Shopping

Today I have finally dared going with my mom to the between-christmas-and-new-year's-sales at the local shopping centre. I do not like shopping at all in general. And when it then comes to shopping on a sale it is even worse, due to the increased amount of crazy people. I got a gift certificate from my granny as a christmas gift, at Stadium, a sport's store. I needed long trousers for running/working out, and a new sport bra. So when my mom suggested that we would hit the stores, I felt a spontaneous "NO!", but knew that it was in my best interest. And I knew that that someday soon I would have to go to the stores anyway to buy these things and use the gift certificate, so why not just get it overwith. It was just as awful as I expected, and I feel quite exhausted now afterwards, but I guess it was worth it. I found some excellent long trousers for jogging in -15 to +30, without being too hot or too cold, or feel any sweat. Sounds a bit too good to be true, but they felt so good when I put them on, that I could just not avoid getting them. I felt an energy, I felt like running. They are long, tight, and black, with orange cool stripes on the sides. They also have small reflexes on them so I be seen running in the dark, and also a zip by the foot, so I can put them over socks/shoes easily. I also found a just perfect sport's bra, with perfect fit and quite cheap. So now I have used my christmas gift from my grandmother, and a little bit more, and I feel very pleased, but tired. I wonder though, aren't women supposed to really enjoy shopping?

Today, soon, I will leave for Kalmar. It is a train ride about 3 hours from my parents' place (where I am right now). I will go visit my boyfriend at the house of his parents. I have never been to Kalmar, so I am really looking forward to it. Our plans are to go to Kosta-Boda factory sale (selling secondary glass cheap), go see Narnia at the movies, celebrate New Year's really thorough, and just relax for the rest. I might not be able to update until the 3rd of January, and if not I wanted to wish you all a very Happy New Year. See you on the 3rd next year, 2006!

Party planning

My 3.5 kg self was born on the 8th of January 1981, at 5.08 AM. So now, inevitably, my 25th birthday is coming up. I absolutely love to celebrate my birthday, I think it is the best day of the year. Now, not so much as previously when I was younger, but still this day is very important for me.

As odd as the 25 is, it is still considered surprisingly even when it comes to number of years old. Upcoming year 2006, my birthday will be on a sunday. To celebrate the occasion, I have decided to invite people over all day before my birthday, i.e. on saturday the 7th. After lunchtime, my relatives will come over and have coffee and birthday cake. Or rather, birthday cakes. I have decided to make them 4 different birthday cakes; Key-lime pie, Exotic dessert cake (sponge-y with mango cover), pineapple pie, and cheese cake with raspberry sauce. There will also be various fresh fruit bits; melon, mango, pineapple etc. My hope is that my relatives will be able to have at least a thin slice of each cake, but the cakes being so 'fresh' and non-heavy, so the guests won't feel totally tummy-swollen when they leave. There will also be tender biscottis (harder nut cakes), truffles with roasted hazelnut/orange peel/clementine juice, and of course coffee and teas.

In the evening, my friends will come over. They will be served another birthday cake, a princess-type cake. Normally these princess cakes are very fatty and heavy when you buy them in the stores, with at least 50 % of the volume being whipped cream. I will make my version much nicer though. I will put less cream on the cake, and also a low-fat cream, so people can eat more. I am quite sure there will be left-overs from the afternoon too, so if someone is really in a cake-mood, they can continue on that track. The others will be served beer, wine, champagne, drinks (margaritas, moscow mules, gin&tonic) and snacks for the rest of the evening. And if some stay very late (which I hope), there will be night-food served, so they don't have to leave hungry. But I say the risk of anyone leaving my party is rather slim. Or what do you think? Any suggestions for me? I want this party to be absolutely perfect!

And of course, there will be red balloons, they make me happy.

Worse than Christmas Day

I am sure I have told you before about the fairly local expression "worse than Christmas Day". In Sweden, as I described in previous posts, all that is good with Christmas (and therefore also much of what is good with winter) is done on Christmas Eve. So when you wake up on Christmas Day, you realise that you have nothing Christmas-y to look forward to, no family gathering, no gifts, no excuse for eating loads of candy/food, and it is so dark. Your Christmas tree is sitting there as a definition of anti-climax, its carpet now devoid of Christmas gifts. It looks lonely, and you know that it has really served its purpose, no more hope for it. There are few things that over night lose so dramatically in value, as Christmas trees. On Christmas Eve desperate people can easily pay 50 euro for a tree, just to save the holiday calmness of the family. But on Christmas Day, no-one would offer even a cent for a cut down spruce tree. The tree is now no more than garbage, unwanted bulk, and you start thinking of how to get rid of it the easiest way. Piles of browned trees start piling up, needles hanging loose. It is a quite sad view.

