A Nice Outing!

Yesterday I met Annika in Halmstad, which was a nice outing and a great change from everyday-routine! The trip there was rather uneventful and I had to wait about 20 minutes for Annika's train to arrive.
None of us had ever been to Halmstad before, Annika was more prepared than I was - she at least had some kind of map *lol*! - but we figured we'd be spontaneous and pretty much see what happened. In retrospect, we had a really nice day together, but spontaneity might not be our "thing" ... really ...

At first we walked along the big river Nissan, saw Halmstad's Castle and walked around there, photographing a bit. We also went into the centre of town, having lunch and McDonald's and just checking things out. So far so good ...
We really did want to see the ocean though, as Halmstad is a costal town, so we decided to follow the river, as we figured we'd eventually reach the ocean. Well ... we figured wrong!!
Instead we ended up in this huge industrial area, with factories and gates everywhere ... not exactly what we had in mind. No choice but to turn around and go back, and at this point we were both quite tired of walking (it was a fair bit to walk from the centre to the industrial area!)! We ended up at the railway station, but realized we had over 3 hours until our trains were due, and we couldn't very well spend 3 hours on the railway station! :)

So we started walking again!! :) This time, after consulting Annika's map, we figured we'd reach the ocean if we followed a path on the other side of the river (no industries there, hopefully!). So we crossed the river and started walking! Until we came upon a sign showing us a temporary reroute of the path ... and we must have interpreted that sign wrong because we ended up in a real residential area with huge villas all around. We continued walking and basically ended up in a forest ... but when we got out of the forest - FINALLY the ocean was there! LOL!
It was nice walking around on the beach - even though the weather wasn't great - and we did find a quicker way back through the forest!

The whole day of walking had its consequences though! I've been having some problems with my feet lately, and let's just say they didn't agree with the treatment I gave them yesterday! When we managed to get back to the railway station I was in serious pain, and even though we had about an hour until the trains were leaving, we spent the hour talking - and sitting!! - at the station!
The train trip home was okay, but I kind of busted my knee when walking off the train - so I ended up waiting for a city bus for nearly half an hour, as I didn't feel up to walking at all.

There was a lot of pain involved yesterday, but despite that, it was a really nice day filled with laughter! :)
Some photos:

The Contrasts of Life!

This week has been quite intense!
I did have my sort of "revelation-thing" on Tuesday night, so Tuesday was a pretty good day, although very intense as I was trying to put into practice these new thoughts and ideas I had.
Wednesday was a not-so-great day, for some reason! I think that maybe I expected to much to work out perfectly, and when they didn't, I got a bit disappointed! I had to finish a paper for my master's thesis, and I felt I did a horrible job on it. Well, maybe not horrible, but it certainly wasn't something I was happy with. I had an appointment with my professor the next day, so I had to get the paper done, but I have to admit, I have never handed in something I was that displeased with before!

Thursday was probably the most intense day of the week. I had the meeting with the professor at 4 p.m. and I was very nervous and upset about it. I ended up taking it easy during the morning and went to Uni about noon, spending the early afternoon trying to go through what I should have put in my paper - but didn't.
Amazingly enough, the meeting went REALLY well!! For some reason (don't ask me why!!) I didn't get any criticism on my paper, which I could hardly believe!! Granted, I don't think there were any, like, factual mistakes in it, but I still don't think it was long enough, detailed enough or even exactly what the professor asked for. Still, it's always nice not to be criticised, right?! :)
In general the meeting went very well, even though we had lot of things to discuss. My current study plan, the master's thesis, the fact that my life in January/February will be a huge big mess ... and more. I have to say I get along great with the professor, which helps a lot! We communicate on the same level and he has the ability to inspire me like nobody else. Not quite sure where that's coming from, but it's always been the case!
I came from the meeting feeling great, but very tired, understandably I suppose!

I still managed to get to Uni early, the idea now is to take a break on my master's thesis and complete part of this other course I now found out I have to take, so I got the first book for that course. I ran into the associate professor in New Testament Studies (he has the Greek/NT courses, and I spent a lot of free time on his lectures last semester), and it was great to see him again. He doesn't have any lectures this semester so I wasn't expecting to see him, and we had a nice little chat!
I got some reading done - on Social Psychology ... quite different from Exodus and redaction criticism!! - before heading home. Unfortunately the afternoon didn't turn out well at all, so even though the week overall had been really good, it didn't end great!

