Happy Halloween!

Well, I didn't do much for the holiday today. Instead I cleaned. I did 5 loads of laundry, vacuumed, did the dishes, and did some picking up. I got a few other people who have said they will come to the party on Saturday. So now I know that I'll be there, Peter, Sara, maybe Anders later in the evening, Aylea and her boy Oscar, Håkan and Kattis, and maybe Helena. I've invited a few other people, we'll see if they show up or not. If nothing else it will be a nice party anyways! And it gives me a good excuse to dress up as a black cat.

I did wear my devil horns all day though. It made me happy even if I did get some weird looks.

This evening Sara and Anders came over, played lots of Nintendo while I watched. It was relaxing at least.

Tomorrow at 9am I think I am supposed to start a new class. It will be interesting if it actually happens. For now, I think I will find a nice book and head to bed. I am quite tired since I cleaned so much today.

SNOW

We got our first snow this morning. It only lasted about 5 minutes and didn't stick to the ground. But it did snow. I think this means that fall is officially over and winter has begun. Goes along with the fact that the sun is setting before 4 in the afternoon now.

I tried to take some pictures of the snow falling, but I'm not sure they turned out. Oh well. We'll see later.

And Happy Halloween! Maybe I'll wear a pair of cat ears around town today just because I can. I'm sure it will upset some Swede or another.

Paper... almost... done...

I've spent the entire day working on writing this paper. It is due tomorrow morning. I still have about a half page left to write, but then I'm done. I don't think it is a very good paper, but if I am lucky it will pass. If it doesn't pass, then I'll redo it properly.

I am quite tired today too. Tomorrow I will clean. I don't even have any more clean socks left! It is time to do some laundry.

My mom has asked for my Christmas list by the end of this week. I'll have to get that together too. But hopefully this week should be relatively light in terms of schoolwork. Last week was a lot of fun, but the film festival really took a lot of time. Between that and my paper I had absolutely no free time at all.

The end of the Film Festival

Well, the film festival is over now. I went to the last showing earlier this evening. This means I have about 36 hours until my paper is due. I have a LOT of writing to do still.

I can't really say anything interesting is going on here, because nothing interesting is happening. It's cold outside here. We've had one night of frost and it looks like tonight will be another cold night. It's hard to come up with something interesting to say every day or two when nothing interesting is going on.

The apartment is a complete disaster right now. I've been spending almost all of my time either at the festival, studying, or sleeping. I haven't done laundry in about 2 weeks, I haven't vacuumed for about a week and a half, I haven't even made anything more complicated than noodles or a frozen pizza since last Monday. But Tuesday afternoon I'll be free. My paper will be done and I won't have class until Wednesday. Then I can clean, do laundry, and generally make things look nicer. On Friday I might go in to Stockholm to buy some cans of pumpkin for pumpkin pies. That's only if a friend didn't do it for me already. We'll see what this coming week brings. Hopefully more sleep time!

Film festival - day 5

Today's film festival was quite nice. I saw two sets of short films and two sets of music videos.

I worked on my paper some more. I haven't managed to write anymore, but I've done more research. I picked up some more books from the library today too. We'll see if that helps me out a bit.

Oh! My mom made me a Halloween postcard. It came in the mail today. She quilted it herself. I have it in the window with my pumpkins now.

PUMPKINS!

I bought more pumpkins today. I meant to buy dinner, but instead I only bought pumpkins. So I have 4 new pumpkins. There are now six pumpkins sitting in my window. I have problems now though, there is no more room for pumpkins! I've already removed all of the plants too. I've spent about 100 kr on pumpkins so far. I might buy a few more, but if I do I need to find a bigger grocery store. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have time to make a trip to ICA Maxi. I need to find more pumpkins! I've no idea what I'm going to do with all of the pumpkins that I have, but I want them anyways.

Oh, and I've written three pages on my paper that is due in 5 days. I still have a lot left to go, but at least it is something.

Film Festival - Day 3

Yesterday I got a bunch of research done on my paper and went to another day of the film festival. That was pretty much all I did.

Today I think I will go buy another pumpkin. And I am not sure what is going on with my Halloween party since I think only a few people have said they will come... Peter, Taranika, and maybe Sara. I haven't heard back from anyone else. If so few people come, it will be a very small costume party! But I guess then there will be more JELLO-shots to go around.