However, yesterday, Christmas Day was a perfectly brilliant day. The skies were blue, the air was high, the sun was shining, and a lovely crisp air repetitively filled my lungs on the nice 1 ½ h walk I lured my mom out on. Then we sat down in front of the fireplace, and had a continued nice day; ate more chocolates, knitted, watched TV, played with the cats, played cards, and just relaxed in general. This upcoming year "worse than Christmas Day" will mean close to nothing, because it will be far to easy to be worse than the absolutely lovely day I had yesterday.

Christmas Pics

Me and the cute cats in holiday spirit by the Christmas tree.

Cute Cat's brother Obidobi climbing the tree.

Cute cat wearing his red Christmas bow.

Christmal culmination

Today is the most important day of Christmas, you others just don't understand it. Today is when you eat all that food you have been preparing for weeks, meet your family, and open all the gifts. Is it maybe a matter of being a christian protestant that does it? Or why are the Swedes doing everything on the 24th, and have an expression* "worse than Christmas Day" to show that nothing really is worse than the Christmas Day. I would not claim that I am a christian protestant myself, having left the state church over 12 years ago (and now also the church itself has left the state). But I guess when I was born, and the most frequent thing to "be" in Sweden, is a christian protestant. But I don't know, do all protestants celebrate today?

Yesterday I ran for 50 minutes (8 km) to try to balance out the excessive intake of food that is unavoidable today. I might already have balanced it out yesterday, having eaten Toffifee and belgian Seefruits (Guylian). I just recently woke up and had a normal muesli breakfast, but soon it will all start. At lunchtime there will be herring in various sauces, bread, egg, eel, cabbage etc. Then we'll try to digest that, and watch Donald Duck and his friends celebrate Christmas (exactly the same episodes we watch each year on state TV, it's tradition, then you can get away with anything), and of course eat chocolates. Then when that is finished, we will start eating from the "Christmas Table"; ham, more cabbage, more herring, more bread, more eggs, mini-sausages, meat balls, potato gratin with sundried tomato (vegetarian anchovy =)), etc. etc. My sister eats no meat, and I eat very little, so we often exchange items from the otherwise "meat"-holiday and make it vegetarian, and/or add other vegetarian dishes. And of course, all food is accompanied with beer, wine, schnaps and/or ciders. We're swedes, what can I say?

After that we'll try to digest what is left of the lunch and Donald Duck-chocolates, and now also the Christmas Table-addition, and get ready to hand out the gifts from under the Christmas tree and open them. When that is finished, we'll have Santa-porridge to really top our stomaches up. In one of the porridge bowls there is a whole almond, and the one who gets it will win the 'almond gift', this year it is a box of Ferrero Rocher-chocolates. Whoever wins that will do smart in wating to eat that box of chocolate until next year. But how can you wait when it comes to chocolate


*very local.

The Tree

I am happy and proud to inform everyone of you out there that today, I found the perfect* Christmas tree. The tree was one of those you don't really think exist. You see them on television (e.g. when Mickey Mouse and Pluto gets their Christmas tree, and also the chipmunks Chip and Dale). You hear about this tree in rumors, I am sure, but never do you find them yourself. But I did! It reaches a bit over my head, so not too tall, but very very* compact and millions* of branches. And it doesn't have those evil stinging needles that make your arms and hands hurt, but instead quite broad ones that seriously are soft! I put on lethal* amounts of upbeat Christmas music to really get into the mood (e.g. Frosty the Snowman), and decorated the tree with lights, golden textile ribbon, and balls in golden and lilac. We also put out all of our Christmas gifts under it, and now the whole downstairs smells of spruce forest and hyacinth, i.e. Christmas.

And how lovely is my very own little cute Christmas cat. I put a red ribbon in a bow around his neck, which he totally and unexpectedly approved of. Then when he jumped up on my kitchen table, smelling all the flowers from last night's party, I just had to take pictures of him.

Now I am keeping my fingers crossed that the quadruple metal wiring holding the attaching the christmas tree to the wall, radiator and sofa will maintain the perfect Christmas tree in a continued vertical state, despite frequent cat attack.

* semi-exaggerated comment.

Christmas parteeeey!