This week has certainly had its ups and downs, and been quite intense - yesterday was intense too (mostly in a good way!!!), but that will be dealt with in a separate entry! - so I guess it's not that strange I am quite tired now!
I hope to spend most of today cleaning - my head feels like it's screwed on backwards, so I think studying is completely out! But you don't have to think that much in order to clean, right?! :)

Overdue Photos!

Apologies for this rather late entry, which should have come several days ago.
For the first time in ages, I was out on a photo-walk, which was very nice. I walked through the Old Cemetery here, which I haven't done before, and it was really beautiful! (first photo is from there)
It's quite small, but they have tried to keep as much of it's old style as possible, and the grounds as well as the tombstones were quite unusual and it was really nice to walk around there.
The rest of the walk was more my "normal route", mostly along the ocean shores - which I love! :)

Hope you enjoy the pictures! :)

Lack of Sleep --> Revelation?!

Pardon the somewhat cryptic title! :)

Fact is, I hardly slept at all last night, I basically got about an hour, dosing on the couch. I did however discover certain things about myself. Generally I tend to think ... a lot ... I kind of like it, but I have a feeling it can get over the top sometimes. During the wee hours of the morning, I did however think a whole lot of things that has never crossed my mind before, and I honestly think I can do some really good things on the basis of that!

While I'm feeling sooooo much better now than I did some five years ago or so, I have still experienced problems in certain areas during the last few years. If what I thought of tonight is true, and I can get to work on it, I really think I have a chance to once again make some changes for the better in my life! There are no guarantees in life, I know that only too well, but this sleepless night really opened my eyes and I think I see things in a perspective I haven't done before - and I'm hoping that will be enough for me to really work hard at making these changes.

I think a very important thing when you want to change something you're not happy with, is that you know exactly HOW you are going to change it. The first step is certainly to recognize you do want to change whatever-it-is - but I think it's hard to be successful unless you know how to accomplish it!! It's really easy to say "I want to change this" - whether it'd be loose weight/gain weight, get better at staying in touch with family and friends, live a healthier life ... whatever - but if you don't have a plan, it's going to be hard to realize it!!

I think the big revelation of my night was the fact that I actually know exactly how to change the things that haven't been working for me. I have known about them for a long time, and felt the need for change, and tried and tried and tried to change - but no success!! Now I have a very detailed plan for what to do, how to work with this, and I think I can make a go of it!!
Before my sick leave, I felt horrible, awful, terrible - and had done so for quite a while ... but I never figured out exactly what the problem was, and therefore, I had no chance in knowing how to do something about it!
When I got help - eventually - and actually got a detailed plan: "This is what you have to do at this specific time!" I managed to change it! It felt like it took forever, but I did it! I guess you can compare it with someone not happy with their weight (no matter if they feel they weigh too little or too much) ... it's NOT easy to "just change it", to start loosing weight or gaining weight! But if you start a programme - a dietary programme, or Weight Watchers or something like that, where it's clearly specified exactly what you have to do, a lot of people reach the result they want!

Sorry about the rambling!! :) I know it might be premature, but I do feel I can start changing things now, if I can stick to the methods and techniques I thought of, I really think it's possible!!!

Moving on to something else ...
We had an information meeting about the renovations being done to our bathrooms starting next year - and let's just say it's going to be a MESS! Apart from completely tearing down the bathroom (everything, they will even change the main pipes running through the house), the will change all the electrical outlets in the entire apartment, you can choose to have your entire kitchen redecorated ... and basically you can't stay in your apartment for about a month!!!
I can live with that, I can go in exile with Zorro to the summerhouse ... the only problem is the time when they're going to be here. Which is exactly when I will finish everything regarding my studies, which includes completing my master's thesis, present my master's thesis (in a really huge and quite scary seminar!!), send in an application to get my master's degree and send an application for post graduate studies - which shall include a project description of my future dissertation!!! All this at a time where I basically can't be in the same part of the country .... (And yes, you might say I should leave Zorro somewhere because this is more important - but I can't do that! First of all, I can't stay in my apartment anyway, with everything that's going on, and second, he's getting really old and very dependant on me, and I think that leaving him with, say my Dad's family, alone for several weeks, could very well kill him ...)