Film Festival - Day 2

The films today were actually quite disappointing. Today I only saw 2 showings rather than the four I saw yesterday. I could have gone to more, but I needed to work on my paper. I spent about 2 hours at the library then went home to eat dinner. I didn't get much done, but I guess I've eliminated a lot even if I haven't found much.

Tomorrow my first film showing begins at 19.00. I might go to some earlier ones if I make progress on my paper.

I did get one thing done today... I finished up the dirty dishes from the past few days. AND I bought another pumpkin. They now cost 4.90 kr/kg at ICA. I might go buy yet another one tomorrow. Pumpkins look pretty in the window. The problem is carrying them home from the store! Maybe I'll save one for David to carve when he gets home? If nothing else, uncarved pumpkins last practically forever and they look pretty.

Film festival - Day 1 and HAPPY BDAY DAVID

The first day of the film festival was quite nice. I've got to admit though, sitting on my rear end for 8 hours doesn't make me feel very productive. Some of the films were quite nice, others funny, and others made me want to put the characters out of their misery because they were so bad. I was basically in movies though from 3pm until 11pm. I didn't get dinner in there either, besides a candy bar. And by the time I got home around 11:30 at night, I was too tired to eat. I woke up a bit hungry this morning, but there's no food in the apartment and the store doesn't open until 8 in the morning. So I'm writing this then probably going back to bed. There's no reason for me to have woken up before 9 at the earliest! And I've been awake since 6am!

I might have to skip some of the showings that I have tickets for.... I'm worried that I won't have enough time to get my paper completed. I was supposed to have it almost done by Sunday night, but it didn't happen. Come Sunday night and I didn't even have a subject chosen. I'll work on it a lot in the mornings and between movies and see if I can't get something done though. I have another week until it is due.

Yesterday was David's birthday. Since I couldn't actually give him his present, I sent him an sms with it. He gets to go to either Tallin or Finland on one of those ferries. Finland for sure, unless I can get a good enough deal to go to Tallin.

Pumpkin!

Today I bought a pumpkin! The girl at the cash register didn't know how to ring it up properly, so she asked Peter about it. He gave the per kilo cost, but she gave it to us as an item cost. So I only paid 8.90 kr for my 3.2 kilo pumpkin (that's like a 1.20 USD). Weeee! It's now sitting in the window.

I had a nice dinner tonight, Potatis gratang. However that's spelled. Made enough that I have TWO lunch boxes sitting in the fridge for tomorrow.

I didn't get any school work done today really. I REALLY should have, but I just didn't want to. I read a book instead.

Oh, Sara helped me sort out the bills. Took us three phone calls and about an hour, but we did it. They told us to throw one of the bills away and pay the other one. The bill they said to pay includes two weeks that David has already paid for. They said to just pay it and they'll refund the money. I hope they refund it with interest! Doubt they will though. At least I have everything settled now.

Wasted Day

I did nothing today. Absolutely nothing. I watched some TV, wasted some time on the internet, and played some internet games. I didn't manage to even write a full sentence for my paper. I did create a word file for it though.

Anders came by today to pick up Doom3.

David's mom called yesterday and Peter came over for dinner yesterday.

In other news, Tele2Vision is STUPID! Yesterday the cablebox stopped working. After about 2 hours unplugged then plugging it back in, it started working again. Today I got ANOTHER bill from tele2vision. They're double billing us. They're billing us for analog cable AND digital cable. Both to the wrong addresses, neither of which is the same as the other. I tried to call and fix it, but I had problems understanding which buttons to push when. I sat on hold for 20 minutes then spoke to someone who understood a bit of English. He said that lots of people were having this problem. But he couldn't help me, he would transfer me though. So he did... then I was listening to the menus again. This is after I said I had problems understanding the menus. Anders said Sara will help me tomorrow. Tele2vision will be getting a phone a phone call from a girl who is the friend of the girlfriend of the one who the bill is sent to. Isn't life fun sometimes? That's it for excitement here though.

Bored...

I'm bored. Peter is sick, classmates tend to be busy, no idea what David's friends are up to. I should be writing a paper I think. Or getting ready for Friday's seminar. Or cleaning. Or a million other things that I should be doing that I'm not. Instead I'm complaining about being bored.

