Sunday 17 April 2011

Not So Much

Can't say that I have that much to write about today ...
Been spending most of the day reading the book for the OT lecture tomorrow - and I quite enjoyed it!! Since I won't take active part in the discussions I haven't read every detail of the book, but what I grasped of it, I quite liked. I am very much looking forward to the discussions tomorrow!

Other than that I've been doing some cleaning and trying to sort through what is up for next week.
On Tuesday I have a meeting with the OT professor regarding my master's thesis, and I hope it will be a good meeting. I am working on it now as well, but I need to work out a lot of practical details now and it's also good to get the whole writing process more structured.

On Wednesday the construction workers are coming back! *SIGH!* Apparently there's something they haven't done yet, but I plan to stay well away from home ... I'm in for a full day at Uni on Wednesday and hopefully everything will be sorted out by the time I get home. The OT students have their first exam on Wednesday morning, so I might be able to be there for some moral support as well! :)

And then it's Easter Holidays! I'm not that into holidays overall (I mostly don't like them!) and I don't have anything planned, so hopefully I can get some work done on my thesis and also look ahead a bit at what the OT course will deal with - they start reading Isaiah the week after Easter, and those texts are quite difficult, so I'm hoping to spend some time on that too ...

Saturday 16 April 2011

Trying ...

I had a pretty horrible night after a difficult day yesterday - so it took me a while to get going today.
I have still been feeling very sad about Zorro today but I am constantly trying to get things to work anyway. The problem is that every time I even think about him, I completely fall apart ... and I don't want to go on without thinking about him!! And I still can't allow myself to continuously fall apart either ... quite a dilemma ...

I have been doing some cleaning and some laundry today, and I've also spent time reading the book by Levenson that the OT students are having a seminar on on Monday. It's really quite interesting and I have a feeling I'll grasp a bit more of the ongoing discussions if I have actually read the book ...

Apart from that, not much has been happening ... I talked to my sisters (and my Dad) earlier tonight, and it's good to hear from them every once in a while. Apparently they had started taking out Easter decorations and my youngest sister had a great long monologue about two chickens .... I didn't understand half of it really, but it's great just hearing from them!

I'm hoping to finish cleaning tomorrow, and also finish Levenson's book, so I can get some work done on my master's thesis as well - I'm having a meeting with my professor next week so I need to get a bit of work done for that meeting as well.

Friday 15 April 2011

5 Months - Difficult Day

Today it's been exactly 5 months since Zorro died ... and while I realize some people may think I should be over this now, I'm not! I can function, I can go through certain parts of a day without thinking about him, or how much I miss him - but whenever I do think about him (and I do, a lot - and I don't want to stop!) it feels like someone is cutting my heart open with a knife!

Five months is quite a long time - and yes, in most aspects of my practical life I am getting used to him not being there. It's not the same torture to come home alone now, with no one waiting for you at the door, with no one demanding your attention, with no one feeling happy that you are home again. And I can sleep in the bedroom now, which was completely impossible the first month after his death - I can go to bed alone now ...
But the knowledge that I will never ever see him again, never hear him, never feel him, it's just killing me - it's tearing me up inside and it is a wound that is nowhere near healing yet.

Unfortunately (I guess) I had a pretty heavy day today! While I do love what I'm doing at the moment, and I generally feel things are working out now, better than before, I can't help but wish I could have had a day today where I didn't have to do anything.
I had a slow morning, which I think was good, I needed to prepare in order to cope with this day.
I went to Uni around 10 and met Elisabet when I got to the Department! We fixed the coffee and stuff for our mentor meeting and we had lectures at 11. These texts are really interesting and there were also some grammatical issues raised. I'm usually very interested in that and I feel I do know a fair bit of Hebrew grammar now - but I felt these issues came at the wrong time ... I was completely off today and I think I could have done a lot more of it if I had been feeling better.