Wow, this blog entry ended up being way longer than I had intended! :) I have a really long day tomorrow, so I'm going to starting thinking about bed now!

Happy Anniversary!! 2006-2010!

Okay, I just realized that the blog entry title might be misunderstood but the Swedish readers - we've just had our election (yesterday), and the last election we had was 2006! Well, the "Happy Anniversary!"-part has nothing to do with Swedish Elections, but with the fact that this blog now has been online for four years! :)
And has gotten 25,000+ readers - amazing!! Here's hoping for several more years of blogging! :)

As for the whole election thing, it's the general topic of all Swedes at the moment, I think - because it's been kind of a historic election! It's way to complicated to try to explain the Swedish government system in English - but for the first time in a long time Sweden has gotten a new political party entering parliament ... one that is basically racist (on top of it none of the other political blocks has gotten majority, which means this party will have a lot to say in upcoming political decisions!) ... I haven't talked to anyone who isn't truly appalled by what has happened and it's the general topic of conversation no matter where you turn now!

On a more personal note, the whole confusion theme continues!! Some things in my life are really great and other things are really awful, and I have a hard time coping with that!! Today I ended up with a migraine most of the day, which definitely spoiled all my plans! I have a deadline to complete on Wednesday and let's just say ... I will have a very hard time turning in something decent by Wednesday ...
Things haven't been really great this past month ... I guess I can always say I hope it will change, and I will work for a change - but it's hard to stay positive when things just seem to feel awful all the time, no matter what you do ...

Ah well, I still have a really severe headache, so I don't think I'll be able to sleep anything tonight - which will make tomorrow even harder to take on! Apart from trying to spend all day at Uni, we have some information meeting in the afternoon about the complete bathroom renovation that will take place first thing 2011 - not looking forward to that, as it tends to be .... surprising!! You expect the worse possible scenario and it ends up being even worse ...

Guess I should at least try to get some rest, as the headache is putting an effective stop to any kind of studies (it felt better for a while tonight, but now it is developing into another migraine! *sigh*)!
Take care!

Making A Come-Back!

The beginning of this week was kind of tough on me, for various reasons - and now I've had a couple of days where I've done a lot of thinking! I don't want to go into detail here, but even though not much has gotten done these last few days, I think the thinking-time has done me good and will hopefully make me cope with things in a better way in the future.

I realize this is all very vague, but things have been a bit *strange* (for lack of a better expression) the last few weeks, and I don't honestly think I could explain everything in a way that made sense, even though I wanted to! So for now, you're gonna have to settle for vague! :)

I am hoping to make both a practical and an emotional come-back now, and will hopefully be fairly efficient from now on. It would be good if I felt I got a few things done during the end of this week, because next week will be a bit more intense.

I have a deadline on my thesis paper on Wednesday when I have to email it to my professor, and we have a meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss it. Also on Tuesday we have an information meeting where I live, regarding the complete bathroom renovation that will take place in my building early next year (found out that if they follow the plan we have gotten, the will be in my apartment at the worse possible time for me ... but I guess there's nothing I can do about that). I'm reluctantly looking forward to the meeting, I'm very keen to find out what's going on, what will be done and how and exactly when, what they expect from us tenants etc. but at the same time I have a strong feeling I will find out that things are going to be even worse than I expect them to be - also these meetings tend to be rather intense, as there are always people protesting and causing trouble ...

I'm also waiting for a reply from the professor responsible for the course that it eventually turned out I now have to take - it only takes to emails to verify this, and I've been shipped around for 6 months?!?!? *deep sigh!!*) - as I'm uncertain as to when I will be able to get the exam for that course ... and I also have to hand in some assignments that I missed earlier. So it will definitely be intense trying to balance both the master's thesis and that course - and on top of that I have to start thinking about applying for post-graduate studies (application is in February) and apparently you have to include a preliminary project description, detailing your initial thoughts on your dissertation ... *yikes!!!* I'm having problems sorting my way through my master's thesis, now I'm gonna have to start thinking dissertation! *very scary!*

Anyway, I'm hopefully I will be able to cope with things in a better way from now on, which I'm hoping will make my life a little easier now! :)

25,000 Visitors!!