Today I went to class for 2 hours, then went and bought festival tickets. After that I wandered around town with a friend for an hour trying to find some government office or another. Turns out it is next to ICA City. The line there was too long, so we went and bought me some markers. Then we decided that we would absolutely NOT go and eat lunch out. Until we had to walk past our favorite restaurant... and saw our friends inside. So I had an all you can eat, Chinese buffe lunch for 60 kr. I shouldn't spend the money, but I wanted to spend some time with my friends. I've spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing pretty much.

I was talking with the girls and I found out that those I ate lunch with were getting 8,000 kr a month scholarships! No wonder they can afford to eat lunch out every day! I've decided that for this month at least... I should go out with my class when they go out. I will be bored all the time otherwise.

Oh, and my brother has dyed his hair red according to my mom.

Dry Air and Swedish Attempts

Now that the heaters have turned on, the air in the apartment is VERY dry. I went and found the dictionary last night and the word for a humidifier is luftfuktare. The local, I guess you'd call it a general store, has them for about 100 dollars. Clas Ohlson has everything it seems! I'll have to think about it though, it is a lot of money. I just would like my hair not to be sticking straight up all the time. My hair makes funny noises when I brush it because of all the static electricity (statisk elektricitet). My skin is always dry and my throat is sore in the mornings. I don't really like radiators (element). It isn't something that we used in California really. Instead we had central heat (centralvärme) and central air conditioning. The cold and hot air came out of vents in the ceilings or floors. And the heater didn't dry the air out quite so much. The AC dried the air out, but it was in summer when there was so much humidity (fuktig), it didn't matter anyways.

Today's experiment was to try looking up the more uncommon words and figuring out what their Swedish words were. It's good for me to learn more vocabulary and I have a feeling that not everyone who reads this understands English that well. Lots of times I can't find the words I want, so I just use something close. Hopefully it gives some idea of what the word means, even if it isn't the exact meaning. I need the practice in Swedish anyways.

Christmas Already?!?

My mom told me that if I don't plan to come home for Christmas, I have to put a Christmas list together soon so she has time to send things. I don't even have a clue of what I'd want. The usual things of books, lots of books, any topic, in English. Usually I tend to get a lot of money for Christmas and my birthday, but it's so expensive to send money over that it seems like a waste. Otherwise I'd say money for book shelves to put all of those books on! I think I'll be getting the bookshelves I want in November though. David said I could get them. Other things that I'd want would be too difficult for my parents to get to Sweden. Or they just aren't practical to do from that side of the ocean.

Oh, my books by the way, arrived safe and sound. The same can not be said for the boxes the books were in. I had to throw them all away, they were not usable at all. The sides had split, the cardboard was torn, there were whole sections of cardboard ripped off. That's why I put things in boxes and pad the boxes with books I don't care as much about!

I'll have to keep thinking though.

When the boys are away the girls will play

Well, with David in China and Sara's Anders at work... Sara and I had a nice evening to ourselves. We discussed everything that we didn't want to talk about with the boys around. Quite a fun conversation. Over a couple of drinks of course.

Today's school was quite boring though. The lecture was from some law professor that seemed confused that there were no lawyers in the class.

Tomorrow I NEED to clean this apartment. It's starting to stress me out. Means buying more cleaners though. There's no toilet cleaner left, and I want something to take off the spots on the shower walls.

Sara and Anders have offered to help a LOT with my Halloween party. They said they'd do music and help me write up invites so that they look properly Swedish. Anders said he'd keep check for carving pumpkins at IAC Maxi too. IAC Väst (our local grocery store) didn't have any when I went by earlier today. I did manage to mail two letters though.

Anyways, since it is almost 2am, I think I will go read for awhile then sleep. Oh, and David was at a Karoke Bar last night (tonight?). He can send SMS messages for about 2 kr from China. That isn't too expensive. No idea what it costs him to receive them though. He can also check his email every few days. If anyone wants to know what he's up to, feel free to sms me. I'm pretty sure I'm listed on hitta or eniro. Now... SLEEP!

