I wish it was still Friday evening!

Well, 5 more days of school until I get a week off. I'm ready for spring break now. Today I cleaned. My roommate is amazingly good at finding excuses to be gone while cleaning is going on. He got up around 4.30pm or so. At that point I was piling stuff outside the door to his room. I made him put his camera back in its box. He then started putting on shoes, I asked him where he was going. I had already told him he wasn't going to go play WoW because he had promised me multiple times to help with the cleaning and it's now Sunday evening. This was fun.

Me: Where are you going?
Roomie: To go get papertowels; we're out.
Me: I bought 8 rolls today. There's one in the kitchen.
Roomie: Oh, well what I really wanted was newspaper to clean the windows.
Me: Here's two whole newspapers. Do you want more? I have an entire bag waiting for recycling.
Roomie: Hmmm.

Now here is where I did something stupid.

Me: This light fixture that's been sitting on the microwave for 6 months, any chance you could put it back where it belongs?
Roomie: Isn't it broken or something?
Me: No, you took it off because you didn't like it. You wanted to put glass into it or something.
Roomie: Oh! I'll go do that!

Then he was gone. He has a nice list of things to do when he gets back. I've done more than my share. He can vacuum, mop, clean the kitchen sink, the bathroom mirror, the toilet, and the microwave where his food exploded. That seems reasonable to me. I just spent the last few days trying to locate the living room from under his junk.

Oh, and I got some schoolwork done too.

Progress towards weekend goals.

Well... I didn't get a lot done today. I did rest a lot. It was much needed I'm sure. I have my room spotless. Every time I leave and walk back in it feels so good. I think living in such a messy environment has been stressing me out some. I have my door to my room shut. I can almost pretend that the whole apartment is clean. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be. I'm tired of living with so much clutter everywhere! I want open space! I tripped over one of my roommate's 7 pairs of shoes that are sitting in the living room when trying to make dinner. I half cleaned the bathroom. The counters are clean, the sinks are clean, and I attempted to make the tub look white through excessive amounts of bleach. The tub still looks disgusting, but at least now I know nothing is living in there for sure. I haven't been able to get the smell of bleach off of my hands, I've resorted to trying to bury the smell under this scented lotion stuff. I'm not sure which is worse... the bleach smell or the smell of bleach mingling with very strong pink scented lotion.

I've managed to break my headphones even more. Tomorrow I MUST go buy a new pair. No more waiting allowed!

In terms of school work I've almost finished typing up my political science notes. I've read all the articles for my economics paper, and started writing. I'm ending up with very short responses to the questions so I might try to find a way to be more detailed. Either that or I'll decide I don't care that much and just go for what makes sense to me. I plan to do some of the reading I need for my gender class tonight too. Or tomorrow morning.

So for tomorrow!
1. Buy headphones (do this first before the stores get crowded, but after 10 when Best Buy opens)
2. Write out answers to the gender questions for Monday. (maybe, otherwise deal with it during Break)
3. Write Economics Paper!
4. Clean the apartment, force roommate to help if possible.

Weekend Goals

For some reason I feel that if I make a formal list of what I want to do here, that it will magically get done. So here goes!

1. Write my Economics paper. (Due Tuesday)
2. Rewrite my Political Science Paper (Monday)
3. Study for my other Economics test (Thursday)
4. Type my Political Science journal (Friday)
5. Do the reading for my Gender class and answer the questions (Monday)
6. Clean my apartment (ASAP - roommate actually said he would help)
7. Get lots and lots of sleep and rest!

There we go, my goals for the weekend. Now to see if I manage to actually accomplish half of them.

In other news, I've decided that something in my diet or stress level is not right. I was bored during a meeting today and realized that each my nails has a large indent in it near the base. Where the new nail is growing in much thinner than the old nail. On each and every nail. Maybe I was stressed out or not eating properly or something. It's pretty close to the base, so probably something I've done to myself in the last few weeks. I'm guessing school related stress. Although I'm going to be sure that I take my vitamins really regularly for awhile.

Ok. That's my life in a nutshell. (or a blog post)

So how is everyone else doing? :P

An Art Exhibit about Islam and an Interesting Conversation

Well, it was a pretty average Thursday. I decided during my 12:30 Economics class that I was suffering from a rare disease known as lack-a-chinese-food-itis. My second class was special in that when I arrived there was neither a professor nor were there any students. Which is strange because the professor teaches in that classroom right before and many of the students are in both classes. No class! Weee. I went home. I told my roommate about my weird disease. He decided that he needed to leave the apartment sometime today so he went to fetch the food. It took him 50 minutes and meanwhile I was hungry.

I managed to get a lot of studying and schoolwork done though. I ordered the books I need for another class, met with a professor, and worked on rewriting a paper. I also spoke to David.

This evening I went to an art exhibit as required by my Monday night, slightly less than insane professor. (Because the truly insane label is saved for my screaming professor of course.) Mostly I think we had to go because the lady who was running it is her friend. I got there and was told by my professor to go get a glass of wine. I did. It was quite nice up until I put a hole in the side of my plastic glass. I figured that meant I'd had enough. The art exhibit was about women from the American culture trying on the Islamic veil and giving their opinions on it. Quite interesting, but very obviously designed to be positive because that is what the art exhibit was about. The interesting thing that I came home from the exhibit thinking about wasn't the art exhibit but a discussion I had with a girl from my class who was there. She was saying that more than anything she wanted to go to Australia and study. She said she couldn't though because she was married. I hadn't realized that marriage was such a major limitation and pointed out that she could probably take him with her. She told me that he didn't want to go and she had to stay where he would be happy. What about her happiness? Did that not matter? Would he not put up with her being gone for a few weeks or a semester to do something that she really wanted to do? Would he not consider doing something for her that she really wanted to do. I asked her what she would be doing for a living and her response was that she would just find a job wherever her husband wanted to live at. I wonder if it ever occurred to her that perhaps he could make a few sacrifices too. All of this and she is a year younger than me. It was quite an interesting conversation and one of the most interesting things is that two years ago it would not have bothered me as it now does. I would have just accepted it and probably said something about planning the same someday, doing as my mother did, and putting my life choices behind that of a man's. Now I find that future scary.

Sweden has corrupted me. I no longer feel like a normal girl. It's weird.

Continuing the Wait

I actually got this email back in mid January. I just felt the desire to post it today. It's just another thing to wait for. Although this one is only two months away.

Dear Applicant,

We have received your application package concerning Master Programmes at
Uppsala University.

Questions concerning your application cannot be answered by the Admissions
Office nor by the Department during the admissions process due to the
heavy workload in processing all the applications.

Notification of admission will be sent out in early May.

Yours sincerely,

The Admissions Office of Uppsala University

Feminist stuff

Somehow I don't like a lot of the branches of feminism. Why should I hate men? Women have oppressed other women in the past as well. Should I hate women too? I'd like to believe that the majority of guys, freed from society's belief that they must be REAL MEN would be decent human beings and not make messes for women to clean up. Perhaps being a real man needs a new definition.

I'm a feminist as long as feminism is about equal pay for equal work, equal job chances for equally skilled people, sharing the housework, letting my husband have time home with the kids, paying my own meals, and working just as much as any guy does if I want him to do the same amount of housework. And meanwhile since I open doors for guys, they can damn well open doors for me.

No political party or movement should be based on the idea of violence or hatred towards another group of humans. Although Luigi has my full support in his war against blood lust and perversion. ;) (Check out the 2nd movie on Fahle's blog... it is in English.)

Food

Today I went shopping. I bought about 30 dollars worth of stuff. It wasn't bad consider that I got quite a lot. I was mostly only buying things that were on sale. The exception was some broccoli. I felt this odd urge for something green and somewhat healthy. My prize item is about a half pound of stir-fry beef. It's pre-cut and was only like 2.50. I'll gladly pay more to not have to cut it myself! I can just take off the plastic and dump it into the pan. I'm going to steam some of the broccoli and throw that together with the beef into a simply asian mix. The mix is asian noodles, some sauce, and some sesame seeds to put on top. It should be quite good and should give me enough for more than one meal.

I'm doing a major laundry day right now. Towels, lights, darks, and maybe sheets if I'm not feeling too tired. At about an hour a load it's 5 hours to do laundry and I'd REALLY like to have clean and dry sheets before bed. If they have to wait until Thursday, so be it. Actually.... I'm pretty sure I have a second set of sheets around here somewhere I could always put on instead. My problem is that I don't actually have enough pillow cases! I only have 6 and 4 pillows. So two of my pillows would be caseless! Probably not the end of the world though.

Oh. And I will start studying for my Friday exam sometime tonight. I also want to start reading the copy of War and remembrance I checked out from the library. And start on my paper. And type up my journal that's due next week. And do my research for my Gender class presentation. And create another draft of my paper that I turned in last week. And maybe sleep sometime. Realistically I'll probably just start studying for Friday's exam while making dinner and play my DS before bed.

Rain and Dorks

My neighbors just provided me with some entertainment. They stripped down to boxers and ran around in the rain. This wasn't just one apartment full of boys, this was four apartments worth. Mind you we also got about a half inch of rain in about 5 minutes. At least. The school will be having some minor flood problems about now.

My roommate kindly decided to take the trash out. DURING this rain storm just to prove he could. It is the only time he has ever volunteered to take the trash out.

One of my more sensible neighbors noted that coming in from his car that our parking lot has flooded. He has discovered that he cannot walk on water. By flooded I mean we have about 6 inches of water. I'm actually very impressed with my less than intelligent neighbors. They haven't figured out that 'blocking the drain in the parking lot would be cool!' the drain that drains our entire apartment complex as well as the whole parking lot. It all goes to one drain that's about the size of an open newspaper. That's all it would take to cause some major problems.