I am most often spontaneously quite reluctant, and anxious about going to a social event. Like the Lab Christmas Dinner/Party I was at yesterday. I have not written the last couple of days, as you might have noticed, and this is solely because I have been feeling unnecessarily worried, stressed, and borderline crying all the time. Stressed out about socialising.

But finally, yesterday, my good friend Malin really helped me out getting to the party, with some relatively easy methods. With no agenda staying the whole evening, I arrived to the venue, decorated the tables, had glögg (warm swedish christmas drink), ate excellent food, played the Dirty Santa christmas gift-game, had drinks/beer, tidied, and danced all night. The last three fighters, me and two great colleagues, went home around 4 am this morning. And I was not sober, although having previously more or less decided not to have more than a glass of wine and a beer or two. I still am not too convinced of my sobriety, so you'll have to excuse my poor eloquency.

We dealt with topics like what event would give the highest scandal-factor (I think we decided on two of our superior male colleagues getting intimate with eachother), we sang (some better than others), and we had a generally good time. We also counted our Fi-indexes (indices?). This was something I had never heard of before. Your Fi-index, or fuck-index, is the number of years separating the birth year of the oldest person with whom you've slept, from the birth year of the youngest one you've been with. These years are then multiplied with your total number of intimate partners, and you get your Fuck-index. Most of the ones there had indexes around 100-300, whereas I (subsequently voted least cool) wound up with a current Fi of 28. That is not cool. Well well, the reason is that my age difference factor is only 4 years. So now you smart ones can calculate my total number.

So as you see, it was by no means a serious party. And man did we have fuuuuuun!

Acceptance

More often nowadays you can follow the progress of your article from being submitted until finally accepted. I re-re-submitted my manuscript little over a week ago now. Since then its status was the first day 'Awaiting editorial office processing', and up until this morning 'On review'. This morning its status was changed to 'With editor-in-chief'. Before lunch I was preparing for our Monday Journal Club-meeting, during which I was to present a phenomena of aberrant migration of neurons after epilepsy. I sat there and thought, "With editor-in-chief, this mean that something is about to happen. Maybe the paper can be accepted before Christmas even!". I assumed my presentation would be fine, and thought, "what if after the presentation is overwith I come back to my office, and see the editor-in-chief having sent me a nice acceptance e-mail, how happy I would be!". My presentation didn't feel to have gone so well. I was uninterested, and bored even myself. But the editor-in-chief had e-mailed me, and let me know that my article is finally accepted for publication in European Journal of Neuroscience. And I was happy, but not as happy as I had expected. I told my room mates at work, my professor, my supervisor, and called my boyfriend. And that was it. I know about this feeling of meaninglessness after having finally achieved something you have been waiting for a long time. But I expected the happiness to last somewhat longer than a few minutes. When I had told "everyone", it just didn't feel so special or fun anymore, and the sensation of having made a proper achievment was just not there. So weird. I wonder what the point is to look forward to something for a really long time, work hard for something you define as a "goal", and when you finally get there. You enjoy it for a few minutes, and that is it?

I am supposed to celebrate tonight with my boyfriend, and tomorrow at the lab. But I just don't feel like it anymore. The expectation is much better than the actual achievment, and by not celebrating, I think I feel I have a chance to ignore the acheivement and get back the feeling of expectation and waiting I had yesterday, or even this morning. Why is it so hard to satisfy some people?

I am babbling. Back tomorrow.

Foxy foxy lady

I just cannot avoid sharing this with everyone else. Yesterday I was at my supermarket picking up some more string to wrap my truffles. I was standing in a christmas-long queue waiting nicely and patiently after a crazy row of huge shopping carts with christmas meat, to pay for my one small ball of string. I entertained myself by looking at other people, seeing what they were doing, and what they were wearing for the occation (looking to get some sewing-ideas).


That is when it happened. I spotted her. The foxy lady.


Her coat was a leopard spotted huge fur. As if that was not tasteless enough , on the back of it, a cat's face was appearing; painted cat eyes, nose, mouth and whiskers. And as if that was not tasteless enough, on her head she had a huge furry ball, what I am guessing it was a hat. From the back of it a fluffy orange tail hung down towards the leopard-spotted-cat's-face-featuring-fur-coat. But the worst part of this whole thing was still that the tail was connected to nothing less than a fox's body and head. The stuffed head of the fox stuck up from the front of her hat, and the fox's dead skin was laying across the top of the furry hat, tail hanging down towards the back of the coat. This was by far the most obscene, tasteless, and provocative clothes I have ever been exposed to. How on earth can you motivate to yourself buying fur, the skin of a/several dead animal/s? And above all, how can you even think of wearing whole dead animals as a crown on your head? What message are you trying to get across to others?