Boring Day

I was originally looking forward to a day of relaxing, but it was boring. I didn't do anything productive all day. I read for awhile, watched some TV, made three meals, played some video games, and took a nap. I didn't clean anything, pick anything up, organize anything, or even study anything.

Yesterday I managed to get all of my new books off of the living room floor. I put lots in the case next to the TV that usually holds glasses. I just rearranged some stuff. I also put some on the TV bench, and on the bookcase that usually holds some other stuff near the kitchen.

My apartment looks like a disaster right now too. Between books everywhere, there are also a couple of dirty dishes in the kitchen, a big pile of boxes near the front door, and the place needs to be vacuumed AGAIN! I could learn to hate the type of flooring here. No matter what you do, it's ALWAYS dusty and dirty.

Days without school are quite boring if I don't have anything planned. Didn't see any friends today. Didn't speak to any classmates. The only talking I've done all day is to someone on the phone. It was an odd conversation because we each spoke different languages. 'hej, ar david hemma?' 'nope, he's in china' 'nar kommar han hem?' 'sometime in mid november.' I have no idea who called, but it was a human I spoke to today. Weeeee...

Tonight I'll put the drinks for tomorrow's night with Sara into the fridge. At least I have something planned. I need to send SMS messages to people about the party in November as well. I also should put the Halloween decorations up. I asked Peter for help yesterday, but he was too tired to do anything but watch TV. Oh well.

Stockholm Visit

Yesterday in Stockholm was quite fun. I was very tired by the time I got home. I even fell asleep on the train. I was asleep before 9.30 last night too. Taranika is doing as well as can be expected considering she's in a city where she doesn't know anyone. I bought a cute little black purse there yesterday too. 100 SEK from one of the street vendors. I'm sure it will fall apart, but since I won't use it that often, no real problems. I just need something besides a large shoulder bag in brown with bright blue flowers for when I got out to nice dinners.

BOOKS!

My books arrived today. So I now have 156 books sitting on the living room floor. Along with 6 mailbags, 8 boxes, and lots of other stuff. I was so happy about books today that I forgot the towels I had in the dryer for 3 hours. When I got back they were still there, no one had removed them.

Dinner at Håkan's place was quite nice, even if I did manage to get lost going there. I ended up somewhere odd, then called, then ended back up in Flosta, called again, and Håkan had to get on his bike and find me. Then when I got back after a really yummy dinner I had problems figuring out where my apartment building was located. If you've ever seen a map of the apartment complex, this makes more sense.

Also coming up this month... the Uppsala Short Film Festival. I think Peter and I will get tickets and one of my classmates might as well. I don't have school that entire week because I'm supposed to be writing a paper. Hopefully I can write in the mornings and go to the films in the evenings. For 300 SEK I can go to as many as I want to the entire week. I went last year to 3 showings and had a wonderful time.

Oh, I also bought some halloween decorations today. Just two garlands, a spider and a pumpkin. I think the party will be on Saturday. I just need to invite more people... and get a pumpkin to carve. Tomorrow I'm going to go visit Taranika in Stockholm. So now, I sleep.

Website Updated!

I've finally managed to update my website a bit. All of the links on jaenelle.net should now work. I've linked my main page to this blog and added a section with information in English about Sweden. I need to figure out how to add a table into the weather page for my vocabulary list, but then it should be done for awhile. I have not added more picture to the photo page because I haven't taken any. Once David gets back he'll hopefully have a bunch of photos I can put online for everyone to see. If anyone thinks of anything else to add to the website, feel free to let me know.

Friday Night's Dinner

The dinner Friday night was really calm and relaxing. No singing at all, and all the talk in English. I'd say a third of those there did not speak Swedish as their first language. The starting food wasn't very good. It was raw salmon... what a perfectly good way to ruin salmon... eating it raw. Salmon should be BBQed over woodchips. The main course was wonderful though. Sliced potatoes, very tender beef, and some green peas. We stayed there until about 1 in the morning. I didn't drink very much at all really. They just served wine with dinner so I drank my half glass of white wine and gave the rest of the alcohol away. I had two welcome drinks and two of the avec things after dinner too.

The funniest thing over dinner last night was when the guy across from Peter left before dessert to go to the lab. After he was gone for around an hour and we didn't think he was coming back, everyone urged me to eat his dessert. So I did, then he showed back up again. I felt VERY guilty.