But all the yelling in the center of my apartment complex did cause me to get out of my nice warm bed and laugh at the idiots. So they have served their purpose in life.

RAIN RAIN RAIN

That is the view that I have of the day. It's dashes between buildings, within seconds soaked to the skin. I ended up soaked every time I went outside, despite having supposedly waterproof clothes on. I just emptied everything out of my backpack to try and dry stuff out. My poor paycheck is a bit damp. Most of the other stuff seems to have survived pretty much ok.

My professor let us out of class like half an hour early or so. That was one of the high points of my day.

My insane professor apologized to the class today. Well, sort of. Mostly he said that his teaching methods would work better if the girl he picked on wasn't so easy to upset. I still think he's insane.

In other news, my boss is sick. I can expect to not see much of him for the next day or so. The servers at work are being stupid and randomly corrupting files again. I think it's user error, but I'm sure as hell not going to say so.

Oh, and I have an exam on Friday I'll probably end up spending my Thursday studying for. Life should be busy this week, but hopefully somewhat less eventful. Maybe all the rain will keep tempers cool and professors sane.

Whine Warning *skip if you don't want to listen to it*

I'm just sitting here, bored in a way. I have quite a few things that I could be doing, but none of them are urgent. There is nothing that I WANT to do, just stuff that I could do. I could get dressed and drive to the library, they're open until close to midnight. But that seems like effort. I could do the reading for my class tomorrow night, but I feel like I can participate pretty well in the class without having read every word. I could type up my notes for one of my two classes that have notes due next week. I could pick up my room, I could put dishes away, I could play my Nintendo DS, I could do any one of a hundred things that need doing. Yet I'm not doing any of them. I'm sitting here feeling bored. In a way I don't know what to do with myself when I don't have anything urgently to do.

It's days like today that make me miss David the most. When I'm bored and he's around, he'll always talk to me, or play Xbox. He would bake a cake with me if I wanted. He's my entertainment and he's not here! Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I'm not there.

I'm ready for spring break already. I'm just so tired. Always completely tired. I've finished 5 weeks of school. Two more weeks of school then a week with just work. That will be followed by something like 9 more weeks of school. Am I allowed to just give up now? After more than 3.5 years of university, I'm completely exhausted.

I'm tired of always coming home to a dirty apartment, I'm tired of never having the energy to clean my apartment, I'm tired of coming home to an empty apartment (roommate doesn't count as a human being), I'm tired of the never ending homework, I'm tired of trying to find time and energy and money to buy food, I'm tired of struggling towards some far distant future. Sometimes I just want nice things now. I guess deferred gratification is an important thing to learn though.

None of that matters some days. Some days I still want to just give up. Say screw it to this saving money, finishing school, being responsible thing. I could book tickets to Sweden next week. But then that little adult inside me says that I'm supposed to behave. I'm supposed to graduate so that I can get into the masters program next year. I'm not supposed to throw my life and future away for a guy, even if the guy is really great. I'm not supposed to just prance off to the other side of the world because I feel like it. Sometimes that little adult voice inside of me is annoying as all hell.

It's hard to find the words that will express this constant frustration. This purposeful denial of happiness. I guess that's what a lot of life is about though. Delaying things until it is the right time to do them. Here I am, an adult and capable of making the decision to run off to the other side of the world. No one would stop me. But instead I'm making the same choices as my parents would make! Damn responsibility genes!

A quiet day

I didn't do anything today! It's been wonderful! I still have some school work to do before school tomorrow. I guess I needed a down weekend after my horrible last week. My stomach has been hurting most of the weekend though. I don't have a lot of other stuff to say. So just relax and go read some other blogs tonight.

Oh! So far the record number of squirrels in the tree outside my bedroom window at the same time is three. I'll keep you updated.

I remembered the funny thing for the day.

My professor had an interesting way of telling her husband that she was pregnant for the 2nd time. She was taking the test in the bathroom with the 18 month old. (apparently you can't go to the bathroom alone with an 18 month old). And the kid asked what she was doing. As they watched the little line turn into a cross, she explained what the cross meant. Then she sent the 18 month old with the test to daddy and told her to say 'baby'. *laugh* It took the dad 2.653 seconds to find mommy and ask if it meant what he thought it meant. *giggle*

That was the high point of the day. It was definitely better than dealing with everything else today.

Inappropriate Professor Behavior

Sometimes there is a limit to how far a professor should go in a classroom setting. Today I had to listen to a professor spend an hour screaming at students. He made a girl cry, then said he didn't want any cry babies in his class. Anyone someone said they didn't understand the assignment, he started yelling at them to stop insulting him. He said all back row sitters were the same, and implied that they were idiots and disrespectful. He then told several students to "watch your tone of voice when you speak to me." The assignment was confusing, but I don't feel like I learned anything in that whole class except sit quietly, don't say a thing, don't draw attention to yourself. He also sent a student out of the classroom for daring to show up 5 minutes late because his last class ran over.

I'm a bit at a loss of what to do. I think my only option as a student is to just put up with it. I have no rights when it comes to a senior professor insulting students. He's allowed to do what he wants within the university system. They protect professors who are horrible. I think he's already retired too. He fears nothing and it shows in his behavior.

And all of this horrible stuff eclipsed the more interesting things we learned in child development class today. :( We got to watch a video of some lady giving birth. It wasn't quite so scary because they did it as a really nice one. The dad was there and so was the older sister (at 3 she mostly just got scared when she didn't understand why mommy was yelling). I think the thing that stuck in my head the most during the video is how BIG that baby's head was! Just makes me want to shudder.

I wish David was here. When I come home from school after having a bad day I want someone to talk to. I guess we can't all have what we want though.

Bad Sarah Bad!

I really need to stop impulsively deciding that I want expensive things. I've just become fixated on a cooking show and feel the desire to own the DVD's. At first I was thinking, oh! I should buy the expensive complete set. Then I realized it's actually cheaper (by 5 cents per volume in a set) to order them separately.

But I still want them! *laugh* If David's DVD player won't play them, then we watch them on my laptop. ;)

Oh, I suppose I should mention what it is that I'm talking about:
Alton Brown's GOOD EATS

Maybe I can talk someone into buying them for me as a graduation present.

Things to Ponder

*UPS brings us packages. We often get package notices for a girl who has not lived here for 8 months. Apparently she still likes to get things shipped here. We tell them she doesn't live here. They try again the next day just in case... and the next day. Then we get a post card in the mail to this girl saying that they couldn't deliver the package. The reason they put on the card? Wrong Address. Why would you send a card to the wrong address saying that it's the wrong address?

*How long is it ok to leave dishes sitting in the sink? One or two days, fine. But do stinky dishes really need to sit there for a week... when we have a dishwasher and I've requested 3 times for them to be done? Should an ultimatum be delivered? "Do the dishes or I'll dump them onto the floor of your room" - signed, Not-Your-Mom.

*Why is it some weeks just go so slow while others go so fast. And how is it that each and every day can go very slow, but a month can just zoom by, even when that month is made of all of those slow days?

A relaxing day

It's interesting what I consider to be a relaxing day. On a Thursday, typically my day off of work, I have worked 3 hours. After rushing to get some stuff done, I got to class 15 minutes before the exam started. I quickly ate my lunch at my desk and was done before the professor showed up. I finished the exam in about 15 minutes instead of the 75 minutes we were given. I was not the first one out of the room. I went and sat in the sun for the next hour. When I got to my next class I found out that my professor was not there today. (I could have gone home an hour earlier!) I stayed and listened to a presentation that some of the class is going to present tonight though. I got off of school an hour early still.

Then I went to the store, spent 50 dollars on a small bag of stuff. I bought cold medicine, some shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, and razor blades. Just those few items added up to 50 dollars! The shampoo wasn't even anything special! Just some head and shoulders so my roommate doesn't take my expensive stuff.

After the store I took a nap for an hour. Since then I've just been sitting at my computer taking it calm. My goal for this weekend is to get ahold of a copy of War and Remembrance and start reading it. I'm giving up on American Caesar. I have 4 weeks until I need to be done with the book. I've been working on American Caesar for 5 weeks and I'm less than 200 pages into it. I'm hoping the other book is easier. We'll find out.

Hmmm... I wish I had something deep and profound to write about. Those posts are always much more interesting to read than my 'this is how my day went' posts. So here is something to think about... How fast can 111 days possibly go? ;)

Where is Friday?

It's felt like Friday since Tuesday. I've been battling a headache nonstop and I'm just very tired. Having to work tomorrow morning for 3 hours rather than having the day off of work isn't going to help much, especially since tonight is my late night. I won't be done with class until 9. After riding my bike home, taking a shower, drying my hair, relaxing, studying, then going to bed... It'll be at LEAST 10pm before I'm asleep. Work 9-12 tomorrow, class 12:30-3:15. And I have an exam too! Bleh.

I went through all of my boxes and weighed everything I brought from my mom's place. It didn't add that much to the overall weight. If anyone is bored... feel free to check out THIS LINK. It's my excel file. Things with no weight usually mean that I don't plan to bring it so I didn't weigh it. I have 140 pounds (or about 63 kilos) of luggage that I'll take over myself. David is going to take another 50 pounds (or 22 kilos). I haven't weighed the suitcases themselves yet, but it looks like I'll be able to take pretty much everything I want to over and then some. With the kitchen stuff, things labeled 1 I want to bring, 2 I'd like to bring, and 3 I don't want to bring. I might still throw out some clothes or buy new things. If I have lots of extra space I'd like to bring over some large spice containers. They're SOOOO much cheaper here. (less than 4 dollars for 680 grams of taco seasoning rather than the dollar for a small packet of like 20g)

Fact of the day

1 in 4 babies born in the US today are born with a C-section. This is the medicalization of birth. It's also the insurance companies making medical decisions.