At 1 we had the mentor meeting and our mentor supervisor came to visit, she stayed for about half of the meeting. The attendance has improved which is so much fun, both last week and today we had seven students which is amazing (there were a few meetings where there were two of them!) and it opens up for really constructive discussions! Overall I felt the meeting went really well, and it was a nice balance between the students own initiatives and our planning - and hopefully the students got something out of it too!

After the meeting I managed to get a book I've been wanting for a while now, and the timing couldn't have been better. It's a book the OT students have to read, called "Creation and the persistence of evil" by Jon Levenson. I really should have read it last year, for the essay I was writing, but I didn't have the time. I think the theme is really exciting and it so happens that the OT course will have a seminar on this book on Monday. It's been a bit difficult to obtain, but I managed to get it today, so with a bit of speed reading over the weekend, hopefully I can follow the seminar discussion on Monday, even though I'm not supposed to take active part in it!

I haven't gotten anything done this afternoon, but considering what day it is and how I feel, I'm not surprised, and I'm not beating myself up about it either ... I guess all I can do is hope for a better tomorrow! Naturally, all the feelings I have for Zorro are still there, it's just that on special occasions or when I really think about him or come across something that really remind me of him, I tend to loose control completely!
I can make things work if I don't think about him, but every time I do, I go to pieces. And I don't want to go the rest of my life actively trying to not think about him ...

I did get a text message from Sara and Johanna tonight, they wanted us to finally get together again!!! YAY! It was ages since we saw each other and it always seems like one of us can't make it if we plan something! At least it seems like we can all meet on April 29 and I'm SO looking forward to that!!!

I don't really think I'll get any sleep tonight, but I'm hoping for some constructive personal writing will help, at least it gives me a chance to really vocalize what I feel and hopefully make some sense of it. Even though it doesn't make my feelings go away, it tends to make it easier to deal and cope with them ...

I found this graphic when I was going through all my computer files to transfer to my new computer ... I had actually forgotten I had made it, but now I love it - even though it breaks my heart to know that the team is now broken up ....


Thursday 14 April 2011

Swedish Championships - YAY!!

I'll start off with the really good news - my favourite Swedish ice hockey team, Färjestad BK, just won the Swedish Championships! YAY!! While I'm not quite as into ice hockey now that I was say five years ago, I still feel strongly for my team, and I'm most pleased that they won!

Apart from that I have once again battled a headache today - not quite sure where all of these headaches come from but they are starting to really annoy me now ... I need to keep busy now, I have soooo much I need to do and I need to keep at it more or less constantly - and that won't work if I day after day after day keep getting these headaches!!

I took a short trip to Uni, only to attend the lecture - and that was time well spent despite the headache! Nothing revolutionary happened, but everything just felt really good. I got to talk to some nice people, it was - as always! - a very interesting lecture and I had a few words with the teacher afterwards as we have a mentor meeting tomorrow and the students take their first exam on the course next week.

The afternoon wasn't that great, I still felt the headache and I was just completely exhausted for some reason - which made me doze off on the coach only to get up in an even worse mood as I felt I had waisted the entire afternoon!

Tonight was a bit better considering the outcome of the hockey game! :)

Tomorrow is basically about OT lecture and mentor meeting. I'll be doing some baking for the meeting in the morning, and I'll probably go straight home afterwards - but I'm hoping to get a bit done during the afternoon - as these frequent headaches this week has made me fall behind a bit.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

More Headache - More Exodus

Seems like today was very much like Monday ... though the headache did develop gradually, I didn't wake up with it!

I ended up being late this morning, but I was at Uni around 9 a.m. this morning, and got a bit of work done before lectures at 10.
These lectures are really interesting to me, as we're now studying the Sinai covenant - and I'll be writing about an aspect of that in my master's thesis. :) Unfortunately, starting right after lectures things started going wrong.
I won't be boring and list everything, but it seemed like whatever I did, it turned out wrong... *sigh*
I did manage one thing today, which was to figure out how a wireless internet connection is supposed to work! We are supposed to have wireless internet at Uni, logging in with our student IDs - but I have never gotten it to work for me. Since I have a brand new computer now I had my mind sent on getting it to work. It took quite a while (not as easy as typing in your student ID and password, which I had hoped!) but in the end I got it to work! Yay!