The plans for today include taking it easy, taking a nap, reading for school, playing X-box, and meeting up with Peter tonight for chips and cheese doodles with some TV time. I might visit the grocery store too. I have no butter, eggs, milk, or even olive oil! The leftover korv strogonoff from yesterday was really very yummy for breakfast this morning though!

Friday's Life

Today I went to class. It was a very interesting lecture about southeast Asia and their types of democracies. The professor argued that democracy was NOT the best thing for many of these countries. After class I went and got a new book from the library. Then I got home and started laundry. I only did one load since there was only one machine open. While doing laundry I cleaned, vacuumed, made lunch, ate lunch, and washed some dishes. I still have dishes to wash before tonight though. I haven't gotten a nap yet and I'm thinking about doing that after posting this. I also made an extra lunchbox of food so that I can eat tonight if I come home hungry. I wanted to be sure that I have enough food and water inside me that the alcohol I'll be drinking tonight won't bother me as much. Swedes sure drink a LOT at social occasions!

Weird Bank Hours

I used to think that the bank hours in the US were restrictive, but they are nothing compared to the hours that Swedish banks keep. I foolishly went to school early this morning thinking that banks must surely be open by 9 so that I could go before class. Nope! NOTHING in town opens before 10. I wonder about those who work, when do they find time to go to the bank. Trying to get anything done during lunch hours is nearly impossible. I went to the bank and waited quite a long time at noon before I was seen. Then they asked to see my ID then told me to go wait in the nice LONG line in the big square to use a bank machine. I now have a working bank card though. And I did my very first internet transaction. I sent David 4,600 SEK. (The money I owed him since he took care of all of my bills until I finally got this internet thing working.)

I came home today thinking to do some productive stuff before dinner tonight. I've decided I need a nap instead. I did get the apartment picked up and the laundry sorted. Tomorrow between school and when I have to be ready for the gasque I'll try to get laundry done. Maybe later today I'll find time to vacuum. The dust NEVER stops! I swear I have to vacuum more often than once a week. This gets silly sometimes. For now, I need a nap if I'm going to be social for any length of time this evening.

Money!

I have money now! Lots and lots of Swedish crowns! (SEK) The transfer came through. I can buy a new tube of toothpaste AND more butter now! Weeee! I spent my money yesterday buying 1.5 kilos of falukorv from Scan. It was onsale for less than 40 SEK. I couldn't resist, even if it was the unhealthy stuff.

Tonight I will meet some friends at a pub for dinner. It will be nice to meet classmates somewhere that isn't a noisy club for once. Many of us consider ourselves a bit too old to be drunk at bars everynight and consider it fun. The student run pubs are the best place in town to get dinner. A nice dinner with a bit of meat costs less than 10 dollars. Probably because the workers earn less than minimum wage, if they get paid at all. But they get all sorts of other bonuses, so it works out.

Anyways, I'm going to try to hit the bank before class. I'll write more later, if I remember.

David is Alive! Alive I say! Alive!

Ok, so I just got an email from him. For your viewing pleasure, I present.... DAVID! Live from China!

Hello, Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe with lots of kids playing world of worldcraft. :-)

We arrived with almost no problems, except some delays and the fact that our driver was at the wrong airport.... After some phonecalls and some help from a Chinese who spoke some English I managed to get a hold of him. After that I got appointed leader of the group. ;-)

There are so many people here and almost no one from the West. We are like moviestars! People look at us all the time, and want to take pictures of us, and sometimes they try to hide the fact that they are taking pictures or filming us. We have also written some autographs!

The food is not as bad as I thought it would be, and I have almost mastered the chopsticks. I have no problems with my health except a headache yesterday morning, probably because I drank too little.

The shopping here is great, and the food is almost free. Yesterday we had breakfast that cost about 1kr and 50 ore. Well it was noodles but they filled me up. :-)

Yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing, and we went out on the west lake paddling small boats. Well, not that small, we had 4-5 people in them. We were the only people from the West out on the lake so we always had other boats around us.

In China its a national holiday right now, so the schools are closed this week. We got a light start to the trip. And I'm not the only one who forgot my name tag. I'll make a new one today.