The sadness of life

I've read two of my peers' papers this morning on the Cuban missile crisis. I feel like I must have overly high expectations for a class filled with graduating seniors. I guess expecting words to be used in their correct places and spelled correctly is expecting too much. And wanting them to follow the main point of the assignment rather than just writing about whatever the hell they feel like? That must be wanting too much too. I fear the students the US lets out into the world. Their college degrees can't be worth much if they aren't even willing to take the time to proof read their own papers before submitting them. I've temporarily stopped reading them though. It makes me too depressed. There are International Relations majors. They are expected to survive by their writing. Who is ever going to take their reports seriously if they put mistakes in them. I can't even say, well, these will be well-paid doctors who can have a secretary correct their work. They're IR majors....

I think I'll be glad when the Olympics are over. They seem to play the cool sports during the time I'm awake in the mornings. David and his friends watch Hockey and stuff, I am jealous that I can't be there, and a bit jealous that they get to spend time with David and I don't. ;) I guess everyone has days when they're grumpy about something or other. Tomorrow I'll be grumpy about having to work on my Thursday.

FINALLY!

Ugh! It took me days to get around to even starting, but I've finally finished my paper that's due tomorrow morning. It really only took about an hour of actual writing time to finish. I was just incapable of sitting still for that long. I've also been fighting a headache all day. I tried to write my paper this morning since I took the time off of work, but my head hurt so much I just went back to sleep for two hours instead. Sometimes I think that writing papers just gives me headaches as a way to procrastinate writing them! ;)

Another annoying thing today was a TV show I wanted to watch. A gameshow where Dom from Megatokyo would be competing. I go to turn the TV on about half an hour ahead of time to see if I can figure out how the TV works. Took me awhile to figure out that the reason we don't seem to have TV channels is that we haven't gotten around to plugging the cable into the TV. This means that we've been paying for cable for how long and neither of us have watched it even once. We mostly just have it so that we can get cable internet, but still! You'd think that one of us would have wanted to watch TV at least once since we got rid of digital cable back in October. After I went through all the effort of hooking the TV up... some idiot in San Quentin made himself news worthy so I only got to see the last 10 minutes of the show. :( My dad thinks it might be on later so he'll try to tape it if it happens. I'm sure it's out on the internet somewhere too.

One of these days I'll get enough free time to work on weighing things again. The stuff I brought home from my parents' place is still packed except where I needed something or I had to move something to get at something else.

I had a bad day...

The day started out ok. I woke up a bit early (5:30) and studied for awhile. I got to talk to David. But once class started my day started getting worse. We had another guest speaker for my political theory class. Next class period we have a paper due, yet we have NO idea what we're supposed to be writing about. An integrated set of propositions? Huh? I've taken tomorrow off of work to take care of that.

Work is where my dad really went wrong. I am starting to hate my intern, not because of who he is, but because he confuses me. Why does he say he understands something when he really doesn't? Why does he always forget what I asked him to do, then when a project isn't complete say that I didn't ask him to do it? Why do I have to explain something more than once? If he can't remember the steps, write them down!

The part that upset me nearly to tears today was when he didn't listen to me! I've been really careful not to talk down to him or do anything besides treat him as my equal. Anytime I say something he stops me midway through and says he understands. He did that today so I asked if he needed anything, he said nope. So I left him to the project. I check on him half an hour later and he's repeating work I already did. I asked him why he was doing work I had already done, and he said I didn't tell him that. But I did! I showed him exactly what to do! Perhaps if this was the first time I'd think it was my fault. So I started again to show him what to do and he said he already understood and that he'd just do his part and not try to understand the big picture. But then he doesn't know what to do! I stomped off and threw a pen against the wall. (It slipped! I swear! That hard? Yes! It slipped and hit the wall very very hard!) I then went and took a 5 minute break in the bathroom to think about my next action. Afterwards I went and talked to my boss. He had conferences with both of us and we've started working out what's going on.

My boss said he's seen a lot of the same tendencies in my intern. I think I might overreact a bit because my brother does the same thing as this guy does. My dad tried to tell my brother once when he was learning to drive to drive slower, the police are often here. My brother told him 'yea yea' and they got pulled over 2 minutes later for speeding! Hehe. The police let them off after telling my dad to keep my brother under control. Somehow I think my brother got smacked upside the head for that one. I was just so sad and I didn't know how to make things better.

Somehow I didn't think telling the intern 'You're a stupid ass jerk!' would have been very professional. I resisted temptation, but I sure thought it in his direction very loud!

Snowy Day

Here is a picture from Saturday morning. Click on that weird little bar above the text. For some reason I can't get previews of photos that are big into my blog. :)

Back in Chico

Well, I'm back at my apartment. I'm now faced with the somewhat daunting task of sorting through the two boxes of stuff I brought back. I need to find places for everything and weigh my new stuff, adding it to my excel list.

I also brought home 10 lunch-boxes of frozen food to eat later. My mom and I worked hard to make everything. We made a somewhat healthy chicken and pasta casserole (my mom calls it Italian). Then we made a chicken and rice casserole with taco seasoning (this is the Mexican one). And a rice and beef dish (here is the Asian dish). So I have boxed lunches from around the world. They only took 3 hours to make all 3 different dishes. I would have been just as happy making 10 of the same type, but that would NEVER be acceptable to my mom.

I mentioned the weird fire alarm to my mom and she gave me an explanation. It was probably one of those 'break glass in case of fire' type things.

I brought all the Nintendo stuff that I might take to Sweden back to my apartment. I seem to have duplicates of some games. I might just choose 10 games to bring to Sweden... right now I have about 25 games.

Oh, and I ordered my Boo Plushie. (the one from megatokyo) David gave me a gift certificate to get it for Valentine's day. Weee! Isn't he wonderful?

The Room Cleaning

I went through my entire room today. (this is my room at my parents' house) I have gone through my closet, through the drawers in my vanity, through my nightstand, under the bed, sorted the stuffed animals and cleaned out the bathroom cabinets. I have 7 paper grocery bags full of stuff that I don't want but isn't trash. I have 2 bags of trash, 2 bags of burnables, and several boxes of stuff to keep. I've just boxed everything up so that my room can be used as a guest room. I've attached myself to 4 stuffed animals that I like enough to bring back to my apartment with me. I probably won't have space in my suitcase to bring them, but we'll see. They don't weigh that much. I wonder where in David's apartment I'd put them though! *laugh* I also have one box of stuff to take back to my apartment along with a few books I want to keep.

I had a lot more memory items than I expected to have. I had forgotten that I had a whole box of music boxes, another box with glass figurines, etc. I think part of the reason I wanted to sort through my stuff is that I don't want someone else to make the choices of what to save at a later date and have different opinions than I would have.

On a completely different note... why would I have /4/ blow dryers when I've never been interested in blow drying my hair?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I woke up this morning to a wonderful surprise. SNOW! We have about 10cm of snow here at my parent's place on the trees and porch. Not so much on the roads of course. I'll take some pictures later. The snow hides the dead look that winter usually has here.

On the other side.... bad news. I somehow managed to get two cavities in my teeth. They are mirror images of each other! Normally they're so little they'd wait a bit on them, but since I might lose insurance this summer they figure they might as well just take care of them. I'll be back to my parents place March 31st to get them taken care of. They're right between some teeth so apparently I do a crappy job flossing. I'm a bit annoyed at myself, but I guess it's good to get them taken care of while I can still get it done for free. (well, a bit free, my mom does pay the insurance premiums whenever those are due.)

Headache...

My neighbors have managed to have an alarm going off for the last half hour or so. It sounds like a school fire bell. Not even a car alarm, a fire bell. We called the police after 15 minutes figuring that it was one of those type of things where everyone assumes someone else will call. Someone had called. The police showed up in our parking lot rather than the neighbors. They walked over to the fence dividing the two apartment complexes and asked the guy what was going on. The guys said something about the alarm not stopping and asked the police if they were maintenance. I'm guessing the guys managed to set off their own house alarm or something and haven't figured out how to turn it off. I'd also like to guess that they're either drunk or stupid. I'd say drunk from the normal number of cans of KeyStone I see in their yard.

This constant alarm has given me the start of a headache....

And yea, this is the third post of the day, but I figured something like this was 'exciting' enough to be worth posting.

EDIT: After 50 minutes of alarm a FIRE TRUCK showed up and turned it off within 30 seconds of arriving... who the hell makes a fire alarm that the only one who can turn it off is the fire department? Shouldn't the police have the key to those things at the very least?

The Robot Voice + And Extra Kilos

I called United Airlines today. I went through like 8 'press 1 for ...' screens. Then I was talking to a robot. It was this very pleasant automated voice hooked up to a computer somewhere that was trying to help me. It was supposed to respond to voice commands, but it didn't understand me. It wasn't even asking me the right yes/no questions! I finally figured out that if I said AGENT, it'd give me a real person.

Of course by this time I've almost forgotten why I called in the first place, but the lady was very nice. I was calling to find out what the excess baggage charges are going to be for this summer. (Just in case I feel like packing more). It isn't very much to go overweight. If my bag weighs more than 23 kilos (50 pounds) and is less than 32 kilos (70 pounds) then I only pay 25 dollars extra. That's a mere 1.25 per pound or 2.30 per kilo.

I think I might just plan on paying 50 dollars at the airport to get the extra 22 kilos (40 pounds). It isn't very much and it'd let me bring more over. I happen to think that my really nice Teflon pot + glass lid is worth the 3.22 USD to bring over. It'd probably cost me 10 times that much to buy it there!

I don't think it's worth it to bring a third bag though. They charge 127 USD for a bag up to 50 pounds. That's double the cost per pound than to just go overweight. So if I have an extra 40 pounds, I'll go overweight rather than pay for an extra suitcase!