YAY! We did manage to reach 25,000 visitors even before the blog anniversary - I'm really happy so many people are reading my blog, even though updates have been a bit scarce now!

This week was actually really tough, hence the no blogging. Monday was definitely the worse, and well - I really don't want to get into it right now! Some of what happened will have short-term consequences, other things will have long-term ... and I just felt terrible all week. Yesterday was also a pretty crappy day, but I'm hoping things will start to change now.

I'm sorry to say that because of this week, most of my motivations is gone ... for basically everything! My professor has an amazing ability to get me supermotivated, and I was after having to talked to him a while back. Now ... not so much!
I know I don't have the option to sit back and just let things happen until I'm feeling better, but I'm hoping to achieve some sort of "apathetic constructivism", where I can get things done just on routine, mechanically, without paying so much attention to what it is I'm doing. I'm not really fond of it, because I tend to get better results if I am involved, engaged and motivated by what I do - but now it's either do it mechanically or not do it at all ...

As of now, I don't have anything specific planned for next week (though the week after that will be worse!), but I'm hoping I can see Jessica again - we haven't seen each other in AGES and I really hope we can plan something, that would be great!! Other than that, it's the master's thesis that will be on my mind 24/7 basically. I pretty much have to write a paper that covers the current research on a major issue in about a week, so I hope I can spend as much time as possible at Uni - even though I right now feel like just taking a trip far far away and don't come back in a great long while ... ah well ...

Weekend!

I've had a pretty good weekend, which feels good considering I have a pretty tough day tomorrow.

I've gotten quite a bit done, cleaned up a fair bit yesterday and today I've spent a lot of time on my computer.
Some of you may remember that my computer broke down last fall, it was a huge great big mess, which ended up with me having to send my computer across half the country for a repair. It turned out they had to replace the entire hard drive, and too late I discovered that they'd given me a much smaller hard drive than I had to begin with! *very annoying*
I've been having a problem since I do a bit of photography and my hard drive ended up being full all the time. I finally managed to get a - cheap! *lol* - external hard drive, and I connected it today! It seems to work like a charm, so now I have basically everything on the external hard drive, and I access it from there (the external hard drive has 1TB of memory so I'm guessing I won't run out in a hurry *lol*!)!!

I've also been sorting through all my documents (already have all my photos completely organized! *yay*) and also downloaded quite a few digital scrapbook kits for future projects ...

Now I mostly have to prepare for tomorrow ... *gulp* I'm meeting with someone at Uni which will basically determine whether or not I can take the course I REALLY want to take, or if I have to take the course I really DON'T want to take! *nervous*
It feels really good to know that my professor feels exactly like me, it gives me a bit more security, but I'm still very nervous.
Also, no matter the outcome of the meeting, I will have a lot of practical matters to sort out, both with the student counsellor and with a number of professors, depending on what will be decided. I also need to get truly started with my master's thesis tomorrow, but I think that will be a bit easier when I actually KNOW what will happen with this mess (that has been going on since the end of February!!!)!!

Better??!

I haven't been feeling great lately, unfortunately nights have become a true terror for me! No matter what I try, I tend to dream to the extreme!! Some really awful nightmares, leaving me all torn up, but I've been quite affected by other dreams as well, the intensity and the contents of them has made me feel quite out of it.
I know my grandmother (my Dad's mother) was quite affected by dreams, and there were a number of incidents where she's had horrible dreams and something horrible happened soon after that ... And I actually know that to be sort of true for me as well now ... I had the worse night between Tuesday and Wednesday this week, and yesterday I found out that my Dad received some really bad news on Wednesday ...

I have been sleeping a little better tonight, so my mood has improved a lot, even though I'm still very tired. I do hope this session is over now, because I really need to function properly from now on ... I will get definitive news on what will happen this semester on Monday morning, and after that there are a lot of practical details that have to be sorted out ... and I also really have to get started on my studies now!! I'm truly hoping I will be able to do the NT course, but I know it's really demanding, and I also have to get started on my thesis. I think it went really well when I spoke to my professor about it, we also clarified what I find most difficult and found a way to make it, hopefully, not-quite-so difficult this time ... but there's till a lot of work to be done!!

I'm hoping to make the weekend work out pretty well, practically, I need to get cleaning, laundry and stuff like that done, and hopefully I will have a productive week! :)