Maybe even I should get a rifle for upcoming fox hunting season, could someone really oppose if I accidently on purpose shot her?

Save the Children

I have an upcoming Christmas dinner at work. Every Christmas the boss make sure someone at the lab organizes a dinner/party/event for us all, by delegating the work and money for it. This year we will have a nice dinner with entertainment, games, dancing and drinking. The game we are going to play together is called Dirty Santa. Have any of you ever heard of it? I hadn't until a few days back. It seems really fun. Everybody brings an unmarked wrapped gift to the party, and puts it in a Santa-bag. When the game is to be played, everybody takes a number. Say we might be 20 people there, and everyone then gets a number from 1 to 20. The 1 starts by taking a gift from the bag, unwrapping it and showing it to everyone else. The 2 then continues by then either choosing to take a new gift from the bag, or stealing the gift number 1 just unwrapped. Then it continues like that. Number 3 chooses to steal either number 1's or 2's gift, or taking a new one from the bag. So lucky number 20 can choose whichever gift he/she likes, and steal it.

Normally when I go to a party with a 'Secret Santa'-gift, I am used to bringing something in the price range 3-5 euro. For this game it is necessary to bring something for 10-15 euro. I am in no way cheap, but =), I kind of oppose to general waste of money. For the game to be funny there should be some things most people really like (so there is a lot of stealing going on), and some things most people don't like (so there are some gifts you really don't want to end up with). I like the idea of doing something fun together, playing a game, and I think it sounds excellent. But the idea of spending 10 euro, not knowing what you'll get for that money, feels like a waste. I am not much of a gambler. I feel if everyone sticks to even a lower price range, it should still be possible to have nicer and "worser" gifts, so there will still be some gambling going on. Even if the stakes won't be as high (maybe you are more ok with losing 3 euro than 10 euro). I feel that if you get in to a game, no matter the stakes, it is still possible to engage and have an equally good time.

There is so much unnecessary spending, capitalism, and materialism already. Especially around Christmas. The thought of our little 'get-toghether', at least 20 people, spending at least 10 euro each, will sum this activity up to costing easily 200-300 euro. And for what? Of course you might get something you actually wanted, and you might have a good time. But could that not also be possible without spending so much money? Is it worth it? People are starving, dying, being tortured, raped and murdered. But if you don't belong to those unfortunate ones, of course you should have as much fun as possible. I am just sensitive, and the thought is for me sickening at the moment. What is Chrismas really about?

But I guess, it is just a Christmas party. And obviously I will participate. I have come up with the (for me) perfect solution/gift. I have donated my 15 euro to helping less fortunate through buying a 'Saving the Children'-christmas card. I truely hope my gift won't get totally riddiculed. To be honest, I can't imagine what gift could be better than the one I am putting in the Santa-bag on wednesday. But that's just me (and maybe some others out there too hopefully?).

Arrgh!

You just won't believe it (but I hope you will), my computer broke again! Despite recently reformatted harddrive, and installation of anti-virus program and firewall. I only had the windows XP verison with Service Pack 1 apparently (a week ago I lived in sweet ignorance of what a service pack was), so the windows kept suggesting updates to install, and my lovely boyfirend kept telling me to keep on updating it. When the computer last broke (less than a week ago) it happened right after I installed Service Pack 2. So I was kind of already a bit triggered to that word, Service Pack 2. And so, now when it reformatted and clean again suggested me to install this Service Pack 2, I was already a bit annoyed with the word. But trying to keep calm, I told myself that it would be a good thing for my computer. I installed it. It took forever. I restarted as it asked me to do. And then, it locked up. I force-quitted it again, and restarted, and it locked down. And then I just left. I have no patience with computers, at all. Sweet boyfriend kept on force-quitting/restarting for another 10 times or so, without the situation changing. Then he ordered the computer to un-install stupid Service Pack 2, and now it works like a charm again. Well this is the reason there were no new addition on my blog last night. Due to Service Pack 2.

Now say it with me.... "We hate Service Pack 2".