If David's airline has a similar policy, I might be able to get some extra space there too. Mwahahahaha! (Ok, I probably don't need that much space... but it makes possible options like bringing some of my spices over that would cost me like 200 or 300 times more to buy there than to buy in bulk here.)

Sunny but Cold

It's a really nice day today... as long as you don't go out into it! It's COLD! It looks so deceptive from inside. You expect a nice warm day and dress accordingly... but when you go outside, you're in for a surprise.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for my parents house right after work. I need to pack before I go to bed tonight and take my stuff down to my car before school tomorrow. (Except for things like my laptop that might not want to be in a car all day.)

My brother gave me permission to take any of the Nintendo stuff that I want. So I'm going to bring it all to my apartment and sort it out later. I wonder how much it weighs? ;)

Relaxing Music

We learned the first few steps of the tango tonight. The music we played was the most beautiful music I think. Relaxing. I think it's the easiest of the dances we learned so far, maybe because it is so mellow. Granted this is "ballroom dancing according to Nate." It isn't competition dancing or anything like that. It's designed to be social (no pointy people with roses running across a room because they'd have to be the only ones on the dance floor) and fun (we're allowed to smile).

I should make David take ballroom dancing lessons with me in the fall if we have time. I'd like to learn more and I think it'd be fun to drag him along. Maybe Jenny and whoever else too. I wonder if I could get Peter to do it... maybe!

Life goes on

My roommate did something smart today, he asked me what to get his girlfriend for V-day. He said she didn't really like commercialism. He figured she wouldn't want candy or chocolate. My suggestion was a stuffed animal. They're cheap and you usually have to spend some effort picking one out. He really liked that idea, apparently she has lots of stuffed animals.

In other news I've been studying today. I read a book cover to cover that I'll need for next Monday. I figured I should do it now. If I go home for the weekend, I'll sort through my room rather than study. I still want to take some notes on my political science book.

My roommate is gone for a day or two. He needs to get some more medical tests done. They're still trying to get his kidney to work properly. Apparently the surgery that they made him drop out of school last year to get didn't work. =( Although if he is out of town I might take a nice long bath tonight.

At work I'm currently working on a fun project. I get to use this Implan program that I like to compare one county with the rest of the united states. We're targeting retirement industries to see if there is some money somewhere that can be captured. I like economic planning stuff, it's fun. I created an excel spreadsheet today with something like 12 worksheets. It has 3 pivot tables, two of which link to external data sources. I'm quite impressed with myself. I'm glad I have Thursday off though. I wish tomorrow was Thursday. Wednesdays are nice too though. I like ballroom dancing.

Now wasn't that a fun post to read? :P

Why?

I know that the US does a lot of very very very bad things. They've done them in the past, they're doing them now, and they'll do them in the future. I know these things, but I've been raised to think of the US as a good place. I guess it is better than many places, but somehow I feel like we let "American Interests" overwhelm other interests. This happens even when those other interests have nothing to do with us and aren't even in our country. American interests seem to be defined in terms of money and big business. I try very hard, telling myself over and over again that it's just a few bad people and a few bad situations. Normally I can convince myself of that, but every now and then I have it shoved in my face.

Today in class we discussed the American involvement in the Chilean Coup. We had a Chilean woman talk to us and we watched the film Missing. I guess it was a very one-sided presentation of the whole thing, but I still feel bad. It seems like the more I learn about America's involvement in politics the less happy I am to be an American. I'm still proud to be one, for what the country stands for if nothing else, but sometimes I start to feel a little scared of what the future will bring. But we survived in the past, so I guess we'll survive in the future. Although I guess this explains why every class I've taken about International Relations in the states has been about theory or the great wars and very little about actual events....

Now I have food for thought.

I'd like to be immature and say ICK!

I had to interview my mom today to write this paper for my child development class. I learned a lot of things about my birth and births in general. Many things my mom told me just made me want to say ICK! I hope things are a bit different in Sweden if I ever have a kid there! The US doesn't seem like a good place to have one!

My mom was 28 when I was born, very young and working her first job. She applied for the job when she was 7 months pregnant so they said they would only hire her if she took 2 weeks off when the baby was born, no more. The medical coverage she got from that job wouldn't cover anything related to me since I was a "pre-existing condition." The hospital was very expensive and they ended up with a 3000 USD debt for the three days we were in the hospital. She refused food for the first day because she was afraid they were going to charge her for it. She says she wished she had known that it was included in the room price. My mom was only 100 pounds at the time and she ended up gaining 50 pounds before she had me. She ended up collecting a lot on her rear end as balance.

I was produced after a 12 hour labor. My mom didn't expect it to take that long or to hurt as much as it did. One of the things she didn't expect was that the contractions for her were in her back. It was her first time ever being admitted to a hospital and she found it frightening. She didn't know her doctor very well and the doctor was not very caring. As soon as she got there they hooked her up to fifteen machines and she felt like she was a science experiment. She had an epidural because it hurt so much.

After I was born she was a bit shocked, I was covered in black scum. She says I was a pretty baby once they washed me off though. She was also a bit shocked that the first thing they did was to take me away from her for all sorts of science tests. I was weighed, prodded, and generally examined. She thinks they had to take me away from her because whatever they were doing was going to make me cry. She says she had lots of ripping and tearing and blames the uncaring doctor who was not careful at all. I was a big baby too at 8 pounds. She didn't expect the pain killers to hurt as much as they did. They were supposed to fix the pain, not cause pain. She said it felt like she was being burned.

The things she would have done differently are pretty plentiful. She says she would have liked to have me earlier because she felt like she didn't have the energy to keep up with me. She was glad she waited until finishing school first though. My mom also had very little idea about babies. She had gone to mostly Catholic schools and her mom never really told her much about babies. Babies just happened, she was one of nine herself. After I was born my dad's mother stayed with us for one week and my mom wishes she could have stayed longer. My mom took care of me and my grandmother did the washing and cooking since my mom was not feeling very well. My mom didn't expect to not be able to sit down for 2 weeks!

My mom's advice to others is to watch a movie or something about child birth so you'd have known what to expect. She would have also have done a tour of the hospital ahead of time so she wasn't so scared on the big day. She wishes she had done some more research since the doctor apparently makes or breaks the experience of having a baby. She says the doctor she had with my brother was much better. She also advises taking at LEAST 6 weeks off after the birth to heal and be with the baby before going back to full time employment.

That's my paper. I ended up just copying this entry into my paper. I think lots of this are just ICK! I didn't want to know that! Although I guess it's something I should know about since I am a girl and sometime in the far far far future might have a kid myself. She also said she didn't have any problems getting pregnant at all. As soon as she was off of the pill, it happened. She did have a miscarriage before me. I think I could have done without knowing about ripping and tearing and black scum covered babies though.

Sunday afternoon To Do list

It's now about noon and I haven't gotten that much done. My list of things to do today. I'm hoping that by writing them down, I'll actually do them.
1. Call mom, write 1 page 'birth story' for Child Development class
2. Read articles for Pols 441 class.
3. Read at least 100 more pages in American Caesar. (ick)
4. Eat dinner and do dishes
5. Take shower
6. Sleep

If I have extra time I can weigh some of the new things I've gotten. I can also start sorting my books. Any books that I don't want to ship to Sweden I need to separate out. Some of them should be traded in to a used book shop or something if I don't want to read them again. Part of my time this week needs to be spent getting ready to visit my parents next weekend. That means that any books I don't want to read again should be boxed up, any papers I want burned collected, and emails to my brother involving things of his that I want need to be written. But that isn't for today.

Maybe I'll try to take some time today to play my Nintendo DS.

New Stuff!

I got new stuff today! I guess I shouldn't be as happy about that as I am since I'll just have to move it. I got /4/ new pairs of PJ pants. They were less than 6 dollars a pair. I got 2 or 3 new shirts and I got two books. One of the books is the Better Crocker cook book I wanted and the other is the complete adventures of Curious George! *hop*

Oh, and I got some food too. It's yummy.

I probably should go weigh my new stuff, but I don't feel like it right now. :)

Cleaning!

I went through my whole closet and my laundry basket today and weighed all my clothes. Clothes that definitely don't fit and there's no way I want to keep, I've taken out. I've thrown away old pairs of shoes that I retired to the closet as being too old to wear for day to day stuff. My current pair isn't so nice that I'd want to protect them from anything. All of my clothes, sweatshirts, socks, shoes, etc only weigh 25.5 kilos! That's nothing! I know I'll go shopping before I go to Sweden, but I figure that the things I throw out will probably be pretty close to equal in weight. There are a lot of 'iffy' clothes in my closet. Things I don't wear, but I'm still attached to. There are 117 entries in my clothes worksheet in excel. But I've done things like set socks into groups of 5 and combined all undies into one group as well as lumped a few sets of clothes together. (I'm not going to take only the sweater out of a matching tank top-sweater set). That includes every pair of shoes that is still in my closet as well as the pair of shoes I'd wear onto the plane.

Of my sixty kilos I have roughly 25 kilos of clothes, 20 kilos of kitchen stuff, and that leaves me 15 kilos of 'other'. I'm not sure what other will be yet. I've started going through all of the drawers and shelves in my room and deciding what things to take with me. Anything that I haven't used in a few years and feel no desire to keep is going into a box. I'm going to send it home with my mom tomorrow. My old electric razor from when I first started shaving... haven't used in years. No reason to keep, plus it won't work in Sweden most likely. My weight-lifting gloves.... When was the last time I went weightlifting? I have less than 5 kilos of 'other' so far. I'm sure I'll find more. I think I also have some clothes stored at my mom's house. I'll go through those the weekend after this. So far it looks like I'll be able to take everything that I really wanted to take and then a bit. I wonder if it's a good thing that everything I wish to take to another country on the other side of the world weighs less than 60 kilos. (that of course does not include books, which are always valuable and are being shipped separately).