I'm not sure how often I will have access to internet, but at least now I know where the internet cafe is. The problem is that I think that they have planned lots of stuff for us the following days, but I will try to get here as often I can.

I share room with Patrik. It's a small apartment. It's brand new, some of the price tags are still left on some of the furniture, and on the towels they gave us. :-) We are also known as the beer drinking group now, since we have beer with every meal. And we ordered it at 10 in the morning yesterday! We got Bud Light!

Everybody is really nice to us, but they can't drive. Or well they can drive really well, but they don't care about traffic rules, so we are always looking after each other when we are walking close to streets.

I have no idea how much time I have left here at the internet cafe, so feel free to tell people about my trip on your blog. :-) By the way, did you get my SMS that I sent you? I just checked, it costs about 2,50 kr to send an sms to you from china, at least I think so. So I will probably send you more if you can receive them. But a phone call cost more then 20 kr a minute. :-( But if you really need to get a hold of me try calling me. And try to send me an SMS if you want, I should be able to receive them.

So David is alive and having a wonderful time. Those are both good things to be. I'm glad he's having fun. If he wasn't having a good time and left me here to be miserable while he was miserable in China I would NOT be happy!

Rain Rain Rain

Today is one of those stay in bed and read a nice book days. It's raining outside and before it started to rain it was cloudy. I woke up with a pretty annoying headache this morning. It just got worse and worse until I took some pain killers for it. I went out running for 20 minutes after I woke up this morning, that was nice, but reminded me how out of shape I am.

David's mom called me today. That was nice. We spoke about nothing for about 15 minutes. It was nice to have my Swedish up to the level that I could do that. I ended up with some odd vocabulary bits where I tried to talk around the words that I didn't know, but I think it worked out pretty well. The dirty stuff that falls from the air is also known as dust. Yesterday I figured out that flytande margarin is liquid butter. I've known for a long time what it was because it ends up on the shopping list and stuff, but not what it translated to. I always thought it was just a weird word Swedes used. Then I saw it on the liquid soap thing last night and the little light bulb over my head turned on.

I'm going over to Peter's place for dinner. He's promised me chicken and rice with some sort of sauce. I figure it has got to taste better than my lunch box that I'm supposed to eat for dinner.

I need to go visit Sara later and see if she has a small cute purse for me to take to the sittning on Friday night. Last time I borrowed one from Jenny, but I'd like a black one instead of a green one.

Oh, and I got my bankomat card in the mail. It doesn't do me anygood because I don't have a pin for it yet, I also have no money in my bank account. I got my voting material in the mail today too. So now I need to look through all the paperwork and decide who to vote for. I don't even know who is running for what offices, so I might just be annoying and vote all democrats or all greens or something.

A book read

I finished reading my first book on my thesis topic. I'm doing Human Security. What about it, I'm not quite sure, but I'm studying it anyways. I made a big lunch today too, it was big enough for two lunch boxes. Despite all of this, I still feel like I wasted the day. I haven't spoken to anyone all day either. A bit odd to realize that I literally haven't spoken today. I really need to get out tomorrow. Maybe go by the library and get a new book or do my reading for school. Unless I run into someone I know I still probably won't speak to anyone. I've chatted with several people online, my mom, Jonas, Taranika, and Peter. I think if I sit here everyday in the apartment while David is gone I will go crazy. Tomorrow I REALLY need to get out. If I don't find people soon I will go crazy. I've forgotten how weird it is not to live with anyone. Maybe I should sign up for work again, anything to get out of the apartment this month!

David is gone

David has left for China just 15 minutes ago. It's going to be weird and quiet here for the next 5+ weeks. I'm going to have to study lots to keep myself busy. If I don't manage to get a VG in this class, it will be quite sad.

I think the thing I will miss the most for the next couple of weeks is just doing things together. I will come home each day to an empty apartment, make meals by myself, watch TV by myself, go to bed by myself. I have a feeling I'll be eating a lot more frozen pizzas and such. It just doesn't seem worth cooking much when it's just for myself. I'll have to have Peter and Sara and lots of other people over often so that I don't go crazy.

Anyways, I think I need a nap. Later today I will study and maybe play some X-box games this evening. Peter will be coming by to make Pancakes for dinner tonight so that I don't have to have dinner by myself. He is so nice. :)