Christmas treats

I spent my yesterday real good I tell you. I made small Christmas treats. I made 'Lussekatter' (swedish saffron sweet-bread), Truffles with walnuts, orange and cointreau, and finally the calorie booster Fudge. The fudgy ingredients had either sugar or fat as its main component; white sugar, butter, syrup, and whole cream. Which of course means they are absolutely bloody delicious! I have spent my morning wrapping them in thick transparent plastic foil, tying them with brown ribbon. I will do the same for the Truffles as soon as I have bought more ribbon. Next, I will put a few Truffles and a few Fudges in a little giftbag, and distribute these to people I feel need a boost of Christmas spririt, fat, sugar, and/or appreciation. I made 60 Lussekatter (freely translated = Lucia cats; served around the traditional Lucia celebration on the 13th of December). 60 are quite a lot. I hope not to eat them all myself, but also try to friendly force these on people visiting me, or being visited by me. I love to cook and bake, but not for myself only. And anyways, I don't think it is wise for you to eat 50 Fudges, 50 Truffles, and 60 Lussekatter on your own. You would get severely sugar-shocked, and fat overloaded.

That's Christmas for you!

Computer breakdown

So I was all back again and ready to blog my arse off. Then my computer decides that it will have a complete breakdown. Everytime I try to start my computer now, it begins the start-up process, but freezes and refuses to continue. I must say I am a lady of pretty good patience, but when it comes to computer difficulties, I really can't handle the situation. I get so annoyed, and just want to throw it out the window. The only reason I don't, is that I live on the ground floor and know that a throw through my window won't cause a for me satisfying level of damage to it. And also because I know that if I ask kindly, my sister's husband might be able to help me get a some of my 10'000 photos off the bloody thing. So now, instead of relaxing and making Christmas candy with my cute boyfriend this weekend, I have to sort things out with my computer. Well well. The plan is now that I will bring all the ingredients (and the cute boyfriend) over to my sister's place, and make our Christmas candy there instead, while her husband tries to sort things out with the stupid fucking computer. I wish I had enough money, to buy a new computer each time it was giving me trouble. Or that I could just know (not having to learn first!) how to fix every problem it might get into.

My brilliant paper is now re-re-submitted, and I am hoping for a rapid and pleasant answer!

Yoging

I have heard about these people doing yoga. In my prejudical thoughts I picture them all wearing tight long trousers and semi-tight tops with asian signs for 'peace', 'inner calmness', 'relax', 'earth', and other popular search words from The Dictionary of Pretentious New-Age Language (to my knowledge not actually existing). To many it seems enough that it is an asian sign on something for it to be cool or 'yoga', despite that the meaning of the sign might be 'arse' or 'poop' (taken from an earlier idea my sister had; including one of her asian-sign-loving-friends, and make-our-own-asian-sign-pillowcase-as-a-Christmas-gift). Since yoga seemed so popular and mainstream I was reluctant to try it, and had nothing but prejudices against the practisers. My attitude towards mainstream events/things should not come as a surprise to those of you who either know me personally or by those frequently reading my blog. Neither should it be a surprise to you that I felt obliged to try yoga as a way of challenging my prejudice against it. I did that for the first time about a month ago or so. That night, coming home and realising that what I had done on that day was among other things driving a motorbike for a couple of hours with my parents and boyfriend, and doing yoga. I did not sound like "me". If someone had told me about someone else they knew that drives a motorbike and does yoga, I would have thought that was a pretty cool person. And knowing me, I am not that cool.

And yoga was actually cool, not all that new-age as I feared. It was obviously somewhat new-age, we held our hands in a 'Namaste'-position, and said that word out loud, and we had colourful candles lit. But apart from that, and more importantly, it was first very tough static muscle work (how ever tough you wanted it to be), and then very very relaxing. I had a moment afterwards. I imagine like some feel when having a religious experience or similar. Very new-age, don't you think. If I was me, or rather "someone like me, but not me specifically", I would definitely have prejudices against me specifically. The deep relaxation part at the very end of the class is by far the best, especially after that hard static muscle work during the class. And focusing on something other than everything you need to do outside the yoga room for a whole our, like here 'on your loud nasal breathing in...and breathing out', definitely helps you relax (and gets easier for each class). I am also much more bendy. I can now, standing up without bending my knees at all, put my palms flat down on the floor. Impressed? Well you don't need to be, but I am! I am not sure 'bendy' is a success per se, but at least 'relaxed' is. And as you proably already knew (and can see in the pictures), which furry cute thing always is my inspiration.

Thanks for not giving up on me! Hopefully I am back again now.

I am in need of a little break, if anyone wonders why the hell I am not producing any text. I just don't feel like writing, due to immense tiredness. Write ya soon again, promise. Or at least I hope!