Perhaps I'll post another update later tonight after I finish cleaning my apartment. It's a bit of a mess right now. I'm calling my inventory project 'cleaning' Although my room looks a bit messier after a few hours of that...

Just nice

Sometimes it's nice to just go out with your classmates and have some fun. I went and had dinner at a Jazz pizzeria, then to a friend's place to chat for a bit, then to the bowling alley. Yes, I spent money. 7 dollars at the pizza place then 8.50 bowling, but it was nice. And it isn't like I go out all the time. I really need to do things like this more often. I didn't even notice it was nearly 11pm and long past my bedtime.

Wasted Wednesdays

Wednesdays are hard. My only breaks between 9am and 9pm are my two meal breaks. True, they are 2 hours long each, but that includes travel time. It takes me 15-20 minutes to get to/from school when you include locking and unlocking my bike, walking to the classroom, etc. Somehow with breaks that short I never quite manage to get anything accomplished. I manage to get through 2 hours of classroom time, 5 hours of work, and another 2 hours of ballroom dancing, but not get any homework done. By the time I get home in the evenings I'm almost too tired to take a shower before crawling into bed. It's now 20 till 10 and I'm not in bed. Usually I'm in bed by now and I try to have my light off by 10pm.

Tomorrow night will be worse too. For some reason this force in me that says I'm suppose to at least try to be social has ordered me to go out tomorrow night. I'm going to go bowling from 9pm-11pm... we're probably doing dinner before hand. Luckily my first class on Friday morning has already been cancelled. I don't need to be at school until 10am.

Oh! And with everything else going on in life, I've completely forgotten to mention that I've now managed to save up enough money to survive in Sweden for 11 months at the current exchange rate! *hop* That's assuming that I can live off of 5000 SEK a month. I should be able to handle that. I'm living off something pretty close to that right now and my rent is a lot more. Food will be more in Sweden, although not that much more since I'll be able to use 'economies of scale' and make more food from scratch. Right now it's actually cheaper for me to buy premade or mostly premade food than to cook it myself. Plus everytime I cook something I end up eating it for the next 4+ meals since I refuse to put the effort into it and only enjoy it for one small meal.

Ok. I'm going to bed now. I'm going to drip my hair all over my pillow. Just lovely.

How did I manage to end up with so much STUFF?

I can't really think of any way to describe my belongings besides stuff. I have lots of stuff! Some stuff I'm attached to, some stuff is useful, some stuff is just stuff I haven't been able to throw away, and other stuff is just junk! I've started trying to figure out exactly what it is that I own and what I'm going to do with it. I even have more furniture than I like to think about! I own trashcans, mirrors, folding tables, computer stuff, plastic shelving units, a bookcase, a metal rack for clothes, a shoe rack, a nightstand, a bed, and all sorts of other things that are required to make a home into a home. These things won't be going with me of course. They're large and generally cheap. They have no style at all and the only reason I own them is because they were cheap and sturdy and mostly lightweight. (Lightweight is important when you move every year.) I also have an amazing number of things that plug into the wall that I won't be bringing and some that I will be bringing. I've got a stereo, a powerstrip, a UPS, my cell phone charger, my cell phone, my external harddrive, a nightlight/clock, my Nintendo DS, the DS charger, and some kitchen items too! And that doesn't even include the items that I left at my mom's house!

Today I went through my kitchen, figured out what the heck I had in there and how much things weighed. I then sorted the list by what I would bring if I could only bring 5 kilos of kitchen stuff, 10 kilos, etc. Some items I'd like to have, but weigh more. So if I had to choose between a 2.1 kg casserole dish with a glass lid and several pots and pans... I'd choose the pots and pans. Even though I might really want that dish, I would like several other items more if I can have them all. I also had to keep in mind that it makes no sense to bring the lid to something without bringing the container. In most cases I weight the lid with the container, but when it came to my pots and pans I couldn't since the lids are interchangeable and there aren't as many lids as there are containers and I have a few duplicate lid sizes too. My list is really quite impressive so far. I should post it somewhere, but I doubt that many people are interesting in how much different things in my kitchen weigh. ;)

So that's what I've been doing with my time today between occasional reading of really boring articles for various classes. I also did a study guide for a quiz I have on Thursday, went to class, went to work, cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, made lunch, microwaved leftover lunch for dinner, went for a run, took a shower, took a nap, and played on my Nintendo DS for a bit. I think I can call that a productive day. Although I probably spent a bit too much time creating nice excel documents of items I own and their weights than I should have. But it was fun!

I feel guilty

Today in class we had an hour long presentation about Africa, South America, and India. How can we live with ourselves as human beings? This happens to me everytime I see people who are so improvised yet work so hard. I feel incredibly guilty. I feel like I should be devoting my life towards improving the situation of these people. How can I sit here typing away on a laptop, in a flat that several families would happily live in, getting my expensive college education, throwing food away when it goes bad? I realize that I wouldn't be happy giving everything I earned towards starving people, training them, educating them, etc. I still want to help and I still feel guilty. What makes me feel even more guilty is the thought that in a day or two I won't feel as guilty. In a week I'll be back to living my life exactly how I've always been living it. No cares or worries for anyone besides me. All of this makes me feel like a bad human being.

I've made a small goal for myself. I don't know if I'll ever do it though. Someday, when I have more money and resources and maybe kids of my own... foster a child. Make an offer to an improvised area and bring their kid to the western world and educate them. Send them home for large holidays when they have time off from school. Feed them, educate them, but don't adopt them and don't enslave them. Send them back to where they came from with the skills perhaps to make their village better. Pick a kid who knows that the whole reason they are getting this education is to make 10 other people better off. I'd never want them to lose track of their own culture though, because whatever they did would need that intimate understanding in order to work.

I think that if every family in the US gave a dollar a week, we could probably pay school fees for a HUGE number of children in improvised places. Perhaps guarantee those children one meal a day and school fees. That dollar a week, what does it provide us in happiness? I can buy two bananas at school, a can of soda, or a few stamps. Surely none of those are of such high value that I couldn't donate that to getting children education.

Maybe I should try to shift my studies towards improvised areas of the world. The reason I haven't in the past and I am still hesitant to do so is that I don't like unhappiness and misery! I like to pretend that doesn't exist because it makes me feel bad! And yet all of these things make me feel bad because they make me feel bad! Does anyone else ever feel like they are ignoring the world problem? By buying ecological eggs or milk we're doing our part? Somehow I don't feel like that is enough...

Stupidity Amazes Me

How do these people manage to graduate from highschool, let alone make it through university? I am, of course, speaking of my wonderful classmates. In general they're wonderful people, but reading some of their writing I wonder how they are graduating seniors. I've said it once and I've said it again... the California school system is failing somewhere and failing constantly! It is letting these students down. These human beings are going to go into the world thinking that they can write and are skilled, just because they made it through university. ARGH! The problem is... once it reaches the university point, it won't be corrected. Any problems they have are there to stay.

Yes, I know I'm not going to the best university in the world, but it is a university and should have some standards. Although what bothers me the most is that they graduated from highschool without being able to do things like make plurals. How how how! And they turn papers in with these mistakes! ARGH! I can't do anything to fix it... but it makes me wonder where these now adults were failed. It is not their fault that they don't know this, but more the schools. Why were they not held back in 5th grade or something until they learned? Because they're so afraid of leaving a child behind. So afraid that these children will enter the world even farther behind. It is hard to learn algebra when you don't understand arithmetic.

An unproductive (and lovely) weekend

I wish I could say I got a lot accomplished this weekend... That I productively did two weeks of school work, cleaned my apartment, cooked a wonderful meal. Instead I can say that my mom didn't come because she was too sick. So I just made a freezer dinner that'll last me a few meals. I did only the most required homework assignments. I haven't even cleaned! I do have some goals though for the rest of today. Do a load of dark clothes and make a trip to Target to buy a bathroom scale. Once I buy the scale I'll be able to start weighing some of my stuff and deciding what things get to come and what things are going to have to stay here. I have no idea how many kilos my wok is, but that is something I'd like to bring. I love my wok with a lid, even if I've only used it a few times. I'm hoping that everything I want to bring is REALLY lightweight. Somehow I doubt that pots and pans fit into that category! *laugh* I suppose I should also be careful about what things will and won't fit into David's kitchen. I suppose I could see about getting some sort of large thing with drawers and putting it into the hall closet as sort of an extended storage area. ;) But I bet we can fit most things in. His kitchen seemed pretty empty. We'll see. I can always dream! It keeps me busy and not hating the waiting so much.

Maybe I can get my house upgraded today in my game! That'd be almost productive? (Ok, really not, but fun still!)

Sun, Sun, Sun at last, thank god I see sun at last!

Ok, so I kidnapped that phrase and changed a few words. But there isn't a cloud in the sky! After a week of rainy, cold weather today we have sunny almost warm weather! When I first woke up this morning it was dark, I was grumpy, it was cold. I woke up again an hour later and the sun was shining and the squirrels fighting and the birds chirping! Perhaps after work today I'll go for a walk or something. Or maybe I'll walk to work rather than taking my bike today. Nah. :P I like having my bike at work, makes it easier to get away from the scary bums.

I have another quote from class today, I write these things down because they're so entertaining I have to share them with someone.

Professor: Now what would Hobbes say to you? (In response to a previous comment)
Student: That I'm an idiot!

Well... yes, Hobbes probably would have thought that, but I don't know him well enough personally to know if he would actually have said that!

