and so if it's really not fine, what do you say? do you lie? do you say it's fine even when it's not to remove the awkwardness that follows every other reply? cos there's always awkwardness. the other party doesn't know what to say, or is simply not interested in what was just said and for either reason feels embarrassed because of it.



still, i don't want to lie to my friends, even the not-so-close ones. i've always hated shallow. but on the other hand i don't really feel like pouring out how much my life sucks to everybody who happens to ask either. for my sake, for their sake. trap. it's like what allison (pretty picture above) says in breakfast club about sex

Well, if you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have you're a slut. It's a trap. You want to but you can't, and when you do you wish you didn't, right?

or something like it at least. either way, i hate it. i can't make my mind up. i know you'd think i've gotten it by now, i mean i've had close to 29 years to figure it out, but no.

i'm a terrible friend. funny and nerdy, but terrible.

scotland here we come

i'm going to glasgow on my november break! yay! me and lars just booked a trip there october 28 - november 4; a full week! i'm so happy. last year at that time i was in edinburgh for 4 days and it was just lovely, so i just had to go back. and now, with a full week there's lots of time to explore the place. i'll have to show lars around edinburgh and we'll have to see some of the highlands.


oh, i can't wait! scotland is beautiful. people talk funny. the beer is cheap. they have lots and lots of starbucks! [i love their coffee, and sweden is totally without :(] the only thing that's possibly not great is that we're staying in a dorm with 14 beds at a hostel, but hey, it'll sure make for interesting anecdotes. i know, cos it's the same hostel that sister and her friend stayed at when they were there in april, and they came back with interesting anecdotes (like the one with the american girls who repeatedly said "i'm so excited" without any trace of excitement either in voice nor facial expression).

who wants postcards? ;)

cake and television

the birthday cake was a success! nice craftsmanship. i'm quite proud of it. sister lent a helping hand with the roll out of the marzipan. it was a bitch, let me tell you. but it turned out beautifully and tasted just right too.


now i have to wait 2 months for my own birthday cake. i hate waiting.

Re television addiction; like i wrote the other day, i had a chat with the principal, what with the crying and everything, and when we talked she mentioned giving the kids an assignment to watch something on television and write about it and so i said that i don't know what's on anymore since i don't have a television and she wondered why. i told her what is true, that i can't be trusted with tvs, that i tend to turn them on and get temporally lost. and then i took full credit for her praise about me being strong-minded and daring for not just talking about getting rid of my tv but actually doing it. it's nice to know that my boss finds me extraordinary.

of course i didn't tell her that i download a whole lot of tv-series that, really, apart from being a conscious choice, have the same effect on me. but hey, not even jesus told people all his secrets, right?

crash

sometimes working with teenagers, teaching or otherwise i assume, is the greatest kick, and sometimes it's like hitting your head on a brick wall. today was the latter.

most of them are darling kids with not much of a clue, just as we've all been when we were 14 or 15 (or 26, this is just random when we grow up isn't it). still the bunch that refuse to acknowledge that other people also have feelings and does not deserve to be stepped upon drowns me of energy sometimes. i know it has nothing to do with me personally, but today i lost it. i just couldn't take the throwing things, the yelling and aggression so i just left the room and started crying.

the first time i cried at work i had some conflicting ideas about dignity. boy are those thoughts gone. it actually felt kind of good sitting in the principals office having a cry and unloading. i guess i'm lucky to have such understanding and sympathetic colleagues. then i went home, cos ones i've started crying, every obstacle however small gets me going again and i can't really deal with crying in front of my students. right now i'm mending my scratches with gilmore girls (rory and jess has just started seeing each other and it's so cute i wish i was 17 again!) and rilo kiley.

today's also lars' birthday and i plan on baking an awesome cake for this evening, let's hope it doesn't turn out to be yet a brick wall.

sunflowers

the other day while walking to cin's i discovered a "garden" of sunflowers very close to where she lives. luckily i had brought my camera. here's a few of my shots.