My headache developed gradually and I got about an hours work done after lectures before giving up and going home!
I have spent the entire afternoon trying to get rid of my headache, and finally I think it's actually gone. As usual I don't sleep well these days, but I guess I can at least hope for a good night's sleep and that I'll feel better tomorrow!

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Parting the Red Sea!

I couldn't help the title - and it always makes me think of a quote from Stargate SG-1, the season 8 episode "Reckoning (part 2)" (I think ...?), where Sam (Amanda Tapping) says:
"You know, you blow up one sun and everyone expects you to walk on water ... next up, parting the Red Sea!"

*LOL*

Anyway, since I feel like I'm more or less living in Exodus right now, I felt the connection made sense ... sort of! :)

I went to Uni fairly early today, I was there about 8.20 and got about 1½ hours work on my master's thesis done - reading an article on how to connect the Hittite suzerainty treaties between the Hittite king and his vassals to the Biblical mosaic covenant. Quite interesting!

At 10 there was an OT lecture, this time focusing on ... parting the Red Sea! *lol* (which, of course, never was the Red Sea, but I guess it's easier to refer to it that way because most people know what it is). Another very interesting lecture, and I'm even more looking forward to the rest of the lectures this week, as those texts will focus more on the covenant at Sinai and the ten commandments - and I'm doing my master's thesis on the covenant! :)

After lectures, Elisabet and I had lunch and planned the mentor meeting on Friday. It's a lot more difficult to find things to do on this part of the course, but I think we came up with a good plan, so hopefully the students will get something out of it as well.

Then I went to the library to get some more work done, but I quickly realized I need to work on my computer now, and of course I hadn't taken Sammy with me (as I'm dragging lots of other stuff these days - including two Bibles!) ... I guess I'm going to have to take him as well in the future. I do need to find a "bag" or something, to carry him in though. I have one, which is really good, but it's quite huge and it's quite difficult to get the computer in and out of the bag - and if I have to take it with me every day I feel I should look for something a bit smaller and easier to handle ... Guess I'll have to keep an eye open for that ...
I ended up going home early and I have gotten some work done tonight, although you always feel like you could do more!

I'll finish on the same theme I started with, Stargate SG-1 - some old graphics! And I guess you can tell my favourite character/actress is Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping?! *lol*
Enjoy!



Monday 11 April 2011

Headache and Exodus

While the title may appear strange, my day has basically focused on these two things! :)

I woke up with a headache, which made me change my original plans for the day. I went to Uni for a lecture on Exodus 3, as it is a very exciting text - but I didn't have the energy to stay and study after the lecture, so I went straight home.
I tried to cure the headache and eventually managed, although it took most of the afternoon. I have gotten some cleaning done tonight, and I went on a really long and absolutely lovely walk! I haven't been since mid-autumn I think, and I had forgotten how wonderful it can be! Lovely spring weather, about 15 degrees (C) and the sun setting creating gorgeous colours! I was out for about 1h15min which was a lot longer than I had intended - but I think it did me good.

The headache is almost gone now, but I am feeling rather tired and numb. I'm hoping to get a bit more sleep tonight and hopefully I'll feel all better tomorrow.

I did take some photos on my walk but I haven't transferred them from the camera to Sammy the Computer yet. I have (earlier) managed to finally move and organize all my files and images on Sammy, so I'm going to share some old graphics with you instead - these are from The Lord of the Rings movies!
Enjoy!





And here are a few graphical variations of the same Gandalf-graphic ... hope you like them!



Sunday 10 April 2011

Week - Weekend

This week seem to have been the opposite of last week - as in, the week worked out well, but the weekend hasn't felt quite as good.