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't spend my extra time this summer writing a collection of stories and opinions about the life of a student and what I've learned. Perhaps the things that frustrated me and the things that I liked. I'll have finished 17 years of school... K-12 then 4 years of university. I've got to have something to write about. Maybe it'll keep me from going stir crazy? And creating notes for this should keep me occupied during some of my more boring classes. I'm sure someone on the internet would find my recollections interesting. :P If not, then I'll find them interesting! What the heck have I learned in 17 years of school besides reading and writing? Sometimes I wonder if I even realize how much I've learned. But now I have another project to keep myself busy with! (Since I have so much free time of course!)

Double Standards and Alcohol

I find Swedes to have some of the strangest traditions about alcohol. They dance, sing, get completely wasted on a regular basis, even the adults. But there are such strict rules about when it is even ok to have a beer. American society is perfectly ok with you coming home and having a beer or two by yourself after work. It doesn't mean you're an alcoholic, because you're not getting drunk or even buzzed. At that few it is just considered relaxation. A reward to yourself for a hard day's work. But if I come home from work or school and grab a drink, the first thing I'm asked by a Swedish friend is 'who are you drinking with?' Being with someone else seems to make it ok to drink? And then if I say I'm just having a drink, the first reaction is 'you can't do that!' Yes, actually I can. Another idea is the fact that you can't drink on a Monday night. I swear Swedes must think one is physically incapable of it or something. Yes, you can drink any night of the week. You just don't have to get so drunk that you're incapable of walking home. The reaction to that seems to be, but that's a waste of alcohol! How is something a waste if you enjoy it? Somehow I think Swedes have it set into their minds that alcohol's only purpose is to get one drunk. The drunker the better. And this is university age Swedes or older! I expect that attitude from 14-16 year olds... but after that it is possible to just have a beer. That's not to say that Americans don't drink until they can't even stagger home, but more that we don't normally consider that the sole objective of opening that first beer. (Although a few frat boys might disagree with you, but they're mentally 14 anyways).

The date is set!

And the official countdown begins! I officially have tickets to fly to Sweden this summer. I managed to get my oneway ticket for less than 850 USD (ok, 849.17). I fly all the way from Sacramento to SanFran. I've never done that flight before, it should be interesting. From there I then fly to London, then to Arlanda. I will be in Sweden August 15th at 2:10pm. That's if everything goes as planned. I have NO faith in my flights getting anywhere on time. I've had too much experience with that. I think I'll redo my timers so that they include the hours until my flight leaves. It's either that or go write the paper that I have due tomorrow. Tough choices!

My poor feet!

I have got to get some shoes for dancing! Despite the fact that everyone is in socks... it still hurts when you get your feet stepped on. It wasn't always by my partner either. Sometimes during the spins I'd end up under a completely different guy's feet. Now that takes talent! Today we worked on learning the fox trot. We're also working on more stuff with swing.

At work today I learned about different types of gravel. I am also working on a feasibility study with some sort of energy thingie from wood. I'd put the actual words of what I'm working on in here, but I'm afraid they'll show up on my next search from work! (Or my boss' search.) We're also going to work on putting out a newsletter with the things my work does. Apparently there aren't many organizations that do small business development, research, data collection, and marketing all at once. I think that's what we do. Mostly I know we collect lots of information, produce some profiles, and have phones that ring ALL the frickin time. I don't like phones. There's a reason that the only phone I own is a cell phone and I never take it with me unless there's a specific reason.

It's been raining a lot today. It's managed to start raining every time I've stepped out the door. Not before, because then I'd put my rain suit on. And of course it'll stop right as I get into class or work. And after class, when I want to get on my bike, it'll start pouring so my seat will be wet. The weather hates me! On the bright side today I accidentally forgot and left my bike light on when I went to class tonight. Someone not only didn't steal it, they turned it off for me. I don't know how many people want to stand in the rain to inspect bike lights though.

Tomorrow I get to spend any time I'm not in class frantically working on a paper that is due Friday morning. We just got the information we need in class today. That only gives us two days to write a paper. I think I should do well though. I usually do. When I remember to bring my papers to class with me to turn them in! (I forgot a paper today, but the professor was nice and said to bring it by before the end of the day.)

I hope everyone else had a nice day too!

Quotes from Monday Night's Class

Talking about guys
"Even if he is good and happens to know how to put his socks into the hamper, there are still a million things that you as a women will do. And he'll say that he's doing half of the housework."
Ummm... hello... If the guy is doing that, perhaps sit down and talk to him?

"Housekeeping should be an art." - Then it is an art I don't like. Perhaps decorating your house is an art, but cleaning the bathroom is just an annoyance.

I also made a note in my notebook that the girls seem to want to have equal pay, equal everything, but they still want the benefits. They want the guy to buy dinner even when they earn the same amount. They want the guy to do housework, but don't want him to get time home with the kids unless they don't want it. They really need to make up their minds!

My professor speaking about one of her old friends and how they knew each other... "We toilet trained our boys together. They liked to pee in the corner together." - Gives very little respect to the guy. Granted I point out that David is house-broken... but that's just because he knows how to wash dishes.

Oh! And one of my favorites for the class day... "If you want to question my authority, just raise your hand and I'll call on you." Ummm... then we're waiting for her authority to recognize us and then we aren't really questioning it. We're confirming it!

I also made a note that my professor did not know how to turn the class computer on.

Oh so tired... always so tired.

I was so tired last night that I went to sleep quite early. I slept in this morning and I'm STILL tired! If this doesn't get better by next week I'm going to get rid of my Tuesday morning hours. It'd lower me to 12 hours a week, but I think I could manage. I guess part of the problem is that on Mondays I spend 9 hours in class or work. I got home at 8pm last night and was basically too tired to do anything. I took a shower and fell into bed. I studied a bit then slept. I was going to eat dinner, but I wasn't even hungry.

In other news I've decided that I'm either a bad teacher or my intern is a slow learner. I mean... how many times do I need to explain excel? I'm trying to get him used to checking his work. Ok... does it make sense that you have half of the population in this town in 2000 as you did in 1990? He starts to say yes and I'm thinking no. I made him add up the total populations we started with and then we found the mistake. He forgot to add the female population in. He keeps asking me how to problem solve. It's like argh! You just look to see if it looks right, then you go figure out what you might have done wrong. And when you get frustrated and give up, you get someone else to check what you might have done wrong. Not that hard.

Besides work I've been doing a lot of school work. I wrote down a bunch of annoying quotes from class last night, but I don't have much time this morning to post them. I'll try to find time this afternoon. If the weather is as bad as it is right now I won't be running, so I should have some free time.

Off to go eat my dinnerbox from last night as breakfast!

Yum!

My cooking project for this week went rather well. I bought some thin-cut pork chops and fried them up. Then took the pork chops out of the pan. Then I put in a whole blue box of slice mushrooms, then fried those up. I poured some cream in with the mushrooms, added some pepper and some seasoning salt and some soy sauce. Then I put the meat back in. I let it simmer for a minute or two, trying not to eat the mushrooms out of it. I served that over rice with some steamed broccoli. YUM! Plus I made enough for 3 more meals. That'll give me lunch and dinner tomorrow and lunch on Tuesday. If I have a lunch sitting at home for me, then I can work for another half hour or so at work before coming home.

I didn't get as much homework done this weekend as I planned on. Originally I wanted to have all of my classwork for the entire next week done. But I got done two of the three papers that are due and a bunch of the reading. I still need to do my study questions and three more chapters of reading tonight, but that seems manageable.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

I don't wanna!

I don't want to study! I don't want to write any papers! I don't want to answer study questions! I don't even want to read my textbooks! Despite my dislike, I've been doing just that all day. I've written a short paper, read another 100 pages in a book, read some articles for another class, and I still have lots to do still. I have some journal articles I have to write for my political theory class. I need to find another Iran article for my crossing boundaries class. I need to write out answers to my study guide for that class. I have three chapters to read for my international economics class. I also have another chapter to read for my child development class. Ick!

I've got to admit though, one of the articles I read really got me thinking. My Crossing Boundaries class is about feminism and modernization. I read an article by Ursula LeGuin about language. She explains that there is a father tongue that is used by men and by official society. It is a language designed to show superiority and to argue and to state the facts. She says that society puts too much weight on this and not enough on the mother tongue. This is the language of experience, of sharing, of friendship. She says that guys don't do this. It was quite interesting really. I have a few quotes and my opinions on them to share as well.

Keeping house is not considered work by the American culture. "Do you work? - and she, having stopped mopping the kitchen and picked up the baby to come answer the door, says, No, I don't work." Argh! How can that not be considered work? If she did not stay home and do that, then someone else would have to be paid. This whole industry of child caring, home keeping, and cooking is invisible labor. It has no value in today's society. But today's society is designed on past societies. This means it is a man's world. "Most men are prevented form housework by intense cultural bias; many women actually hire another woman to do it for them because they're scared of getting trapped in it, ending up like the women they hire." Whenever I read things like that, I'm happier and happier that I have David and not some American guy. Granted I think this was written quite awhile ago, but you can still see it today.

"Freud famously said, "What we shall never know is what a woman wants," Having paused thoughtfully over the syntax of that sentence, in which WE are plural but "a woman" apparently has no plural, no individuality - as we might read that a cow must be milked twice a day or a gerbil is a nine pet - WE might go on then to consider whether WE know anything about, whether WE have ever noticed, whether WE have ever asked a woman what she does - what women do." I can't say much about that quote, but that it made me think.

"The failed woman - the old maid, the barren woman, the castrating bitch, the frigid wife, the lezzie, the libber, the Unfeminine." This puts into words in a way that women fear this. If they aren't a happy family, does that make them a failure? I sometimes think society does think this way.

I see in this course though an image of feminism as man hating. The article stressed how men should not be trusted. I wonder if there is feminism out there that doesn't involve women acting like men. Women can still be women and get equal pay and equal rights. But that does not excuse anyone, man or woman, of slamming doors in other people's faces. It does not excuse being kind to others. Any woman who takes it as an insult if a man helps her open a door, change a tired, or collect dropped items should be dropped on her head!

Ahhh...

Well... week 1 of school over. 15 weeks to go. Tonight I am just going to take it easy. Perhaps study a bit. I definitely need to study. Tomorrow I will study all day. I have lots to do before next week.

Oh. I mailed David two letters today. One is my transcript the other my expected graduation date. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get there. They were supposed to be there by February 1st. Somehow I don't think they'll make it. They might though! If the postoffices work well together then the letters might get there by Monday or Tuesday... Then David might have time Tuesday of Wednesday to take them to the admissions office. Then they'll be there by closing time on the 1st. I REALLY hope that happens! We'll see though. Nothing more I can do now that I've mailed them. And I got them into the mail box before they picked up mail for today. That might help. If I can get the mail moving during the weekend rather than sitting in a box somewhere the letters stand a chance of actually getting there on time!

Friday is here at last!

I'm done with classes for the week and I have only 4 more hours of work!

I've decided that this long grain rice is NOT as easy to cook as the Jasmine rice. So I'll be going back to the stuff that I can boil and still have it taste good. And korv strogonoff does not taste quite the same with hotdogs as it does with falukorv.

Speaking of food... I've invited my mom over for dinner, not this weekend but the next. This gives me a week to decide what I want to make for her. Somehow I don't think frozen pizzas will do it. ;) I told her she has to bring her own chair since we have /1/ kitchen chair. The other three are in pieces and I'm too lazy to put them together. Maybe I could make a taco pie. I don't think my mom has ever had that. I'll have to search the internet for a recipe and instructions.

It definitely looks like my life will be VERY busy this semester! Hopefully this will keep me busy enough that I won't think too much about how much longer it is until I get to go back to Sweden! Here are two links for whoever. ;)
Time until David Comes (June 15th)
Time until Sweden Movie (August 15th)
The dates aren't set in stone, but it is nice to at least have a date to look forward to!

Ballroom Dancing and a day off

Last night I had my very first ballroom dancing class. I've never seen a group of guys that nervous before. They were like cute little robots. I'm going to try really hard to stick with this class. It's late at night, but some of the social graces might be useful. We've learned the first few steps of swing dancing so far. I've managed to gracefully trip over my own feet a few times. They have us all dancing in socks so at least we can't crush each other's feet too badly. I need to get some shoes though, my feet hurt too much from dancing on wood all night. I miss my super padded running shoes that I wear as everyday sneakers!

Well, today is my day off of work. I've got 4 hours of school and that's it. I have a lot of things I want to get done this morning, but I don't think that they'll all happen. I was hoping to get two days of homework done, run to the store, spend time talking to David, and do 150 other things. I might settle for a bit of homework and talking to David. Although I did want to go to the store and buy some ground beef, some tomato paste, some dish soap, and whatever else I become attached to when there. Maybe a box of Kix cereal. I've had a craving for that recently.

Sometime this week/weekend I want to try making korv strogonoff. I guess that means I should buy an onion too. I have some hot dogs, which is the closest thing to falukorv I know of. I don't even know what tomato paste would look like here! My mom has informed me that strogonoff is NOT red and should not have tomatoes in it. I don't really care, I want to make it the Swedish way because I like that!

I'm amazed right now at my lack of free time. I wake up in the morning, check my email, study a bit, talk to David for maybe an hour if he's home, then head to school. I go to school/work for a few hours, run home for lunch, run back to school for more classes/work, run home for dinner/clothes change, then back to school again. Then home again. By the time I take a shower, make and eat dinner, and try to pick up the mess a bit it's my bedtime or past. I go to bed, try to finish a few chapters in whatever literature we'll be covering in class the next day, then sleep until morning. Then I wake up and repeat! My life is boring! *cry* :)

But then... then we have Thursdays! I am free until 12:30 when my first class starts. :) It's like Tuesday but without work!

Homework

I've managed to get through most of my reading for today. That last bit of homework that I need to do involves going to school and printing some stuff. My political theory class is going to be fun. I worked my way through 3 articles already. Two of them are by authors I already was familiar with. Morgenthau and Clautz (spelling?). There are something like 50-60 short articles from various sources in my textbook. I also have two required novels to read out of five. I've bought 3 so far because they seemed interesting and I'll probably get one more.

Work yesterday was relatively boring. Although I have learned how to make a pivot table with data that isn't actually inside Excel. External Data Sources baby! Ok, so I'm a bit crazy. I'm still waiting for my boss to write me back and let me know if I can come in an hour late today. Somehow I think I won't know until lunch if then. I might end up just going in at my planned time.

Some people write their blogs about important things, big life changing events in the world, or make interesting comments into the runnings of something. Then there is my blog. It's about whatever I'm thinking of at the time. It tends to be a response to the non existent question 'and so how was your day?' or perhaps 'what did you do today?' It's not well-written, it isn't filled with book quality material, it is just what I've done with myself. Occasionally you get rants where I am annoying at something.

Anyways, I think I'll go read the last bit in my Child Development chapter and the last article for my other class. After that perhaps I'll take a bit of time to just relax and collect fish in Animal Crossing: Wild World. I need relaxation time too, I just have to find time for it!

Today my mood is.... ARGH!!!

I hate dealing with petty little people and their red tape! I'm going to have to change the hours I work because my work has different regulations than the state. If I work 4 hours I have to take a lunch break. So that means that anytime I want to work 4 hours I 'm supposed to actually block 4.5 hours out of my day. No thanks. :P State regulations is for 6 hours you have to take a lunch break. I'm going to pretend that I thought I had to work MORE than 4 hours before taking a lunch break and change my plans a bit. On Tuesdays I'll start work an hour earlier, and on Wednesdays I'll start an hour later. It almost makes sense.

I went by records today... they haven't even made the fall grades official! So they haven't sent transcripts out yet! ARGH! They say there is no way that the transcript I ordered in December will be there before February 1st! They said I had a better chance of ordering a new one and hope that they finish them sometime this week... picking it up myself, and mailing it myself! So David will get lots of nice little letters from me sometime this week that I'll force him (at dagger point) to hand deliver for me.

My classes should be fun this term though. As long as I don't go crazy. If things start getting too crazy I'm just going to drop aerobics or ballroom dancing. Either that or I get rid of my Tuesday hours all together. We'll see what works out for the best.

Right now all I want to do is sleep, not go to another class. This one should be short though. I've sat through the intro 3 times already during my time in university. It shouldn't even use the whole hour. They'll tell us what we need, give us a piece of paper or too, then we'll go on with our lives. On Tuesdays I will make 3 separate bike trips to school. One for work, come home for lunch, back to school for 3 hours, then home for an hour and a half to change clothes, and then back to school for aerobics, then home again for the day. Ick! I guess I need the exercise?

First day over

Well, my first day of school ended and today will be my 2nd day. After surviving Mondays I feel like I can survive anything! It was a long day. Left home at about 8.15 or so. Went and spent a small fortune on books. 340 USD! And I haven't even bought them all yet! I got to my first class, Child Development, a bit before it started at 9. It's all girls, 18 girls. I guess guys don't have any care in the kids after they've finished the child creation part. I would expect guys to take the class because there are so many girls. It's a required class too, it replaces nutrition and a few other lifetime learning classes. You just need to take one. I figured this one fit into my schedule. And it's good that I took THIS Child Development class, we're right across the hall from the daycare. It's also known as the child observation lab.

After my first class I went straight to my second class. The class is a bit full. It is an absolutely required class for anyone majoring in International Relations. It cannot be changed for anything else, no alternatives. It's only offered once a year right now, although they're saying in the future that they will over it more often. It is going to require a LOT of reading and writing and I won't have any points really until I turn in my final project in May. The professor says that short of us stabbing ourselves in the foot, then tripping and falling, then impaling ourselves on our own sword, he doesn't expect any of us to fail. That's good since most of us are graduating seniors. That means this is our LAST chance. The class has like 60 people in it instead of the 25 that it's supposed to have. A lot of people are going to drop the class though. I know my friend will. If you don't HAVE to take it, don't. It's too much work.

After that class I ran home, made myself some pasta, then ate said pasta. I made enough originally, I thought, for lunch and dinner. But then I just felt hungry and ate it all. I figured I could buy dinner on campus later. After lunch I went to work. I got there and my boss goes, I don't have anything for you to do. Check your email and head on home. I then got abducted by another boss type person. I told her I was more than willing to do her filing and clerical stuff as long as she was willing to pay me for my time. At 9 bucks an hour it's still cheaper to have me move boxes around and organize papers than for her to do it herself. So I spent some time as an overpaid clerical assistant. My boss got back from lunch about the time that the new intern showed up. I did some training with him, had him move lots of computer stuff. I have a new 'office' now. Well, mostly it's just a little cubicle farther to the back, but it's still nice.

After work I went and bought a snack at the BMU. I then went and pestered the Honors department. They're trying to move furniture. So along with about 4 other bored students who showed up, we all gave helpful advice. Most of their advice was more helpful than mine.

I then went to class. It's a sign that I've been at this school for too long. I didn't recognize a single person in my class. I've NEVER had that problem since my first semester at Chico. The honors classes are offered with such a small group of students from each year that I usually know most of them. But most honors students have finished all of their honors requirements before the last semester. I'm just a bit slow. My last class is only once a week, but it means I have to sit still for 3 hours. The professor is one I dislike. She handed us 12 pieces of paper and half explained 4 of them. She jumps from topic to topic and never finishes anything. I would have been MUCH happier if she started at the top of one paper, explained it, then went to the next. Less jumping around means more things covered in a shorter amount of time. I left the class feeling like I STILL had no idea what was going on with our first few assignments. This class only has 4 small novels and a course packet that I need to buy.