I am feeling pretty good, generally speaking, right now. I think I'm finding a routine that is working for me, I am trying to sort out a lot of things in my life that hasn't been working out well for a long time and so far, I'm seeing positive results! :)
I can't swear this will last forever, and naturally there are times when things aren't feeling great - but all in all, I think I'm back on track and can make things work out in a good way now.

I'm keeping pretty busy now, but I am enjoying what I do and I think I can make in work. The main thing is my master's thesis of course, which unfortunately were almost put completely to a halt with everything that went on at the end of last year and the beginning of this one - and it feels really good to get back into it.
Aside from that I am trying to follow the Old Testament course where I am mentor. I have "followed" it my previous years as mentor as well, mostly because it makes it a lot easier to plan and lead mentor meetings if you know what has been going on at the lectures, but I have never made an attempt to really follow it - and I think maybe now I do. This is most likely the last time I will have that opportunity so I have decided to take advantage of it, at least as much as possible. There is no way I could find the time to read the literature (especially since it's not the same literature as it was when I took the course), but I have this far attended all the lectures (and I hope I can keep it up in the future as well) and I'm trying to go through the Hebrew text for each day - which is really great! I haven't worked with text in that way in about two years, and I'm enjoying it a lot - and learning a lot as well!

Apart from my studies I am making an attempt at a more healthy life style in general ... I have tried this on numerous occasions before, without much success - I usually try and when I run into the first or second real obstacle I give up ... This time I have managed to hold on it a bit longer than before and while I can't say that I can see an amazing difference, I am noticing little things - and so far they are enough for me to want to keep trying!

All in all, I am feeling really good right now! There are still things I have difficulties with, naturally - some of them are more personal than others.
One thing I haven't managed to get to the bottom of yet is sleep. For some reason I'm not sleeping well at all now, and I haven't for quite a while ... I can't go to bed without being completely invaded by memories of Zorro, which means I basically can't fall asleep. During the weekend I've been able to sleep in in the mornings, but during the week I usually don't get more than three, maybe four hours - and that's pretty rough. I'm not sure why this has come right now, but I guess these things happen, right? It's not quite as bad as directly after Zorro's death - for several weeks I couldn't sleep in our bed, so I slept on the couch - but it reminds me of those weeks now because it usually takes me several hours, and then some, before I fall asleep.

But apart from a few things I have a good feeling inside - which is actually quite surprising! I usually don't feel well during spring time, I tend get into spring depressions and I don't cope with things very well. I guess it's early days yet, but I'm grateful as long as I am able to feel this way, and I will give everything I can to keep it that way.

It's high time I went to bed (as it takes me so long to fall asleep) as I have an early morning and a long day tomorrow - but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's lecture on Exodus 3 - the famous passage where God reveals his name to Moses ("I AM WHO I AM", Exod 3:14, NRSV)! Very exciting!

Sunday 3 April 2011

Weird Week - Better Weekend

This last week felt strange in many ways - as a lot of things actually were really good, but I still kept feeling very bad the entire time (well, almost anyway).
I can't go into detail, mostly because I am confused about it myself, so I guess I'll just try to put this week behind me and hoping for better - and less confusing! - times ahead!

The weekend has, surprisingly, worked out really well. For several years I have had some difficulties with weekends, but this one has been really good actually. I have gotten a lot of things done, and even though I feel I am in a place where I can always do ten or twenty or two hundred times what I am doing - I feel quite content with what I have gotten done.

Unfortunately the plan I made yesterday won't quite work out ... things ended up taking a lot longer than I thoughts, so in order to make next week work out in a good way I think I'm going to have to revise my plan a little. But I guess that's not the end of the world either, right? :)

I will spend the entire day tomorrow in Lund ... studying, copying and printing, handing in some complements to my job application, attending an OT lecture, more studying and yeah ... studying! :)
At least that's the plan ...

I hope you all had a great weekend!