When I got home I dragged my roommate grocery shopping. My argument was that we now have like 8 bottles of booze, 24 beers, and some other alcohol in the fridge... but NO food. I thought we needed more food to balance it out a bit more, hide some of the alcohol behind, etc. We spent quite a lot, but I just wanted to have food again. I finally got around to eating my dinner at 10:30pm last night. I went to sleep at about 11:30pm and managed, somehow, to stay asleep until 6:30am this morning. Pretty good.

So that was my day. Hopefully today is filled with easy classes! Wish me luck!

Forgotten good news

In my rush to write that long boring entry below, I seem to have forgotten to give you peoples really good news for my finances. My mom says she'll buy my ticket over to Sweden as a graduation present. She pointed out that a plane ticket to Europe is a normal present in our family. My brother and I both got one for our highschool graduations. This is an even bigger event. This takes 1500 off of my required expenses! I can get a ticket for less than that, but I had given myself that much just to be on the careful side. I'm going to go play with my excel spreadsheet and see how much I need at various exchange rates... BRB! :)

If you people remember way back when I used to actually remember to write about my trip (you know, what this blog was created for!) I decided that about 5000 SEK a month is a good amount. I've also calculated how much I need for 4800 and for 5200 per month. I've done that at various exchange rates.

Rate - SEK - 1 month - 12 months
7.66 - 5000 - 653 USD - 7833 USD ** Current Rate
7.00 - 5000 - 714 USD - 8571 USD
7.50 - 5000 - 667 USD - 8099 USD
8.00 - 5000 - 625 USD - 7500 USD
8.50 - 5000 - 588 USD - 7136 USD

Since I have 6,238 dollars saved up and will be getting 1500 in semester money as soon as the check arrives and my mom deposits it... I am doing so well! I started out with a goal I thought was impossible and I'm almost there! I've almost saved up enough money for 12 months of living expenses!

Today is also the first day of school. I have 9 hours that I'm either in class or at work today. That doesn't include the hour lunch break or the hour dinner break I gave myself. I have a 9 hour day, three 6 hour days, and one 8 hour day each week this semester. I'll be working 15 hours and going to class for 19 hours.

Oh, and my mom told me that I 'should be a tad more mercenary.' She thinks I should take all the money I can get from her this semester because I don't know how much I will be getting in the future. So I think that excuses me from helping my mom out with finances! I can keep almost all of the money I earn this semester now! Weee! Although since I don't have to buy my own plane ticket... I only need about 100 USD (yes, just a hundred) to have enough to survive for 12 months at the current exchange rate. Now I can work on surviving for a longer period of time and saving up some startup money. Be great if I could get like 500- 1000 USD of start up cash for things like buying a new bike.

Now off to slowly lag my way into the school's website to figure out when/where/what my classes are for this week.

LONG and BORING entry.

I'm actually writing this entry while offline. Been sitting at my apartment for the last 4 and a half hours without internet. I managed to get mostly unpacked before I got bored. I'll have internet again when my roommate gets here. Who the heck knows when that will be. Anyways, the rest of this entry is likely to be quite boring to most people, it's just me thinking in list form and posting it. I do that quite often. But wooo! I'm in the home stretch now for my move! Just have to finish one more semester of school/work and then I get to move to Sweden! I can't wait!

I've started talking to my mom about what else I need to do before I go. Mostly I just use her to bounce ideas off of. I've decided that just about anything that doesn't go to Sweden with me I'll need to make choices about.

Category A: If the item is not likely ever to go to Sweden (microwave, toaster, anything that plugs into the wall) it is going to be given to my mom. She can decide what to do with those things. Give them to my brother, store them, sell them, give them to any of her friends kids. I don't care at that point. I have a LOT of unused plug in things, but it isn't worth trying to make them work in Sweden. So that's one category of items.

Category B: Items that aren't likely to go over to Sweden anytime in the next few years but that I'm not ready to give up yet (if ever). This group contains things like my barbies, my victorian doll (complete with clothes and furniture), and my cheerleader uniform. I'm sure there are a lot of things I haven't found yet that fit into this category. Probably some of my favorite figurines from when I was a kid and such.

Category C: Things that wait until I have my own place with more space. This group is things like my nice dishes. And perhaps some of my hardback books. David's apartment just doesn't have the space or the need for things like this right now. Jenny has a lot of plates and such. Very durable. The kindest thing about the dishes David and Jenny have right now is that they sure as heck won't break easily! They're just basic IKEA student dishes. My fluffy blankets are in this category too. No need for them now or in the near future, but I like them too much to get rid of!

Category D: Things that will come over as soon as I have space in my luggage. This is mostly kitchen stuff. Some nice glass baking dishes and some of my pots and pans. It doesn't need to come over this trip or the next, but eventually it'd be nice.

Category E: Stuff that either needs to come over THIS trip. This is stuff like clothes, important documents, my computer, etc. Important things that I use often enough or are important enough to justify dragging across the ocean.

My mom reminded me that when I pack up my apartment this summer I'll need to carefully separate things and be sure the boxes are marked. A stuff will probably go up into the attic. B stuff is most likely NOT in my apartment right now. It's probably sitting in my closet and will remain there, perhaps a bit more organized. C stuff will be boxed up and probably put into my closet at my parents' place too. (It's a BIG closet, it currently has a dresser, a space heater, 8 boxes, and 2 chairs sitting on the floor.) D and E stuff will hopefully end up in either my bags or David's bags. Or else it will come over the next trip I make home.

I'm sure I'll change my classification system another 12 times before I leave. I just need to organize things a bit in my head. I still have 6-7 months before I move over there. Thank goodness David will be here in like 5 months! I don't think I could wait until the very end of summer to see him again!

Amazingly that thing only took me 15 minutes to type out. So much for killing an extensive amount of time with it. Maybe I'll go do something productive rather than just thinking about being productive. Like put my clothes away or make my bed... or heck, maybe pick up the books that have taken over the floor of my room.

Ok. I managed to spend 45 minutes organizing and sorting my books. I've gotten them up off of the floor now too. I also counted my books. I have 106 paperbacks and 9 hard backs that I like enough to want to bring over right away. I have 36 paperbacks that I'm not so attached to and might leave behind. Those are all just science fiction/fantasy. Besides those I have 54 romance novels. I figure I'll choose maybe 15-20 and abandon the rest. I have 12 hard backs that I'm leaving behind because I also have them in paperback. I have two paperbacks I'm leaving behind because I am missing one of the three books and I have one hardback book with all three inside, so going to bring the hardback instead (already added into the bring novels). I have 21 random books in paperback and hardback that are either swedish learning books with grammar or are otherwise special enough to bring. I also have 12 books that I'm planning on leaving in the states. That means that I currently have 250 books in my room at my apartment. And I have already mailed 7 kilos to Sweden, left several books there when I was there, probably have some books in my room that I haven't found, and I know I still have books at my parents. This might be a bit too many books to even mail! I'm going to have to make choices eventually! Have I mentioned before that I like books? It's 7pm and my roommate is still not here to give me internet. At this rate there is going to be one LONG entry by the time I do get internet again!

Plane Tickets!

I've started on my quest to buy plane tickets. It's a bit crazy trying to find the cheapest tickets that do what I want them to do. I have so many options. I can buy a one way ticket, I can buy a round trip and not use the other half, or I can buy a round trip ticket and try to set the return near Christmas just in case I want to use it.

Right now I'm leaning towards option 1 since I've found some ok tickets there. If I buy a student ticket I can get to Sweden for under 1000 USD in early to mid august. I can get a round trip with a return in October for less than 1200. I need to decide if it's worth the extra 200 USD to have a return ticket that I probably will not use.

Anyways, if anyone is bored. Need a ticket leaving from either SMF (sacramento) or RNO (reno). I want to be in Sweden by mid to late august at the latest. I could possible leave as early as late July. Return ticket doesn't matter much, feel free to experiment with dates. Oh, and the plane should hopefully land in ARN (stockholm). The tickets need to be booked all at the same time. No finding part of the ticket here and part there. If my flight is delayed or cancelled I want the next bit to work well. And the higher the luggage limit the better. I think that's all the information...

SMF or RNO to ARN
Leaves sometime between late July to mid August
Tickets booked all with the same website/company

Now I'm supposed to be packing to go back to my apartment today. ICK! I'd rather go back to Sweden!

Dinner

I had a nice family dinner tonight. We went out for my Dad's 50th bday. But somehow it ended up being about my bday too because one of my aunts wanted to eat the cake that came with it. She said it tasted quite good. :P I had a small glass of wine with it. First family dinner that I've /ever/ had alcohol with. My parents bought a bottle and I just asked for a glass as well. Everyone was all shocked until they remembered I have been old enough for quite some time!

I mailed my first M-bag today. 15 lbs 8 oz. Cost me 15.20 USD. This batch was mostly text books and other nicer books. Paperbacks weigh a lot less.

I STILL haven't managed to get much packing done. I ended up washing clothes and such instead.

Our cat can now open closed doors. We have doors that open by pushing a handle down. He's discovered if he jumps up his weight is enough to move the latch. As long as the door opens away from him the door will open. He can get out of the laundry room at night if we don't lock it and he can get into my parents room. My mom goes out through the laundry room in the mornings to go to work at like 6am or something. If she doesn't remember to lock the door behind her (it's a one way lock, once locked she can't get back through) then the cat will be in my dad's face 5 minutes afterwards. The cat doesn't like being alone. He cries if my dad takes the dog outside to get the mail and he is left inside. It's so sad. Poor lonely abandoned kitty! (even if there ARE people in the room with him, daddy is giving attention to the dog instead of the cat!)

And I think that's the most interesting thing that's happened all day. The cat opening doors. That and a really nice dinner.